I have written about the value of seeing humor in the futility of existence (see this and this) but humor can also be found in the existence of futility. Below is a motivational video that demonstrates this fact. Enjoy…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XI3U8eupNQ[/youtube]
As the young man says, “You can do anything that you think that you can do.” Well, may be not!
A few randomly selected blog posts…
We Feel Fine is a web-installation, "a self-organizing particle system," art project that is powerful and touching - building as it does on people's emotions, harvested from blog postings from around the world. As the designers say, "We hope it makes the world seem a...
Note: When Sean of Nashworld asked me to guest blog while he was gone I had a couple of different things I wanted to write about. Something I had been wanting to write about for a long time was the idea of how different media engender different ways of meaning making....
A design created in celebration of Pi-day, 2019. (More context about the day here and more about the number itself here). As always, the OofSI team celebrates Pi(e) day by offering a selection of Pi(e)'s - exactly at 1:59 PM. Totally irrational I know! Apart from...
Finally science has proved what I knew all along, doodling is a sign of an alert mind and may actually help memory!! Another justification for this, I guess.
The new year begins with the publication of 2 key articles in our series Rethinking Technology and Creativity in the 21st Century. Co-authored with Danah Henriksen and the Deep-Play Research Group these two articles seek to develop a better understanding of where...
Back in March of this year, Joel Colbert (friend and former chair of the AACTE Innovation and Technology Committee) spent a few hours working together on a document that AACTE was going to put out. Yesterday, at the meeting of the NTLS meeting in Washington DC, I...
Herbert Simon, famously wrote: Everyone designs who devises courses of actions aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The first two words in this quote are now the title of a recently published journal article (with Danah Henriksen and William...
Students can sometimes perceive scientific ideas to be in conflict with their common sense. How do we approach such conflicts in the classroom? Do we see these commonsense ideas as being wrong or, at best, misconceived? Alternatively, do we see them as resources and...
TPACK Newsletter, Issue #25: October 2015 (Updated) Welcome to the twenty-fifth edition of the (approximately bimonthly) TPACK Newsletter! TPACK work is continuing worldwide. This document contains recent updates to that work that we hope will be interesting and...
Thanks Stewart. I have always appreciated your comments on this blog. This one was no exception. The inclusion of pastrami, gratuitous as it may have been, was just right. As the young man in the video says, “You just have to believe in yourself, formulate a plan of action, and follow through with it.” A perfect recipe for a massive headache.
Absurdity and futility are the soul of humor. That and pastrami. I find that too often people live in crisis, losing perspective. Humor is a balance. It’s a speedbump that stops the slide down the wrong end of the roller coaster.
When I was diagnosed with cancer many years ago, my doctor wanted to operate immediately. I put him off, explaining that “Wrestlemania” was only a week away and I needed to know who won the heavyweight championship before going under the knife. He lectured me about the danger and attempted to negotiate alternatives with me. We could DVR the event, he suggested. Perhaps I could be isolated until I could relive the event so the outcome wouldn’t be spoiled.
His voice was deep with concern and thick with empathy. A consummate professional. And all I wanted was a chuckle from him, or at least a smile. It was working the wrong room at Vegas.