Archive for January, 2008

I’m taking a research methodology course for my master’s program in educational technology. One of the requirements was to do a ethnographical study of some common setting. I chose the exchange counter at Future Shop, a major Canadian electronics retailer. Ethnography is challenging! I decided to go to Future Shop and observe the returns...
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This kills me. Hungry Haitians are eating mud in an attempt to survive: With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs:...
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Tina at ThinkSimpleNow posted recently on 7 spiritual laws of success. I responded, and as I sometimes do, am cross-posting my response here … Nice post. A couple of thoughts that struck me as I saw a few things: “Success is the ability to fulfill your desires with effortless ease.“ - Deepak Chopra This...
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There’s a reason why SMS is a hundred billion dollar industry … and it’s simply that phones companies are unbelievably greedy. Note: the three examples cited are, respectively: from your internet service provider via high-speed modem, over standard text messaging systems, and snail mail via the United States Postal Service. All are assuming that...
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My 11-year-old daughter Gabrielle has gone into business designing and selling t-shirts. Her first creation is far too cool for words: Available at our Cafepress store, naturally … Here’s Gabrielle’s latest – for babies:
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It’s been ages since the latest outage, but yes, Flickr is down right now. Naturally it’s right after I come back from a nature walk by the Fraser River. I’ve never, ever seen it so calm as I saw it today … hardly a ripple anywhere. The biggest disturbance on the surface of the...
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For my current course in my master’s program, I’ve been looking a number of different theoretical perspectives from which educational research can be conducted. The prof asked us to come up with research questions from each. As I was doing so, I was thinking of web 2.0 technologies like those listed under the Virtual...
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You would think that Apple would ensure that it’s website works on Safari, the browser Apple created. So why is it that 9 times out of 10, when I go to check out the new MacBook Air commercial, it doesn’t play? (And yes, I’m as up to date as 10.4 gets: Mac OS X...
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If I ever want to kill any readership of Sparkplug 9, I know exactly how to do it. I’ve received written instructions in the mail. Email, actually. I recently received one from Kim Tompkins, a “junior media buyer” at Red McCombs Media. It’s a proposal any self-respecting blogger would swiftly upchuck at: Hi there,...
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The world is obviously coming to an end when a video blogger like Scoble is at Davos live-broadcasting everyone he meets. Here’s Danah Boyd, who has interesting things to say about teens, technology, and social networking:
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Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. Or else maybe I don’t suck up well. Either way, I hate the kind of blogroll that is stuffed with A-lister links. Yeah, I love Seth, and Scoble, and a bunch of other blogs. And when I really like something, I’ll probably save it to my delicious or even write...
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Had a great meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba last week with a couple of companies that help us create educational products. The temperature was -27 degrees Celcius when I arrived Wednesday night, and climbed to -23 the next day, but since it was literally airport-cab-hotel-cab-airport, and the meetings were great, that was no problem at...
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Few things are more challenging to me than to simply be content and happy with who I am, what I have, the things I do, the person I am in the social-economic-personal-familial context I live in. Here’s a great quote from Garrison Keillor that I saw today: Some luck lies in not getting what...
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dirty vision Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier One of the results of today’s photowalk … and for this one, I wasn’t even walking. As I posted below it on Flickr: the road was glittering gold for miles fool’s gold better than no gold i wanted to get out but cars kept coming finally shot through...
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Aidan dejected Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier Playing around with our new camera this morning and 4-year-old Aidan pulled a face. Hopefully that’s not what he looks like in 60 years!
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