Today, Yufang and I went to Lowes for a few supplies. We recently purchased a Samsung LCD TV, but we don’t have cable (except for Internet). We figured it might be fun to watch real TV (as opposed to Hulu or whatever else might be available), so I did some research on the best inexpensive antennas for HDTVs. Overwhelmingly, I found people talking about “coat hanger antennas.” It was hard to imagine that something so easy and cheap to build could work so well despite the video evidence on YouTube (one instructional video with antenna in action can be found here). Nevertheless, I decided to build one and see how well it works for myself. I used the instructions available from Make Magazine here. However, I decided to follow the lead of some folks in the forums who talked about better results with 12-gauge copper wire, which I used in place of the coat hangers. All in all, it took about 45 minutes to build, and it cost me about $16. And, the results? Now, we have 30 HD channels to choose from (20 come in perfectly–the ones that don’t are from stations further away).
Homebuilt UHF Antenna for HDTV Reception
July 5, 2009
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Personal, Projects, Technology | Tagged: antenna, diy, hdtv, uhf | 
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Posted by Jason Ellis
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Uncle Woodrow, and World War II
July 5, 2009I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) tonight for the first time, and one particular passage struck me in its depiction of memory of World War II. At Billy and Valencia’s eighteenth wedding anniversary, the barbershop quartet, the Febs, begin singing “That Old Gang of Mine,” and Billy is assaulted by the pain of memory:
Unexpectedly, Billy Pilgrim found himself upset by the song and the occasion. He had never had an old gang, old sweethearts and pals, but he missed one anyway, as the quartet made slow, agonized experiments with chords–chords intentionally sour, sourer still, unbearably sour, and then a chord that was suffocatingly sweet, and then some sour ones again. Billy had powerful psychosomatic responses to the changing chords. His mouth filled with the taste of lemonade, and his face became grotesque, as if he were really being stretched on the torture engine called the rack. (172-173)
I’ve seen this before when I was once asking my Uncle Woodrow Head about his experiences in the war before he succumbed to Alzheimer’s Disease.
He told me about the time, prior to the Battle of the Bulge, General Patton inspected his auto group while he was working on the breaks of his jeep. Despite others telling him to snap to attention, he said he had to get it fixed for when they rolled out. Patton’s car pulled up to where my Uncle’s legs were sticking out from under his vehicle. The general got out and told my Uncle that it was men like him that were going to win the war.
He told me about guarding one of the major conferences of the war while manning an anti-aircraft gun with orders to shoot any airplane on sight.
Then, he told me about his friends and the death he witnessed. However, he stopped short and his face took on the “grotesque” that Vonnegut describes in the selection above–the only scene from the book that explicitly invokes memory instead of time warps. The memory of the event overwhelmed my Uncle, a good natured and quiet man who I never before or ever saw again with a face transfigured by a memory so great and terrible that I cannot imagine it.
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Kent State, Personal | Tagged: kurtvonnegut, memory, pain, readinglist, unclewoodrow | 
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Posted by Jason Ellis
Fireworks, Libraries, and the Ohio State Budget
July 4, 2009Apparently public libraries are in trouble in the state of Ohio due to 1) a decline in the state’s general revenue fund, and 2) Governor Ted Strickland’s proposed 30% cut to statewide library funding.
According to the responses from this Yahoo! Answers question, fireworks displays on the scale of what I’ve been hearing about in the small towns surrounding Kent would run into tens of thousands of dollars in addition to costs for insurance, police, music, etc. I don’t know how many fireworks displays there were in Ohio this July 3rd and 4th, but there were 37 in the Northeast corner of the state according to this news site.
I realize that this is not a maximized solution, but I believe that forgoing fireworks during a financial crisis so that those funds can be routed to local libraries, which provide year-round services to the public, would be a far better use of money than an ersatz orgasmic light spectacle.
Read more about the Ohio library dilemma on the Ohio Library Council website here.
2 Comments | 
News | Tagged: budget, fireworks, libraries, ohio, responsible | 
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Posted by Jason Ellis
Added Page for PhD Exam Reading Lists
July 3, 2009I added a “PhD Exams” page to the top of DynamicSubspace.net that includes the reading lists for my three PhD exams, which I will take at the end of Spring 2010. I’ve enabled comments on the page, so please let me know if there is something absolutely critical that I should add to the list, or something that you believe should be removed. Currently, nothing is marked as being read, but I will work on that later tonight.
Back to reading.
1 Comment | Kent State, Personal | Tagged: exams, ksu, phd, readinglist | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
Engagement and Move Announcement
July 2, 2009This is a short announcement, but I wanted to post something on the blog for folks who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook.
On June 22, 2009, I asked Yufang to marry me while we fought off giant prehistoric sea insects along the waterfront on St. Simons Island, Georgia. She said, “yes.” We haven’t set a date for the wedding yet.
After a short vacation in the South, we drove back to Northeast Ohio to move from Stow into our new place across the street from Kent State University. I have been looking forward to walking places, but unfortunately, I’ve been too tired from our rapid fire two day move to do more than assemble IKEA furniture.
Leave a Comment » | Personal | Tagged: engagement, moving, weddingbells | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
New SFRA.org Website Launched!
