Rescue Time

One thing that I don't think we talked about enough in class Thursday is the way that Rescue Time could be used in a corporate setting.  If I were running a corporation I would love Rescue Time.  It could be installed in all of the office computers to track how my employees spend their time.  No one would get away with playing solitaire or checking Facebook on company time.  I would probably hire a set of employees whose job it would be to monitor the other employees Rescue Time accounts.  I would also attempt to make it impossible for my employees to change the settings of their computers Rescue Time accounts.  This way they couldn't cheat and make social networking a +2 productivity.  Only the sites and programs required for use in the company would be labelled productive.

I do agree with what most of my classmates said about how Rescue Time is not very applicable to most college students depending on their workload and how they choose to study.  For example, I have an online physics practice test to study today, but I'm going to print it out and take it to the library to do it.  I often do this with online assignments making it hard to track a productivity percentage.

Lizzie's Blog

I just read Lizzie's blog and I'm quite impressed.  The one thing that I wanted to leave as a comment is "Have you ever seen the movie Surrogates."  I couldn't figure out how to leave a comment on hers (I might not have been signed in or something) so I decided to put it in mine.

As for the class.  I really liked the way we ran things on Tuesday.  The discussion had a natural flow to it that kept me engaged, listening, and thinking.  In many of my other classes all I have to do is listen and I know that I will make a good grade.  Not this one.  I enjoy what I'm learning in this class more than I do many of the others because of the way in which I learn it.  We are very much a learning community that challenges my views on every subject that we cover.  By doing this, I'm unaware that I'm learning about something new because most of what I end up doing is thinking about our topics.  It's almost involuntary.  Having interesting topics probably helps.

Last thing that I have to say
Is simply about the day
I went to play racket ball
And soon out of the hall
Chris Clark is attacked by
Women saying... HI!

Online Gaming

Watching the movie class today I couldn't help but think about my friend Richard who use to play WOW.  He always told me that it was addictive and he actually had to break the habit.  I never believed him.  I cannot imagine being slave to something like a video game.  Sure, they're fun and entertaining, but they can't substitute (at least not for me) that adrenaline rush I get from almost any sort of activity.  I think the most fun I have ever had was either winning a wrestling match, finishing a tough climb, or skydiving.  All three gave their own different sort of rush that no one can get from gaming.  I don't care what anyone says about how good they feel when they level up in WOW.  IT IS NOT THE SAME.  People need to get back to whats important in life, and this has been a theme of my Sustainable Development class a well, things like nature, love, and just pure physicality.  I know I sound a bit hippy-ish, but it's true and YOU know it.

Learning

Just foolin around trying to figure out how to make new posts and the like.  Also, I wasn't sure if we were supposed to blog after every class or just the end of the week.  Oh well, better safe that sorry right?  I enjoyed learning about networking and passing around plastic bowling pins and balls.  The informal learning environment actually taught me an incredible amount without me even realizing it.  One other thing that I learned is that I need to pay a bit more attention to the small gray boxes when we read.  Yes, I'll admit.  I missed that question :(

First Ever Post

Started classes at Appalachian State University this week and am loving them so far.  Specifically enjoying physics and my honors seminar, "Dissecting the Internet."  I lucked out on the seminar so far in that my dad had actually already taught me a little bit about counting in different bases including binary and hex.  Can't wait to see what we get into this week.