Lectures and Leisure Reading
Jan. 8th, 2011 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseI finished finals for my two evening classes early Christmas week, and relaxed in the assumption that online classes wouldn't begin until late January. Fortunately, I checked the schedule before my mistaken assumption became a crisis.
Last semester's lessons on not getting emotional when presented with bad teaching are already getting a workout, thanks to an online lecturer's email that "I tried the powerpoint interface and it worked for me. . . call IT if it doesn't work for you." So there's an email in IT's inbox. I am disappointed that someone is stuck in the 20th century and optimized the ppt slideshow for IE (where it still won't print), but if IT can tell me how to extract a .ppt for PDF via some browser, I will cope.
My online classes use iTunes U for lecture distribution, so I am condemned to iTunes exposure. "Uninstalled" is too gentle a word for my high volume, high speed, highly negative reaction to iTunes' vile interface and file mis-organization "system". I'm treating it as an overgrown download manager, and plan to watch my lectures in VLC player.
I ignored all these problems today in favor of investigating Goodwill's scarf offerings and finishing The Privilege of the Sword.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
charlie_ego, did you have the problems with Katherine's lack of agency that I did? I think young Richard and Alec's short-sighted behavior as twentysomethings in their Swordspoint days makes a certain amount of sense, considering the characters. It may be realistic for Alec to continue to be fairly self-centered in Privilege (pun unintended but too appropriate to edit), but I was very annoyed Katherine didn't ask why her uncle the Mad Duke wanted her to be a swordsman, or what his plans for her might include. It was an extraordinarily distracting oversight.
Last semester's lessons on not getting emotional when presented with bad teaching are already getting a workout, thanks to an online lecturer's email that "I tried the powerpoint interface and it worked for me. . . call IT if it doesn't work for you." So there's an email in IT's inbox. I am disappointed that someone is stuck in the 20th century and optimized the ppt slideshow for IE (where it still won't print), but if IT can tell me how to extract a .ppt for PDF via some browser, I will cope.
My online classes use iTunes U for lecture distribution, so I am condemned to iTunes exposure. "Uninstalled" is too gentle a word for my high volume, high speed, highly negative reaction to iTunes' vile interface and file mis-organization "system". I'm treating it as an overgrown download manager, and plan to watch my lectures in VLC player.
I ignored all these problems today in favor of investigating Goodwill's scarf offerings and finishing The Privilege of the Sword.
charlie_ego, did you have the problems with Katherine's lack of agency that I did? I think young Richard and Alec's short-sighted behavior as twentysomethings in their Swordspoint days makes a certain amount of sense, considering the characters. It may be realistic for Alec to continue to be fairly self-centered in Privilege (pun unintended but too appropriate to edit), but I was very annoyed Katherine didn't ask why her uncle the Mad Duke wanted her to be a swordsman, or what his plans for her might include. It was an extraordinarily distracting oversight.