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Hanging out with some friends earlier, got me thinking about this. I forget the circumstances of the discussion to start this post germinating in my head.
One of the tools people have for seeking a new job is their social networks and increasingly the online ones. LinkedIn seems to be the popular social network for this. (BTW, I’m glad to give recommendations for anyone I’ve worked with and seeking a job there.)
I can’t say that I would know what everyone in my Facebook “friends” list does. A possible solution is for Facebook to provide a filter displaying current employer and position similar to its phone book filter for the friends page. Users can only see phone numbers both entered and selected to be available, so similar permission-based exposing work information ought to apply.
Until then, it appears one can click on position and employer to search who else lists them. One can also edit the cp= variable in the URL. Change “System” in the example below to “Photographer”.
Example URL: http://www.facebook.com/search/?cp=System&o=2048
The o= appears to be the kind of page, so that should remain 2048 for “People”.
If your search term uses spaces, then use a plus sign (“+”) or ascii code (“%20″) to represent the space.
Example: System+Support+Specialist
I’m sure there are better ideas out there.
Southern Pages
The Georgia Public Service Commission might stop requiring AT&T to distribute paper phone books. The rationale seems to be so many people rely on the Internet and use cell phones the phone books are less useful. That only one percent of people inside the Atlanta perimeter asked for one definitely supports stopping the service. Phasing out delivery would start with with larger populations.
I have only used a phone book once in the past 5 years. I wrote about Georgia Theatre weird phone calls. The local municipal web site provided 4 generic department numbers which didn’t help me much. The last place I lived used to publish the direct line of people in the phone book, so I tried White Pages. When I also didn’t find it there, I tried the text version just in case. Sadly, none gave me what I hoped. So I ended up calling a generic number and after wasting several people’s time, left a message for someone to call me back.
AT&T is only one of three entities offering me a phone book at both home and work. Southern Pages happened to leave a bunch of them where I could take a picture. All this duplication is a waste. I feel like I should only receive at most one every few years as a backup in case online sources are down or not useful.
I would be curious how often information in the books change over a half, one, two, five, and ten year periods. I wouldn’t be surprised if 70% of numbers in phone books don’t change over 5 years.
Whenever I read on the concerns of biracial adoption, I think of the high school classmate who said it was immoral for me to exist. His point was blacks and whites should not have children, therefore someone like, a product of miscegenation was the result of an immoral act. Perhaps that is a step up from the surprise people had that whites and black could have children or that the children were not like mules. We’ve gone from thinking we are of different taxonomic orders to separating us until the taxonomic orders become true.
The genetics show we are of the species. The true fear is the culture lines are blurring faster than preservationists can control. Kids dance to other culture’s music. We eat each other’s culinary master pieces. We study each other’s visual arts. Remaining separated from other cultures seems pointless in a world shrinking with every new invention and catastrophe.
Children are sponges, ready to absorb whatever culture we exposing them. Years ago that was just the values, practices, knowledge, and attitudes of where we lived. Today, with integrated neighborhoods, restaurants of every ethnicity, ease of travel to anywhere in the world, and even media, we can allow children to see so much more than our grandparents could experience. Worrying about everything a child could experience ought break down parents who cannot accept what isn’t part of the genetic background could be good too.
I was approached one day by a friend whose cousin was about to have an interracial child. The family was in turmoil over how would the child grow up by not being the correct race. My best advice to my friend was all those concerns would evaporate as soon as they saw the child. The connection to family, aka love, is what matters. All this other drivel is based on fear of the unknown.
Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms.
Abdu’l-baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha
There seems to be an odd nervousness about white parents in raising children who are not white. They fear raising their children to lose the culture behind the child’s genetics. Having not been raised in that culture, they make an effort for their children to have exposure. My very blond mother took us visit family in southside neighborhoods where she was obviously out of place. She did all this and she gave me half my genes. Mom very much realized taking me to visit museums, Kennedy Space Center, Montezuma Castle, other countries, other Baha’i communities, even huge shopping centers were also important for shaping my “culture”. The purpose was to expose me to knowledge, attitudes, and values I’d otherwise not attain from the simple school-home-friends circles I already used.
The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
Bahá’u'lláh
Parents should stop thinking in terms of one culture vs. another culture. We have the amazing opportunity to take the best of all cultures.
When it comes to fashion I’m not the brightest candle. After all, my “style” has been the same since 2000 and regularly ridiculed by those have some sense. So it took me a whole week in Haifa to realize about half of the young women in nice clothes wore head to toe black and quarter wore a black skirt/pants with a white or gray top. Often the coats were a dark gray or dark brown, not necessarily black. These colors struck me as seeming weird.
On the promenade in Tel Aviv, we walked by a store who claimed the style of the season was white and black. Everything in the store used just those two colors.
Back here in the US, I looked to see if the same trend existed here. Truly people here are a rainbow of color.
I do think the absence of the rainbow of color started to bother me.
And… Yes, there were quite a number of really attractive women which drew my attention. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
Reading the comments on stories for the Athens Banner Herald, Atlanta Journal Constitution, or even the Chronicle of Higher Education very much disappoints me. For some reason I hope for suggested solution and messages of encouragement. Guess I ought to stop reading the comments sections.
Two vendors.
Both think the problem must be the other’s fault. Because you know… Their product is perfect. They never have design issues. Ever. So it must be someone else’s fault.
Problem 1:
Upon loading the zip package into the CE/Vista SCORM module, the end user saw:
The SCORM package is not compliant with SCORM Ver 1.2 Conformance Requirements. All supporting schemas must be at the root of the package; the following schemas were not found at the root: [adlcp_rootv1p2.xsd, imscp_rootv1p1p2.xsd, imsmd_rootv1p2p1.xsd] As a result, the package may not perform as desired. Are you sure you want to continue?
