Climb Aboard the All-Bran Fiber Optic Wagon

 

So today, the city came and finished the installation of our new fiber optic internet connection. Exciting times. That means I spent a good portion of my day trying to get the new wifi router connected and our service started.

Good news on that front -- though the city's instructions need a bit of work, the new fiber connection is working.

First of all, let's look at speed.

Here's what Michelle's computer was getting with our DSL connection, via wifi:

And this is is what I'm getting on our fiber connection via wifi:

Not exactly the leap in speed I was hoping for, but still it's a great leap forward on what we were getting from our previous provider.

My work computer, however, has to have a wired connection. That meant drilling a hole through the floor to sling an ethernet cable through, and I wasn't too sure I wanted to do that. I actually ended up drilling three holes -- took the last one to finally get a hole all the way through. I'll have to go in with some carpet plugs and do a little repair before Michelle gets home.

But the wired connection works. Here's the speed:

A significant bump on the upload, which is kinda cool. So I think I'm going to get more ethernet cable and drop another line into the study so I can have two wired connections here. Seems worth it, and since I've already got the holes drilled, it'll only be a matter of pulling more wire and tidying up the mess.

We have some bills to settle for the installation. The service itself from Fybercom is $9.99 a month, and we have to pay the city $16.50 a month for the infrastructure. Then there's the matter of paying for the local improvement district that brought fiber to the neighborhood to the tune of about $2,000 which we can pay as a lump sum or over time. On the surface that looks like a lot, but considering when we moved into town they said it would cost about $20,000 if we wanted fiber brought to the house, we'll take this deal.

Careful With Them Big Fingers

A sudden workplace memory:

\My job used to involve updating binders of paper records. Often the updates were huge and held together by rather tough and large rubber bands, big enough one could make a slingshot out of them if one were in the mood.

Once in my cubicle I was playing with one of the rubber bands, wrapping it around and through the fingers on my right hand. My cubicle was at the intersection of a rather busy set of corridors, one of which led to the cafeteria and bathrooms.

As the head of the entire project -- a rather loud and boisterous man -- walked past my cubicle, I lost control of the rubber band and it shot out of my cubicle at speed, missing the big boss by inches.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" he shouted.

I heard the rubber band land in the alcove where the printers and plotters were.

"What? Didn't see anything," said one of those in his entourage.

"Somethin' flew past my head. Musta been a bug."

They proceeded down the hallway, as I pounded on my heart with my stapler to get it going again.

*That* is the kind of stuff I miss, not working in the office anymore

I Am David: A Parable of Trust

That it's hard to know whom to trust is true, even for those of us who've lived normal lives.

But Anne Holm's David, from the novel "I Am David" which I read as a kid under the title of "North to Freedom," did not live a normal life. He grew up in a camp -- what kind of camp is never made clear in the book. But he's a boy who only knew kindness from few, some of it disguised so he did not know what it was.

This morning, I'm watching Paul Feig's 2004 telling of the tale. And while I've got some quibbles with the screenplay (Fieg, it appears, messed with the character of Johannes from the book, placed the story more firmly in a Cold War setting, and reduced the religious element from David praying constantly to "the God of the green pastures and the still waters" to a moment with a saint recommended by a baker the boy encounters) the story is a good story on trust, maybe Trust with the big T.

If we grow up not knowing whom to trust, the world is a terrible place. David learns that the world outside of the camp may not be perfect, but trusting others and letting them trust you is the only way to make life bearable.

And David, like the rest of us, needs to learn that one bad deed does not a bad person make -- though it's easy to understand why he distrusts, considering the place he grew up in.

He has the following conversation with Maria, a girl he saves from a fire shortly after her brother Carlo beats him up just for the fun of it:

Do you like your brother Carlo?

Oh yes. But he makes fun of me a lot. He calls me crybaby. But I don't cry as much as I used to. Do you like him?

There's a lot of people I don't like.

Why not?

Because the world is filled with terrible people, Maria. And they all do terrible, evil things. I've seen them.

You don't think that we are terrible people, do you?

No, not at all.

Not even Carlo?

And David doesn't answer.

The movie takes more liberties with the story than it should, inserting stuff that's not needed, skipping over stuff that was central to Holm's story.

But in changing the tale, maybe Feig does us a service by bringing different elements into the story to show us that even in our modern world, we should learn to trust despite the terrible people we've encountered, because we're not perfect ourselves. Trusting ourselves despite our own shortcomings might be the first step to take in trusting others.

UPDATE: Yuck. Though this is a parable of trust, Feig shouldn't have been trusted with this story. Spoiler for those who read the book: David gets as far as Switzerland, and then is flown to Denmark. I know Holm spends most of her narrative time in Italy and Switzerland, but she doesn't fly him there. I think this ending cheapens the story.

