Austin, Here I Come

I am booked, and registered at the Hilton. Doing it in style this time. The newly posted panel schedule looks interesting, especially this one: “Why Are Women Invisible on the Web: Whose Butts Should We be Kicking?”. While I like to kick ass as much as the next punk rock girl, I wonder if the answer isn’t “our own”. And look, boss, there is also “The Future of Education in a Digitally Convergent World”, “Serious Games for Learning”, “Web Standards and Search Engines: Searching for Common Ground” (an issue of late), and a session by Peter Moreville, who is the mentor of a friend of mine and I’ve always wanted to hear speak. Plus a great group of .edu folks, standardistas, and party animals that I know are also attending. Can’t wait!

On Evolution

I really wasn’t going to write about this, because I think the whole “debate” has gotten way to much press. But now can’t stand it anymore and I have to say this: The definition of evolution is “A change in the genetic structure of a population over time.” That’s it. That’s all there is to it. I can recite it forwards and backwards, because I had to answer the question “What is evolution?” on at least 5 exams when I was a biology undergrad. Notice how there is absolutely no reference to the origins of life, Darwin, Natural Selection, or any higher being in the definition of evolution. “A change in the genetic structure of a population over time.” This is also not a theory. We proved it in my first biology lab in college, which took about 4 hours. We had a bunch of petri dishes with cultures of bacteria on them which were all taken from the same population. We subjected some of the petri dished to ultraviolet radiation, which is known to cause DNA mutations. We then subjected all the petri dished to an antibiotic. In the ones that had not been radiated, all the bacteria died. In the ones that had been radiated, almost all the bacteria died. But some lived. Then we waited a while, and on the plates where some bacteria lived, there was soon as much bacteria living there as there was before we added the antibiotic. We then added the same antibiotic to these plates again. All the bacteria lived. The bacteria of that population weren’t susceptible to that antibiotic anymore, because bacteria that had radiation-caused mutations that made them resistant to the antibiotic had thrived in that population. The genetic structure that bacteria population had changed over time. By definition, the bacteria had evolved. There is no question about this, and it assumes nothing about how the bacteria got here in the first place, or any goal that they were evolving “toward”. Evolution is not a theory, and is provable with very simple experiments. Natural Selection is a theory about the mechanism that causes evolution. It is a theory that has so much support that it’s right up there with gravity, electricity, and other scientific theories that have made important contributions to our understanding of our world, and that really aren’t theoretical anymore. I don’t have kids, and don’t plan on having any, but if I did you would be welcome to teach them about Intelligent Design in school. In fact, I would expect you to— in the same comparative religion class where you teach them about Christianity, Judeaism, Bhuddism, Islam, Jainism, Wicca, Voodoo, and at least a few Native American religions.

My Little Brush with Death

Last night, I choked on a french fry. Literally. Brian had to give me he Heimlich Maneuver three times before I could breathe again. I don’t have much else to say about the whole thing, except that I don’t recommend it. I didn’t have any profound life-flashing-before my eyes or go-toward-the-light moments. It all happened so fast there was no time for any of that. I am grateful for whoever it was that taught Brian and I the Heimlich Maneuver— I have a feeling it must have been in Health class in elementary school, so I guess that wasn’t as useless as I thought it was. And I am also grateful that I still have a chance to die in a more dignified way than choking on crappy fried food. Ok, they were actually good french fries, but still.

Steve Krug on University Web Development

This excerpt from Steve Krug’s keynote presentation at HighEdWebDev 2005 just made my morning (via Collegewebeditor.com):

Top 9 reasons why it s*cks to be you

California Uber Alles

On returning from my incredibly short vacation to Hawaii, I was greeted with freezing temperatures, unrelenting rain, darkness at about 4:30 thanks to the wonders of daylight savings time, and the realization that the budget situation at work is worse than I thought. I was told that some stuff I though might be happening at work will definitely NOT be happening, due of course to financial issues. I left work wondering how in the hell the state with an economy larger than that of most countries can have absolutely no money for education. Then, KSLG came to my rescue once again, by playing all four versions of the Dead Kennedys’ California Über Alles back to back. Each one pays tribute to a different governor of California in a way only the Dead Kennedys can, from the 1979 original about Jerry Brown, to the 1984 Ronald Reagan version, to the 2005 tribute to the Governator. But my personal favorite was the 1992 cover by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy that roasts Pete Wilson, and contains the lines

I’ll keep cuttin’ Public Education
even though we rank 45th in the nation

Aloha, I’m Outta Here

Well, that buzz is gone. The evaluations came in today, and killed what was left of it. Reality had pretty much already done the job by then, though. I am at a point where I am reevaluating a lot of things in my life, and this blog is one of them. I have found myself censoring my posts more and more, especially after publicly speaking on university web issues. The goal of this site was always to be a personal expression for all aspects of myself, even the parts that aren’t so pretty and aren’t geared toward finding myself future work and opportunities. However, as soon as I started getting work and opportunities from it, the personal expression started getting stifled. Now it all feels false. Cameron Moll even killed my tagline (“Where redesign is the the new black”)— now it has a built in reminder that I am good but not great. Actually, maybe that’s the part that isn’t false. I have considered pulling an Oxton, or moving the personal stuff to another site. That is a false dichotomy, though, and I will end up with two sites that I neglect instead of just one. So I don’t know what will happen. Luckily, my little sister has the good sense to be getting married a week from today, and to be doing so on the Big Island of Hawaii. This gives me a legitimate excuse to go spend a week in a 5-star hotel in a tropical paradise and drown my sorrows in coconut and rum-filled drinks. There will also be a fancy dress involved at one point, and as always, some kick-ass shoes. Life could be worse. I will not be blogging from Hawaii, but I won’t be leaving my brand new powerbook home all by itself, either. If you’re interested, you’ll probably be able to keep up with my shenanigans on Flickr.