• The Big Lie about the ‘Life of The Mind’ – Article in a US Universities website about the effectiveness of postgraduate humanities education in the job market, and employment as a humanities graduate within universities.
• Wanted: Really Smart Suckers – In the US university system, there seems to be a tradition of employing graduate students as teachers of undergraduates. I’ve not come across this as much in the UK, but this might be because of the institutions and subjects that I’ve studied at/of. This article inspects the way that the postgraduate community is used.
• The Last Professors – blogpost from a left-wing perspective about the end of the American usage of ‘professor’, as inspired by the book by Frank Donoghue.
• Waiting 20 Years for Tenure – A personal account of one individuals life as a travelling lecturer. I know a number of people in a similar position, except I doubt that most of my friends expected to become “house” staff.
• Review of the Last Professors book – Another look at the Frank Donoghue book

From my time in academia, I’d say that there is a real focus on money-earning activities in the UK, and this is corroborated by what happened to the Middlesex Philosophy department, which closed down recently. Perhaps my view is different from the norm, as I’ve mostly been in Fine Art departments (a subject matter that is perennially squeezed by it’s budget and the material requirements of it’s students), but I’d say that in the overwhelmingly capitalistic society of today, academia’s notions of knowledge and learning were bound to be a casualty.

I don’t do anything that weird with my phone normally, but in the past few days I got so fed up with iOS4 on my old 3G iPhone that I decided to roll back the operating system to 3.1.3 using the howto on Lifehacker. This took two pieces of software (one program and one download) and it made my iPhone much quicker.

And I mean really frustrated. I used the new operating system for at least two weeks, and I thought I was going to have to buy a new phone. The damn thing was useless – slow, laggy, bad at doing the things it used to do par excellence. I don’t think it was some sort of high-level Apple plan by evil men in turtleneck sweaters to force me into buying new phones, I just don’t think they properly tested it on the older generation of iPhones.

Above: Youtube user Adam Burtle‘s parody of the new operating system. As several people have noted, including Daring Fireball, it’s pretty accurate.

Several times, I reached such a point of frustration and anger that I had a mental image of ripping the phone apart with my bare hands, shattering glass and bending metal. Prior to the iOS4 update (the new operating system that goes hand-in-hand with the new iPhone 4) my iPhone had been a gadget that I never failed to be impressed by. To go from loving a gadget like that to picturing it’s demise is really weird, and perhaps a sign of some internal imbalance in me… but what can I say? I followed all of Apple’s rules, and ended up with something worse when they promised something better.

This breaks an implicit contract that Apple make with iPhone users. “Let us control your computing,” Apple says seductively, “and you’ll have a fantastic experience.” With the new update, I feel like they broke that covenant, and in fixing their mistake I had to go and download software that is semi-legal.

Having done this, it occurred to me that I should now Jailbreak the phone. The new method  (released this week) seemed easy, and I had little to lose because I’d just wiped my phone in the process of downgrading the operating system. So I did it, it worked first time (over 3G) and I logged into the Cydia store with mounting excitement…

… to find a load of useless applications. Change the font of my iPhone? Have five icons on the bottom instead of four? Have a different background? Install an SSH application? Hungarian spellchecker? NES Emulator? No wonder these applications can’t be got via Apple, as they are either useless or worthless (depending on how much Hungarian you speak).

There do seem to be three useful applications, only two of which are legal: a tethering app (to use the 3G connection when out and about – of which I think O2 might have something to say), a wireless syncing app, and a bluetooth keyboard app. None of these applications are free, and seeing as they aren’t mission critical for me I don’t think I’ll chance paying for dodgy software.

Am I glad I jailbroke my phone? Not really, it was pointless. But I am glad I rolled back the OS to the last generation – that really made a difference. Of course, by making it so hard for me to do that, Apple pushed me into a state of mind where I no longer want their “curated computing”; I just want something that works. Maybe Jailbreak will grow up and be something useful in the future, but right now it’s just for the nerds.

