Blogs

I spent part of my Christmas holidays in the house that I grew up in, located in the suburbs of Montreal. I haven’t lived in Montreal full-time since I left to go to university, more than (shudder) 15 years ago. And even then, I didn’t really live in Montreal growing up. And yet, in my mind, I’ve built up my home city to the point where there could be nowhere better to live.

As recorded here, our beloved 17-year-old cat, Molly, died over the summer. All three of us were, and continue to be, deeply affected by her loss. But we have also really missed having a cat around. And so, over Christmas Eve dinner, we discussed the possibility of adopting a new cat, and came to the conclusion that we were ready. We decided to visit the Humane Society shelter near us at our earliest opportunity, which turned out to be last Sunday.

It's a sign of the times. Long before my copy of the New York Times arrived Sunday morning I had read tweets and blog posts responding to an article in their occasional Education Life section. Though it somewhat defeats the purpose of having a newspaper delivered to your door, on Saturday I found myself looking for the online incarnation of the article that sparked responses, Matt Richtel's "Delete Term Paper, Enter Blogging: To Raves and Rants, the Digital Medium Muscles in on a Tradition" or, as it's slugged online, "Blogs vs. Term Papers."

What’s New at UVenus: UVenus at The Guardian (UK) - Sarah Emily Duff with Visa Denied? Navigating the visa minefield for visiting academics. Erin Wunker at Hook and Eye gives UVenus a nice shout-out in her post, Two Words.

Little did Jagger and Richards know that their 1965 hit would become a meaningful metaphor for a twenty-first century conundrum involving the law, technology, user norms and the market.

Much of the attention over Apple's education announcements yesterday has focused on digital textbooks. But that was just one of two initiatives the company unveiled. The other was a revamped iTunes U. Here's a hands-on look at what's new in what Apple calls "the world's largest catalog of free educational content."

The Calculus book I use sometimes uses intricate algebra to find very involved ways to present an answer in the simplest form. Although I encourage students to manipulate terms to see how they arrived at the given answers, I sometimes find myself telling my students that “the meaning of life is not to match the answer in the back of the book.” This, of course, avoids the question of exactly what the meaning of life is. I thought of this recently as I spent a lovely afternoon with a friend and her daughter watching a production

The Inference Engine anticipated much of what Apple announced in NYC on Thursday. Some interesting questions remain.