Yesterday I visited Stanford University for the first time since 1999. It is a beautiful campus and altogether I got a sense of much diversity than I remembered from last time. Maybe because I spent an hour walking about on campus (trying to find out where I had parked, visiting bookshop etc.).

I had a [...]

I have been looking at political documents to do with learning and technology recently, and have found some interesting material. Among other things instructions for the sub-group on technology and learning that is part of the work of the Swedish IT-political strategy group (appointed by the Swedish Government). Checking out the Government pages I was [...]

Yesterday there was an estimated 6.0 magnitude earthquake along the San Andreas fault halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. No significant damage or injuries (apparently).
Yesterday I watched a TV item on the Hayward Fault which is further North – just North of San Francisco and close to places like Oakland and Berkeley (it [...]

It is soon 9 pm and I am working at a table placed in the corner of one of my favorite caf

Waiting in line to get a cup of coffee this morning the guys before me in line ordered espressos, and the waitress just poured hem regular coffee – albeit from the espresso machine. There wasn’t any process to the coffee making and they got back after a while and complained. Maybe that is what I [...]

For the past couple of days the place where I am staying has been invaded by people who do not seem to belong there. It took me a while to figure it out. It is some kind of American recruitment thing (probably for graduating/just graduated students) and a number of companies are performing job interviews [...]

I started to talk to someone with a similiar computer in a caf

In today’s Oakland Tribune there is an article on everyday technology – kind of. It is about the Duke initative to give iPods to students (mentioned earlier in this blog). The total investment is about $500,000 and several critical voices are reported in the article.
The iPods come “pre-loaded with welcome messages from school president Richard [...]

When I as a Ph.D. student took Eve Sweetser’s course on historical linguistics at Berkeley she said something that I will never forget when commenting on a paper I had written. Her point was that often it is the non-exceptional and ordinary which is the most interesting object of study. There is a strong tendency [...]