Category — General

towboat:

great old pics of an interesting bridge passing.

The Decline and Fall of the British University:
Poor communication, expensive
reading materials and illiteracy were the foundation blocks for
the universities. If today we have excellent
communications, free online information and general
literacy, we also have an environment in which the universities
are struggling to maintain their position. That, of course,
is not an accident.

——–

yep, that’s a nice essay.

phd

—–

life was hard, but people weren’t as hungry.

Seymour Martin Lipset, Sociologist, Dies at 84 – New York Times:
Seymour Martin Lipset, who ignored family pressure to be a dentist and instead became a pre-eminent sociologist, political scientist and incisive theorist on American uniqueness, died on Dec. 31 in Arlington, Va. He was 84.

——-

I don’t think that many people get through political science degrees without reading some Lipset… He made some interesting arguments.

Lessig and Barlow at 23c3:
Sandy Stone told me that I should hear Barlow at 23c3… I didn’t get a reference url from her, but ran across it on boing boing. I’m just noting it here so I can come back and listen when I have time. Isn’t that what blogs are for? [Link]
——
jpbarlow on the copyfight

Call for Papers:
Association of Internet Researchers

Abstract Deadline: February 1, 2007
This conference, which uses Open Conference Systems developed by the Public Knowledge Project, enables participants to submit abstracts online at http://conferences.aoir.org/submit.php?cf=6.

Presentations can include:
• Single papers (abstract max of 750 words)• Creative or Aesthetic Presentation (abstract max of 750 words)• Panels (abstract max of 2500 words)• Roundtable (abstract max of 750 words)• Pre-conference workshop (abstract max of 1000 words)

Call for Papers Announcement

LET’S PLAY!

We call for papers, panel proposals, and resentations from any discipline, methodology, and community, and from conjunctions of multiple disciplines, methodologies and communities, that address the (playful) blurring of boundaries online. The following TOPICS are suggestions simply intended to spark initial reflection and creativity:

——–

here we go!

sleepless nights with steve woolf:
No accountability = no community.

——

accountability has no necessary relation to community, it may be present, it may not. two things are necessary for community, a shared space (this may be imaginary, virtual, etc.) and the capacity to exclude others. once you establish the capacity to identify that ‘this is us’ and ‘they are them’ then you have the locus communus that establishes community in people’s minds… holding something in common, this ‘us’-ness in relation to that ‘them’-ness.

Introducing: FISH:
FISH: Free (as in kittens) Integrated Search Handler. But never, ever tell your patrons that (unless they want to know). Backranym it to “FISH Isn’t So Hard” or “Finding Instead of Searching Helps.” But let’s break down the orignial meaning:
——-

this looks like a nifty tool for drupal using libraries.

sleepless nights with steve woolf:
No accountability = no community.

——

accountability has no necessary relation to community, it may be present, it may not. two things are necessary for community, a shared space (this may be imaginary, virtual, etc.) and the capacity to exclude others. once you establish the capacity to identify that ‘this is us’ and ‘they are them’ then you have the locus communus that establishes community in people’s minds… holding something in common, this ‘us’-ness in relation to that ‘them’-ness.