Category Archives: computing

Decimating Design

computing, personal 2019.11.18 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

I’m part of the generation that grew up on the first wave of cyberpunk, from movies like Blade Runner and television shows like Max Headroom, to countless books and graphic novels. There’s a lot to be said about how this work may have influenced our attitudes and philosophies, but one of the things that always caught my eye, probably because I was so young, was the visual motif of television/computer screens everywhere. The idea of being able to walk someplace and literally be unable to…

Making Planned Obsolescence Obsolete

computing, politics 2017.12.24 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Apple Faces A Pair Of Lawsuits After Admitting That They Slow Older iPhones (uproxx.com) My maternal grandfather was a big believer in making things on his own. Although my maternal grandmother’s vintage exercise bike is the one item I remember most from the basement of the house where Mom grew up, her father’s workshop was a very close second. I don’t have any memories of him actually making things down there, but I only visited the house for the winter holidays, and even if he’d…

.musecast Episode 8: Tech Envy

computing, musecast 2012.10.21 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

A trip to Best Buy to get a new UPS, combined with my needing to get a new cell phone and a tablet computer soon, have me thinking about tech stuff a lot now, so I figured I’d talk a bit about my history as a gadget geek and how I’ve really gotten away from that stuff in recent years, but I really need to be more aware of it because I need to know what sort of stuff my students are using. [Season 1…

The Weight of a Library

books, computing, personal 2012.09.16 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

About a week and a half ago, I took one of my classes to visit the campus library to learn how to do research there; like everywhere I’ve taught, the librarians there hold special classes where they teach students how to use the online databases the library subscribes to, so I have an opportunity to sit back and just add little tidbits and anecdotes to what the librarian has to say. I don’t think I’ve ever had one of these library instruction classes go so…

Blah-gging for a Decade

computing, internet, personal 2011.03.31 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

In the wee hours of the first of April, 2001, I decided to try this thing I’d just heard of on TechTV called “blogging.” The .org had been around for about five months at that point, and at first my blog was separate from the .org, hosted on Blogspot, until I integrated it with the .org later. That first night I wondered if Blogger would automatically adjust the time for Daylight Savings Time, since I’d literally created the blog in the last minutes before the…