#1 ?

Way to go Badger Mens Basketball team. We found a way to pull it out again, even though the little skinhead rarely missed. Congratulations also to Kammron Taylor, who made the game winning three pointer and hopefully gave him some of his confidence back. Way to go guys!

What am I up to?

Hey all. For my homework this week, I had to do an open blog about anything that I wanted. But, there isn’t really anything new in the life of Kurt. I am actually at work right now (working very hard obviously). We are pretty slow, so I thought I would get some homework done. I am typing this blog on half of my computer screen and watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 movie on the other half. And let me tell you, no matter how many times I watch this movie it never gets old.

I am kind of getting worried about this weekend. We are supposed to get 10 inches of snow/rain mix. That, on top of our foot and a half of snow, will probably make for really crappy driving and walking conditions. I am watching my Uncles house and dog this week and it is about a half an hour drive from my apartment. Hopefully, if it precipitates a lot in the next couple of days, class will be cancelled.

Well, I don’t know if any of you have been paying attention, but it seems like our Wisconsin teams have seemed to let their season slip at the end, yet again. Mens’ basketball has just lost two in a row, granted one being to the #1-2 team in the country. Hold on, I have to wait on some people…………... okay, I am back. So anyways, the team was 26-2 before the two consecutive losses, so I didn’t think we were going to get a #1 seed. But last night, Tennessee bailed us out and beat Florida who was ranked #4. So we should be #4 if we beat Michigan State this weekend, hopefully, giving us a #1 seed in the tournament. The other Wisconsin team that has slipped is the Mens’ Hockey team. They have had a very mediocre season, being riddled with injuries, losing to teams that they should beat and beating teams they should lose to. But they had a chance to get home ice for the playoffs. But then we end up getting swept by a team that isn’t very good, knocking our team back to 8th place in the WCHA. Mens’ hockey still has one more weekend but I am guessing that we won’t get home ice for playoffs, meaning that I won’t get to go to any more games this year.

Well for some reason my TMNT movie is screwing up in my computer. So know I have to watch Grandma’s Boy instead. Not too bad of a trade off because it is hilarious.

It is just starting to snow outside. It probably won’t be very busy for the rest of the night. I guess I shouldn’t say that, though. It seems like we are pretty busy when it is really cold or snowing a lot. It doesn’t really make sense to me because we are selling cold products. Oh, well.

Well I guess that is all for now. Be back in a couple of days.

The Connected Age

For this week, we had to read “The Connected Age”, Six Degrees by Duncan Watts. This is probably the reading that I have enjoyed the most this semester. I am pretty sure that I understand the message that he was trying to get across and I got a lot of information from the reading. It was pretty interesting reading about electric power and the “blackout” in the western United States in the summer of 1996.

I also enjoyed reading about networks and how individual parts interact with other parts to make up a complex system or network. The text also talked about synchrony. I didn’t really get that much information out of that section other than the runners’ analogy.

It was also really interesting to learn about the six degrees of separation. I had obviously heard about it before but I couldn’t remember if I had ever learned how it had originated. I thought that Milgrams’ experiment testing his small-world method was a pretty ingenious experiment. I would have never have thought about trying to doing anything like that.

I did have one question, though. The term oscillator was used throughout the text and I had a hard time trying to get what Duncan Watts was trying to mean. I think that he used this word to talk about networks and how they are very dependent on all of the parts that make up that network, but if someone else has another interpretation I would like to hear it.

Well, I guess that is all for this blog. I know that it is a little shorter than normal but I don’t really have much to say because I don’t have that many questions.

Dreamweaver 1 class

I ended up taking the Dreamweaver 1 class last Thursday night in the Computer Sciences building. I really had a good time. I almost had my first web page completed, from using time in class, so it was a good time to troubleshoot some of my problems to people who really knew what they were doing. It worked out really well.

I really wish that I could have gotten into the Dreamweaver-in-a-day class because I think it would be a lot of fun. In Dreamweaver 1, we barely went into CSS, which is (I think) the best part of making a web page. I thought about going to the Dreamweaver 2 class that they had a couple days later but I just didn’t have enough time. I think that I might watch to see if they have any Dreamweaver-in-a-day classes available in the rest of the semester because I think I would enjoy working more with CSS.

I would definitely recommend taking a Dreamweaver course because you never know when those skills could come in handy.

N. Katherine Hayles and Lexia to Perplexia

There seems to be a reoccurring pattern, for me, at the beginning, middle and the end of most of the readings that are assigned for English 201. Most of the time I have no idea what is going on or what points are trying to be made. I leave the reading feeling more confused than before I read it. So once again I have a lot of questions that maybe some of my classmates will be able to help me with.

For this Tuesday, we were assigned to read a couple of chapters of Writing Machines by N. Katherine Hayles. I had a very hard time trying to decipher what she was trying to say. Maybe it is because I am not familiar with most of the technology terminology that she uses throughout the reading. I think that she tries to explain what some of the terms are but I get even more confused after reading the definitions.

There are three main terms that I couldn’t figure out what they mean and maybe some of you who read this will be able to help me out. On page 75, of the course packet, she makes use of the phrase inscription technology. On page 77, CP, she says media-specific analysis or MSA. And throughout the readings that were assigned she uses cell.f or cell….f. If anybody knows what any of these terms mean, I would greatly appreciate a response back.

One thing that caught my attention was on Page 75, CP, when she says, “the physical form of the literary artifact always affects what the words (and other semiotic components) mean.” This sentence brought me back to last week when we were reading The Medium is the Message and Media Hot and Cold by Marshal McLuhan.

She also talked about HTML throughout these readings and let me just say that I am glad that we don’t have to use it. I am also glad that someone, who is a lot more techno-savvy than me, came up with programs to allow those less fortunate people enjoy the luxuries that techno-savvy people have. It allows many more people to use blogs or create websites.

One of the last things that we had this week was look through the website Lexia to Perplexia. I don’t know if we are going to go over it in class but I had absolutely no idea what was going on or even the subject matter the website was about. I honestly think that if it was in a foreign language I would have understood it better. Maybe it was supposed to be like that or maybe if I knew what was going on I would have been able to enjoy it better.

Well I guess that is all for now. Maybe if we talk about it in class tomorrow some of my questions will be answered and I will be able to write back on what I have learned.

You Want Me To Do What?

This semester I am taking a Spanish class, a Geology class, Intermediate Composition, Weather and Climate, and a Math class. I am an undergraduate in my third year here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Some of the things that I have learned this semester are about different parts of the earth. I have also learned about the varying climates that affect all of the different countries around the world. And, while we are talking about countries, it is safe to say that different countries use their governments in different ways.

Also, in my other classes, I have to deal with formulas and translations. The homework load has been tremendous and hopefully some of my professors will start to withdraw some of the onslaught of homework.

Hopefully, if we have to do this again, I will be better prepared. I can definitely tell whoever reads this that these couple of paragraphs are not my best writing. I don’t even understand what I am trying to say.

Go Ninja! Go Ninja! Go!

I can't wait until March 23rd. Hopefully it is as good as the last three.