Disqus - Latest Comments for markstoneman

Re: Excluding folders on Carousel web | Carousel Blog

Mark Stoneman — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 10:45:10 -0000

Definitely need an option to exclude (ideally: include) specific folders. Otherwise, I might as well turn Carousel off.

Re: Amazon Integrates Kindle Documents With Your Cloud Drive

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 00:52:57 -0000

I have found what looks like one possible positive aspect of Amazon's change: Earlier, if I wanted to delete dozens of personal documents from my online account (Manage My Kindle), the process was painful. Now I can select multiple documents on the Cloud Drive and delete them. Why does this matter? Say I want to read a lot of PDFs on a Kindle Paperwhite, but I don't want save all those files on Amazon, or I want to get rid of them later. Before I had to delete them one at a time. That was so painful that I quit emailing myself PDF files to read on the Kindle. Now I might start again.

Re: TaskPaper files on iOS

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:19:05 -0000

Thank you for this update.

Re: The Future Is Now: 15 Innovations to Watch For

Mark Stoneman — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 11:49:27 -0000

I wonder how many of these things are supposed to happen in light of the increasing use of poorly paid adjuncts, who cannot afford the time to collaborate or innovate in the ways described here.

Re: Should These Published Works Perish?

Mark Stoneman — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:47:18 -0000

Following up on my previous comment, are you sure the claim that these books are published only because of university funding isn't a straw man? Academic presses aren't running charities. And the academics who write them aren't necessarliy paid to write them. Even the lucky tenured are are doing that outside of a workload that the author, as a PhD candidate, should know a little something about.

Re: Should These Published Works Perish?

Mark Stoneman — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:36:34 -0000

The premise of this article and poll is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of scholarship. I suppose that could point to a failure on the part of academia, because it didn't convince the author of its value, but there's that whole problem of only being able to lead a horse to water. And even a real smart horse—or human—can't appreciate all scholarship, not in the complicated world we live in, which requires so much specialzation.

Re: The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia

Mark Stoneman — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:44:22 -0000

I haven't bothered to touch the articles themselves, because I've had undergraduates treated in similar fashion by self-appointed gate-keepers, even though the students did their homework and cited their readily available printed secondary sources, but I do occasionally contribute to the references list with print material, including my own relevant bits.

I suppose one useful function of Wikipedia's policies, if strictly followed, is that they help create a collection of the "general wisdom", what "everybody knows", so to speak. I enjoy old encyclopedias for just that reason, and contemporary encyclopedias are generally no better. After all, how could they keep up with the pace of research?

On the other hand, it has become increasingly obvious to grasp why scholars don't bother contributing to Wikipedia. It's not just that there are no professional rewards in it. Such interventions aren't even welcome. Or don't seem to be. Some stuff that might be obvious to us and not worth citing probably still needs citing, since the Wikipedia ethos doesn't privilege expertise.

And maybe it shouldn't. How many times have I cringed when I heard an expert defend a position on the basis of his or her expertise? It doesn't happen that often, but when it does . . . wow, awful.

Re: Replacing History With Fiction in Arizona

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:05:32 -0000

Maybe we could get people to start teaching American history, at least at university, with a book like Ian Tyrell's _Transnational Nation_. More people need to understand that the nation-state is a product of transnational interactions; perhaps they would fear them less.

Re: Mandating Laptops

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:15:16 -0000

I am often amazed that more students don't use laptops. I myself would want one for notes. On the other hand, a minority of those who bring them actually use them exclusively or even primarily for the class, because our society fosters an illusion that multi-tasking is possible, that one can concentrate while also texting and facebooking. So I don't know. In the end, I just monitor disruptive behavior and the rest is up to them.

But I would love it if I could have everyone open a specific document in class. That would be fantastic.

My department encourages us not to print out syllabi to save paper. Instead we should offer electronic versions. I don't have a problem with that, but I still find myself offering at least one printed page of information the first class, because otherwise some students will not find the syllabus, blog, etc., no matter how accessible (through how many different outlets) the stuff is. And then I monitor stats to get a basic feel for how often the electronic information is being used, in case I need to prompt people the next class.

Re: Mandating Laptops

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:15:16 -0000

But I would love it if I could have everyone open a specific document in class. That would be fantastic.

