Things you need to know: 1. Students are occupying the James Administration building in protest of Deputy Provost Morton Mendelson’s efforts to de-fund CKUT and QPIRG. 2. For reasons that will have to be considered in another post, all McGill faculty, staff and students will now apparently receive an email any time anyone at a …
Author Archives: Jonathan Sterne
Who owns notes from professors’ lectures?
Today’s Gazette has a story in which I’m quoted about a new online service called Notesac (a rather unfortunate name). While it is mostly a banal case of a) students sharing notes and b) someone skimming profits off something at universities that wasn’t previously fully monetized, the real story here isn’t reported. The unfortunately-named “notesac” …
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The War of 1812: A Comparative Study in Nationalist Mythology
After having an anxiety dream last week about Tuesday morning’s citizenship exam, I got serious about studying for it. We’ve made flash cards and are practicing on a daily basis. It’s probably overkill, since immigrants who have English as a second language and not much schooling also have to be able to pass the test, …
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Why You Shouldn’t Publish with Lap Lambert, German Publishing House
This one’s mostly for the search engines as I’m sure most of my readers don’t need to hear this. I keep getting this spam email sent to me: Begin forwarded message: From: Yasmine Watson Date: February 2, 2012 2:15:30 AM EST To: Subject: Our Publication Offer: Your end-of-studies work Dear Essam Hallak, Some time ago …
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Public Speaking 101b
Okay, so I’ve been going to the speech therapist to see if there’s a way I can get back to giving talks while standing without my head spinning after a few minutes. Last time we worked on breathing, which helps but not enough. Today, I learned that I still use volume for verbal emphasis. Which …
A “Tipping Point” Just Happened Inside My Throat
Well, that was fun. As predicted in October, the voice lift I had was temporary, and it’s pretty much gone now as far as I can tell. I’ve noticed it in my voice, which has lost strength, low end and is more hoarse (the guy at our local fruiterie asked if I had a cold …
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New Text: Formatted to Fit Your Screen
Over on FlowTV, in which I consider the formatted characteristics of television: http://flowtv.org/2012/01/formatted-to-fit-your-screen/.