In Vienna
July 5th, and desperately seeking Torill? Well, try Blogtalk 2.0, between 14.45 and 15.15. I'll be the woman standing up, talking.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Broken system
or not, this description of the popularity of The Invisible Adjunct indicates that blogs are a way to critisise a system where formal channels are too restricted and closely monitored to open up for a real dialogue.
or not, this description of the popularity of The Invisible Adjunct indicates that blogs are a way to critisise a system where formal channels are too restricted and closely monitored to open up for a real dialogue.
Moblogging
From a colleague with his own photoblog fed from his mobile phone, some interesting moblogging links.
A pdf collection of pictures of people with cellphones, all over the world, by Dr. Sadie Plant.
Buzznet, with a link to a BBC article on Moblogs. I wanted to read the article on how moblogs drive the adaption of camera phones, but the link to Daily Yomiuru didn't work.
And Bitflux, a photoblog with little tiny stories - like "lecker" and "happy end".
From a colleague with his own photoblog fed from his mobile phone, some interesting moblogging links.
A pdf collection of pictures of people with cellphones, all over the world, by Dr. Sadie Plant.
Buzznet, with a link to a BBC article on Moblogs. I wanted to read the article on how moblogs drive the adaption of camera phones, but the link to Daily Yomiuru didn't work.
And Bitflux, a photoblog with little tiny stories - like "lecker" and "happy end".
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
No derivative work
One of the things that us Norwegian scholars always worry about when publishing in the US is the rules for re-use of the work, ours and others. This worry is normally not because we sorry about people quoting too much of our own work. Hey, use us, quote us, criticize or adore us, it is what academic writing is for! No, what we worry about is whether we have overstepped boundaries about quoting and citing, rules and regulations foreign to the Norwegian traditions.
The Creative Commons license is in a way very close to how most Norwegian Scholars think about their work, so when Into the blogosphere uses the creative commons to restrict the use of my article, that's perfectly fine with me. It is also fine because then I can go in and check what it really means, and see that people can use, cite, quote and in general have fun with my work, as long as they don't sell it for money. What I don't quite understand though is the meaning of "derivative works". Where is the limit for derivative? If I inspire an other scholar to write a scathing criticism of what I wrote, is that a derivative work? After all, refuting everything I say means staying very close to my text, and letting my text control the other writer's every response. Or if the other writer decides to see if I am really right in my assumptions, and wants to develop a research project to test a theory from my work, is that derivative work?
No, I don't want to use this to ensure that I will not be criticised or stop others from developing research testing my hypothesis. I want to understand whether the editors could use the "no derivative" clause of a Creative Commons license to stop others using my work that way. And I suspect it is a technicality. Just one that made me wonder.
update:
From Mark Bernstein, a definition:
The Copyright Act, at 17 U.S.C. §101,....
A ``derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ``derivative work''.
and a link
And from one of the editors of Into the Blogosphere a message that if I want to open up for derivative work, I can. What I can't do is restrict the use of my article more than the editors intend with the license.
Thanks, that was useful information!
One of the things that us Norwegian scholars always worry about when publishing in the US is the rules for re-use of the work, ours and others. This worry is normally not because we sorry about people quoting too much of our own work. Hey, use us, quote us, criticize or adore us, it is what academic writing is for! No, what we worry about is whether we have overstepped boundaries about quoting and citing, rules and regulations foreign to the Norwegian traditions.
The Creative Commons license is in a way very close to how most Norwegian Scholars think about their work, so when Into the blogosphere uses the creative commons to restrict the use of my article, that's perfectly fine with me. It is also fine because then I can go in and check what it really means, and see that people can use, cite, quote and in general have fun with my work, as long as they don't sell it for money. What I don't quite understand though is the meaning of "derivative works". Where is the limit for derivative? If I inspire an other scholar to write a scathing criticism of what I wrote, is that a derivative work? After all, refuting everything I say means staying very close to my text, and letting my text control the other writer's every response. Or if the other writer decides to see if I am really right in my assumptions, and wants to develop a research project to test a theory from my work, is that derivative work?
