billso.com

The New York Times published an article yesterday about an mtvU television series called Professors Strike Back. MTV purchased RateMyProfessors.com last year, and has been offering professors a chance to respond to their anonymous online critics.

Universities have become more transparent and accessible in the last 10 years, and the Internet has been a primary force in these changes. Blogging and social networks are two tools that faculty have used to develop an online presence.

It is possible for faculty to take their blogging too far. Rate Your Students is a site where anonymous moderates post snarky comments from anonymous faculty members and the occasional student. Some of the articles on that site make me cringe, because I don’t see any need to strike back or retaliate. I teach, but it’s just a job. It’s not my life.

On the other hand, I never thought I’d see the day when professors were the focus of a reality television program. Teaching and entertainment have some parallels, but they are not the same thing.

In Hull, England, at least one automated teller machine was delivering twice the cash on Wednesday, according to Retuers. As people spread the word by telephone, a line quickly formed. Users withdrew up to £600 each. Receipts showed the amount each user entered from the keypad, but the machine actually delivered twice the cash.

Payzone, a company that administers ATMs, would not comment in detail on the incident but said it appeared one of its machines had malfunctioned.

Police said those who had benefited could face charges but only if the operator complained.

The police shouldn’t have a problem determining who took advantage of this error.

1. All of the account numbers were recorded for each transaction.
2. The malfunctioning ATM had a working video surveillance camera.
3. Mobile phone records might show who called who, as well as which cell tower their phones were using.

The Hull Daily Mail has much more detail about this story, including comments from local residents.

From today’s Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Honolulu city council members have voted to continue the rapid mass transit project. However, the council also decided to reconsider three system types: rail, bus and maglev. After 6 hours of discussion that focused on potential noise problems with rail and bus systems, Todd Apo added magnetic levitation to the list in a last-minute amendment.

 ”Tonight’s vote means that rail is still moving forward,” Mayor Mufi Hannemann said in a statement last night. “But it is a shame that the Council could not support the process it voted to create. The Council did not fully support the findings of the technical panel that a majority of the Council members voted for.”

On 22 February 2008, a panel appointed by the City Council recommended rail on a 4-1 vote. The Council’s unanimous vote yesterday means that councilmembers have broken their earlier promise to let their own panel’s decision stand. A few council members saw this panel as a mayoral attempt to sway the decision towards rail. See my 19 June 2007 article for more details.

The annual SXSW (South by Southwest) music show has wrapped up in Austin, Texas. The New York Times has a great article about the show. When i lived in Austin, I never went to SXSW. The crowds and traffic around downtown were insane.

The record companies look more and more like they are waging an endgame battle. When buyers no longer want or need what an industry offers, companies must reinvent themselves or die. Lou Reed tells a packed conference hall that bands need the Internet more than a record label. Daniel Lanois raves about his ability to sell music the day he recorded the session. REM performed its entire new album at a listening party, and no one questioned whether the songs would be posted to file sharing services. The only question was how long it would take before the tracks were freely available.

Bits vs atoms

Something smells inevitable here, and it’s not teen spirit. It’s the ubiquity of digital distribution, and how quickly North American and European consumers have embraced the new business model. Consumers still buy CDs, but sales volume continues to drop while legitimate online sales volume grows every quarter.
There’s another Times article this weekend about free music downloads, with these two quotes:

“Of course a panel on online music-business models was going to degenerate into a food fight,” wrote Joseph Weisenthal of paidContent.org.

The stew boiled over when Ted Mico, the head of digital strategy at Interscope/Geffen/A&M records, declared, “I need more marketing and promotion on the Internet like I need a root canal without anesthetic.”

With an attitude like that, I’m sure Ted was thrilled that blogger Perez Hilton hosted his own listening party at SXSW this year. According to this article on the AP, Perez merely attended last year’s conference. This year, he’s an industry player who may announce his own marketing and promotion deal with Warner soon. That’s another sign of endgame desperation. The day I need Perez Hilton to pick my music will be a sad day indeed.

One of my HPU colleagues, Sam Chepkevich, appears in this morning’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin. A photographer got a nice picture of Sam on his morning run around Diamond Head.

The accompanying article discusses the Hawaii Physical Activity and Nutrition Surveillance Report, which was released yesterday. The study’s results are another piece of evidence that many Hawaii residents do not exercise enough, nor do they eat properly.

Children aren’t getting enough exercise, which sets them up for a lifetime of health problems including obesity, hypertension and diabetes. I see plenty of overweight children and young adults every day, as I drive, walk and run around town. I’m surprised that some of these kids can get so heavy, since they cannot seem to sit still for a minute or two. They’d rather fidget and run around, even when they are eating a meal.

Guess who foots the bill for their health care? Everyone else in the state, through increased prices that help cover our mounting health insurance bills. Here’s a picture of a Chinese teenager who is a fine example.