Ich suche Leute, die in Tübingen Büroräume nach dem Konzept "co-working" schon arbeiten oder es noch probieren wollen. Man teilt ein Büro oder mehrere Räume, aber jeder arbeitet für sich. Diese Form der Mitarbeit ist geeignet für Selbständige, Schriftsteller, Internetarbeiter usw.

Ich überlege mir diese Möglichkeit und möchte evtl. bei einem schon bestehenden Projekt einsteigen oder zusammen mit anderen Menschen so etwas neu gründen.

Wer hat interesse? Wer weiss, ob es so etwas hier schon gibt?

One of my students recently wrote:

I do not think that the memories will matter.

I say this because if someone questions something they can just go on wikipedia, read about all the views of the subject, and make their own opinion. The individual memories no longer matter when everyone has access to all the information.

I feel compelled to respond. Two points:

1) On "Wikipedia" you won't find "all" the views on the matter. You will find the views of those who have bothered to go their and type in their views or summarize the views of some others. Those will not necessarily be the views of people who know much about the issue. Remember: Anyone can write anything on Wikipedia.

2) Memory will be the mark of an educated person. The trick is knowing what to look up. "If someone has questions" is the issue. Which questions? Someone who has not read and studied widely will not recognize patterns, analogies, allegories, etc. and won't know which questions to ask. Examples:

- How do you know that the president just used a biblical or literary reference in his speech? Did you "google" every phrase in the speech?

- How do you see the flaw in the structure of an argument? You can "google" some of the information provided in the assumptions, but you won't recognize the hidden assumptions or the "whole thing" without education and practice.

- How do you look up on google broad claims about the nature of mankind and society? Wide reading - in advance of hearing and evaluating such claims - will be necessary.

Wikipedia, google etc. can help clear our minds of "trivia" but they will not replace thought. If and when they do, we will truly be reduced to machines which take biological mass and convert it into a combination of bodily excretions and just enough energy to press the button on the remote control.

There is already a great deal of thinking going on about how "google" is changing the way we think. See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

I think this is the saddest blog entry I have ever read, and I hadn't even heard of the guy before, much less know him:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

I checked and found him on a casualty list, so this is real.

Thinking about starting your own blog, but don’t know how? If you live in or near Tübingen, Germany, maybe I can help.

Since I have started helping people start their own blogs here at twoday.net, I have decided to blog the homework assignment I give them before we sit down together and set up the blog.

These are the things plan a few things before we meet so I can help you better:

• Decide on a URL. If you want the free service, the URL must take the form of ***.twoday.net, where *** is whatever you want. Think about it before we meet so that you have one you like.
• Decide on a logo or image you want to have at the top or upper left or upper right of your blog. Most blogs have them and they are nice. If you have an image you would like to use, bring it on a CD or USB stick or something when we meet.
• Decide on a title. You name it after yourself, keep it anonymous or give it a catchy name. I decided on a vague name for my general blog and a specific name for my history/historical memory blog. The name and URL do not have to match, but it can be nice if they do.
• Decide on a user name. It can reveal your real name or be something clever that hides your identity.
• Also, you can surf around the blogs at twoday.net. You can start at one of mine. There is a "next blog" button in the upper right of all blogs hosted there. Just click through a few dozen blogs and see what you might like in terms of formatting. If you want, you can just take my format here at this blog or at Sites of Memory. I have those formats saved on my computer. You could take that as a base and tweak the colors and fonts, etc.
• Do some thinking about what it is you want to blog. I recommend having one blog for all your business, interests and hobbies. That creates synergies and cross-overs. That will depend on what it is exactly, that you want to accomplish with a blog. I can brainstorm with you on ideas about how to set up your blog or blogs.

An alternative to starting your own blog would be to try to become a contributor to an already-existing team blog somewhere. Maybe you can find one that would be appropriate to what it is you want to publish.

Do you have a tracker on your webpage? I can help you set one up for your webpage and your blog so you can see how many people each day are visiting your pages. That information can be depressing, however, so be warned.

An alternative to starting your own blog would be to try to become a contributor to an already-existing team blog somewhere. Maybe you can find one that would be appropriate somewhere.

