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Setting Up A 3D Lab

I am working on developing a 3D scanning and printing learning center for my department over Winter Break 2017. The lab has a NextEngine HD desktop scanner, turntable, and Cubify Sense handheld scanner, plus an Afinia H400 3D printer. In January 2018, I plan on adding another 3D scanner.

The video below demonstrates my environment; fairly simple at this point. I am setting up the devices,…

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The Augmented Reality Sandbox: Details

The Augmented Reality Sandbox: Details

In Building an Augmented Reality Sandbox, I provided a brief history leading up to the assembly of my university’s first augmented reality sandbox (ARS).

Now, I want to layout in as graphic of detail as possible the steps necessary to bring our ARS to fruition. One of the most frustrating things about the Internet is all of the fantastic DIYs and HowTos and all the critical steps omitted. I…

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Building an Augmented Reality Sandbox

Building an Augmented Reality Sandbox

Background

In 2012, or thereabouts, I sat down with my boss, Dr. Kit Wesler. He didn’t really have an open door policy in spite of leaving his door open. Usually, an open door simply meant he was venting heat from his office into the hallway. Happens when one works in an old building with south-facing windows and poor HVAC.

Kit, an archaeologist, was a huge proponent of technology in education,…

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Educators Succeed Despite Adversity

Educators Succeed Despite Adversity #geospatial #GIS #education #K12

A/K/A “How I Learned to Overcome my Short-Sighted Administrators, State Bureaucracy, and Reach Students”

This image requires a little explanation. Reading from top-left down, 47,000 presents data collection. All maps are in essence a graphical depiction of numbers, of data, either qualitative or quantitative. The data is processed into a machine (computer) readable format, binary 1’s and 0’s.…

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San Diego and Geospatial Education

San Diego and Geospatial Education http://wp.me/pXmHL-13R #ESRIUC2016 #geospatial #SanDiego

Once a year, for about a week, San Diego becomes home to thousands of geeks, nerds, technophiles, and other creative people who seek out each other to share, collaborate, network, eat, drink, and run around the Gaslamp District. No, I’m not referring to the San Diego Comic-Con, the most important event in pop culture geekery. I am referring to one of the world’s most important events in…

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When Art and Science Collide, STEAM Happens

When Art and Science Collide, STEAM Happens

Many years ago I worked on a mapping project for our local Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Some people may remember the U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service (SCS). The SCS no longer exists; it’s duties and responsibilities being folded within the NRCS. Another fellow and I managed a team of undergraduates in the mapping of county soils. In the mid-1990s, large digitizing tables were…

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One can never tell from where inspiration arises. The Maker Movement is one of the best, most inspiration movements to have arisen in the United States since the Boy or Girls Scouts. The Maker Movement draws inspiration from circumstances and people from all walks of life, is not limited by race or gender, and is a fantastic activity for all family members.

I’d like to be a Maker, one day. Right now, I try to encourage people to do more making, to help them see how one thing can become something else, and how that something else can become this third thing.

I do make maps; I’m a geographer and part-time cartographer. I enjoy being given numbers and making a map from those numbers. Maps, are, after all, simply graphical representations of data associated with some sort of space. But, I’m not a Maker in spite of having a Maker badge. I don’t feel as if I’ve earned my wings, so to speak.

Around me, though, their are people who are honest to goodness Makers.

On the left, a self-bound book with a self-made cover sits atop a topographic map. One morning, I mentioned to the class so many cool things can be made with satellite imagery. Working with satellite imagery is nothing more than working with TIFF images. Remote sensing specialists, which I can claim some connection to, having performed numerous remote sensing projects for fun and profit, may balk at my  cavalier attitude towards satellite imagery. The reality is, anyone can download Landsat 8 imagery, manipulate the TIFF files using GIMP, or Paint.Net, or Adobe Illustrator, or Corel.

I mentioned this possibility to my class, offering to help anyone who wanted to try to use Landsat 8 imagery for something other than the typical land use/land cover analysis. A student of mine took my idea to heart. She didn’t ask me for help; I only planted the seed of an idea. She took the idea back to her book-binding class. The student took an idea posed to her in a STEM course, my cartography course, and used that idea to develop a book cover for her Fine Arts course. I give her tips along the way, suggesting how she might manipulate the color channels to enhance some landscape features versus other landscape features. In other words, not everything needs to appear in their natural colors. Now, she has a bunch of ideas for her book-binding course, stemming from a STEM course. And, I encouraged her to open an Etsy store and she could begin selling her unique, custom-made, self-bound journals. Maybe she will.

