Posts from — July 2003

Best Happiest place on earth. Reading Metafilter today, I am struck with how lucky I am. In some countries, journalists who question the party line… [Blog de Halavais]

Saturdays are the best days for irony and sarcasm. Alex was more up to the challenge than I was.

Shake'n'Bake Social Theory.

Real innovation in social theory is hard but brute-force approaches can yield results. Henry’s comments on Public Choice Theory reminded me of a simple way to innovate theory that you’re welcome to apply in various contexts as you please.

[Kieran Healy's Weblog]

a problem is that the metonymic replacement or substitution of one cultural institution as another is always political. Even if you really believe that markets are politics, or culture, the way that you came to that belief is probably full of influences outside of your direct control, the discursive realm.

another problem is that; the social is inseparable from any social milieu, such as the market, such as politics, etc. and this is inversely similar. It is one of the great fallacies of analysis to construct categories that can encompass one another, and while this is really all we have to work with, it is also the case, that when presented with someone claiming that one is the other, or one operates like the other, we should respond “sure, except in the cases where it does not” because exceptions always exist and they don't form logical sets for simple analysis, though some people think they do….., but then some people think that the some total of a human life can be represented by their purchases too, so you know, not everything is not as people think:)

the base assumption that i like to work on is that if someone is trying to make something simple, then they are probably putting forth an ideologically bent position that serves them in some manner, even if that service is something like 'it is easier to analyze'. then we can start playing the game “Whose Hegemony, Which Ideology”, which is always fun.

In short, i think we have to be perspectivists and realize that if you are looking from a direction, you are informed by that direction and it narrows your perspective generally so it only sees some details. Perspectives only allow the 'salience' of certain details, and in that they only give us part of the picture, and certainly not everything that is important about the picture, and as such should be supplemented with a general skepticism along the lines of the 8 modes.

but hey, that's just me, I tend to look at meta levels of analysis instead of analyzing anything at all, its an STS* addiction, apparently incurable.

*Science and Technology Studies

Chat Rooms Fastest Cause of Relationship Breakdowns.

The University of Florida just released a study on this subject, “Online Dating Virtually Irresistible To Some Married Folks.”\ [Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends]

you mean, it is replacin the telephone? or the secret letter? oh my… it is interesting thouh to note that it isn't anything new that people use communication to have relationships, and sometimes that faculty of communication allows multiple relationships of the same type. oh, i should stop this rant now. i'm not surprised by the findings. i would have been surprised by their opposite.

The presentations from the conference, Preserving …. The presentations from the conference, Preserving the Web (Kerkira, May 22-24, 2003), are now online. [Open Access News]

this looks like it was a good conference. there are some resources attached too

Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, edited by Diego Gambetta.

This collection was originally published by Basil Blackwell in 1988. The
complete text is now available online in Word97/98 and PDF formats. Click on
the relevant icons to download the corresponding text. Click on the name of an
author for a brief biography, current contact details and relevant subsequent
publications. This electronic edition was prepared by Soojin Yu and Edmund
Chattoe.

—
donationware based knowledge, it's cool

In March, the Netherlands Institute for Scientific …. In March, the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI) released an anthology, Promise and Practice in Data Sharing, available both as a printed book and as free online full-text. This is the second volume in the NIWI series on The Public Domain of Digital Research Data, edited by Paul Wouters and Peter Schröder. The new volume contains four essays:

• Peter Schröder, Digital research data as the floating capital of the Global Science System

• Paul Wouters and Colin Reddy, Big science data policies
• Kathleen Casey, Issues of electronic data access in biodiversity
• Ann Beaulieu, Research woes and new data flows

The first volume in the series, Policies on Digital Research Data: An International Survey, came out in 2002. (Thanks to Shelflife.) [Open Access News]

NIWI does interesting work, I've been impressed by Prof. Wouters work at the Internet Research conferences.

We don't care.

War on terror 'hurts poor'. Poor people hit by disasters around the world are paying the cost of the fight against terror, a report says. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

What stings is when you read:

The report says the US Defense Department raised $1.7bn of relief and reconstruction aid in April 2003 for Iraq.

It contrasts this with the $1bn shortfall in funds faced then by the UN World Food Programme to avert starvation among 40 million Africans in 22 countries.

Conclusion: We don't care about starving Africans.

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

for some odd reason there is a disjunction between money spent for defense and money spent for creating social conditions that limit the need for defense….. isn't that strange.

If You Insist on Graduate School, At Least Do Your Homework. Still, I have a mournful affection for students who remain confident of their ability to beat the odds. The young feel invincible and full of potential. And many universities view their naivetŽ and energy as an exploitable resource. The majority… [Invisible Adjunct]

it is true, you have to really think about grad school. i frequently hear undergrads saying, if i don't get a job i'll go to grad school…. then i laugh.

'Suspected terrorist' removed from flight. EFF co-founder John Gilmore was prevented from flying because he was wearing a button deemed to be in “poor taste” and refused to take it off. Seems he won't be flying anywhere for a while, unless he wins his court case. [Source: Boing Boing] [MetaFilter]

I read books, I'm a suspected terrorist too. I have many volumes, at least 3, on terrorism, its analysis, etc. I even have some fiction relating to terrorism. luckily most of that part of my research occured before they started suspecting people who read such things of being terrorists. Oh my, I also have military training… i'm probably just as dangerous are those terrorists who care about the U.S. and its laws and rights like mr. gilmore.

SiT: Response on organizing a conference. Quote: “I do quite a bit of organizing these things for groups in our system around 90-150. I am totally turned off that as educators, the primary mode of professional communication is a 50 minute lecture to a passive audience.

my response: 50 minutes? hah, no one cares, try 15 to 25 minutes and people will be interested. if they want 50 minutes, then they should hand out papers, there is nothing worse than sitting there listening to someone lecture very poorly for 50 minutes, but in 15 minutes they can hit the high points, and move on.

There is certainly room for presentations though, and depending on the topic, you can do things like computer poster sessions where participants can pick and choose demos to see up close.

my response: you would think this would work, and it does for large audiences over 2000, other than that, it doesn't seem to work very well. It is good in theory, but first you have to get the computers, then the software, then the support staff, then you need an audience that supports that investment by you and the companies, if you don't have it, people will be upset.

Panel discussions are great in theory, but difficult to pull off without a hot topic and a dynamic and forceful facilitator. We typically use them at the end of an event because you bring everyone back together.”

Comment: Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for inspiration. There's some really helpful stuff there. I am of a similar opinion to Alan Levine on the poverty of presentation as the primary mode of communication at professional conferences.

My Response: Panels are easy, super easy, just do it, they are much better than the single person droning on model. Just ask people for topics, and put them facing each other with a central question related to their topic and watch conversation occur.

Just to clarify, this conference is small, with perhaps 50-75 people (guess-timate), mostly librarians and people like me (instructional technologists/distance learning administrators, but not perhaps so much web developers).

I am particularly taken with some elements of the World Cafe and Open Space (whaddya know, they have a wiki) approaches. Something as simple as paying attention to creating the right environment and providing simple resources can really make a big difference. [Serious Instructional Technology]

I've worked on 6 conferences so far in my career, 2 in distance learning, and 4 in internet research, and it is a great experience. for insight into a smaller conference, i suggest checking out Adrian Miles's Dac Blog. Dac is Digital Arts and Culture.