Reading Online vs. Print

an interesting article from the new york times on kids and reading on-line. it raises many questions for me on how i spend my time as well as what i emphasize in class. should i be requiring the e-book edition of the text instead of the print?

Gender Words

i recently bough "MySQL in a Nutshell" from O'Reilly. and was intrigued by the usage of her as a pronoun so i did a quick google and found this response from the publisher to another buyer's similar question. my first response to the practice of alternating the gender is YAY! i enjoy having the generic be a woman. trivial? yes. but still when i am reading along and it says "she" i do in fact think 'hey it is talking about me!' which says i am more affected by gender language than i would like to admit. and i would dearly love it if english did come up with a grammatically correct gender neutral set of words for this usage (without it sounding so ugly as we have culturally made "it" sound)

my response to the guy that originally wrote the letter is "dude, if you are going to reject books that contain good technical information merely because they use a pronoun that you find offensive than you don't deserve the knowledge they contain." we all can choose to be offended or not. i personally chose to try my best to not be offended when people assume i am a guy or assume because i am a woman i have a particular role (except pregnancy that is an acceptable assumption of gender role). i don't always succeed but i do know that i wouldn't let it stand in my way of obtaining an education from a person or a book. this guy and his offense to using the feminine form would not be a welcome addition to my classroom.

and as long as i am rambling about gender... i heard on NPR that a postal worker is trying to get permission to wear a kilt to work (technically a male unbifurcated garmet). i think if men aren't allowed to wear kilts then women shouldn't be allowed to wear skirts.

age discrimination

i ran into the site http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/ and found it funny and generally of like mind to me. i don't believe in age discrimination so i am not fundamentally opposed to having an older president. i do think that in generally older people have additional obstacles but there a wide varients on when old is old. there is a friend here who is approaching 80, but still a good thinker etc. mccain however i think shows his thought age more in this post linked to below than his physical age and i have to agree with the post that i'm not sure a person who chooses to not use a computer can be an effective president.

The computer.

Chemistry in Bite Size

i disclose personal bias in that i own stock in BASF and i wanted at one time to work for them because they really do some great chemistry...

they produce a pretty cool podcast that i just found today on chemistry in everyday life.

An Interesting Tale on How the World is Small

i read spectrum magazine's site on and off... usually what i read is well done.
here's a story that you all might enjoy reading.