Blogs

I have a learning disability and it is something that is generally (almost never) spoken about. I have chosen to keep it a secret because I have had bad experiences growing up sharing this part of myself. A couple years ago, I thought I was ready to share this information and had even considered focusing my dissertation on students with learning disabilities in academia, but ended up not feeling ready.

The NYT is at it again.

Read enough books on behavioral economics and you will internalize the observation that we consistently overrate our own skills and abilities. Wikipedia even has an entry for this phenomenon under the heading "illusory superiority."

On average I get about an email a week from an undergrad who is thinking about going into my field or looking to attend Michigan State University and wants some advice on the process. The conversations quickly turn from archaeology specific to grad school in general.

Both of my kids have been issued iIPads in school and I am convinced they are receiving a better, more sophisticated and dynamic education as a result of the use of technology. At the same time, I worry about all the screen time that has now been incorporated into their lives.

I am taking five classes this semester, in musical theater, improvisation and musical improvisation. I am learning important skills and concepts in all of them. However, I am also working and participating in a musical improv group that practices for two hours a week, and I was recently cast in a staged reading of a new play, with a tight rehearsal schedule. I am exhausted.

Remember the movie "Sex, Lies and Videotape"? I invoke its poetic meter to frame a discussion of civil action privacy law. Type 4, you will recall, involves civil actions, individuals against individuals, in state court actions known as "torts." These laws, famously framed out of a 1890 law review article, were the first time the term "privacy" came directly into named U.S. laws. Putting on my historian's hat, I have argued that this occurrence was not the result of a notion of privacy being "discovered" -- notions of privacy date back to ancient times in Western Culture, and the term itself is derived from Latin -- but because modern, urban, industrial society at the turn of the last century, driven largely by technological developments, not the least of which was photography, encroached so significantly on cultural mores that the law was called upon as a defense to shore up those norms.

Google+ is my favorite platform for collaboration. While it's been touted by Google as a social network on par with Facebook, the feature that makes Google+ shine is Hangouts. And, the best part is that Google keeps increasing the capabilities of Hangouts. Most people are familiar with the feature set of Hangouts: 10 person video/audio, chat, YouTube sharing, screen sharing, and Google Drive/Docs integration. Google is giving away a phenomenal array of functionality.