I actually feel bad for not immediately recognizing this meant these XSD files needed to be in the zip file. Blackboard ought to feel bad for having the response this means the imsmanifest.xml in the file was written for a more current version of SCORM than the rather ancient 1.2. I could understand that response if specific items in the file are only relevant in the current version. I don’t understand that response when the same file which works with Vista 3 (created about the same time as SCORM 1.2) works and Vista 8 doesn’t. Sounds more like something changed in Vista 8 to make it more strict.
Fixing the missing XSDs files resulted in a new error:
The SCORM package could not be imported because it does not comply with one or more specifications within the package. The following error was produced: **Parsing Error** Line: 7 Message: cvc-complex-type.2.4.c: The matching wildcard is strict, but no declaration can be found for element ‘lom’. Please inform the SCORM vendor and try again once the problem has been resolved.
Is it wrong to be excited about an error? Dropping the problematic items from the imsmanifest.xml file produces new errors. After five iterations, I don’t seem to be making much progress.
Problem 2:
This SCORM module simply passes to an HTML file with JavaScript some variables to send the user off to the QuestionMark site. It should not this big of a deal.
Somehow Vista 8 is calling the file where it doesn’t exist for the QuestionMark SCORM module but not other modules.
QuestionMark addres:
/webct/scorm/viewer/perceptionSCO.htm?call=scorm&
session=9999999999999999&
href=https://ondemand.questionmark.com/delivery/session.php&
lang=-&customerid=mcg
Known good SCORM module address:
/webct/RelativeResourceManager/999999999999/filename.html
The number after RelativeResourceManager typically can be found under “View File Information” in the file manager. The file name after the number is the name of a file in the zip. Copying the address for the known good let me view it. At this point it seemed logical I could just build the address to the QuestionMark zip manually and see it as a designer (maybe not as a student). Unfortunately, this gives me system exception errors.
Last Solutions:
In trying to solve two problems with one stone, I took the imsmanifest.xml for the known good SCORM module and just changed the href= for resource and file to use the perceptionSCO.html file name for QuestionMark. Still failed to find the file.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT…
I removed all the variables after the perceptionSCO.htm. Now Vista finds the file. It gives me errors about not having the values in those variables, but it found it.
This is stupid.
A friend pointed out this TED Talk by Bill Gates. Specifically he pointed out a group photograph of people serving at the Baha’i World Center is used in the talk to represent the people of the world. You can find it at 4 minutes 36 seconds.
Two weeks ago I met my mother at the airport to fly to Israel and make our way to Haifa, Israel to participate in the greatest bounty: Bahá’í pilgrimage.
Before making the trip, my life had settled into a funk. Back in 2005, Lacey invited me to her wedding in Chicago at the Bahá’í House of Worship. At the time, my life was mired in a similar funk and experiencing a whole morning praying there gave me both a warm calm and bubbling turmoil. It was the calm before the storm as during the next several months my grandmother lost two brothers sending me on driving trips to Arkansas twice, my gall bladder failed, and I landed a job prompting a move to Athens.
Returning from Chicago, I held no answers… just bouts of turmoil and using thoughts of my time in Chicago to produce serenity. Returning from Haifa, I feel more turmoil and serenity! Instead of a warm calm, I’m feeling like a stranger in my own home, driving my own car, chatting with my own friends. It’s like for a couple weeks I got to experience a different life and feel disappointment returning to my own.
Miscellaneous observations:
- Pictures of the places I visited in no way prepared me for the experiencing the Bahá’í holy sites.
- Clementine juice in particular is genius. Citrus products in general are fantastic.
- Israelis know the name Ezra particularly well, so they expect the bearer to know Hebrew. Security officials often wanted to know why I have the name.
- As much as I read, I ought to read more Bahá’í works.
- I expected to suffer greatly climbing anything more than a couple floors equivalent as the most exercise I get is just a single floor of stairs a few times a day. So we did quite a bit of walking down which was enough to make my calves burn. The trips up were shorter.
- It is a teeny tiny Bahá’í world. I knew Mojan, Eric, and their son were in Haifa. Another 3 Bahá’ís from Georgia happened to be serving there. A couple others, Delara and Marla, happened to be in the my pilgrimage group as well.
- Kat recognized me from somewhere upon sight of me in orientation. We didn’t figure it out in our 9 days together. Previously life? Or a connection to people serving or previously served in Haifa?
- Shawarma… who knew?
- I was told I am not fulfilling my potential. Instead of working with computers, I ought to be an educator.
- Mom thought Ezra Jack Keats, my namesake, was black because he used a black child as the protagonist. Guess the web site didn’t exist back when I was born. I’ve known he was originally a Katz for almost a decade.
For a good description of the pilgrimage experience, see Myk’s pilgrimage blog postings.
If the aftermath of this pilgrimage is anything like my visit to Chicago in 2005, then I’ll experience some change. I don’t intend mistake attraction for Haifa as destiny to live there. My attraction to Chicago has never culminated in my living there, so I’m not holding on to imaginations I’ll miraculously move to Haifa. Something like serving at the Bahá’í World Center would be the kind of change I foresee. We’ll see. I’m not keen to completely disrupt my life at the moment. Hopefully events will not conspire against me to force my hand.
“The way to make better decisions is to make more of them” -Anthony Robbins
We do learn from retrospective analysis of effects. I question the need to make our own bad decisions in order to learn. We ought to be able to watch others make mistakes and avoid them.
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