Web Browsing- Professors' Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not - NYTimes.com 3 November 2008Do liberal faculty affect the political leanings of students? These people say no. But let's look a little deeper. One author says "it is really hard to change the mind of anyone over 15." Does this mean that the average American thinks about politics now the same way he did when he was 15? Yikes. It appears to imply that political opinions are not firmly rooted in ideas, but in feelings and prejudices. The article also suggests that the real problem is that students aren't actually being educated. They aren't getting the "good stuff." In fact, this may be the root of the problem. Even if students don't buy the liberalism of their teachers, they don't get much else either. Notable deficiencies appear in political and military history, especially of the West, but also include traditional literary criticism (and probably content), civics, and economics.
- Obama, Shaman by Michael Knox Beran, City Journal Summer 2008 3 November 2008Beran brilliant combines culture, religion, and literature into a powerful commentary on the religious aspects of Barack Obama's candidacy. The article is rich (and lengthy), but certainly worth digesting.
- Obama and the Politics of Crowds - WSJ.com 30 October 2008Fouad Ajami offers a rich and culturally insightful glimpse into Senator Obama's magic. He draws upon broad themes and key historical features of American cultural history to make his case for caution. Perhaps most telling is his observation about an American distinctive. Whereas the rest of the world champions equality, American has championed liberty. Obama offers the former, and the current financial panic has suspended Americans' faith in the latter. Consequently, we are on the verge of electing someone who inspires in the way a relgious leader, a messiah, does. But the religious hype quickly fades and people realize too late that they have been fleeced.
- America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree - Chronicle.com 24 October 2008Chronicle of Higher Ed points out the pointlessness of most bachelor's degrees.
- Professors' Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not - NYTimes.com 3 November 2008
Sep
22
Making the Help Desk happy
Filed Under Random Thoughts | 2 Comments
I had a funny experience today at work. I was trying to do some work in Excel but when I would copy or paste a cell, I would get an error saying “Unable to empty Clipboard” or something like that. Google revealed that others have had a similar problem, but none of the forums I read had any particularly good solutions. Everyone seemed to have different symptoms and different solutions/workarounds, but no one knew why it happened. In fact, one forum thread was open for over a year and without any solution (it was active for much of that time too).
One of the common symptoms, however, was the Remote Desktop Connection. Since my computer at work exists largely on the network, I figured that might have something to do with it. I finally emailed the Help Desk in Greensboro.
In my email, I included a verbatim description of the error message, a description of what I was trying to do when I got the error, a summary of my Google search results, and a 4-point list of the things I had tried to do (from clearing the clipboard in Excel to running the clipboard application from Start Menu > Run > clipbrd.exe).
About 30 minutes later (after I had gotten Excel to work again), I got a call from the Help Desk. This is the conversation:
“Hi, I’m from the Help Desk.”
“Hi, I’m glad to hear from you.”
“I’m having a hard time figuring out what the problem might be. Can I remote connect to your desktop?”
“Well, the problem seems to have fixed itself, so I’m not sure that would do any good.”
“Oh. Ok. Great…You know, dude, your email was awesome. Usually we get emails like ‘My Excel isn’t working.’ Yours was great.”
Moral: 90% of computer problems are between the keyboard and the chair. If you can quickly convince the Help Desk that your problem is in the 10%, and actually do about half their work for them, they’ll love you forever.