Post 3,678

In my heady journalism days, I dreaded Anniversaries.

The Teton Dam Flood, that was something we had to write about every year.

And the attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor. Nevermind that happened in freaking 1941, if we didn't at minimum run an Associated Press article about the anniversary, we got angry calls and letters. So to appease, we almost always had some mention in a prominent place.

I hated it. I would have rebelled. But I wasn't the one having to deal with the angry calls and letters.

Thus this post. Post 3,678. An odd number, but it's the number of posts I've made since I started this blog. Funny thing is, I started a blog prior to this one, but it's been lost to the mists of time.

Not Helping, Turnitin

 

So, what's more important? Confirming plagiarism or protecting privacy?

Turnitin, the goofball service my university employs to detect plagiarism, is erring on the side of privacy.

Problem is, I don't exactly trust Turnitin to get things right. They might flag something as plagiarized, but it's up to the wet robots -- us instructors -- to look at what they've flagged to make that judgment call.

With the veil of privacy pulled down, I can't do that verification. Without the verification, I can't say for sure my student plagiarized.

They do offer the option of contacting the university through their service to see if I can get access to the paper Turnitin flagged, but I have no idea how long that'll take, particularly with a foreign university.

I don't suspect this student is plagiarizing. What I'm seeing is about 98% inadvertent. I just don't see the point of working with a service that can't necessarily provide the goods.

How Do You Do, Fellow Gen Z Searchers?

So earlier today I read this Business Insider article, and it set me to thinking.

Wondering, of course, if the youths really were using Instagram and Tik Tok for their searches. And whether what I was reading was even being reported accurately. Because "searches" seems an awfully broad category. What, exactly, are they searching for? I joked on Facebook that if Gen Z is using Tik Tok and Instagram for their searches -- read, research -- it might explain why I'm getting some of the odd results I'm seeing in my online English class.

But "searches" doesn't necessarily mean "research," so I thought I'd better keep reading. And asking questions.

I'm asking my students this question: Where are you finding the information you use in class? Are you using social media for your searches? And these are probably not even the right questions at this point, but I'm intrigued, particularly after I read this TechCrunch article to which Business Insider linked, and one phrase used in a KSL Radio report on the information as well: visual searches. That right there made me reconsider the Boomer "the sky is falling because the youths don't know how to research anymore" knee-jerk the news first inspired in me.

I suspect the divergence or disconnect isn't as broad as I initially thought.

I shared the following with my online students today:

Students, I stumbled across this article (Links to an external site.) today and wanted to ask you about it.

I am trying to come into this potential conversation without judgment, yet at 50 years old I'll admit this is how it feels on the outset:

I'm curious. Do you use any form of social media in your research? What are you finding there?

I'm not old school enough to believe that encyclopedias are the be-all and end-all of research; I didn't much like using them as a kid in those dinosaur-riding, pre-internet days. But since we had a set at home and they meant I could at least start on things without a trip to the library, I used them a lot.

But the Internet, clearly, has opened up countless avenues where information -- both good and bad -- can be presented for consumption. And that's a great and wonderful blessing.

So, help an old guy out, and without any judgment from me at all because I'm curious to know what's out there: Where are you going to find what you need? And don't respond like you think you should in an English class. I don't care about getting "correct and proper" responses that a snooty old English teacher wants to hear. I want to hear what you're doing, so I can find a pry-bar to open my mind again and see the possibilities.

People of my age and older (and maybe some younger) seem to think a lot of what's presented on the Internet is a joke or inaccurate or in no way relevant to anything "serious." Prove that wrong. I'm sure there are wonderfully intelligent people out there showing marvelous things on social media. Help me see it.

I'll share something:

I consider myself to be handy around the house, but there are some realms I don't care to wander into very much. One of them is auto repair or general tinkering. Earlier this summer, my 2015 Honda Pilot wouldn't start. I surmised I had a bad starter, but was intimidated by replacing the unit. The car sat in our driveway for three weeks until I finally . . . called a tow truck and had them take it to the mechanic to fix. Best $89 I spent so far this year, and that was just for the tow.

But then my air conditioning started making an odd "whump" sound and was not producing enough cool air for my liking. I turned to the Internet and discovered the symptoms described could be attributed to a dirty cabin air filter. I also discovered that while the filter only costs about $24, getting one professionally installed would cost another hundred dollars.

So I found this video:

The idea of doing all of this work was intimidating. But when I was at the auto parts store getting an engine air filter, I also picked up a cabin air filter. And then . . . I followed the video instructions and replaced the filter myself. And the symptoms went away and I have to wear a coat in my car now when the AC is running.

