The semester officially begins

So, now it's officially started. Just finished teaching my second class of the day-my T344-programming strategies course. For some reason, afternoon classes this semester don't seem to be filling up as quickly as the morning classes. So there are still openings available. The students seem just as shocked that the summer is over as I am.

In the research methods class (T5 11). Things went pretty well. There is an interesting mix of people in their, including two undergrads. One of the undergrads is Steven, who has done a lot of work in the lab. The other is Jan, someone who someone who says that she has taken a lot of advertising classes in both telecom and the business school and needed one more class in order to graduate in the class will be good for her.

So now I'm in my office hour, which will be every Monday. Right after T344. I'm still using the NaturallySpeaking headphones, and it does seem to be getting a little bit more accurate. This afternoon, I'm going to force myself to use it to work on a manuscript, which is really what I got them for anyway.

Did have a good meeting the other day with Carl Malamud. He's a very interesting guy who's working on lots of cool projects concerning the Web. Some of the things in fact are so new that he told me I couldn't write about them on the blog. It is an interesting question that I've never had to deal with, talking with people, and trying to figure out what it is they're telling me in confidence and what I could put on this blog.

The talk more about Carl later, but for now to things that he mentioned that all just throw out there in case it would spur anyone else's interests:
he said he was very interested in talk radio, and what pod casting will do -- more specifically. I guess what the Internet will do -- to impact broadcast talk radio. He gave this example: a lot of people who call talk radio stations are very passionate about the topic. Where does that passion first get channeled? It goes to the screener -- the guy or gal who first answers the phone and asks what you want to talk about. Then it's the host prerogative, based on what the screener tells him via and IMO or a computer screen of some sort, to choose who he wants to get on the air. Well Carl said "wouldn't it be great to record the first things that passionate callers tell the screener, and then put that over the Internet."

Interesting thought.

And finally, check out Carl's catalog of Greek of the week, Internet talk radio programs. You can find them here