De ny-slitne; Finn Skårderud om utbrenthet - Lommelegen.no
I have been mentioning burn-out before, but after I discussed this with Hilde, she asked me to write about it in a form that other Ph.D. students can use.

Burnout is a real threat to students, and particularly PhD students, because studying is a task which never ends. When working on a PhD you also very often work with something you are really interested in, and the work can't be kept within the 8 hours you are supposed to be at the office. An article in the newspaper, a good book, a conversation in the sauna: it will all become related to your job in a very real and involving manner.

There is also no end to how much work you can do on a PhD. There is no quota you need to fill, it's an endless labour where everything from sentences to lab-experiments can be added, reviewed and calibrated over and over again.

You never know if you are doing well. Until the day when you get the response from the assessors, you have no real knowledge of whether you have done well or you will fail. The closest you'll come is indications - you can't be sure. And here in Norway, that means 3-4 years of lonesome struggle, just hoping you'll be smart enough.

So, what can we do to avoid burning out?

All the usual stuff, of course: have a life and make it a physically active one: that's a given, even if it's not always easy. But there are a few problems which are specific to scholars, which can be solved "the academic way".

It's part of the nature of the work we do that we shouldn't start splitting a PhD up in smaller bits and then be graded more often (like every year), so we have to live with the insecurity. But something can still be done, and I think the key-word should be "net-work".

Meet others who work in the same field, talk, chat, listen and present your own work - it's not just a luxury, but an absolute necessity. Conferences aren't just a good career-booster, it's a survival strategy.

For somebody tucked away in a remote location like me, the allotted funds for travelling don't get me far. This is one reason why I use the net, and this blog, as frequently as I do. It lets me see my own thoughts in a different format from the usual, and in different contexts - and it even leads to feed-back! But it would be more fun and better for me to be able to spend more time with Jill, Hilde, Lisbeth, Espen, Jesper, Gonzalo, Anja, Susana - to go to conferences and sit in on lectures in locations which are equally remote, just remote in an other direction. Or perhaps I could afford to invite somebody to spend time here?!?

Actually, I probably could offer an office and a place to stay if a fellow scholar wanted to spend a while in Volda. Want a winter in Volda?

Don't wait until it's over

a Page of Nerd Songs contains this "poem", which might be the first published use of the word "hacking" in the modern understanding of it:

The following parody of Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" appeared in the newsletter of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT back in the fifties. The TMRC evolved into one of the very first computer clubs, and this may be the first published use of the term "hacking" as presently used...

Switch Thrower for the World, Fuze Tester, Maker of Routes,
Player with the Railroads and the System's Advance Chopper.

Grungy, hairy, sprawling,
Machine of the Point Function Line-o-lite:
They tell me you are wicked, and I believe them; for I have seen your
painted light bulbs under the Lucite, luring the system coolies
Under the tower, dust all over the place, hacking with bifurcated springs
Hacking even as an ignorant freshman hacks who has never lost occupancy and
has dropped out.
Hacking the M-Boards, for under its locks are the switches and under its
control the advance around the layout.

Hacking!

the outward work
will never be puny
if the inner work
is great.
And the outward work
can never be great or even good
if the inward one is puny and of little worth.
(Matthew Fox 1983)

NTNU - doktorgrader
Anita Hammer has delivered her dissertation and is defending it Dec. 14th in Trondheim. It's a theatre-theoretical view on the World Wide Web, and I know Anita well enough to be certain it will be an original and perhaps even thought-provoking addition to the understanding of the digital media.

Sometimes, a word or two is enough to find the resolution to that problem you have been working with for - I don't know how long. I want to thank Hilde for saying "action research", I want to thank the Volda College Library for keeping the book-shelves open and accessible for scholars in sudden and immediate need of literature, I want to thank whoever asked our wonderful librarians to order the Handbook of Action Research, and I want to thank my patient broker-friend matthew for patiently listening to a 30-minute rave on a long-distance phone-line about how much easier it will be to finish chapter 4 now, I want to thank my family for their once and future patience with me and my scholarly obsessions, and while I am at it, I want to thank Lisbeth for having started a very useful list of definitions of interactivity and sharing it with her fellow women and men.

Right now, life in my little office is good.

A joke while I keep worrying if I have seen the important things in my material:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, set up their tent, and fall asleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes his faithful friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson replies, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?"
Watson ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

Holmes is silent for a moment, then speaks. "Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent."

I sincerely hope I will notice if somebody have stolen my tent.

Bibliography on Chat Communication by way of Carsten Jopp's joppLOGG. Thanks, Carsten!

Cybersoc: Internet Research, Consultancy, and Design
Misunderstandings and misinterpretations are common while doing research online, Robin Hamman describes his mistakes in doing research on cybersex. Seems like arousal is a source of error which should not be ignored.

Origo: Skole forbyr «okkult» Harry Potter
Harry Potter is an invitation to experiment with the occult. A school in Melbourne claims that the film and books make adults appear ridiculous, it presents children has having power over adults, and it presents witchcraft and magic like innocent fun. A Norwegian priest says that he doesn't think his 14 year old daughter should see this film.

This might look ridicolous, but in a way such rejection from christians is inevitable. After all, if you believe in the many magical acts which the Holy Trinity performs, then you have to believe that magic can be real. If the priest transforms wine to blood and bread to flesh, and if Jesus really turned water to wine; then of course transforming water to rum - or tepid tea, as the case was in the movie - is possible. But since Harry Potter doesn't get his power from God, and since the characters in the books and movie definitely aren't angels, in the black-and-white world of Christianity the magic has to come from "the dark side".

