Consumerism and The Road

Recently research, albeit from a sample size of 90, suggests students would be happy to pay for an essay. Seeing themselves as participants in a consumer market? or simply codifying what they were doing anyway? Dunno about you lot, but I wrote essays for other people at Uni, I copied lab reports from various people, or we collaborated (you write this section, I'll write this bit). Seemed reasonable, sometimes it cost me beer, sometimes it earned me beer. An interesting exercise in bartering really. From the marking perspective it's generally quite hard to spot plagiarism when essays are turned in printed (electronic is easier, as you can batch script them to run through online test sites), except for the odd case - including idiots who put theirs in one on top of the other. Dicks.
Oh the report is here.  And the original conference here.

I watched The Road last night. Loved the book, very dark, depressing, sparse and direct. It's refreshing in an author to see writing that blunt and beautiful. For the music kids out there, it's cold, direct and deep, think Obzen by Meshuggah. Yeah, OK only really S2H will get that.
The movie does a good job of the book, although probably not as brutal as the book. It's shot in a very muted colour palette to enhance the desolation. No complaints from me about the movie, I'm still not convinced by the need for the happy ending, it smacks too much of pressure by publishers (Marillion Brave problem). But acting is great, music sympathetic (Nick Cave, Warren Ellis), and it sucks you into the dystopian view.
Worth watching 5/5.

B

It has, you maybe aware, been snowing

This has caused much distress to the residents of this island. Coming as it did in winter, while it was cold. trains stopped (wrong type of snow apparently), cars stopped, buses took the ice route (bus tobogganing?), schools were closed (H and S), power went out (couldn't be fixed, H and S again).
All of which was amusing for those of us who thought the news reports we'd seen over the years were hyperbole. they weren't. The country really does go to hell at the hint of snow.

It appears my amusement isn't unique, as this link shows - from the principal  lecturer in English at De Montfort Uni. Wonderful stuff.

me

HE sucked for money

Continuing the occasional series on Higher Education, quote of the day comes from an article discussing the rise of vampire courses in the US HE sector:
“They know more about vampires than they do about religion,” said Richard Androne, professor of English at Albright College in Pennsylvania, who teaches a course called “The Vampyre”.

And this is where Richard Dawkins went wrong, rather than pointing out the perfection of Evolution he should have gone "oohhh look, vampires are cool"...and thus killed religion in one sucking swoop.
It's also an encouraging fact about the US. I think it's evidence of the Obama effect.


B

Sometimes background reading is fun

I realise most of you don't read the Times Higher Education supplement, which is why I'm providing a service here. I do skim it to try and keep a vague grasp on the HE sector, and if for no other reason that some of their deliberately provocative articles are interesting.


then there are the updates. 

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409509&c=1

The week in higher education

10 December 2009

Scientists investigating the effects of pornography were stumped when they failed to find any 20-year-old men who had not already been exposed to X-rated material. The researchers, at the University of Montreal, hit a dead end when they put out a call for "porn virgins", it was reported on 2 December. Simon Louis Lajeunesse, who led the study, said: "We started our research seeking men in their twenties who had never consumed pornography. We couldn't find any." Despite the setback, the study went ahead, finding that single young men view pornography for an average of 40 minutes three times a week. Those in relationships watched it for an average of 20 minutes 1.7 times a week.

Love, B