No, I don't want to use this to ensure that I will not be criticised or stop others from developing research testing my hypothesis. I want to understand whether the editors could use the "no derivative" clause of a Creative Commons license to stop others using my work that way. And I suspect it is a technicality. Just one that made me wonder.
update:
From Mark Bernstein, a definition:
The Copyright Act, at 17 U.S.C. §101,....
A ``derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ``derivative work''.
and a link
And from one of the editors of Into the Blogosphere a message that if I want to open up for derivative work, I can. What I can't do is restrict the use of my article more than the editors intend with the license.
Thanks, that was useful information!
At the beginning was chaos
That is a more acceptable theory, and also more in line with the norse myth of creation, than having a conscious mind out there creating everything. A cow licking a frosted, salty rock causing life sounds a little like butterflies causing storms, and chaos is definitely a powerful actor in all of the norse myths, represented by Loke, the advocate of all things unpredictable.
Chaos connected to creativity thus has a mythic or religious connection. The strong mathematical nature of Chaos theory makes it rather inaccessible to us of a more humanistic bent. Even the Chaos Hypertextbook is beyond true understanding. Knowing the theories of hypertexts does not help, and reader-response theory only tells me that no, I am not the model reader of this! I could of course see if it helps with a Master's degree from Western Sydney in Complexity, Chaos and Creativity. One of the courses is called Use of Narratology in Dealing with Social Complexity, and sounds like part of an argument raging in groups I know fairly well.
What I am looking at chaos and creativity for right now, is that I think that a lot of the patterns and structures we see emerge in multi-user computer games might be better explained through chaos: emergence of logic and results from the random acts of multitudes. I just don't understand the theory properly yet. Not at all, really. But that's pretty chaotic and in the spirit of random acts from which meaning emerges - me thinking about using chaos theory to study games is as effective as a cow licking a frosted stone to create life. But Audhumla did it.
That is a more acceptable theory, and also more in line with the norse myth of creation, than having a conscious mind out there creating everything. A cow licking a frosted, salty rock causing life sounds a little like butterflies causing storms, and chaos is definitely a powerful actor in all of the norse myths, represented by Loke, the advocate of all things unpredictable.
Chaos connected to creativity thus has a mythic or religious connection. The strong mathematical nature of Chaos theory makes it rather inaccessible to us of a more humanistic bent. Even the Chaos Hypertextbook is beyond true understanding. Knowing the theories of hypertexts does not help, and reader-response theory only tells me that no, I am not the model reader of this! I could of course see if it helps with a Master's degree from Western Sydney in Complexity, Chaos and Creativity. One of the courses is called Use of Narratology in Dealing with Social Complexity, and sounds like part of an argument raging in groups I know fairly well.
What I am looking at chaos and creativity for right now, is that I think that a lot of the patterns and structures we see emerge in multi-user computer games might be better explained through chaos: emergence of logic and results from the random acts of multitudes. I just don't understand the theory properly yet. Not at all, really. But that's pretty chaotic and in the spirit of random acts from which meaning emerges - me thinking about using chaos theory to study games is as effective as a cow licking a frosted stone to create life. But Audhumla did it.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Dark thoughts
A heavy, rainy day with no rest, a complicated series of lectures waiting for me, starting tomorrow, and no way out of my obligations. Not even a Dr. of games can play ALL the time. So when this poem drifted by, I snagged it:
HINSIDES
Jeg er uten håp.
Men regnet faller for å
fylle opp fjorden.
Glo
A heavy, rainy day with no rest, a complicated series of lectures waiting for me, starting tomorrow, and no way out of my obligations. Not even a Dr. of games can play ALL the time. So when this poem drifted by, I snagged it:
HINSIDES
Jeg er uten håp.
Men regnet faller for å
fylle opp fjorden.
Glo
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Stone mason
Ålesund, the closest city, burned down in January 1904. Today the city centre is heavily modernised, but luckily some of the city that rose from the ashes has been preserved: some of the most beautiful stone architecture in Norway, thanks to the German Kaiser Wilhelm.