And frustrated Hungarians.

Above: the retro/Victoriana/steampunk video for “Flush”. I like the giga-Victoria.

I’ve been learning to juggle five balls recently. Four balls is pretty boring; essentially, it’s throwing two balls in one hand simultaneously – something that’s hard, but not impossible. Throwing five balls is something other entirely, requiring a serious amount of practice and training. Thankfully, I’ve got the internet to help out.

• http://www.jugglingarchives.com/ is a website devoted to uncovering the history of juggling in Newcastle and area. I didn’t know their was one, but it’s fascinating to browse.
• Boppo’s Number Juggling Notes are an interesting insight into what it takes to juggle more than three balls.
• This is a page of general juggling advice on five balls, from various people. Many paths to the same route, but with a goal like juggling five it’s best to find out as much as possible.
• Juggling goes back a way on the internet, but it’s original usenet group is best accessed via this page on jugglingdb.com. It’s pretty web 1.0, but that’s ok.
• One of the better jugglers dealing with web 2.0 stuff is Luke Barrage, who in addition to being a professional entertainer, also runs a sci-fi book review podcast, and a now-moribund juggling podcast (rss link).

I don’t read all this stuff a lot, because it’s maddening to think about it at the same time as trying to do it. There’s a certain about of mindful meditation, but after a while I’ve just been listening to music. When not throwing balls into the air, I’ve been catching up with my reading or watching movies. It’s not all work work work, y’know.

Trying to make that story come alive in writing is something completely different. I don’t know why – maybe I’m just not good enough with written words. But whatever the reason, I just can’t make the story really ‘pop’ when I need it to. Parts of it that are hilarious when spoken out loud come across flat and dull when in a written form, and after a few separate attempts to squeeze it onto a page I’ve given up.

One of the reasons it’s such a fantastic story is that I’ve told it so many times. I now live far away from my friends, and aside from a small number of people I keep in touch with via email and phone calls, I don’t see a lot of people. When I do get back to Newcastle, I usually go on a socialising splurge, trying to fit in seeing as many people as possible. This usually means updating people on why I’ve been away, and/or what’s wrong with me, and why I get so tired now, and to help me do this I fall into a shpeel which rattles through various points of my health failure until I reach the present.

But this shpeel, this story, isn’t really being told in my usual conversational voice. It’s a tale that I tell people, something I share with them, and when it’s finished I stop being a storyteller and talk with them. I like to find out what they’ve been up to in the months that I’ve been away. The storytelling “voice” I use when relating my tale is similar to the written style I use here on my blog – which, again, is not the real me.

The best blogs are blogs that have a focus, like Lee’s printmaking blog, or Mike’s blog about his trip to the birthplace of Russian Anarchy, or Brenda’s blog on her photography practice. Currently, when I blog I have no real focus but to tell an amusing story, and in doing so I’ve let the story-tellers voice become confused with my own when working (and writing) online. I actually get a lot of compliments about my blog, and the style of writing that I’ve used on it, which is really lovely. But I need to try new things.

I’m not sure what those new things are, but I have to stretch myself. Writing in this semi-voice, this tonal range that sounds like me but isn’t quite, is starting to impose limits on the things I can say – and  the things I can’t. So it’s time to change.

Part of an emerging trend of CGI mashup – as computer graphics become good enough that home users can do incredible things, genres become squished together. Click through for the artists blog or videos.

With that in mind, let’s run through some links I’ve found interesting recently:

• Fish stocks are dwindling, reports the New York Times
• Creative workers: ignore anything that makes you consider stopping
• Also, think about getting some alone time, probably offline.
• But before you unplug the internet, check out this vuvuzela concert
• And the round-the-clock sound of vuvuzelas on vuvuzela.fm

Not only am I sure that I shouldn’t really be in Platform this year, I’m also sure that if you were to award/chose me to be in Platform you’d only be getting something along the lines of “Pete Hindle is nebbishly funny in a sarcastic manner about an element of geekdom.” This would suck; not that I’m not funny – far from it, the other day I made somebody laugh by putting on a jumper, and I’m pretty practised at making ladies laugh from the other side of the room by wiggling my eyebrows. But the reason that it would suck is that you’ve commissioned it before, I’ve done it already, and frankly, we’re all a little tired of stuff like that happening.