The image on the right is a showcase of work produce by local artisan Wyatt Severs. I haven’t known Wyatt very long, perhaps a year at this point, but this fellow is the type of woodsmith who can see shapes in wood no one else can see. The bowl resting on the pedestal is an amazing single-piece of wood turned with care and precision. Wyatt crafts his unique pieces generally from single chunks of wood, from local timber felled from weather, or the results of farmers clearing land. His favorite tool is a lathe, though Wyatt can form functional wood art using a simple pocketknife. In 2015, Wyatt was the recipient of the Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Arts Council in recognition of his efforts. When not helping local kids learn and improve their wood-working skills, Wyatt can be found at Penland School of Crafts, in Penland, North Carolina. Penland is a brilliant artist colony where artists share, collaborate, and hone their skills. Wyatt is a true Maker, beginning with little more than a vision, an inspiration, and making that vision manifest. Check out Wyatt Severs web site here.

There are those in government who don’t understand how inspiration works. There view is narrow and limited. They believe the only way to success is through obtaining an MBA, or becoming a licensed electrician, or a certified public accountant. The problem with that perspective is not that those achievements can’t happen – they clearly do – but the hubris infused in a limited perspective eliminates all other pathways to success, reduces success to a very simple construct which may not work for everyone and excludes many permutations to success. And that is horrible.

STEM cannot and should be the solitary road to success, nor should STEM become the primary focus or emphasis for funding in higher education. Engineers need inspiration found in Fine Arts. Physicists need inspiration in painting, playing piano, or poetry. Our global economy is becoming more intricately connected each day; our business people need to be sensitive to multiples cultures, speak their languages, be familiar with their history and geography. Those are pathways to success.

Ignoring liberal arts and the role those topics play in creating a robust and nimble workforce sets a dangerous precedent, will have a deleterious affect which won’t be responsible for destroying our economy but will force us to go through yet another massive restructuring in order to right the wrongs. Do we really want to have a conversation in 30 years: “You know, eliminating the Humanities and Fine Arts departments in the United States really was a bad idea. Who knew? Who among us could have foretold the United States would have slid from the world’s #1 economy to the world’s 17th economy in about a generation? Who could see that coming?” I’m not alone is seeing this problem, I’m just a voice in the ether. However, our elected officials are immune to seeing this as a problem, are seemingly ignorant of the impact of their narrow-mindedness. From Sam Brownback in Kansas, Bruce Rauner in Illinois, and Matt Bevin in Kentucky, several of our elected officials lack the intellectual capacity to see the dangerous course they are setting their states upon.

Because we cannot know for sure from where inspiration rises and we shouldn’t allow our own bias, our own hubris, or politics impair the success of people.

From Where Inspiration Rises #Maker #highered #STEM #STEAM One can never tell from where inspiration arises. The Maker Movement is one of the best, most inspiration movements to have arisen in the United States since the Boy or Girls Scouts.

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I’m afraid I’m must apologize in advance. Usually, I try to avoid using expletives in my writings. Expletives tend to decrease the impression of a message, I think. Can be off-putting and limit a person’s credibility when expletives are used in a forum where a higher level of decorum is the goal.

Last night, Saturday, March 5th, 2016 Kentucky held its first caucus in state history. A caucus does not elect a president. A state caucus dictates in general how many convention delegates a particular political party candidate receives during the party’s national convention. Delegates from each state then vote at the national caucus to throw support towards a particular candidate. From the national convention a party’s presidential candidate is chosen. Candidates not chosen at the national convention are not eliminated from running on their own independent ticket but the odds of winning the election diminish to almost zero. Running an independent ticket is very expensive. For example, simply to register for the Republican Caucus in Kentucky requires a $15,000 filing fee.

Being involved in politics seems way out of reach of most Americans to me. To register for the Kentucky Republican Caucus a $15,000 fee is necessary. I’m not sure about the filing fee for the Democratic Caucus; I’ve searched and found nothing. I’m sure there is one, I simply didn’t search hard enough.

Donald J. Trump carried most of Kentucky (red), while Ted Cruz had a strong showing in a few areas. Picking out spatial patterns is sort of hard for Trump. Cruz, meanwhile, enjoyed support near Henderson, KY, Louisville, and then along a stretch resembling the route of I-64 from Morehead, KY, to Ashland, KY.