Among the stone masons drifting north was a young man from a family og stone masons. His father had come out of Sweeden, nobody knows from where exactly. The name he used was Karlson - son of Karl, which means man in both Swedish and Norwegian. The son of Karl followed the work on the railroads, and the first time the history of this particular stone mason touches on my past, is when he meets the daughter of a farmer close to Bergen. At the time the son of Karl was a labour party agitator, a skilled mason and, according to the picture hanging on the wall in my mother's summer house, a man with strong features and intense eyes, looking in his old age dreamily into some future just beyond our point of view. The woman he met was his match. Her picture is at the other side of the window, at the same wall, and she looks directly into your eyes, her hair pulled back to reveal the shape of a face I find alarmingly familiar: strong jaw, clear brow, long neck, she haunts the family with glimpses of her features generations down the line.
The son of Karl and the daughter of the farmer not only loved each other, but they made love. More than one of my great-uncles had been born by the time they married. She was cast out of the family not for her love but for that marriage, with the words of her father still ringing in the memory of this family with their bitter venom, poisoning the past but also setting us all free to choose for ourselves. "It would be better if she had a mill-stone about her neck and was drowned and resting at the bottom of the ocean than marrying that Swede!"
She never backed down. She married her stone-mason, her wandering Swede, took his name, gave birth to this children and lived a long life in Oslo, apart and estranged from her family until her brother took over the farm and invited his nephews back to visit. From these two came several stone-masons, and when Ålesund burned, the work pulled them north. This one stayed behind while his brothers drifted further north, following the work. They went north to work on rebuilding and maintaining Nidarosdomen, the gothic cathedral in Trondheim, started in 1070 and kind of fully built around 1300. According to family history, there are still stone masons of the line of the son of Karl working on the cathedral.
But this particular one stayed in the vicinity of Ålesund. He liked to go to town in the week-end, and would blow some of his salary on staying at the best hotel in town, Grand, today named Hotel Scandinavie. In this hotel there was a particular young maid, from the north of Norway, who had caught his fancy.
Although he was a mature man, already married and divorced once, the feisty little girl from an island far north caught his attention, and he never went north to his brothers or back south to his children and former wife. Instead he bought a piece of rock, built a house on it, and paid for permission to work the stone along the shore close to that house. The stone in this area is clean and even, a warm, fine-grained light grey. Out of the rock he cut a living for himself and his six younger children. He worked to give his children education, and managed to pay for two of them, one boy and one girl, an engineer and a school-teacher, as well as some additional schooling for his two younger daughters. Not quite as much as they dreamed of, but more than some. He cut headstones, stones for memorials, stones for any use, but to know him in his old age, think of him when you walk the streets of Ålesund.
The characteristic warm grey of the mountains around my mother's childhood home occasionally breaks the cooler grey of the Italian stone in the intricate patterns of the cobbled streets of Ålesund, and I know that he or one of my uncles, or even my father, have handled this piece of rock. They have split a huge block out of the side of the mountain, then split that again into smaller pieces, until at the end one man could shape each single stone individually, with quick and light snaps of the hammer, and yet an other square can be added to the load waiting to be shipped out the fjord and back in one fjord further south, to be used to cover the streets we walk on today. When I put my hand on one of the memorial stones he cut, I know that I touch where his hand touched, and I know my children and my children's children can do the same. I know very little of him, and touching his stones is the closest I will ever be to my grandfather, but from his stones I learn that he was a man who cherished balance, he chose the pure grey granite over the flashy marble, and he never chose to polish a surface if he could leave it raw, living with the texture of the rock. The only polished stones I know of his are those of the cobbled roads: polished by feet and wheels, paws and hooves.
Ålesund, the closest city, burned down in January 1904. Today the city centre is heavily modernised, but luckily some of the city that rose from the ashes has been preserved: some of the most beautiful stone architecture in Norway, thanks to the German Kaiser Wilhelm.