This means that to believe Harry Potter gets his power from the Devil, you have to believe quite forcefully in the Bible. My conclusion from that is that all us not-quite-so-strong believers, agnostics and non-believers can see the film and read the books safely and happily. And I had a couple of fun hours last night, in the Volda movie theatre!

WomenGamers.Com - Digital Women
By way if Lisbeth, www.womengamers.com and a review of female characters. Interesting, although not too enlightening: their conclusion is that games have very few great female leads, and that this is/ought to be a problem in the industry. I'd like to see some other statistics though: who plays the games with the strong female leads? Does girls choose games like that? How important is gender when it comes to identification in game leads? Are there other more important factors?

Often I feel that women in games are either helpless, or men with tits. Women (in the flesh world) tend to approach problems differently from men, have different priorities and very different skills and advantages. Some of these advantages don't look all that dramatic on the screen: the killer archivist isn't such a great title for a game, even if we know that women often have a better memory for details, better visual memory and are better able to understand complex, multilayered systems: like archives. That doesn't help much when the games depend on for instance spatial perception (in flight-simulators and first-person shooters) or single-minded pursuit of a position on the high-score list.

In case you wondered what shape to give your night-mares:- Dumb Bombs.
If you're the kind of person who dreams in colour, note that the submunitions (the part that does the real harm) is in green and yellow, like lemons and limes. Comes in different sizes, too.

Some links about the unmentionable: burnout
Utbrent - eller bare litt sliten?
Utbrent?
Burned out or stressed out?
The Good, the Bad and the Burned Out
Burnout test

vog blog::vlog
This is one of my favourite descriptions of the feeling of helplessness faced with the Norwegian weather. Ever since the birth of my children - that's the last 15 years - I have felt restrained when walking in the winter. Either I'll slip and get out of balance, and my pelvis will give me excruciating pain, or I will walk like an old lady, and the tension in my back will become equally painful, just a bit more slowly.

My one consolation is walking uphill: it's easier to stay in control. Which is why I loved to read Adrian's post, vividly visualising him sliding slowly backwards. OK, so I read it with a touch of malicious pleasure, but when every step I take is accompanied with pain, I'll take any pleasures I can, malicious or not.

An other Dragoness, and a roleplayer too! I keep finding more and more female gamers, and they aren't playing around with virtual barbies, but with powerful symbols and avatars which denote strength including, but not restricted to, sex.

Some electronic books will definitely have more traffic than others. This link is only useful for scandinavians. It tells you how to be a great lover, and what women should do to satisfy men. The author admits what we all knew though, that men are simple and that some encouragement helps. Wish I had a counter on that download, though....

Why do I think computer viruses are games? I have been thinking a little about that since I idly mentioned it yesterday. I often get questions like "why do people hack computers or make viruses", and while I can't really say, the same way as I have no idea why some people like to play football, I can look at why I think it's a game. So me and google.com set out to find some material about that.

Let's look at Huizinga's categories in homo ludens: First of all, they are restricted to a certain arena: the computer. The computer is perfectly suited to be a gaming environment, it's separate from the "real world" without needing to erect stadiums, it gives an equally good view both for the players and the spectators, and you have a ritualistic approach to entering the arena - you even have a secret pass-word.

Viruses are definitely superflous. Nobody needs a virus. They are a result of too much time, energy and occasionally imagination on the part of the creator. They don't belong in "real life" - even if they impact reality (as does soccer, being a huge industry), their function is beyond the ordinary use of the computer. Although there are viruses which are taken very seriously, Huizinga points out that "Any game can at any time wholly run away with the players."

Viruses are limited in time and space, like a game. They are created, distributed, isolated and stopped. The periodic nature of virus outbreaks has its own rhythm, like certain games - or like the bug they are named for. But where the flu isn't created with intent (we hope), several computer viruses are. Viruses are, in their own way, a different order, and they are an important part of creating a hierarchy in some social groups:

While research shows a lot of virus writers act from boredom, Evan says there are a variety of reasons: "It was some credibility in front of my hacker peers to say, 'hey, I can write a virus and you can't.' There's almost even an aspect of 'make them afraid of you,' albeit, no real threat here, but there was the mystique that 'hey, don't mess with that guy, he'll give you a virus.'"

Viruses claim fame and a place in the history books through elegance and effectiveness.

Virus creation and hacking gives access to a world-spanning community. And like sports, it's healthy, because it keeps the skills of the wider computer community honed.

Even the secrecy and mystery of dress-up is well taken care of in the hacking community, particularly when it comes to sending out virus emails. Disguised through several layers of proxy servers, using automatons or 'bots to launch the virus remotely on certain dates, the hacker also often communicates through dramatic, romantic aliases signifying the lone ranger, the dark hero of the digital frontier.

All of this confirms that making a virus and spreading it is play, but is it a game?
I'd say yes to that as well. Hacking has its own "score-sheet" with hits and misses, and that score-sheet has reached the news. It also has the professional antigonists and established "enemies", somebody to measure skills and abilities against. Hacking Nasa, Pentagon or Microsoft ranks high up there, like an olympic gold medal. There is a game-play nature to hacking and virus-writing which is mirrored in other games to play with computers, popularly called computer games.

Lifestyle
by way of Lisbeth: technofemme. Just so you all know what will make me happy come christmas.

A soft-ware technicians lament
by Red Crystal Scream

Tired

rubbing my eyes
dragging fingers over gritty eyelids,
staring at the sand dune of e-mail problems.
Condemned to dig forever
as the grains flow
and fill the hole.

At least Sisyphys
got a change of view

Salon Technology | 21st Challenge No. 24: Results
How to make people open those virus attachments? This is a kind of game as well.