Having had to attend a short lesson on how to use the library (outside of class, of course), put on by my Art History professor, I'm a bit disgruntled right now. Well, that and people are crazy. There's a lot I could blather on about, but my thoughts are too scattered for them to make any sense.
I will say that the only thing keeping me sane right now is knowing that I have an excuse to read for the next 12 hours. Of course, it's all academic reading, which is pleasantly dry.
Ok, I do a small topic to focus on now. When my professor rails against the Internet and the misinformation it tends to spread, he comes off as unpleasantly anachronistic. The internet is here, ok, and it's probably not going to go anywhere for a while. People are going to use the Internet as a tool. They need to know proper researching techniques before they use it. Someone who doesn't know what a primary source is will fail at research no matter if they're doing their research in a library or on the Internet.
And instead of complaining about the misinformation and dumbening of people through the Internet, he could, I don't know, do something about it. Other than spend ten minutes of every other lecture telling the entire class that the Internet is a horrible place, sure, this is an Information age, but the information is crap. What are we supposed to do with this rant? Nod and agree? Throw a few lolcats at him? (Hm, actually, lolcats would be hilarious to put in my research paper - which is on manuscript illumination). He's the one with the college degree. He could start a blog, edit a wiki, any number of things.
I suppose my thinking is a product of the eAge. There are many bad sources of information, but there are great, vast, amazing sources of information too. And Wikipedia is not the demon he makes it out to be. It's not peer-reviewed, per se, but it isn't just some random git uploading whatever s/he wants to (which my professor seems to think happens all the time - because, gee, nobody would notice wrong information on the internet).
I guess it particularly irritates me because I've heard him mention wrong information once for sure, and probably at least one other time. He is in the "omg cell phone radiation causes cancer camp." Why? "Because we don't know about these sorts of things. I mean, it was military technology just rushed into the consumer market, and they didn't do the proper tests to make sure it's safe."
Guh. I could tear into this on so many levels. I'll just restrict myself into stating that cell phone "radiation" isn't actually radiation (ie, rapid atomic decay that results in bursts of high-energy particles that are small enough to damage your DNA and cause you some problems). They're a form of radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves which have less energy than infrared. Ie, they are more "sluggish" than visible light, which hasn't ever been implicated in causing cancer (yet).
And don't just take my word for it. From the NASA site: "Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. These waves can be longer than a football field or as short as a football. Radio waves do more than just bring music to your radio. They also carry signals for your television and cellular phones." (Bolding mine.) It's a helluva neat trick for a light wave the size of a football to damage your DNA.
And the crazies. Oh boy, don't get me started on the crazies.
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