Among the stone masons drifting north was a young man from a family og stone masons. His father had come out of Sweeden, nobody knows from where exactly. The name he used was Karlson - son of Karl, which means man in both Swedish and Norwegian. The son of Karl followed the work on the railroads, and the first time the history of this particular stone mason touches on my past, is when he meets the daughter of a farmer close to Bergen. At the time the son of Karl was a labour party agitator, a skilled mason and, according to the picture hanging on the wall in my mother's summer house, a man with strong features and intense eyes, looking in his old age dreamily into some future just beyond our point of view. The woman he met was his match. Her picture is at the other side of the window, at the same wall, and she looks directly into your eyes, her hair pulled back to reveal the shape of a face I find alarmingly familiar: strong jaw, clear brow, long neck, she haunts the family with glimpses of her features generations down the line.
The son of Karl and the daughter of the farmer not only loved each other, but they made love. More than one of my great-uncles had been born by the time they married. She was cast out of the family not for her love but for that marriage, with the words of her father still ringing in the memory of this family with their bitter venom, poisoning the past but also setting us all free to choose for ourselves. "It would be better if she had a mill-stone about her neck and was drowned and resting at the bottom of the ocean than marrying that Swede!"
She never backed down. She married her stone-mason, her wandering Swede, took his name, gave birth to this children and lived a long life in Oslo, apart and estranged from her family until her brother took over the farm and invited his nephews back to visit. From these two came several stone-masons, and when Ålesund burned, the work pulled them north. This one stayed behind while his brothers drifted further north, following the work. They went north to work on rebuilding and maintaining Nidarosdomen, the gothic cathedral in Trondheim, started in 1070 and kind of fully built around 1300. According to family history, there are still stone masons of the line of the son of Karl working on the cathedral.
But this particular one stayed in the vicinity of Ålesund. He liked to go to town in the week-end, and would blow some of his salary on staying at the best hotel in town, Grand, today named Hotel Scandinavie. In this hotel there was a particular young maid, from the north of Norway, who had caught his fancy.
Although he was a mature man, already married and divorced once, the feisty little girl from an island far north caught his attention, and he never went north to his brothers or back south to his children and former wife. Instead he bought a piece of rock, built a house on it, and paid for permission to work the stone along the shore close to that house. The stone in this area is clean and even, a warm, fine-grained light grey. Out of the rock he cut a living for himself and his six younger children. He worked to give his children education, and managed to pay for two of them, one boy and one girl, an engineer and a school-teacher, as well as some additional schooling for his two younger daughters. Not quite as much as they dreamed of, but more than some. He cut headstones, stones for memorials, stones for any use, but to know him in his old age, think of him when you walk the streets of Ålesund.
The characteristic warm grey of the mountains around my mother's childhood home occasionally breaks the cooler grey of the Italian stone in the intricate patterns of the cobbled streets of Ålesund, and I know that he or one of my uncles, or even my father, have handled this piece of rock. They have split a huge block out of the side of the mountain, then split that again into smaller pieces, until at the end one man could shape each single stone individually, with quick and light snaps of the hammer, and yet an other square can be added to the load waiting to be shipped out the fjord and back in one fjord further south, to be used to cover the streets we walk on today. When I put my hand on one of the memorial stones he cut, I know that I touch where his hand touched, and I know my children and my children's children can do the same. I know very little of him, and touching his stones is the closest I will ever be to my grandfather, but from his stones I learn that he was a man who cherished balance, he chose the pure grey granite over the flashy marble, and he never chose to polish a surface if he could leave it raw, living with the texture of the rock. The only polished stones I know of his are those of the cobbled roads: polished by feet and wheels, paws and hooves.
Friday, April 23, 2004
the-phone-book and break battle
One of my favourite projects, the-phone-book.com, is ending. I have enjoyed the ultra-short stories immensely, and used them in my lectures, teaching narratology, rhetoric and writing. Now the project is closed, but the stories live on, this time as texts for scratch DJ's! I am not much of a club-goer, but that's something I'd have liked to see and hear!
One of my favourite projects, the-phone-book.com, is ending. I have enjoyed the ultra-short stories immensely, and used them in my lectures, teaching narratology, rhetoric and writing. Now the project is closed, but the stories live on, this time as texts for scratch DJ's! I am not much of a club-goer, but that's something I'd have liked to see and hear!
