Blogged academic paper

Andrea Handl at :: .. :: zerzaust :: .. :: appears to be blogging a paper on blogging, language,and equity - though I'm not sure if it's his work or that of Elmine Wijnia. I have to admit I'm having more then a little trouble following what he is doing, though individual posts seem interesting and useful. Check out everything posted for Monday February 28, 2005.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Reading success

I have finished, Stone, Biz (2004). Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs. New York: St. Martin's Press. The book is a very good general discussion of blogs and blogging.

Now it's back to: Burnett, Robert & Marshall, P. David (2003). Web Theory: An Introduction. London: Routledge. I started this book earlier, only to sideline it so I could read both Biz Stone books. So I will be working my way through it for the next couple of days.

Posted by prolurkr at 04:16 PM | TrackBack

Quals at SLIS IU

I have had several questions from readers about the quals process to which I keep referring. I thought it might be useful to give you a link to the Qualifying Exam Guidelines - the guideline details the process in a fairly concise two pages - used by my department the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University.

This process is equivalent to what some other U.S. Ph.D. students refer to as "sitting for exams," though our process differs significantly in several areas. First we write a lengthy literature review on a topic which is worked out with ones advisory committee. Second the paper is both broad and deep, and therefore it takes more then one semester to develop, where as most "exam" takers can read the last group of required literature for their exams while taking a single preparatory class for the same. Finally the completed exam paper is voted upon by the entire faculty of the department rather then simply ones committee members.

The following useful general overview is taken from the Indiana University Graduate School 2004-2005 Academic Bulletin:

Qualifying Examination

This examination, given at such time and in such manner as the major department shall determine, shall be written, although additional oral examinations may be required. The qualifying examination shall cover the major subjects and may, at the discretion of the minor department(s) or the interdepartmental committee, cover the minor subjects as well.

Normally, the qualifying examination is taken after the student has completed all course work for the Ph.D. All such work offered in partial fulfillment of degree requirements must either have been completed within seven consecutive calendar years of the passing of the qualifying examination or be revalidated according to procedures outlined in this bulletin (see Revalidation).4 Reading proficiency required in one or more foreign languages must also have been demonstrated, whether by course work or examination, no more than seven years before the passing of the qualifying examination. In the case of an examination of more than one part, the date of passing is regarded as the date of passing the final portion of the examination, typically the oral examination. Students who fail the qualifying examination are normally allowed to retake it only once. The qualifying examination must be passed at least eight months before the date the degree is awarded.

I hope that makes the process a bit more understandable, as it seems there is a wide variety of ways one completes this process dependent upon which university and department/school thereof you are attached.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:56 AM | TrackBack

Weeks that lag

Last week was one of those weeks where non-academic stuff just takes over your life. It seemed like every day brought some new issue that needed to much of my time and raised my stress level to unenjoyable heights. I sincerely plan to make this week different. I have simple, healthful goals...sleep well, eat on time and make sound food choices, and get some work done.

My plan is that by the end of the week I will have caught up my reading and will have a both a working quals title and brief statement of the project in hand for myself and my committee.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:26 AM | TrackBack

Blog Commenting Etiquette?

T. L. Pakii Pierce at How To Blog For Fun & Profit! has an interesting post on Blog Commenting Etiquette.

If someone comes to your blog and comments and also leaves a url to their blog or web site in a signature under that post - that is acceptable - maybe. It is one way to use blogs to help boost your blog or web site and build back links legitimately...BUT BUT BUT...it depends on the publisher.

Some publishers don't allow links like that and some do. More often than not, people just post comments and the comment system sign in captures the e-mail address or url. I recommend that if people want to leave a url back to their site as they comment that they first check the blog they are about to comment at and see what manner of comments have been left at the blog previously. This isn't always a real good way to determine if adding your url to your comments is acceptable but it is a good start in ascertaining protocol. Also check to see of the blog has an "acceptable use policy" and follow it if it does. If no policy is in place and you cannot tell from other comments whether it is acceptable or not to post your url then proceed with the understanding that your link my be removed if the blog publisher finds your url to be spammy or against their posting policy.

BUT whatever you do contribute value to the discussion...never post something like "oh that's interesting!" and then put a big link to your stuff.

The issue here is "What is acceptable etiquette for comments at your blog?" Just as Trackback has proper use in that you don't Trackback someone just because you can you should also watch your comments don't just use comments as a way to self-promote. This is what all spammers do after all. Relevancy and policy are the rules of thumb.

Check out Pierce's blog, he has lots of straightforward information for both the novice and experienced blogger. This post is just one of the valuable entries he has online.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:10 AM | TrackBack

Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

Hubby and I broke out to go see one of his favorite movies for the first time on the big screen. Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964) is showing at the Yes Cinema.

I am convinced the G.W. must have this movie memorized. Can't tell you how many of the lines sound like things I've heard him say at press conferences. Now THAT is scary.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:00 PM | TrackBack

NASA's free World Wind application

jkOnTheRun refers to C:\PIRILLO.EXE post on NASA's free World Wind application.

From the Nasa site:

World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.

Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara.

It's a big download (180 mb) and takes some work to find a mirror that is working, but looks like a cool program - got mine from the AU site because it is afterhours there.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:06 PM | TrackBack

Founder of Amnesty dies aged 83

From the BBC, Founder of Amnesty dies aged 83:

The founder of human rights organisation Amnesty International, Peter Benenson, has died aged 83.