From the New York Times, Sunday, March 6th, 2016

We can see from the NYT maps above how each of the two more popular GOP candidates fared. The maps illustrate the difference in vote counts between Trump and Cruz, by Kentucky county. The graduate symbol map (left) illustrates using circles to denote popularity. Clearly, the Jackson Purchase favors Cruz, as does Northern Kentucky, near Cincinnati. This pattern bears itself out in the middle map and right map. Trump most demonstrably carried the southern and eastern Kentucky counties. Cruz was heavily favored in western Kentucky, with one gem of a county, Breathitt, a seeming Cruz oasis in a wilderness of Trump.

I find all of this caucusing amusing. Or, I did until I awoke this morning.

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I enjoyed breakfast with a friend of mine, an establishment named for a famished Ursus Arctos. When I returned home, I noticed a small white tube laying in the road. My friends have often teased me, “You would never make it in the military. You are too curious. You would walk over to the first shiny object, pick it up…and then they would be picking you up.” True to a fault, I picked up the white tube and unrolled the sheet of paper.

The above image gallery is the result of images I collected from scouring my neighborhood. These tiny white tubes were in nearly every drive not only on my street, but the streets adjacent to mine. Texting friends around town, they too found tiny white tubes they had initially ignored until I sent them pics of the tubes I collected. Then, they looked around their neighborhoods and found more of the same.

I felt violated, really, violated in the sense ignorant racist assholes had intruded upon my quiet street near a university campus to espouse what they say is not a message of “hate,” but a message simply to encourage White people to wake up and realize the cultural genocide is being waged against us. To which I say, “Go fuck yourself, KKK. Seriously. And stay off my street.”

The text of the first pic states, “”Law-abiding citizens of your community sleep in peace knowing the Klan is awake!”

No! I did sleep in peace knowing you asshatted halfwits were mostly in prison, or in seclusion, in your underground Morlock lair where you belong. Now, I have to spend my waking and sleeping moments living in trepidation your fucking brainwashed infantile brains are perhaps ambulating around my street and there are few things worse than a nervous White person packing heat.

White people make me nervous now. Is this person a closet KKK asshole? Let me see your wallet! You probably are carrying some sort of card to let you in to your racist White Supremacist meeting place. I need to see your purse, please; see if you have any KKK paraphernalia on-board.

I blame Obama.

No, no; that’s not it. This is not Obama’s fault. The GOP would like for you to think all of these racial issues are rooted in Obama, that President Obama was instrumental in fomenting a racial divide in the United States. The GOP would like for this message to sink in, but it won’t in me. Yes, Obama is connected to the rise of racial issues in American society, but he isn’t responsible for fomenting them. No – the GOP is.

From Mitch McConnell to Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin – Kentucky, come on, really? – the GOP and its half-witted step-child, the Tea Party, have done nothing but vociferously agitate against Barack Obama since January 1st, 2009, for no other reason than race, honestly. And, Donald Trump opened another front against President Obama in his pursuit of Obama’s birth certificate, a furor which has diminished by is not extinguished. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and a number of other GOP candidates at local, state, and national levels have brought varying degrees of racism into our everyday lives through instilling in Americans fear of immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East, essentially anyone with skin slightly darker than a person with an April tan. With Spring Break quickly upon us, millions of American college students may suffer from racial profiling due to our heightened awareness of dark people.

The Internet is full of truths, half-truths, lies, and pants-on-fire lies. As the GOP continues to encourage deeper and deeper cuts in education, our American society is going to become more and more susceptible not simply to sheer nonsense. Hopefully, absolute nonsense will be easy for people of all stripes to recognize. No, what will really become a stupendously onerous chore will be dissecting white lies, deliberate obfuscations, fallacies, and erroneous cultural memes.

Cutting education works to the GOP advantage but not America’s advantage. Cutting education allows the GOP to infuse their messages with more fear, more doubt, and more reliance on them to keep America safe. However,  by cutting education the GOP reduces America’s absolute advantage in science, technology, and medicine, in innovation. Many companies invest as much as 11% in research and development. The United States should try to invest as much in Education as Defense. Education is a matter of national defense, defense against low wages, defense against stupidity and the racial divisions favored by the KKK, White Nationalists, Cultural Purists, and Defenders of the Confederacy.