So pry open my mind a bit: How are you using social media (and YouTube counts) for research?

Sofar, one response, not outside the realm of what I expected:

While I don't actually have Instagram or Tik-Tok (it is definitely a choice not to use those), I do have and use YouTube a lot. I don't use it in the way the article suggests though and I could never see myself looking up places to eat on it or anything like that. However, I do frequently use Pinterest to find recipes and other inspiration instead of searching on Google. Like you, I will look up tutorials on social media sites and they are often helpful. However, I will just as often google tutorials as well. I also use YouTube both in and out of school settings. There are tons of channels that are helpful for research and I have had several courses here at BYU-I that use YouTube links to teach me as well. The other cool thing about these channels is that many have started using YouTube shorts. Like it sounds, they're short videos similar to Tik-Tok. I can see people searching the way the article describes, however, by choice, I do not act like most kids in my generation. Google is still the go-to place for me.

There are definite times when a visual result is highly valued. The filter I used in my example came with installation instructions, but they paled in comparison to the YouTube video I found that inspired me to actually do the work (I looked at the instructions only after the work was done).

So this may not be as revelatory as I initially thought, but it's still an interesting avenue of exploration. It all goes back to something David Hailey taught when I was working on my masters degree: We can't anticipate from where internet users will find the information we present on the internet, nor should we assume that they'll use the information we present in the way we intend. I'm going to keep asking these questions and refining them to see what I can come up with, and maybe use the knowledge to help me become a better English teacher.

Authentic Instructional Gibberish

About a year or so ago, we replaced the water heater in our camper. The previous heater froze up and burst after we loaned it to friends building a house,

When you put a new water heater in an old camper, of course, there are always complications. In this case, it was that the old one had a pilot light one lit from the outside of the camper, while the new one has an electronic ignition system. That's all and good -- an electronic system that you start with the flick of a switch is a heck of a lot handier. But that meant installing a new electric system to go with it.

Now, I am fairly handy at some things. Electrics, however, are not within my realm. But thankfully we know some people who tinker, and they got the water heater working this weekend at Island Park Scout Camp, where Michelle is for the summer. I spent a good portion of my day yesterday gathering the parts they requested -- in fact, gathered quite a few parts they ended up not using, but at least they were there if needed. I'm just happy the thing is working.

Part of getting it working was interpreting the instructions provided with the unit, which weren't all that great. First of all, it's a set of instructions for several models -- never a good situation to be in-- because which model are we dealing with? Then there are the little things. in the operations section, the user is directed to "turn the switch" to turn the heater on. None of the switches involve turn. Turning implies a specific action that can't be accomplished with the tools provided.

Then there's the tools provided: Those handy supply chain issues meant the standard switch called for indirectly in the instructions (and it does not turn either) was not available, so I had to guess at what was needed.

I'm just glad it's working.

[Agonized Musical Groaning]

Yesterday, I broke my glasses.

Maybe that was a good thing. Today, the eye doctor detected early signs of cataracts. Nothing to worry about now, but something to be aware of for the future.

I haven't been near any Lifebuoy, however. Strange.

Messy, Messy, Messy . . . Part II

An oops at Island Park Scout Camp late on Monday -- and early into Tuesday. A bear got into the "bear-proof" trash bins.

I particularly appreciate the nose print in the first photo.

Michelle, whose camper is about fifty yards from the bins, said she heard the bear again at about 1:30 Tuesday morning. She and others had to clean up the mess. Glad it wasn't me.

We're headed up there next week. Whee.

She says the bear bent the bin lids so they don't close anymore. Not good.

Messy, Messy, Messy . . .

Hey Ammon recyclers, we can do better than this.

Yes, I was disappointed when I got to the recycling drop-off and saw there was no room for my plastics.

If there's no room, don't heap your plastics - or anything else loose like this. Any little bit of wind (and the wind, she does blow around here) will have the top layer of this stuff over the snow fence and into the yard next door, where there's already some wind-blown cardboard.

I spent about ten minutes cleaning up trash around the bins and then took the trash and my plastics home because we shouldn't leave a mess for the city or the folks next door.

I'd say another plastics bin would help but the city has at least two cardboard bins there and I cleaned up quite a bit of cardboard and put it in one of the empty bins because it gets heaped up too and people just keep dropping it off.

Should add to this that there's almost always some unrecyclable stuff dropped off there too. Today it was two pressure-treated fence posts and some laminate.

Sure, you don't want that stuff on your property anymore. But this isn't the place to drop off your junk. Man up and pay the fee at the county construction yard for that stuff.

This is a free service offered by the city. We should not make that free service a public nuisance.