actor construction?. In too many topics, too little time of June 29, 2003, regarding the role of the actor in the actor-network theory and methodology, jeremy writes: “however, the fixation on the actor is still present. get rid of it, stop thinking about it, think about networks, only networks, and then think… [infoSophy: Socio-technological Rendering of Information]

i replied to this on his blog too, but ultimately my position is to rid oneself of the heirarchy of ontology involved in differentiating actors, and just look at the networks. there really are no actors, because then there is no differences amongst actors, only nodes where networks conjoin.

keeping in mind though that this is just my interpretation of several texts, mainly latour, law, then adding some norbert wiener. most people really want to differentiate between actors, I'm unconvinced that it is as important as kant tells us.

50 centuries of history mapped out.

[Poorbuthappy Guide to Ease]

i want one of these. this would make be perfect for explaining things to students.

1602. “[T]he whole Marvel Universe is starting to occur 500 years early …

Sir Nicholas Fury is head of the Queen's Intelligence, Dr Stephen Strange is her court physician (and magician), the Inquisition is torturing “witchbreed” … and now a mysterious treasure — which may be a weapon of some kind — is being sent from Jerusalem to England by the last of the Templars. Something that may save the world, or destroy it, which has already attracted the attention of such people as Count Otto Von Doom (known as “The Handsome”)… [so] Nicholas Fury sends his top agent, a blind Irish ballad singer named Matthew Murdock, off to bring it back safely.”

What does it all mean? Just that Neil Gaiman is taking Marvel back to 1602. [MetaFilter]

this sounds like it could be cool….. or at least interesting. comic books are interesting to me again.

here is a super rough draft of what i was going to write for the blogosphere call, but realized, thankfully before I submitted it that I would never have time to write this, given that I'm supposed to be working on other things, but is worth thinking about nonetheless, so I'll share it.

!–this is a rough draft–!
Within and Without: The Blogosphere's Construction of Subalterns

In a globalized and individualized society, information systems become identity systems. Blogs are part of this recombinant system, Since their popularization, a disturbingly normal phenomena has once again reared its head. Blogs, and networks of blogs create systems of cores and peripheries, of hegemony and subaltern. In fact, through the appropriation of the authorial voice by systemic hegemonization, many blogs are dissuaded from participating, or voicing alternative blogs and methods. People's ears and yes are tuned out and turned away, the dissonance created by their implied difference from the hegemonic voice.

This glowering hegemonic ideal represses the individual voice, and subordinates it to the hegemony. It defacto creates an underclass of blogs that become ephemeral to the world, unwatched and unread, except to a few, and thus the information and identity functions that these blogs would provide for are circumscribed. This paper is intended to be a theoretical analysis of this phenomena, examining particularly, the relationship between the hegemonic system and the creation of the subaltern class in the blogosphere. By analyzing 'blog advice' and 'how to blog' books, I demonstrate the hegemonic system at work, by relating those to the particular authors and popularity of certain blogs that they author. It should be clear that the infrastructure of blogging is directly related to the hegemonic processes of power and fame of these books and blogs. Following the establishment of the hegemony in the blogosphere, I probe for the subaltern, looking for those that are excluded both within and outside of the the blogosphere establishing within them their inherent lack of role in the blog regime and the fragmented nature of their efforts to become a validated alternative. I conclude by presenting some of the strategies for the subaltern which could reauthorize their voices, perhaps unifying them, and thus providing a sense of difference in the blogosphere.

Sources
Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks . Tr. Joseph A. Buttigieg and Antonio Callari. New York: Columbia UP, 1992.
Gramsci, Antonio. The Modern Prince, and Other Writings . Tr. Louis Marks. New York: International Publishers, 1967.

If you can't tell, I'm avoiding grading, though I am slowly getting finished. grading is the worst part of teaching, if i didn't have to grade i'd love it much more. so our grades for summer session 1 have to be in tomorrow, while second summer session in which I'm teaching my political economy of the internet class, starts today. NO break, though we do get the 4th off, wooo hooo. i wanted to go to dc for the 4th which is always fun, but didn't manage to put anything together:( i'll prolly head up in august when it gets nice and warm.

The presentations from the conference, Death of th …. The presentations from the conference, Death of the Book? Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Publishing (Sydney, March 7-8, 2003), are now online. [FOS News]

I was supposed to go to this with Leveraging the E-everyday life of Academia, but in the end, the budget crisis prevented my participation, luckily that seems somewhat resolved

Nice one.. Impressed by the Bush administration's much-ballyhooed establishment of a national do-not-call registry for telemarketers? Longtime software developer Jeffrey Kay points… [Electrolite]

so there is no protection or security built into the system, who says that the government is supposed to protect and serve its citizens?

All GOP, All the Time. Interesting words via the “Skeptical Notion” blog about the US moving to a one-party system. I would say, judging by the last 4-5 years, we already have become a one-party system. It's been the story of our lives recently – monopoly, homoginization, assault on plurality and elimination of free competition. Oh yeah, elimination of quality too. – G.S.

One Party Rule. Krugman is good today. A forthcoming article in The Washington Monthly shows that the foundations for one-party rule are being laid right now.In “Welcome to the Machine,” Nicholas Confessore draws together stories usually reported in isolation — from [Skeptical Notion] [The Mediaburn Radio Weblog]

oh yes, we do have a governmental monoculture, and it is increasingly created through media effects combined with normalization, etc. everyone looks the same, everyone acts the same, there is little differences except at the periphery…. will that change, prolly not because current media doesn't really support it.

Digital “Shoplifting”?.

Young Japanese women might spot a new hairstyle or a new dress in a glossy fashion magazine and want to know what their friends think,so they take a quick snap with their mobile phone camera and send everybody a picture.But the Japanese Magazine Publishers Association says the practice is “information theft” and it wants it stopped.
Japan's 'digital shoplifting' plague

[Smart Mobs]
taking pictures of pictures used to be fair use, unless those pictures are used to replace the original, which in this case, i don't think it does.