We live in the 21st century. There are people walking among us who still believe the world, Planet Earth, is flat. I shit you not. I would not shit anyone reading this blog. Time is valuable. We have no time to waste clinging to wrong-headed myths of the past. Americans need to look ahead, plan ahead, plan for a brilliant future, a safe, well-educated future. I don’t see this path belonging to the fear-mongering war-hawk racists who have embedded themselves within the Republican party.

I’m not saying Democrats are the answer. I have yet to see the same level of vitriol emanate from their party. The United States may need a true 3rd party representing some other platform other than the Party of No the GOP has become. Most every other highly developed country has more than two parties and those parties must work together to accomplish legislation and set policy. Countries the size of the United States, of which there are not many, in terms of size or area, tend to have limited parties, e.g. Russia (1 party), China (1 party), Canada (every day is a party), Brazil (did someone say party?)

I can’t tolerate racism. Cannot take it. Judge people by who they are, how they act, how they treat others, especially those in the service industry, or custodians/janitors. Don’t judge people by skin color. That’s fucking stupid, small-minded, certainly not Christian.

A later post might be a pic of my bail notice after I punch some dipshit in the face for dumping more KKK propaganda on my street.

PAX

In the Aftermath of GOP Kentucky Caucus 2016 #NeverTrump #Racism #Politics #Republicans I'm afraid I'm must apologize in advance. Usually, I try to avoid using expletives in my writings.

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Ramblings on Latitude and Longitude Using a Lightboard

Ramblings on Latitude and Longitude Using a Lightboard .@TechSmith #HigherEd #OnlineEd #EdTech

Fall 2015 my university commissioned one of our on-campus engineers to design and build not one but two Lightboards. If you aren’t familiar with what a Lightboard is you’ve come to the proper blog.

On Tuesday, March 1st, I gave a mess of lecture about the size and shape of the Earth, and double-down on the mess by discussing latitude and longitude coordinates. At the end of class I decided I…

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The Book of the New Sun. Gene Wolfe, author. “The Shadow of the Torturer,” “The Claw of the Conciliator,” “The Sword of the Lictor,” and “The Citadel of the Autarch,” were published from 1980-1983 by Simon & Schuster. Paperback.

For literal decades The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator sat on my bookshelves unread, their pages growing golden brown like a buttered biscuit with age. I bought them in paperback and they sat, unread. They even moved with me, geographically, as my life shifted from Missouri, to Kansas, to Missouri, then to Kentucky. Packed and unpacked, and packed again, and unread. Until this last Christmas (2015), when I decided I’ve had enough of them, silently shaming me for not only having not read them, but also not even having the heart to adopt the remaining two family members, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch. You don’t have to read them, either, but at least we’d all be together under one roof. OK, and I relented in my passive obstinance and bought the remaining two books from a used book store. And I took the next step and actually read them.

The collection of books together are called The Book of the New Sun (TBotNS). I’m not going to review each individually. These novels are relatively short compared to other books in the genre, averaging a little over 300 pages, especially when measured against current books which appear to be competing with the Bible, the Qu’ran, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels.

Written and published a year apart, the books are remarkably uniform in writing style, themes, and tone. The prose style requires rewiring your brain’s language center slightly, if you want to fully appreciate the books. I’ll explain throughout this review.

The Book of the New Sun is set in Humanities far distant future. Millions of years, in fact; so far into the future Humanity has spread out amongst the stars, and Earth has become barely a thought. Earth is no longer, “Earth,” but “Urth,” as humans, as they are, have forgotten how to spell Earth.

The story begins so far into the future the sun is preparing to die. Not really die, though, but enter into the next stage of solar evolution, perhaps becoming a red giant before collapsing to a white dwarf. The sun has grown dimmer, the light tinged a rusty-red.

People of Urth live in variety of environments, from bucolic, pastoral rural settings, in crude simple dwellings, and some people reside in large walled cities. Throughout the books people are found to live in underground cave systems, on floating islands, in massive ad-hoc housing rising up and along cliff-faces. Transportation consists of paddled boats, horses, and “fliers,” some sort of powered plane or glider. Some residents of Urth seem completely startled by technology, and lack the vocabulary to tell us, the reader, what is they are witnessing. Combat, fights, and warfare, when those situations arise, are somewhat confusing. Combatants describe ‘fire leaping from long lances,’ or ‘violet energetic blasts searing the air.’ Meanwhile, some fighters may be using bows and arrows, or finely crafted swords, halberds, or cudgels. The available technology seems to run the gamut from Iron Age to Future Age, and the characters are well-equipped to discuss cruder weapons and not-so-well versed in the fantastic weapons.

