Via if:book, an interesting draft policy statement proposed by Alan Liu on student use of wikipedia. (See also the followup discussion at Humanist and Kairosnews.)

Seriously pissed.

Remember this?

It just broke again.

And it’s got the disc we were watching last night—disk 3 of 6 of season 3 of 24—stuck inside it.

I’m about to take the fucker apart to see if I can get the disk out.  The cursing you hear is probably me.

[UPDATE, 8.34pm:  Unbelievably enough, I fixed it.  With my very own screwdriver.  The disk changer was stuck in an eject-loop, trying to get rid of the disk in slot 2—except there was no disk in slot 2, and it couldn’t figure that out on its own.  And poor Jack Bauer was stuck in slot 1, waiting.  I took the thing apart and found a way to slip that disk down into slot 2 while it was in eject mode, and voila.  The amazing thing is that now it seems to believe everything is hunky-dory.  I’m still pissed, but I can at least feel righteous in my indignation, as I apparently fucking rule.  Sony still sucks, and it’s clear to me now that this thing need replacing, post haste.  But for now:  on to what remains of the evening of Veronica Mars I had planned.]

Subtitle: Why I Should Not Be Allowed to Listen to the News on the Way Home from the Gym.

I swear I thought the announcer said something about an inquiry into whether Barry Bonds perjured himself by testifying under oath that he had never used any band-performance enhancing drugs.

Managed this week:

– Have made significant headway on article, via intensive half-hour morning sessions, and whatever little bits of time I want to add to those. Now have twelve pages worth of text, of which the first five are pretty well fleshed-out and not totally sucky, and the next five are fairly sketched-in, if riddled with bracketed notes to self.
– Reviewed two manuscripts for journals, wrote reports, and got them back in well ahead of schedule.
– Wrote proposal for essay solicited for on-line collection.
– Laid out somewhat reasonable outline for one of two courses for fall.

Yet unmanaged:

– Must finish the article I’m working on, PDQ.
– Must quickly write essay solicited for on-line collection, due in about a month.
– Must obtain permissions for material to be quoted in essay solicited for online collection.
– Must draft article, due in late August, that will provide the substance of a talk to be given twice in October.
– Must write brief position paper for conference in late October.
– Must finish laying out syllabus for partially-designed class for fall.
– Must design second fall class, and lay out syllabus.
– Must order books for both classes, before August 1, to avoid finger-wag from bookstore.
– Must come up with non-tedious things to write about here, so as not to completely alienate readers of blog.