New for your iPod... it's iCheat!!!

Wedging Cliff's Notes into your copy of The Scarlet Letter to take with you to the open-book essay exam just got a whole lot easier.

Introducing iPREPpress at http://ipreppress.com/Pages/studyguides.htm where, for only $4.95, you can download an entire copy of a Sparknotes study guide to your iPod.

At the moment, there are only eleven, only two of which are Shakespeare plays, but in the "Coming Soon" section we learn that the entire Sparknotes library is to be added. I can't help but think that this is a bad idea. We already have a blurring of the lines between scholarship and plagiarism with hypertext links. It's not cheating, Prof. Thrasher; it's an immediate form of citation wherein I link the original online text that I cut and pasted into my paper. There are already a few Universities in the US that do not accept hardcopies of papers and insist that students insert hypertext links to their sources. MLA Guide? We don't need no stinkin' MLA Guide. With iPREPpress, a student can now surrepticiously bring to bear ev'erything he or she might need to have on deck for the win.

Of course, the simple answer to this problem is to allow no form of electronic device into the testing environment. Sure, that's what CollegeBoard does, but the iPod has already wormed its way into the culture, not unlike the Sony Walkman of the '80's, such that the little white wires trailing down from the ears has become ubiquitous. What the hell? It's just a little vocabulary quiz. If listening to music while he tests helps him to focus, why that's because his learning style is auditory in nature; therefore, to remove the very focusing device for him would be no less a crime than taking an AlphaSmart from a special ed. kid. This is the slippery slope that we now tread: to say no electronic devices are allowed in the classroom is foolish, especially when teachers are evaluated based on their ability to integrate technology. Toward the bottom of this perilous downward spiral is allowing students their iPods.

Are we enabling cheaters? In a world where somewhere around a quarter to a third of high school seniors and entering freshmen do not believe a little bit of cheating is bad, am I turning into a Luddite?

By the way, smooches to the Apple propeller-heads for the iPod. I just got one for Christmas (at long last), and the musical clarity is A-MAZING!

Silent Night

"Silent Night" is, hands down, my favorite Christmas Carol. On Christmas Eve, 1914, peace broke out for a day during World War One when British troops overheard German troops singing "Stille Nacht,"recognized the tune, and began singing "Silent Night" along with them. British and German troops up and down the hideous gash that was the frontline put down their guns, walked out into No-Man's Land, and celebrated the better aspects of mankind.

I don't have anything political to point out here, and I certainly don't think this kind of thing can happen today (it only happened once in WWI), but I would like to say this: whether you go Christmas shopping or Holiday shopping, just remember that folks are folks. Appreciate your folks, and have a good version of whatever the heck you celebrate this time of year.

English Major Comedy

Okay, so my good friend and fellow Heathen Chet has posted something about "Bikini Calculus" on Heathen Central. For those of you with actual interest in figuring out the stress co-efficient of a string bikini, this may or may not be your cup of tea. http://www.howtodogirls.com/

Basically, it's poorly made video footage of women in skimpy clothing "teaching" calculus. Accordian Guy blogged it first on his site. http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/7/1439356.html

He comments that he doubts that the women have any idea what they're reading off of the teleprompter, but another guy points us toward Paige's bio which claims her as a Master's grad from MIT. http://www.howtodogirls.com/girls/Paige/stats.php

Now, for the English majors in the house who lingered this long looking for the English major joke, I refer you to the "What's your favorite preposition?" section of her bio: she says "but" is her favorite, but she uses "but" as a conjunction in the example she offers.

Stupid bitch.

Dept. of Please Don't Let This Be a Come-on

This was put together by one of my high school students and a couple of his friends. I forbear to speculate as to their motives. On one level, this is possibly one of the gayest (and yes, I do mean homosexual) things I've ever seen. On the other hand, it is a very well put together home video.

I hope you enjoy. http://media.putfile.com/humpzilla