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Tobacco tycoon
Are you secretly in love with the thought of killing off millions all over the world, but without ever needing to see the goo, splatter and mess that comes with first person shooter games? Try your hand as a Tobacco Tycoon! (in Norwegian).
This is an example of a game used for educational and public information purposes. It is developed as part of an anti-smoking campaign, and it is structured as a simple board-game with traditional little tasks for you to do, cards that let you know if you are harassed by journalists or can afford a vacation at the Seychelles, and a dice to roll. Every time you pass "start" you're told how much money you have made or lost, and how many people you have killed. In this game being good doesn't pay, so I guess it is social realism.
Are you secretly in love with the thought of killing off millions all over the world, but without ever needing to see the goo, splatter and mess that comes with first person shooter games? Try your hand as a Tobacco Tycoon! (in Norwegian).
This is an example of a game used for educational and public information purposes. It is developed as part of an anti-smoking campaign, and it is structured as a simple board-game with traditional little tasks for you to do, cards that let you know if you are harassed by journalists or can afford a vacation at the Seychelles, and a dice to roll. Every time you pass "start" you're told how much money you have made or lost, and how many people you have killed. In this game being good doesn't pay, so I guess it is social realism.
Meming
By way of Dennis Jerz, a meme:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
The theoretician and indefatigable agitator for this policy was schoolmaster and grammarian Knud Knudsen (1812-1895), who in the early 1840's began advocating that Danish spelling, grammar and vocabulary should be gradually Norwegianized.
From Einar Haugen: Norsk-engelsk ordbok / Norwegian-english Dictionary, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 1994.
By way of Dennis Jerz, a meme:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
The theoretician and indefatigable agitator for this policy was schoolmaster and grammarian Knud Knudsen (1812-1895), who in the early 1840's began advocating that Danish spelling, grammar and vocabulary should be gradually Norwegianized.
From Einar Haugen: Norsk-engelsk ordbok / Norwegian-english Dictionary, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 1994.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
It's a theory, you know
One of the things I do in my job, is talk to a lot of communication planners, directors, consultants and other highly-paid communication specialists. I meet them in conferences and seminars, as supervisors of my students in interbships or as fellow members in advisory boards. They are a multi-hued group, with a wide range of backgrounds. One thing most of them have in common though: They think Communication Planning is so much more "real life" than anything I can do as a teacher or researcher. I have to admit that this is wearying, even if I don't think I live in a virtual world.
These are the things on my mind when I read articles like "Evaluating Communication Campaigns" by Thomas W. Valente, in Rice and Atkin's Public Communication Campaigns. Valente has a really good point: a communication program depends on a theory!
... three different scenarios in which the program or the theory or both might succeed or fail. In the first scenario, a successful program sets in motion a causal process specified by a theory that results in the desired outcome. In the second scenario, there is a failure of theory in which there is a successfully implemented program (as measured by process evalutation) that sets in motion a causal process that did not result in the desired outcome. In the third scenario, because of a program failure, the intervention did not start an expected causal sequence, so the theory could not be tested.
What this means is that a communication plan is just a theory about how the audience will react to certain input and certain changes in the infrastructure. It is not a recipe for communicative success, it is an idea about how it may be possible to succeed. So, next time you're about to spend a significant part of your budget on public relations, advertising or public information, and you are about to shuffle that money into the already bloated bank account of some firm that boasts their "hands-on" experience rather than buying the services of that boring old research institute, consider who you want to develop the theories you pay for. People who think academic discipline is boring and analysis a waste, or people who knows a good theory when they see one, but also knows how to test, criticize and question it?
After all, work doesn't become more real by being executed by people who have never wanted to understand the why of their job.
One of the things I do in my job, is talk to a lot of communication planners, directors, consultants and other highly-paid communication specialists. I meet them in conferences and seminars, as supervisors of my students in interbships or as fellow members in advisory boards. They are a multi-hued group, with a wide range of backgrounds. One thing most of them have in common though: They think Communication Planning is so much more "real life" than anything I can do as a teacher or researcher. I have to admit that this is wearying, even if I don't think I live in a virtual world.
