Who am I? Why am I here? Best phrased by Admiral Stockdale, but certainly not a patented statement. Or perhaps Sherry Turkle's second self? But she applies the term in relation to how we present ourselves through technology. Here, I assess who I am in both digital and analog. I wear many hats, as I assess most of you do, too. Some hats have greater influence by design; others less influence, to my dismay. Military officer is my primary identity. While I wish I could place husband/father first, military service has an extraordinary hydraulic effect on my time. On the... Continue reading

Our little mouse moves out in late March, off to school in Boulder, Colorado. "Oh, is she going to UC-Boulder?" everyone asks. "Nope," I reply. "Boulder College of Massage Therapy." Long pause. There's ALWAYS a long pause. Kyla. National Merit Scholar. 2000 on the SAT. Reads 300 pages an hour, word for word and not speed reading. Straight 4.0 from 7th grade onwards. Studied advanced calculus while her father never made it passed basic undergrad algebra (and I still count with my fingers). SURELY she should be going to a traditional 4-year university? Unfortunately, we have a cultural bias towards... Continue reading

Via Small Wars Journal: "Given the importance of social media, even in countries with relatively low “digital indexes,” the State Department should continue to monitor social media on so it can alert embassies and nearby military units if something is afoot. Such a capability might not have prevented the Benghazi attack, but it might do so in the future." CONTINUED - Continue reading

I have a bizarre relationship with the analog and the digital. I arise at 0445 sharp every workday so I have enough time to read the paper before going to work--yes, a real, ink-on-fingers newspaper--and a chapter or two of nonfiction brain food. I've practiced this ritual for so long that my grandmother coined a phrase for it: "time to find myself in the morning." I repeat the ritual before bed, but with fiction. To hell with the people who say reading in bed before sleeping is bad for you--I can't sleep without it! What do both rituals have in... Continue reading

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Apple Maps “Life Threatening,” Say Australian Police http://allthingsd.com/20121210/apple-maps-life-threatening-say-australian-police/ Sent via Flipboard Continue reading

Not a day went by in grad school where I didn't wonder how students finished PhD's without Goggle Scholar access. For three years, my professional life existed on this very laptop I'm writing on. The world was my office, although I favored a handful coffee shops and bookstores strategically placed throughout Iowa City (I dare say I deserve honorary plaques at Capanna Coffee and Haunted Bookshop). As this essay title suggests, it was a seamless experience. I'd exchange emails with professors on my iPhone, save files to Dropbox for easy multi-platform viewing, engage with like minded individuals on Twitter, coordinate... Continue reading

My brother wrote this poem for a poetry journal (don't know the journal's name, but it was accepted for publication). Reprinted with the author's permision, of course! First, Sir Walter Raleigh's original: IF all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When rivers rage and rocks grow cold; And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields: A honey... Continue reading

Games? sign me up! From Deep Dive Intelligence: The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) thinks specialized video games could help student analysts and career professionals root out their cognitive biases [defined]. To find out, IARPA has launched a program called Sirius. The name is a play on the term serious games, which refers to games with goals beyond entertainment. IARPA says “cognitive biases are notoriously resistant to training,” and it wants to see if video games are the answer. CONTINUED - Continue reading

I consider myself the perfect moderate--I saw merit and flaws in both major candidates, and ultimately was ambivalent towards the outcome. As with previous elections, I went "media dark" last night, waiting 'til snapping open the morning front page to learn the outcome (and I mean paper, not a finger swipe). Of course, this election followed with the same vitrolic gloating and finger-pointing. In my assessment social media ups the ante, as my social stream is a veritable deluge of self-hugging and disparaging remarks (interdispersed with photos of saucer-eyed cats, Victorian e-cards and George Takei mashups). A heady stream filled... Continue reading

Let my start by saying I love my job. I get paid to read, write, drink coffee, and spout my fool mouth off: four tasks I consider myself eminently qualified for. Before returning to the U.S. Air Force Academy as a senior military professor, I must first fulfill what's known as an operational tour, or "ops tour" for short. Basically, my career field gets a pound of flesh out of me in trade for the PhD. It's a fair deal, especially since the USAF assigned me to a base where I can use my newly-minted powers for good. So as... Continue reading

Zhao, Shanyang. 2006. Do Internet users have more social ties? A call for differentiated analyses of Internet use. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(3), article 8. Abstract: Research on the impact of Internet use on social ties has generated conflicting results. Based on data from the 2000 General Social Survey, this study finds that different types of Internet usage are differentially related to social connectivity. While nonsocial users of the Internet do not differ significantly from nonusers in network size, social users of the Internet have more social ties than nonusers do. Among social users, heavy email users have more social... Continue reading

Found this while researching a paper project: Hemminger, Elke. 2009. The Mergence of Spaces: Experiences of Reality in Digital Role-playing Games. - Continue reading

No posts since August? Man, I suck. More to follow! From .Net Magazine: - Continue reading

