Notebook of Sand

• Recent Publications
• Recent Projects
• Conferences & Speaking
"Comparing Spatial Hypertext Collections"
  ACM Hypertext '09
"Archiving and Sharing Your Tinderbox"
  Tinderbox Weekend London '09
"The Electronic Nature of Future Literatures"
  Literary Studies Now, Apr '09
"The World University Project"
  St. John's Col. Cambridge, Feb '09
"Ethical Explanations,"
  The New Knowledge Forge, Jun '08
Lecture, Cambridge University
  Tragedy in E-Lit, Nov '07
Hypertext '07: Tragedy in E-Lit
Host for Tinderbox Cambridge '07
Keynote: Dickinson State Uni Conf
Upper Midwest NCHC'07: Speaker
eNarrative 6: Creative Nonfiction
HT'05: "Philadelphia Fullerine"
  Nelson award winning paper
NCHC '05:
 Nurturing Independent Scholarship
Riddick Practicum:
  Building Meeting Good Will
NCHC '04:
  Philadelphia Fullerine
  Lecture on American Studies
WWW@10: Nonfiction on the Web
NCHC '03: Parliamentary Procedure
ELL '03 -- Gawain Superstar
• (a)Musing (ad)Dictions:

Ideas. Tools. Art. Build --not buy. What works, what doesn't. Enjoy new media and software aesthetics at Tekka.

Theodore Gray (The Magic Black Box)

Faith, Life, Art, Academics. Sermons from my family away from home: Eden Chapel!

My other home: The Cambridge Union Society (in 2007, I designed our [Fresher's Guide])

The Economist daily news analysis

Global Higher Ed blog

• Hypertext/Writing

Writing the Living Web

Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems, hypertext expert Mark Bernstein. (Electronic) Literature, cooking, art, etc.

Fabulous game reviews at playthisthing.

• Stats

Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.

There is a Chapter II.

Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA

Lineage: Guatemala

Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.

Interests: Anything I can learn. Training and experience in new media, computer science, anglophone literature, education, parliamentary debate, democratic procedure, sculpture, and trumpet performance. Next: applied & computational linguistics, probably.

Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I studied English at St. John's College, Cambridge University from 2006 - 2008.

Memberships: Eden Baptist, Cambridge Union Society, ACM, AIP, GPA.

Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.

Banana Tech
Tuesday, 11 May 2004 :-:

I heard some shocking news the other day. The supermarket banana supply, it seems, may disappear within the next ten years. The Chiquita lady's dance will end, and we will all have to mix Pomegranates into our corn flakes or douse Mangos in ice cream. Split-Pea Split anyone?

Our yellow edible friend, Musa Musacaceae , has for hundreds of years been closely mixed into a mangle of science, invention, diplomacy, art, and culture, mingling with the fruit cocktail of human effort our world is today.

Not even the simple banana is free from the machinations of our society and economy. Yes, a complicated blend of marketing efforts, refrigerated ships, import and export trade laws, food databases, pesticides, inventory tracking computers, genetic science, agricultural voodoo, and international summits all come together every morning when you pull the convenient tab and open the handy yellow container to enjoy a tasty snack of potassium, the perfect pick-me-up. Nature's Mylar, eh?

In today's society, we don't understand the things we use. Figuring out the remote control is hard enough. Understanding the electrical contents borders on black magic. But we don't even understand the simple banana. Hands up if you know the banana isn't a fruit tree. Not a tree, it's just a really big herb plant. Basil, Cumin, Tarragon, Rosemary, Echinacea, Banana. In fact, the Banana is the world's largest herb.

Is the Banana a technology? It certainly is a product of technology; it comes off the assembly line just like any other product. But in the end, when I look at the golden yellow fruit and the smiling flamenco dancer, I'll let life be simple. I'll be a good little Eloi and smile as I take a bite. I'll buy technology because it's new and shiny and magical, and I didn't grow up with it, and I'll buy bananas because they're natural.

And when the banana population dies, and genetically manufactured bananas appear in the stainless steel rows, the automatic mist spritzing gently from aluminum nipples evenly spaced along the long aisle, I'll never know the difference.