I will ask for an hourly consulting fee for helping you set things up, but I will not charge for follow-up support if it is limiting to occasional questions or minor interven

Over at my other blog I am having trouble figuring out the source of some very good news. If you know how to track backlinks or otherwise help me figure out why sites-of-memory.de is suddenly getting more than ten times as many hits as a day ago - apparently scattered over numerous pages - then please get in touch with me.

I have discovered a great blog for following and discussing issues related to education and technology: Kairosnews.org. The top story there today is a long article on turnitin.com by Michael Bruton.

Im Rahmen einer 90-minutigen Veranstaltung zum Thema e-Learning werde ich um 10:00 Uhr morgens am 12. April im Hegelbau (Wilhelmsstr. 36) im Raum 228 über meine Arbeit als e-Dozent in den Fächern Geschichte und Politikwissenschaft berichten. Zuerst wird ein Mitarbeiter der Universitätsbibliothek einen Überblick über das an der Uni Tübingen verwendete ILIAS Learning Management System geben. Danach werde ich etwa 20-30 Minuten lang über meine Methoden und Erfahrungen erzählen. Es wird Zeit für Fragen geben.

Die Veranstaltung richtet sich an Mitarbeiter des Hegelbaus.

This new article by Noam Cohen in the New York Times explores some of the same issues with Wikipedia that keep coming up again and again. The news that a college has banned citations of the open encyclopaedia is a bit like, "duh." Wikipedia lacks several markers of scholarship.

The article makes it clear that more and more academics are taking a pragmatic approach (like mine) to Wikipedia.

Historian of Russia Marshall Poe is one of those who continues to beat the drum for scholarly participation in Wikipedia. I have heeded his call and joined the Russian History project, but I have still not taken the time and energy to make any substantive contributions. A factor that keeps coming up again and again in discussions of Wikipedia - the lack of "credit" I or any other contributor would get - is simply too important an issue for me to invest the time. It is simple: When I spend my time and energy on distributing the expertise which has cost me so much time, money and energy, I am very reluctant to do so for free. I at least want my name on it. There is no more reason why I should give it away than the grocer on the corner should just give out his produce for free. Anybody would think it ridiculous to even ask him to do so.

My kind of expertise - academic knowledge - is being increasingly commodified. That being the case, I see no reason why we should actively contribute to the continued devaluation of our expertise by not just selling it under value, but giving it away for free. The trend seems to be to let the "invisible hand" (really a product of conscious policy) create an army of poorly-paid adjuncts teaching mass-produced, cookie-cutter courses. Why should we not only go along with that but then accelerate the process by putting our research online for free? We should go along with the trend while working to increase the value of our product or, alternatively, fight the trend toward commodification. Going along with commodification while actively eroding the value of our product is not the answer.

Give me security and patronage so I can follow my "muse" (in which case I might "muse around" at Wikipedia) or pay me the value of my work. At the very least let me - indeed, for the sake of all involved, make me - put my name on it.

Can anybody still read an eight-inch floppy disk? I found one from my college days and would like someone to "crack" it and print out the goodies inside.

Yuri Slezkine's new history of the Jews in the 20th century describes modernity, according to reviewer Y. Michal Bodeman (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 10 January, 2007), as

…the Jewish era, [that] in which all people are urban, mobile, textual (verschriftlicht), intellectual and career flexible: We don't keep herds or plow fields, we work with people and symbols. Modernization is thus about all people becoming Jews…

And of course, Slezkine himself adds, "nobody is better at being Jews than the Jews themselves."

Wow. Isn't that essentially what all of us telecommuters and internet workers are doing - being flexible, manipulating symbols and information instead of material tools? Doesn't this analogy apply to us more than anybody?

First, they were telling us that we are internet "Bohemians," essentially a nice word for the rather dubious term "gypsies," applied to the new media. Now, if we generously ignore, as this example does, the pre-collectivization and pre-Holocaust Jewish agricultural communities of Eastern Europe and the Jewish ideal kibbutz communities in Israel, Judaism is held up as our model, a model of quintessential modernity. Are we, the "Bohemians" of yesterday, not then the the Jewiest of the Jews?