The Book of the New Sun represents a tetralogy of journals written by Severian, translated to English by Gene Wolfe. Each of the first three books includes a brief essay by Wolfe where he discusses his concerns about accurately transcribing Severian’s words. The language spoken and written by Severian is English but keep a dictionary handy. Wolfe is not developing a unique language, like Tolkien did with Elvish, but weaves very old English words into the tales of Severian. For example, Severian travels with a sabretache, a small satchel or bag for holding items. Fiacres, small horse-drawn coaches, are used by people for moving around. Nearly every hand weapon except simple swords are drawn from very obscure historical references. The writing style is readable, though reading The Book of the New Sun requires some work simply because the prose is unlike most prose written today, as if the book was literally translated from some older version of English or French. I’ve read books translated from Japanese, German, and Norwegian and some of those books are easier to consume than these Urth books, honestly. A number of years ago I read Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union,” and I remember having to run words and phrases down different channels in my brain to make that book work for me, and having a dictionary handy to translate Yiddish, and investigate unfamiliar idioms. YPU is a fine novel, by the way. I highly recommend.

In this distant future, people can belong to guilds, much like the guilds of the Middle Ages. Severian belongs to the Torturer’s Guild, the “Seekers for Truth and Penitence.” The Torturer’s Guild is employed by citizens of Nessus to seek punishment against people who have done them wrong. After judging and sentencing, the torturers are then obligated to perform whatever acts the wronged person requires, as long as the punished person is not killed. Wolfe’s depiction of these acts is not graphic but we get the sense exacting pain is something torturers are extremely good at.

Severian’s life adventure begins after he shows mercy to a beautiful captive woman. Rather than torturer her, as he is instructed, he provides her with a knife and she commits suicide. Rather than admit a journeyman torturer exhibited mercy, the Torturer’s Guild exiles Severian to the northern city of Thrax, where he will become the local torturer. The journey north is no easy task and Severian is faced with continual trials and circumstances.

The Book of the New Sun begins to feel more like a parable, a fable, or an allegory once Severian leaves Nessus. The situations he confronts rhyme of biblical events, not directly comparable but are simply too close to not to come to mind. Severian runs across giants, people who have co-opted their humanity and become something else. Some people appear as humans but are probably androids or cyborgs. But, Severian has no vocabulary containing “android” or “robot” or “prosthetic;” instead these people become something magical, like a humonculus, or some fantastic machinery wrapped in human skin (Jonas). Mirrors transport people, or robots, to distant locations. Severian is extremely naive with little experience of Urth beyond the walls of Nessus and untangling his descriptions can make these novels really tough to chew.

Severian survives many pitfalls, and aids others with the assistance of his gem, the Claw of the Conciliator. Enveloped in some translucent blue mineral, the Claw is some other thing which appears to be able to heal the sick and raise the dead. On one occasion he ingests the flesh of Thecla, a beautiful aristocrat woman he adored, and the flesh together with a drug derived from an alien creature provides him with her memories and portions of her personality. At times, he loses track of himself as the personality of Thecla, whom he serves at times as host, dominates. As he encounters people, some characters see Severian being more than he is, that he may be the salvation of Urth, that he may give rise to the New Sun.

Circumstance of raising the dead, healing the sick, and the eating of flesh become reminiscent of religious themes and ideas, like taking communion. Severian seems as a Jesus-like character, performing what we might think of as miracles. While reading The Book of the New Sun finding parallels is not difficult while parsing the text for meaning. For a very nice essay deconstructing portions of The Book of the New Sun, I am going to refer you to “Mapping a Masterwork: A Critical Review of Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun.” As this essay indicates, some folks have used The Book of the New Sun as basis for a Ph.D in literature.

The Book of the New Sun is not a run-of-the-mill “Dying Earth” entry into the “Dying Earth” science fiction sub-genre. While perhaps as rich as Herbert’s Dune, or as galactic in scope and scale as Asimov’s Foundation series, The Book of the New Sun represents a very local scale telling of one person’s ascension from naive young man to Autarch, one of few people who rule Urth.