Re: What the Romans Used for Toilet Paper

Mark Stoneman — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:15:49 -0000

In Brent Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars (Bedford/St. Martin's), there's a story of a gladiator using the sponge and long stick too. I'm surprised citizens would use the same thing. In that story, by the way, the gladiator used his bathroom visit to kill himself, because it was the only moment he wasn't under supervision. He rammed that stick down his throat, which says something about how much he loved those ancient Romans.

Re: Texas, Textbooks, and the Battle For Our Children’s Souls

Mark Stoneman — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:35:25 -0000

I agree that this debate dodges the question of what history education is for. I hadn't been seeing it in terms of internet sources, though that is certainly an important angle. Behind that is the whole question of historical thinking. By making these changes, these people are only making the presentism of the textbooks worse than it already often is. In the process, seeing the past in context becomes even more difficult. This would be a problem whether one used a liberal or conservative viewpoint from the present.

Re: Website update

Mark Stoneman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:37:42 -0000

One way to indicate the availability of apps in both platforms might be with the icon of each version.

Re: Website update

Mark Stoneman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:12:51 -0000

I like, but going with the color of the desktop icons would be nice. (I don't use the iPhone, so maybe I'm prejudiced in this regard.)

Re: Simplicity in Writing & Doing More With Less.

Mark Stoneman — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:13:56 -0000

I didn't realize I could put tags in the middle of an item in TaskPaper. Thought I needed them at the end. That little tidbit combined with habits generated through tweeting with hash tags could be useful.

Re: BlogCatalog Blog Bar Beta

Mark Stoneman — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:14:29 -0000

I'm actually not a fan of this bar. When I visit blogs, I want it to be their blogs as such, not as some sort of extension of BlogCatalog. I don't find the commenting feature practical either, since if I comment, I'll do it on the blog. From a technical point of view, it looks interesting, but I don't like having blogs treated as part of a network, just because they happen to be listed on BC. So when I visit blogs from the profile page, I have to take two steps. Get the blog to come up, and then use the handy "X" in the right hand corner to close the bar.

Re: The Tiger Beat

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:20:59 -0000

Sometimes, but the blog post you cite only adds fuel to the fire it purports to dislike, because it adds personal characterizations of individual users.

Re: BlogCatalog's Most Talkative: Still Talking

Mark Stoneman — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:03:02 -0000

Damn! Foiled in my attempt to escape this list once again.

Re: The Tiger Beat

Mark Stoneman — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:19:22 -0000

I am not using SezWho. It is technically impossible for my Wordpress.com blogs, but I'm also not keen on the idea of people voting up and down others' comments. I just want dialog.

Re: Social Space Station

Mark Stoneman — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:29:30 -0000

That's hard to read and listen to at the same time. Needed to turn off the sound to get it. (First time understanding German was a disadvantage.)

Re: The Tiger Beat - Should Shoutboxes Be Friends Only?

Mark Stoneman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:21:59 -0000

Going back to Ender's comment, the issue isn't about what individuals should do, but what options should be available to accommodate as wide a variety of needs as possible while at the same time keeping things fairly simple. Seems to me then that the idea of a friends-only option would be good, even if I didn't use it. And so would an option to make all shouts invisible to the public.

So this isn't about closing anything or reducing transparency; it's about empowering individual users.

Re: The Tiger Beat - Should Shoutboxes Be Friends Only?

Mark Stoneman — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:58:51 -0000

That would remove the need for my really long block and spam list. On the other hand, I have had at least a little contact from people who weren't on my list that I didn't mind. Would have to think more about how much that was.

Personally, I would like to see an option to ensure that all the shouts I receive are private, whether they're made that way or not.

Re: The Tiger Beat - Twitter Issues

Mark Stoneman — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:58:19 -0000

You're having issues? More like twitter has. Or don't the updates get affected by their constant outages?

Re: The Tiger Beat

Mark Stoneman — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:56:54 -0000

Such a revealing photograph!

Re: Weary Clyburn and Black Confederates: Where Do We Go From Here?

Mark Stoneman — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:45:05 -0000

@Jamey B Creel Myths (and ahistorical thinking) result from imposing modern day assumptions about what participation in the war means to Confederate patriots today onto these men in the past, whose lives, motivations, and attitudes we do not know enough about. The mere fact of participation in the war only scratches the surface of historical reality. It raises questions, but it does not in itself say anything conclusive. I'll leave it to Civil War experts like Kevin Levin to get the details right, but that much is clear to me. I see such errors in historical thinking all the time in other contexts.