From Business Insider: "It's very easy to get caught up in the Android versus iPhone duel and Google's recruiting battles with its newly-public Silicon Valley neighbor, Facebook. But neither one of those companies worry Google executives as much as another that is actively taking money out of their pockets. This company is from Washington, but no, it's not Microsoft. Google's real rival, and real competition to watch over the next few years is Amazon." CONTINUED ------------------------------------------------------ I have a love-hate relationship with Amazon. One the one hand, I'll cry like a school boy if bookstores go the way of the... Continue reading

Bookmarked this just before my move: TechCrunch, Alex Williams: "Dave McCrory has developed the concept of data gravity. It dictates that data has its own mass. When data gets stored it becomes harder to move. The more data stored, the greater the mass. ...The idea of physically smuggling data might seem absurd. Why move it physically when you can transport it using a broadband connection? Maunder makes the point that if the data is too much to transport via broadband there are always data centers where you can go and download the data on a terabyte drive and then connect... Continue reading

I've been in San Antonio a little over a month now. First impressions? Hot. Crowded. And Texas hasn't invented the turn signal yet. Bu the brisket is out of this world! As for work, while I enjoy it so far (albeit a month isn't much to form an opinion on), it's admittedly difficult getting back into the military hierarchy groove. While in grad school, I typically worked 1000 to 2200 or later (noon to 10 pm for you non-military types). My functional sweet spot is the middle of the day, so I liked working to my strengths. Alas, the typical... Continue reading

Well... we actually don't move until Friday. But, the house is packed up, cleaners come tomorrow, then a pile of odds-and-ends chores on Thursday. In truth, I'm looking forward to being "re-blued;" that is, reintegrated into the Air Force after three years of living as a loin-clothed, academic savage. While in grad school, I learned that I'm good at self motivating by not so much at organizing outside of a structured office enironment (easily distracted by shiny things, as my daughter says). Be back in a few weeks! Give me some time to settle into my new digs. ;-) - Continue reading

More quality from Open Culture: This master list lets you download free courses from schools like Stanford, Yale, MIT, Oxford, Harvard and UC Berkeley. Generally, the courses can be accessed via YouTube, iTunes or university web sites. Right now you’ll find 55 courses in Philosophy, 50 in History, 50 in Computer Science, 35 in Physics, and that’s just beginning to scratch the surface. Most of the courses were recently produced. But, in some cases, we’ve layered in lecture series by famous intellectuals recorded years ago. CONTINUED - Continue reading

There I was: at the Coralville Ace Hardware buying a new toilet flapper. I mean, how hard could it be? A simple rubber stopper. I kindasorta knew what it looked like. Big mistake not double checking the part, however. I was presented with no less than six different flapper styles. Many, many years ago--back in the pre-iPhone stone age--I'd of been forced to either make the 15-minute drive back home or have the wife describe the part over the phone. In this instance, however, my wife simply took a photo inside the tank, emailed it, and I found the exact... Continue reading

A good thing that my default approach is to not trust official-looking emails in my personal inbox. I've had the same Yahoo email account since 1997. Yeah, Yahoo is constantly disparaged in comparison to Google, but I've been happy with the service. That said, consider the screen capture included with this post: relevant title (Yahoo! Mail Update 2012 (c)), escaped the spam trap, formatted with eye-pleasing graphics in a Yahoo color scheme, and mostly without spelling errors. Even thanks me for being a loyal user (aw, shucks). BUT... while the first sentence smacks of appropriate legal jargon, upon closer inspection... Continue reading

The prelude: "For years, the idea of a digital sabbatical has appealed to the hyper-connected set -- people who spend most of their days in front of computer screens, checking blogs, reading Twitter and somehow trying to figure out how to get their work done in between. At the office, they dodge dozens of click-me-now messages per minute, each demanding instant attention." CONTINUED This concept sounds really attractive, particularly after spending most of the past three years glued to a laptop screen. The last thing I wanted to see after turning in my final dissertation deposit was a keyboard and... Continue reading

Successfully defended my dissertation on 23 April and turned in the final draft to the graduate college offices today. Now, I can finally put on my Ph.D. t-shirt! In other news, I'm moving in June to the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency headquarters, where I'm supposedly going to head up the Strategic ISR Analysis section. Thankfully, the USAF is letting me remain in Iowa until my kids finish school. Thus, I'm off to celebrate by: 1) Changing all my magazine subscriptions from "Mr." to "Dr." 2) Going to see "Pirates! Band of Misfits" with the fam on Sunday,... Continue reading

Submitted my dissertation to my committee yesterday! Defense scheduled for 23 April. Now prepping for the Midwest Political Science Association annual conference in Chicago--leaving tomorrow afternoon, back on Sunday. Presenting a paper that has nothing to do with my dissertation... also a discussant on one panel and the chair of another. I like keeping busy. In the meantime, found this on a friend's Facebook post. I don't know who the original designer is, alas (Intel, perhaps? Their logo is on the right-hand side of the graphic). Continue reading