Random Thoughts Anew

[AmLitHist]

I'm at a CC, so chairs are required to be qualified in the entire sequence.

[downer]

I'm curious about other's wishes. If a student adds your (online) course in the first week, do you want them to email you introducing themselves or at least notifying you they have added?

I guess so long as they do the work for the first week, I don't much care. But if they are going to start saying "I need an extension because I added the class in the first week" I want them to show they are paying attention to the work they need to do.

[arcturus]

I'm curious about other's wishes. If a student adds your (online) course in the first week, do you want them to email you introducing themselves or at least notifying you they have added?

I guess so long as they do the work for the first week, I don't much care. But if they are going to start saying "I need an extension because I added the class in the first week" I want them to show they are paying attention to the work they need to do.

We have a week of open drop/add at the start of every semester. I know students add my course because I need to move them manually into a discussion group - where the prompt is "introduce yourself". However, more to your point, I extend the submission window for all first week assignments so that those who add late can still complete the work, but that the regular pattern of due dates is well established for the majority of students in the class. I do wish that the LMS notified me of the new students so that I would not have to check regularly to see if there are students to be moved into the appropriate discussion group. Fortunately, it is only 1 week...

[Economizer]

With all the attention given to the evacuations from Kabul, I've not heard anything about its effects on the opium agriculture and trade there. Has the drug smuggling and its components worldwide had any dramatic changes? Have the stronger manufactured addictives gotten bigger markets
due to transport problems from Afganistan recently? Were many of the large numbers of Americans there involved the huge international drug trade? Is there a difference in routes in the into U.S., and the types and strengths of dangerous processed concoctions and potions entering U.S.
territory due to Afghany occurrences? Are the villains of the world seizing opportunities arising from intentional lax enforcement at a time of distractions away from daily governmental responsibilitie, duties, and concerns? Well, from scant reports I've heard or read lately, I THINK THAT THESE ARE SO!

[ergative]

Instagram's algorithm has suddenly lost the thread. I have a carefully curated timeline that contains only posters who create art in one of two extremely specific niches, and I only ever post in those niches myself. For a long time it was obediently suggesting similar posters, and I would like and follow people from those suggestions to reward its guesses.

So why has it decided today that I must be fascinated in influencers who offer makeup tutorials and describe how white dudes over 40 keep fit? Did it just do a behind-the-scenes software update and do some shrinkage or regression to the mean? Ugh. That fitness guy's face and tight t-shirts give me such a negative visceral reaction when I scroll through looking for Islamic geometric art!

[mamselle]

That would indeed be a let-down.

Islamic geometric art would be much preferred in my book, too.

What era?

M.

[ergative]

Not necessarily the historical stuff (although I love the patterns from the Royal Alcazar of Seville and the Alhambra Palace) as the work by modern artists, who dive into the geometry and post tutorials about how to fit a particular style of pattern into a √3 or √2 rectangular frame. I don't necessarily follow the geometric principles, but I love trying to reconstruct the patterns.

[mamselle]

I hadn't realized there was a modern movement in that direction!

I've followed the older mosaics, but missed the updated efforts, thanks!

OK, back to whatever this thread is about.

Thirsty art historians have to quaff sustenance wherever the find it...

;--》

M.

[Economizer]

With all the attention given to the evacuations from Kabul, I've not heard anything about its effects on the opium agriculture and trade there. Has the drug smuggling and its components worldwide had any dramatic changes? Have the stronger manufactured addictives gotten bigger markets
due to transport problems from Afganistan recently? Were many of the large numbers of Americans there involved the huge international drug trade? Is there a difference in routes in the into U.S., and the types and strengths of dangerous processed concoctions and potions entering U.S.
territory due to Afghany occurrences? Are the villains of the world seizing opportunities arising from intentional lax enforcement at a time of distractions away from daily governmental responsibilitie, duties, and concerns? Well, from scant reports I've heard or read lately, I THINK THAT THESE ARE SO!

It just to me that FENTYNAL, an extremely powerful enhancement of cocaine/heroin (?) or such, thus dangerous, appeared to general awareness after U.S. military operations began in Afghanistan. Any connection?

[downer]

Who is excited for Windows 11?

[mamselle]

I'm excited to keep its grasping little hands off my computer for as long as possible.

But then, I'm a troglodyte that way.

Updates don't impress me, either.

M.

[apl68]

Our church projects song lyrics on a screen during worship services.  The words are often projected over background slides of beautiful landscapes.  One of these is a high-altitude view down a spectacular canyon.  I'm pretty sure I recognize it as a shot of Hell's Canyon on the Snake River in Oregon.  Doesn't that seem a little ironic in that context?

[Caracal]

Instagram's algorithm has suddenly lost the thread. I have a carefully curated timeline that contains only posters who create art in one of two extremely specific niches, and I only ever post in those niches myself. For a long time it was obediently suggesting similar posters, and I would like and follow people from those suggestions to reward its guesses.

So why has it decided today that I must be fascinated in influencers who offer makeup tutorials and describe how white dudes over 40 keep fit? Did it just do a behind-the-scenes software update and do some shrinkage or regression to the mean? Ugh. That fitness guy's face and tight t-shirts give me such a negative visceral reaction when I scroll through looking for Islamic geometric art!

Yeah, Instagram has gotten annoying with that stuff. The thing I like about it, as opposed to Facebook, is that it is very easy to make it a pleasant place that just has pictures of stuff you want to see. I usually don't get any negative feelings from scrolling through it because of that, so it feels really jarring when they start inserting weird stuff in.

[mamselle]

Our church projects song lyrics on a screen during worship services.  The words are often projected over background slides of beautiful landscapes.  One of these is a high-altitude view down a spectacular canyon.  I'm pretty sure I recognize it as a shot of Hell's Canyon on the Snake River in Oregon.  Doesn't that seem a little ironic in that context?

At least ironic. Maybe someone even had a prophetic sense of invoking apocalyptic imagery, too.

But (having taught art history and interacted with those for whom I've made very careful visual choices, only to find they don't "get" them or pay attention to them at all), it was more likely just basic, boring cluelessness.

A similar (very sharp) irony exists on the CD jacket for a group of Peter Abelard's chants.

As you may recall, Abelard was hounded, virtually to his death, by Bernard's self-serving persecutions. So what's the picture the CD company choses to put on the Abelard cover?

A picture of Bernard and his monks. (Probably because someone googled images of chant in churches from that era in France, and that's what showed up.)

I suspect Abelard's been doing revolutions in his Pere-la-Chaise tomb ever since. 

M.

[downer]

Microsoft has stopped support of its Outlook app for Chromebook. They are making users move to check their email on the web.

It was a terrible app on the Chromebook. But rather then solve the problems, they just abandoned it.

I use a Chromebook and I'm sure a lot of students do -- especially students on a tight budget. It seems that a large proportion of schools have put all their eggs in the Office 365 basket. I suspect that now even fewer students will be checking their school email frequently since they won't be getting notifications of emails that the app used to provide.