Hey, since Platform… whenever I did my last thing… nerds have taken off. In fact, you better be nerdy these days, since all the other social niches are pretty much played out, giving us this massive glut of homogenised stylish young people (girls: pretty, boys: dishevelled) who will no doubt be applying to do various things at this event. Hoo-fucking-rah; even the audiences at Platform are pretty darn hot these days, and considering that it’s a live art event (the epitome of niche) that’s saying something. I came to Platform last year with the pretty young girlfriend who broke my heart into a thousand pieces when she dumped me in Berlin, and even she was intimidated by some of the girls in the audience. Which is why I left early to go and drink mojitoes with her rather than stare at performance art.

Because, honestly, drinking with pretty girls is far more fun than performance art.

I was actually drinking with a few pretty girls recently when I made my nerd credentials quite clear. I said I was going to go home and watch Star Trek, at which point they laughed. I pointed out that I was wearing a red bodywarmer, and that I really was going home to watch Star Trek. I think they might have laughed some more at that point, but in a good way. I was, in fact, desperate to get home owing to the side effects of carrying around an ulcer in my stomach area for the past few months, such as not being able to drink and creating evil smelling farts out of my bottom. I’m presumably carrying around this ulcer owing to the stress of not working on my thesis, but I’m not entirely sure that having a useless fine art education and nowhere to display my “skillz” hasn’t also played a part in it.

So, if you really want an evil smelling, post-graduate educated sarcastic asshole who would rather be off drinking with pretty girls than making lame jokes about the puerile obsessions of a set of closeted individuals that value gadgetry and science fiction over personal contact and the real world, I’m your man. I do carry around in my head a few ideas that I might be able to turn into performances, so I thought I’d make a note of them in a list format in case you didn’t read any of the above.

•    The Quaker Performance: everybody sits in a circle and we have a traditional Quaker meeting, where there is silence for an hour. It’ll be awesome, promise.
•    Juggling: possibly with glasses. I can do a three ball cascade for around ten minutes.
•    Dialogue: I talk with the people in the audience, making them the focus of the performance. People will laugh.
•    The Fleetwood Mac Thing: I explain how I was in the unlikely position of having two girlfriends, and how I adopted the Fleetwood Mac album “Rumours” during that period.
•    The Roman Talk: I heart Romans. Did you know that Caligula tried to make his favourite horse a consul of Rome? Romans are comedy gold.
•    Full Lock: Somebody puts a car in the full lock position and does multiple donuts outside the venue. Again: awesome, with the added bonuses of illegality and danger of death.

Obviously, rather than fleshing out any of these ideas you’d be better employing another artist and giving them an opportunity that they’d enjoy. I’d probably find the whole prospect of standing in front of another audience gut-wrenchingly fear inducing and it’s not like I care enough to keep my CV updated anyway.

Later on I would get a guitar, but after years of trying to herd stoned guys into doing something, I jacked it in and concentrated on getting enough qualifications to go to art college. These days my music skills are so rusty that although I can technically play the piano, violin, tabla, guitar, bass, and bassoon, it’s probably more accurate to say I can hold them in the right way to make a noise.

Still, that idea of being a musician still holds some sway. Perhaps I should pick up the cello that my Dad has here, and learn to play it? Surely I could get somewhere good within about six months… good enough to do a Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover, perhaps. Wait, I’ll just google it and see if anybody else is doing that…

Shitnuts.

On the other hand, it looks like nobody is doing Fugazi covers with a bassoon. That could be my big break-through.