Kindles for Education
I bought a Kindle about 6 or 7 months ago. I was settled in my apartment and job for a while and wanted something to do other than watch TV or dink around on the computer, so I went and bought a book. After getting through a few books, I needed to figure something out, because I don’t quite have the room to get a bookcase. The first thing that popped into my head was getting a Kindle.
So far I have been reading just various novels, so I didn’t really get the push for using a Kindle for education. I read my first text that I needed to make notes in. It was extremely handy to highlight passages, and make side notes on the side. For somebody who has difficulty highlighting or writing in the margin, this opens some doors. Unless you cannot operate the small 5-way navigational button.
Seeing that Amazon is releasing a few new models of Kindles, will the accessibility issues be handled? There has already been a lawsuit over the lack of accessibility.
Complex Table
I was asked to produce an accessible version of a table that is complex. This entry is to serve as a place for comments and feedback for people who do not wish to e-mail me. Comments or feedback is appreciated. It uses both the scope and axis attributes.
Big Move
Note: I started this post in October 2010. Due to being sick, I never finished. I am pushing what I have so far.
It has been an incredibly long time since I have updated this thing. The last time I posted here was back in Nov 2009. My girlfriend at the time, Noelle, did a series of posts back in January.
I will just say Noelle, and I parted ways back in late March 2010. We tried to work things off and on until mid June, however that was not successful. So those three posts will be the only ones by her.
School
I finally became a graduate of the University of Washington! I now hold a BA in Political Science. I graduated June 12, 2010, at Husky Stadium. It was near chaos, just over 5,000 people walking across the stage. UW graduations are notorious for being bad weather, for mine it was the opposite. I think it topped out in the upper 70s or low 80′s.
Everybody in my party got burnt! It was pretty funny to see the little strips where we missed. I still remember sitting there in the football’s indoor field seeing all the people. This really made me think of things, like I said I majored in Political Science. If you talk to me, you will see my lack of interest and passion for the field. As I sat there waiting for things to begin, I sat there I saw all the groups of friends or colleauges, however I just didn’t click enough with anybody to feel right.
The only downfall of graduation, which was not that big of a surprise, was my dad not coming. Since it was so warm out, sadly he didn’t want to deal with the heat, the people, and the traffic afterward. In turn, my grandmother could not go due to dad not attending.
Work
Like every college graduate, I was worried about getting a job. I applied to a list of places, and got turned down to everything. If I didn’t get turned down, I simply didn’t hear back from them. That being said, something I have done every year while I was at the UW was signed up for a program that hooks students up with federal agencies. So, in late May I got an e-mail from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) asking me to work for them. After an interview over e-mail, I was offered another interview, this time over the phone, with the woman whom I was in contact with, the guy who would be my boss, and my team lead. Days after the interview, I was told they were interested in passing my name onto HR. Just over two months later, I was boarding a plane to head to North Carolina.
Racist Aliens
Well we’ve just added another color to the racism spectrum; blue. Why? you might ask…
Because of a movie (Avatar) about a fictional race on a distant moon who encounters human beings attempting to mine a substance called “Unobtainium” for profit to be made back on Earth.
How is this movie being perceived as racist?
The “hero” is white. And he’s not even much of a hero, in my eyes at least. He was a crippled ex-marine of average intelligence with simple, borderline crass, communication skills who relied heavily upon the deeds of the supporting members of the cast to be propelled into the “white messiah” status he’s being given. Pardon me for being different, but if that’s what we’re calling a hero, then I’d much rather be in the supporting cast. The kick-ass, helicopter pilot; the dedicated scientists/researchers (who, by the way, make every effort to do no harm to any living being or thing), the Na’vi high priestess/shaman to name a few examples. Heck, I’d rather be one of the flying creatures, or a tree than the actual “hero”.
To circle back around to the topic of this entry, I just didn’t get racism from this movie. It may have been there, but far more apparent to me was the humans’ destruction of the fantastical natural environment and their complete lack of concern for it. Instead of taking time to research and study the native environment and cultures, they stopped once they found one thing of value and completely fixated on it with no regard to what was destroyed in the process. Hasn’t THIS theme been repeated over and over again on various regions of our own planet? Does this not still continue to this day? I’m sorry to those this may offend, but racism takes a backseat to the loss of that which sustains life of all races; our natural resources.
So what did I take away from this film? What was most sad to me (and I hope others)? That even with the amazing advancements to technology that are going to surface in the future that will enable the human race to explore other planets, will also come the rape and destruction of those planets and their life-systems.