These are the things on my mind when I read articles like "Evaluating Communication Campaigns" by Thomas W. Valente, in Rice and Atkin's Public Communication Campaigns. Valente has a really good point: a communication program depends on a theory!
... three different scenarios in which the program or the theory or both might succeed or fail. In the first scenario, a successful program sets in motion a causal process specified by a theory that results in the desired outcome. In the second scenario, there is a failure of theory in which there is a successfully implemented program (as measured by process evalutation) that sets in motion a causal process that did not result in the desired outcome. In the third scenario, because of a program failure, the intervention did not start an expected causal sequence, so the theory could not be tested.
What this means is that a communication plan is just a theory about how the audience will react to certain input and certain changes in the infrastructure. It is not a recipe for communicative success, it is an idea about how it may be possible to succeed. So, next time you're about to spend a significant part of your budget on public relations, advertising or public information, and you are about to shuffle that money into the already bloated bank account of some firm that boasts their "hands-on" experience rather than buying the services of that boring old research institute, consider who you want to develop the theories you pay for. People who think academic discipline is boring and analysis a waste, or people who knows a good theory when they see one, but also knows how to test, criticize and question it?
After all, work doesn't become more real by being executed by people who have never wanted to understand the why of their job.
Bbbzzzzz
There is a fly crawling around in my screen right now. It is black, with blue wings. A moment ago, I had a visit from one with white wings. I wonder (and worry) whether I will have a swarm soon, of little baby flies with pale blue wings?
Do you want your own fly? Try Z, an online project from P. S. 1 at MoMa, Museum of Modern Art in New York.
There is a fly crawling around in my screen right now. It is black, with blue wings. A moment ago, I had a visit from one with white wings. I wonder (and worry) whether I will have a swarm soon, of little baby flies with pale blue wings?
Do you want your own fly? Try Z, an online project from P. S. 1 at MoMa, Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
To do - done
Last night I stayed late at the office, organising all the tasks that need to be addressed the coming weeks. My days are varied, comprising a multitude of different types of jobs: teaching, writing, reading, supervising, administration, representation, advising and attendance of several different types of boards, comittees and working groups. I keep falling behind on organising this: just keeping my calendar updated took a couple of hours.
So, I made two boxes: "to do" and "done". I put all the papers on my desk into different files and filed them in one of those boxes. I made a to-do-list, to keep at the desk, no longer on those index cards I normally use, but in a journal, one picked to live on my desk only. I updated the calendar on the cellphone, on the computer, and the black book I carry when I remember it.
My desk was so pretty and clean when I got to work this morning. It felt like I had accomplished a major task. Part of that feeling had obviously been with me last night. When I checked I had put all the urgent stuff on my desk in the "done" box.
Last night I stayed late at the office, organising all the tasks that need to be addressed the coming weeks. My days are varied, comprising a multitude of different types of jobs: teaching, writing, reading, supervising, administration, representation, advising and attendance of several different types of boards, comittees and working groups. I keep falling behind on organising this: just keeping my calendar updated took a couple of hours.
So, I made two boxes: "to do" and "done". I put all the papers on my desk into different files and filed them in one of those boxes. I made a to-do-list, to keep at the desk, no longer on those index cards I normally use, but in a journal, one picked to live on my desk only. I updated the calendar on the cellphone, on the computer, and the black book I carry when I remember it.
My desk was so pretty and clean when I got to work this morning. It felt like I had accomplished a major task. Part of that feeling had obviously been with me last night. When I checked I had put all the urgent stuff on my desk in the "done" box.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Do you tooth?
When my colleague asked me this, I thought he was worried about my teeth, and not about my sex life. Turns out there's a whole new way of getting casual sex that I have no chance to be even offended and much less tantalised by, as my new cellphone is without bluetooth. Hmm, the phone was a gift from my husband. Does he know something I did not?
When my colleague asked me this, I thought he was worried about my teeth, and not about my sex life. Turns out there's a whole new way of getting casual sex that I have no chance to be even offended and much less tantalised by, as my new cellphone is without bluetooth. Hmm, the phone was a gift from my husband. Does he know something I did not?
