educating eric

It’s a super-volatile topic, I know… and I’m really not trying to antagonize anyone or stir up trouble.  I just want to throw out, in easily referenced fashion, how I frame the “abortion debate” in philosophical terms and why I find the political side of it (in the United States, at least) really oddly positioned. Here are two contrasting principles: When we encounter a conflict between a known rights-holder and a possible rights-holder, we should … u phold the rights of the known rights-holder despite restricting a possible rights-holder guard/defend/protect the basic rights of the possible rights-holder despite restric ting a known rights-holder In most things, the “libertarian” position is A) above and the “liberal” position is B) above.  (Feel free to commend with improved terminology for me here; the Democrat party in the U.S. would usually be identified with “liberal” but the Republican party has a mix that runs from “libertarian” to almost “paternalistic,” for lack o

Quote on analytics: "We can ask good questions, immediately get answers, and turn around and implement change at the institution."

Was asked my opinion of the first paragraph and… I just don’t know what to think. How’s that for commitment? http://tachesterton.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/the-blogosphere-a-good-place-to-hide-even-from-yourself/

UPDATE: Thanks to Matt and Tod on the west coast, it seems that the video does still say that Joanna Everett is in St. Paul... so that must be hard-coded into the video and I happen to live in the lucky city that was chosen.  If the rest of you want to keep watching and double-check their work, feel free... but I think it was "coincidence" rather than "extremely advanced dynamic video programming"... I need a favor from any non-Minnesota geek friend: When I view it, the get-rich-quick video at http://hypertracker.com/go/russbrun/exhacker/ (which I swear I'm not trying to SPAM to you guys -- please do NOT waste your $47 buying "Commission Crusher"!!!) at exactly 18 minutes in makes a reference to "Joanna Everett" of "St. Paul, MN" ...in both the video AND audio track. I'm wondering if that's a dynamic geo-targeted reference based on my IP address and that the location of "Joanna" changes when viewed from elsewhere,

A random thing for me to research in my free time: a missions pastor spotted my Bible cover and said he believes it's a very typical African woven pattern and from Ghana in particular. He also said he thinks it's especially common in the Kumasi region and may be the Kente cloth of the Asante people (or Ghan). Wow. And I just thought it looked cool. The cover itself was a gift that happened to be identical to one I'd seen in Red Wing, Minnesota in 1995 but passed up because it was too expensive to splurge on. Then I had that non-buyer's remorse feeling of, "Oh, I should have gotten that when I had the chance..." ...and then it turned up as a Christmas/birthday/etc. present months later. So, I think it'll be fun to learn more about its background...

These are really, really good.  You need to be something of a “social media geek” to really get the most out of all of them… but even if you take a poor, dim glance at them they’ll help explain what all this “social media stuff” really is… http://www.commscorner.com/2011/02/9-charts-that-simplify-social-media.html

Here's a weird synergy of "customer service intake" for me in the past few days: 1) My exasperated Tweet last week about service-request emails going to less-than-optimal contacts: http://mobile.twitter.com/emlarson/status/36145493650313216 2) My Quora question last night about an Ignite talk I'd seen that might hold a solution: http://qr.ae/wP40 3) The resulting find: http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/ignitenyc-the-video/ 4) Coincidentally (I had no idea this was in the works!), Patrick Rhone's podcast from today: http://mobile.twitter.com/patrickrhone/status/38260081346887680 5) And, as a point of trivia, Patrick's reference to emails as "pebbles" is a variation of the "heap of wheat" that the Greeks pondered: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ Wow. All that might not mean much to you as you're reading this... But, trust me, it's quite a collection in my brain.

[wpvideo rytdtr0J] Chloe is now singing: "Fluffy towels, fluffy towels"...

It's been a few months but a link from @sborsch to this post got me thinking about 3D printing again: 3D printing: The printed world | The Economist http://www.economist.com/node/18114221?story_id=18114221&CFID=162367227&CFTOK...

Another article for "spare time reading" (which I feel like I'm falling more and more behind on, but that's a topic for another day)... Web Giants Encroaching on Local Christian Media Territory | Christian Media 2.0 http://www.gordonmarcy.com/2011/02/web-giants-encroaching-on-local-christian-...

- - - - - - Typed by thumb and sent from my St. Thomas BlackBerry Wireless Device

I hope this works from an off-campus connection. Otherwise, you'll have to figure out how to browse and drill down to the excellent "University Archives Photograph Collection": http://content.clic.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Farch-photo

When your VP suggests reading something... It's probably good: Solitude and Leadership: an article by William Deresiewicz | The American Scholar http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

...And people are clever: Clive Thompson on Secret Messages in the Digital Age | Magazine http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/st_thompson_secretmessages/

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." http://read.ly/John13.35.NIV