I had a weird confrontation with a work colleague the other day, which left me confused and reflecting on a Tom Robbins’s quote: “The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens – but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end … [Read more...]
“Shared” Reality
11/25/20: I was thinking of metaphors for miscommunication when I visualized wires getting crossed. And then I wondered: does that even make sense these days? Is the new metaphor – the bits must have flipped? “Shared” reality (is/can be/may be) significantly flawed... ? ! 12/01/20: I was scheduling a Zoom meeting with Millennials, and I wrote in the email: "I sent a mtg invite for tmw so we can get dialed in and iron out any wrinkles." What would be the appropriate … [Read more...]
What We Find in a Riverbed
I was navigating the choices of being grumpy or grateful when reflecting on WMG's March 9 river cleanup day. We were picking up a myriad of plastic, styrofoam, cloth, and other human-made items; whatever tossed off parts of consumerism that ended up in the Rillito's riverbed. Pulling all of that human detritus from the homes of birds and lizards and hares and coyotes - not to mention spiders, butterflies, bees, snakes, and all of the other riparian critters and … [Read more...]
Tucson’s Annual Rainfall
Jamie Manser LIS 518 - Verifiable Information Assignment Due: April 18, 2017 Fact: Tucson Averages 12 Inches of Precipitation Yearly According to one media source and three governmental sources, the Tucson area averages approximately 12 inches of rainfall per year. The averaged data of Tucson's inches-per-year of rain is culled from four sources whose annual precipitation information on Tucson ranges from 120 years (1895-2015, from a 2016 KJZZ article and … [Read more...]
Sharing/Spreading Lies (or Untruths, Alternative Facts, Falsehoods)
Jamie L. Manser LIS 518 - Information Quality Week 5: Quality Control We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge. - Tom Waits interviews Tom Waits During this last election season, an avalanche of fake news on the candidates crammed social media, outperforming fact-based news stories in terms of Facebook engagements (defined as shares, reactions and comments). According to BuzzFeed Founding Editor Craig Silverman’s article, in the last … [Read more...]