Daedalus Project
An interesting link for academic gamers: The Daedalus Project, ran by Nicholas Yee. And for those who wonder what "Daedalus" means: the myth of Daedalus and Ikaros.
An interesting link for academic gamers: The Daedalus Project, ran by Nicholas Yee. And for those who wonder what "Daedalus" means: the myth of Daedalus and Ikaros.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Dreams and desires
I have wild dreams of technology, and I enjoy living comfortably in a large house, but there is something I would really like to own, something that makes me pause and stare when I see one, something that makes me ache for time, blue blonde nights and smooth water. I think this is perhaps the most materialistic dream I have ever had. It is something I want just for pleasure, just for owning it and have access to it when ever I like. This runs deeper than the way I tend to pick up red shoes and boots when I have a chance, or the lust for a new gadget. I really want a wooden rowing boat, and even if I have to be an old lady before I can afford it, I will have one. And then I will pretend to go fishing, and just row, quietly, on the fjords. There is little more restful than the sound of oares and water against a wooden hull and the smell of salt and seaweed.
I have wild dreams of technology, and I enjoy living comfortably in a large house, but there is something I would really like to own, something that makes me pause and stare when I see one, something that makes me ache for time, blue blonde nights and smooth water. I think this is perhaps the most materialistic dream I have ever had. It is something I want just for pleasure, just for owning it and have access to it when ever I like. This runs deeper than the way I tend to pick up red shoes and boots when I have a chance, or the lust for a new gadget. I really want a wooden rowing boat, and even if I have to be an old lady before I can afford it, I will have one. And then I will pretend to go fishing, and just row, quietly, on the fjords. There is little more restful than the sound of oares and water against a wooden hull and the smell of salt and seaweed.
Male moron law §1 and 2
I have spent a couple of days considering how to make all people, and particularly women, choose the natural sciences, mathematics and computing for education and research. After that it was with great interest I read Jill's post at Misbehaving.net about Katla's anger at The Gathering, and her wow never to return. If this is the way men in male-dominated fields treat women, they not only manage to discredit the entire field for females, they also discredit themselves for all normally intelligent people, gender-independently! Who, with the slightest touch of social intelligence, wants to be identified with insensitive idiots who do something like that to their female peers? The geek-image definitely needs a LOT of adjustment.
The debate around this is interesting, at both Katla's site and at misbehaving.net. What really fascinates me is that people consider general stupidity to be a defence. There's a long, sad tradition for that in gendered debates and conflicts. When I studied in Bergen in the eighties the local newspaper covered a particularly nasty rape. A man had picked up a girl in his car, and with the help of friends taken her to his cabin, kept her prisoner several days and raped her repeatedly. She finally managed to escape and get help. Rapes are rarely this obvious. One thing is having sex with a girl who has agreed to let you drive her home, that often leaves ample room for defense. This moron had kept her prisoner for a long time and shared her with friends. When asked how he could do something like this, he replied with the male moron law of sexual encounters: "Everybody knows that when a girl says no, she really means yes."
The debate on Katla's site indicates that the geek girls should be happy they had all that interest from the geek boys. Geek girls don't get many other chances to be what all girls dream of: a sexy bimbo. I think that should be male moron law § 2: "What all women really want is to be a sex-object all the time and to all men."
And beebop, I am really sorry about what you must have felt that made you write this:
I sympathise with you, it's not a pleasant situation to be in. However these guys are not really doing you any harm, admittedly they are objectifying your body but, heck, i'd love for someone to objectify my body and most women love the flattery.
I know girls pretend that they don't like it but most girls I know love being hit on or wolf whistled at by guys - it just lets them know they're looking good. For these "geek girls" it's a rare opportunity, they're not going to get appreciated that often!
I am sorry there are nobody who appreciates your body and mind, nobody to express desire for you and nobody to let you feel respected and treasured. Because those things are so much, much better than having casual strangers drool over your tits, and experiencing respect and admiration just might teach you what geek girls really want.