June 15, 2009I received an email from SFRA Web Director Matthew Holtmeier this afternoon that the new and improved SFRA.org website is now live. Go here to check it out and find out what the new site can offer you!
Leave a Comment » | SFRA, Technology | Tagged: SFRA, website | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
SFRA 2009, Conference completed but not yet on record
June 14, 2009Yufang and I are sitting outside a Starbucks enjoying the warm weather–reading magazines and checking email. We left the Hotel Midtown around noon, saying goodbye to our friends, and we made our way to Norcross to begin our vacation.
During the conference, I was busy making sure the program executed itself with as few memory errors and illegal operations as possible. It may not have been necessary to do this, because everyone really came through in many different ways to make the conference come off as well as it did, and for that I am thankful to everyone at SFRA 2009.
I didn’t have much time to sit in on full panels, so I don’t have much to report on DynamicSubspace.net. However, I will report on the major events and those that I was involved in when I can sporatically connect to the Internet over the coming week. Also, I’m looking forward to reading what other SFRA bloggers have to say about their experiences in Atlanta. As I find these, I will link to them from here.
Talk to y’all soon about our southern-fried science fiction studies conference!
1 Comment | Conference, Science Fiction | Tagged: Conference, SFRA, sfra2009 | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
I’m Quoted in the Youngstown Tribune on Electronic Cheating
June 9, 2009Bob Mackey gave my contact information to the future Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sarah Sepanek for a story she was writing a week ago on student cheating and the Internet. I responded to her email questions about my experiences with plagiarism in my comp classes and what I know about the possibilities of student plagiarism in the Internet age. Now, you can read Sarah’s reporting with a bunch of quotes from me in the Youngstown Tribune here. And, here is a short excerpt from Sarah’s article, “Electronic Cheating”:
Jason Ellis, an English composition instructor at Kent State University, shared some strategies he and fellow instructors use to prevent cheating. He said that catching a student cheating is only the beginning. “The English department is very supportive of teachers who catch plagiarism and provide proof that plagiarism has taken place. However, I will also say that it is difficult to catch plagiarism,” said Ellis.
Ellis said he combines many tactics, such as knowing a student’s writing style, arranging the students so that he can view their computer screens, and running lines of students’ essays and test answers through Internet search engines to see if they are cases of plagiarism. “I pay attention to the writing style and any formatting quirks that might flag that essay as containing plagiarized work.”
To my future students: I want to help each student become a better writer during each course, and I hope that you come to class with a desire to improve your writing for all of your future works during and beyond your time at KSU. I’m more interested in each student giving their best effort in class rather than having a student represent another person’s writing as their own. Giving your best effort will help you in the long run, while the latter is taking a chance on getting a good grade, failing, or expulsion. Before you run afoul of plagiarism, come by my office and ask me about it if it isn’t clear enough in the syllabus. I always stress to my students is that you come see me during office hours if you have questions or want extra time working with me on your writing. It is up to each student to work hard on their own endeavors as well as make the effort to work with one’s writing instructor, who can guide the student through the writing process as well as develop a sense of one’s responsibilities as a writer. One of a writer’s most important responsibilities is to not present another person’s work as their own, and to always cite the work of others when it is used in your own work.
Leave a Comment » | Kent State, Personal | Tagged: ksu, newspaper, plagiarism, quote, reporting | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
SFRA 2009, Essay Conclusion and Sushi
June 9, 2009While my pants were washing in my awesome Frigidaire combo washer and dryer, I rewrote the concluding section of my World of Warcraft essay that I am presenting on Friday morning. Now, I just need to type it up, but I’m out and about right now, so that will have to wait until later this afternoon when I am back home.
With the conclusion finished (but not yet joined to a shorter length overall essay), I drove back to the Starbucks area in Tucker, and got lunch at the delicious Kochi Sushi and Hibachi. For only $10, I got a Coke (it’s required in Atlanta) and a bento box full of sushi, tempura, teriyaki chicken, and fried rice along with soup and salad. There was so much food, I couldn’t eat it all, but I sure did try. Kochi’s lunch is yummy and highly recommended for the taste and the price!
One more thing–I never complained about my unibody MacBook’s glossy screen, until now. It is nearly impossible to use this thing outside where I”m sitting on Starbuck’s patio. My blue IAFA shirt is perfectly reflected on the screen where I am typing this blog post. Chock one up for matte finish laptop screens.
Leave a Comment » | Conference, SFRA, Science Fiction | Tagged: hibachi, sfra2009, sushi, tucker | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
SFRA 2009, In Atlanta, At Starbucks
June 9, 2009I didn’t sleep nearly as long as I would have liked to last night, but I do feel more rested than I did yesterday during the twelve hour drive. Now, I’m sitting in the Tucker, Georgia Starbucks working on shortening my essay for SFRA. I think I’m going to return home, because there are eight advertising robots arguing and shouting over what surfing is like with analogies taken from the movie Blue Crush for some new campaign. I could say some nasty things about how their hive mind works, but I think it suffices to say that Thomas Nagel’s “What Is It Like to Be a Bat” comes to mind.
Leave a Comment » | Conference, SFRA, Science Fiction | Tagged: advertising, essay, sfra2009, starbucks | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