One trait I found interesting in reading these novels is trying to determine geography and setting. I’m fairly certain the continent on which the story takes place must either be South America or Africa. No recognizable toponyms are used to identify places. One clue as to geography describes the icy wastelands to south. If the geography were in the northern hemisphere, the icy wastes would probably be to the north. We also are told the Equator or torrid zones are to the north. One trait of the geography leading me more towards South America is the presence of a massive river Severian has a difficult time seeing the other bank, which to me sounds like the Amazon River. I remind myself the novel is set in a time millions of years in the Earth’s future so making direction comparisons to geography is problematic due to plate tectonics and places have shifted around a bit. And climates have probably changed some, as well.

I found the four books enjoyable. I probably won’t read the next tetralogy right away as my reading list has 30-ish books and I’m trying to whittle my stack down. I do recommend the first four books as I think the writing style, imagery, and themes are important enough to be exposed to in order be a finer judge of writing. Clearly, these books were not simply written but crafted with deliberate care and consideration of language and message and intent.

PAX

  The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (Book Review) http://wp.me/pXmHL-101 #scifi #fantasy #writing #bookreview The Book of the New Sun. Gene Wolfe, author. "The Shadow of the Torturer," "The Claw of the Conciliator," "The Sword of the Lictor," and "The Citadel of the Autarch," were published from 1980-1983 by Simon & Schuster.

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60 Seconds on Teaching (Actually 75 seconds)

60 Seconds on Teaching http://wp.me/pXmHL-ZP #HigherEd #Teaching #OnlineEd

This is not my TEDTalk by any stretch of the imagination. In my wanderings and associated interactions around campus I’ve met a few people involved with teaching and technology. These individuals associate teaching and technology with me, too. Our local faculty development center IT manager asked me last week if I’d like to do a bit about something teaching practice I like to employ in the…

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The Year of the Fire Monkey

The Year of the Fire Monkey! http://wp.me/pXmHL-ZK No, not babymonkeypuppy. #ChineseNewYear #Baidu

The Chinese New Year began on Monday, February 8th, which was yesterday. Sorry; I should have posted an announcement on Sunday so people could have planned parties and what-not.

This is the Year of the Monkey, but not just any monkey. No, this is the Year of the Fire Monkey. Chinese culture has it’s own zodiac and animals of the zodiac. Not only are twelve animals supported in this zodiac but one…

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Great Geography Twitter Accounts

Great Geography Twitter Accounts #TwitterTips #TwitterUse #Travel .@USCensusBureau

I am a constant Twitter user. I began using Twitter in March 2009. My divorce was causing me to shed friends like glaciers calve icebergs and I needed a way to connect with people. Many people I run across don’t understand Twitter and I spend time trying to educate them about appropriate Twitter use.

Twitter is a good way to connect and network with people. Maybe not as good as LinkedIn or…

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Overcoming the "College Students As Children" Mindset

Overcoming the "College Students As Children" Mindset #Teaching #highered

In 2007 I began working for a nearby community college, my third such institution in Kentucky. In Kentucky, the community college system operates by a set of guiding principles and policies yet each institution also operates as a sort of franchise. The best way I can describe this is the application process. A person must apply to each particular community college for employment. Just because you…

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Staying Enthusiastic As Higher Education Sickens

Staying Enthusiastic As Higher Education Sickens

I know. My post’s title is morbid, especially coming on the heels of my previous post about the passing of my director and mentor. He would have appreciated the irony. During what would result in Dr. Wesler’s last semester teaching Kit co-taught a course with the dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts entitled, “The Archaeology of Death.” Kit began the semester strong in spite of losing…

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Tribute to Dr. Kit Wesler, Archaeologist, Mentor, Trekkie

Tribute to Dr. Kit Wesler, Archaeologist, Mentor, Trekkie

Cancer added my boss, Dr. Kit Wesler, to its constantly growing list of victims Monday, January 4th, 2015. As a few people angrily commented during Friday’s Celebration of Life tribute ceremony: “This is the 21st century; why are we still fighting cancer?” Be this situation as it may, and while I do have some very unsophisticated thoughts to address comments like these, Kit still passed away, and…

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Sees Its Shadow, Predicts Four More Years of Empire)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Sees Its Shadow, Predicts Four More Years of Empire)

Read this knowing there are a bunch of spoilers ahead. Of course, the Internet is now full of tidbits, like Daniel Craig as a stormtrooper and Simon Pegg in an uncredited role as an alien. Unless one walks away from the Internet for a month, a spoiler is bound to cross your path. And, a recent study indicates spoilers don’t really change a viewer’s opinion. Thanks for reading!