Unbelievably busy
Well, I haven’t gotten around to doing anything at all on my new combined blog in the past week or so. Part of the problem is the new job and the tremendous workload as I transition out of the old and squeeze into the new. Another part is the two courses I’m taking for my masters program. (That was a huge mistake: two courses plus a full-time demanding job plus a family plus some friends equals absolutely no time for numero uno.) I’m looking forward to December, because on December 1 I will have (God willing) completely all my papers and assignments for my courses, and I’ll be able to slow down a bit. I just submitted my last assignment for ETEC 522 - a education venture capital course - last night at midnight … and I have one last paper due for my ETEC 511.
It’s a 3000-word paper, though, so it’s not a minor project. Such is life: intentional imbalance for short periods of time to accomplish set goals. But I hope to regain some semblance of balance soon!
Slightly less negative on Facebook
What with the insane euphoria of the web 2.0 crowd having found something slightly less web 1.0ish than MySpace in the social networking space and the insane euphoria of the VC crowd having found a new poster child for massively inflated valuations, I’ve been trying to maintain sort of a cool distance from Facebook.
(While, naturally, having a profile that I hardly touch.)
But this morning an old buddy from school sent me a message. By old buddy from school, I don’t mean university or even high school. I’m talking elementary school.
Wow. I hadn’t even remembered his last name, but I had remembered Jaimie.
Reconnecting with someone you haven’t seen in maybe 20 years is pretty cool.
Amazon marketplace: sorry, your purchase has been sold
Yesterday I bought 27 books from Amazon - mostly from the marketplace. Why not? The book are almost new, and they’re easily half off or less.Today I got a notice that a book I bought via the marketplace was previously sold.
No biggie - I just went back to Amazon, chose the next available seller for the book, and bought it again.Here’s the deal: when Amazon sends out that kind of email, they should include a link to re-purchase. That would probably increase their sales from people whose purchases are no longer available.And would make an already very usable store even more so.
Serious games wiki
In my master’s course on educational technology venture companies we’ve been talking about serious games. I and a couple others from the class have posted our thoughts on a wiki: the serious games wiki.
Feel free to add to it!
Recently on my bookshelf …
John Varley’s Mammoth:Great read with a nice twist at the end.Blindsight by Peter Watts:Dark - both literally and figuratively. Impressive work, though.Menace in Europe, by Claire Berlinski:Good read, but a pretty pessimistic view of Europe’s direction. Berlinski should know, though: she’s a grand-daughter of Jewish escapees from Hitler’s Germany and lives in Europe today.Platinum Pohl, by (of course) Frederick Pohl:Collected best short stories of Frederick Pohl … and Pohl’s best is very, very good.
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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