I have spent a couple of days considering how to make all people, and particularly women, choose the natural sciences, mathematics and computing for education and research. After that it was with great interest I read Jill's post at Misbehaving.net about Katla's anger at The Gathering, and her wow never to return. If this is the way men in male-dominated fields treat women, they not only manage to discredit the entire field for females, they also discredit themselves for all normally intelligent people, gender-independently! Who, with the slightest touch of social intelligence, wants to be identified with insensitive idiots who do something like that to their female peers? The geek-image definitely needs a LOT of adjustment.
The debate around this is interesting, at both Katla's site and at misbehaving.net. What really fascinates me is that people consider general stupidity to be a defence. There's a long, sad tradition for that in gendered debates and conflicts. When I studied in Bergen in the eighties the local newspaper covered a particularly nasty rape. A man had picked up a girl in his car, and with the help of friends taken her to his cabin, kept her prisoner several days and raped her repeatedly. She finally managed to escape and get help. Rapes are rarely this obvious. One thing is having sex with a girl who has agreed to let you drive her home, that often leaves ample room for defense. This moron had kept her prisoner for a long time and shared her with friends. When asked how he could do something like this, he replied with the male moron law of sexual encounters: "Everybody knows that when a girl says no, she really means yes."
The debate on Katla's site indicates that the geek girls should be happy they had all that interest from the geek boys. Geek girls don't get many other chances to be what all girls dream of: a sexy bimbo. I think that should be male moron law § 2: "What all women really want is to be a sex-object all the time and to all men."
And beebop, I am really sorry about what you must have felt that made you write this:
I sympathise with you, it's not a pleasant situation to be in. However these guys are not really doing you any harm, admittedly they are objectifying your body but, heck, i'd love for someone to objectify my body and most women love the flattery.
I know girls pretend that they don't like it but most girls I know love being hit on or wolf whistled at by guys - it just lets them know they're looking good. For these "geek girls" it's a rare opportunity, they're not going to get appreciated that often!
I am sorry there are nobody who appreciates your body and mind, nobody to express desire for you and nobody to let you feel respected and treasured. Because those things are so much, much better than having casual strangers drool over your tits, and experiencing respect and admiration just might teach you what geek girls really want.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Demonstration and veils
Crossing Karl-Johan at noon, there was a colourful demonstration. Girls in blue suits and white veils, and men in elegant turbans, a colourful gazebo on the back of a car, and families in turbans and veils in yellow and orange. Turned out they demonstrated against the proposed French law prohibiting hijab in schools.
I have problems with the rules demanding that girls wear hijab, covering their heads and necks (and just about everything else) at all times. I particularly have problems with the argument that women showing their hair ask to be violated by men, and if men take advantage of them the blame is on the women. It is an argument that makes me feel sick. At the same time I feel that it's equally wrong to make women's heads a battleground between culture and nation through legislation, the way women's bodies have been battlegrounds in so many other causes. This is complicated. I want it to just stop being a problem, all muslim men and women to see sense and let their children choose for themselves, and muslim girls to put their veils on and take them off according to function and pleasure, not at the demands of religious and political leaders. And then I want world peace and universal cooperation to solve the problems with pollution, disease and the skewed disperson of wealth and priviledge.
Crossing Karl-Johan at noon, there was a colourful demonstration. Girls in blue suits and white veils, and men in elegant turbans, a colourful gazebo on the back of a car, and families in turbans and veils in yellow and orange. Turned out they demonstrated against the proposed French law prohibiting hijab in schools.
I have problems with the rules demanding that girls wear hijab, covering their heads and necks (and just about everything else) at all times. I particularly have problems with the argument that women showing their hair ask to be violated by men, and if men take advantage of them the blame is on the women. It is an argument that makes me feel sick. At the same time I feel that it's equally wrong to make women's heads a battleground between culture and nation through legislation, the way women's bodies have been battlegrounds in so many other causes. This is complicated. I want it to just stop being a problem, all muslim men and women to see sense and let their children choose for themselves, and muslim girls to put their veils on and take them off according to function and pleasure, not at the demands of religious and political leaders. And then I want world peace and universal cooperation to solve the problems with pollution, disease and the skewed disperson of wealth and priviledge.
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