Mr Benenson died on Friday evening at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

The British lawyer founded the group in 1961 as a one-year campaign after reading a news article on the jailing of two Portuguese students.

"Peter Benenson's life was a courageous testament to his visionary commitment to fight injustice around the world," said Amnesty's Irene Khan.

Amnesty International has a nice bio for Mr. Benenson on their site. Mr. Beneson's life and legacy are a testament to what one voice can do to create a movement.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:37 AM | TrackBack

NYTimes slams the Numa Numa guy

To Gary Brolsma, the guy from the Numa Numa online video: Gary those people at the NYTimes are just mean. I personally love the video and watch it every time I need to smile - which has been quite a lot this week. Have fun with the attention and ignore the nay sayers...they are just jealous anyway. I hope all this bandwidth is not driving you to the poorhouse.

To the NYTimes: I think you would have had to really work to have put in more references to weight, and pejoratives for grassroots entertainment and New Jersey. Get lives guys, we watch the video cause we love it. It's way more fun then going to the opera.

Links:
• Internet Fame Is Cruel Mistress for a Dancer of the Numa Numa from the elitists at the New York Times.
• Numa Numa video
• Professional-Lurker's first post on the video

Posted by prolurkr at 11:26 AM | TrackBack

Delinking of "Addressing the Unseen"

The link from my paper Addressing the Unseen: The Audience Envisioned for Adolescent Diary Weblogs, in the sidebar, to the SLIS Working Papers has been severed. The department has instituted a second level of review - beyond that being done by the publication venue - and noted that there were typographical errors in my submission. So after a month on the site they pulled it for editing.

The paper will be undergoing some significant revision to add more detail, and make structural changes like using a different citation style, to meet the requirements of the editors.

We feel your piece is informative and clear and represents a useful introduction to an under-researched new area. Overall, for your revisions, we would like you to 1) consider the balance between the data and discussion, 2) reconsider the statistical section and 3) develop conclusions about gender. We feel there is a lot of interesting data in the chapter which could use more analysis. When you start to include examples of blogs (e.g. "As a witness testifying to the experience"), you describe the blog in a couple of sentences, but you don't analyse it, for example, by commenting on language use. We feel this is a missed opportunity. In the statistical analysis section, we would recommend summarising the findings, as the approach is fairly descriptive. We feel the statistical section would benefit by being set in context of gender theory (as gender is a key variable). Finally, your conclusion could be stronger and perhaps develop points about differences between blogs and other forms of writing, and about gender.

Some minor points. The chapters won't have abstracts, so we'd be grateful if you could incorporate this in your text. It would help to include more subheadings early on (e.g. adolescence, blogs and diaries, etc) in order to make the structure of the chapter clearer; and introducing Langellier's typology later would eliminate current repetition in the introductory section (i.e. cut the reference on p.2).

So rather then progress on a two-track editing system, one for SLIS and one for the book chapter, I have decided to wait until the book chapter revision is completed then I will post that work online possibly at the SLIS Working Papers site or on BROG.

If you have the paper bookmarked you will want to delete that link as the old URL has been overwritten by another paper. Also if you would like a copy of the work prior to its reappearance online, please email me and I will send it out to you.

Here is the current abstract for the piece:

This paper is divided into two sections. In the first section I discuss adolescent diary weblogs and their prevalence online, situating them with respect to their offline antecedents, and aligning them with concepts of offline and online performance including Langellier's (1998) typology of personal narrative performance. The second section uses content analysis in applying Langellier's typology to the implied audience embedded in adolescent diary weblog posts. The content analysis of a small sample of adolescent weblogs finds that Langellier's typology can be successfully applied to adolescent diary weblogs.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:23 AM | TrackBack

Happy (belated) Birthday, BROG!

Shamelessly stolen from BROG: The (We)blog Research on Genre project where it was posted by Susan Herring:

Just over two years ago (February 12, 2003, to be precise) the BROG project met for the first time. Its original members were Sabrina Bonus, Lois Scheidt, Elijah Wright, and myself. Inspired by Diane Squire, who was into blogs before most people in SLIS had heard of them, we got together to do one simple study -- a content analysis of random blogs, in order to characterize the emergent weblog genre. (See Diane's article about it in SLIS News from Spring 2003 -- Yes that IS a frog -- photoshopped -- on Lois's shoulder.) It was low-hanging fruit at a time when almost no serious scholarship on blogs existed. Since then, blog scholarship -- and blogging -- have expanded. And we've acquired a taste for the fruit, and are willing to climb higher to find it -- to the point of hand-coding nearly 6000 blogs for a link analysis study last year, just to be able to characterize with confidence one small corner of the blogosphere. Two years later, the BROG project lives on, an informal but durable collaboration with more research ideas than we have the time and resources to develop, even with our present expanded membership. Who would have thought we'd still be at it? :-)

It has been a wild, wonderful ride that I plan to hang on to till it ends. In the last two years I have learned a vast amount about research, academic friendships, blogs, and sushi...not necessarily in that order.

Along the way we have published papers we are incredibly proud of, incited a bit of controversy over the methods of our research (quantitative vs. qualitative debate), gotten to travel to conferences (Toronto, Kona HI @ 2, LA), and had far more fun then anyone would have thought possible for a bunch of grad students hanging out with top-drawer professors.

Mostly those that join us stay. Sabrina Bonus had the bad taste to graduate, get a job, and start to assume a more "normal" middle class life...we wish her well out there on the left coast. Ning Yu, the brilliant women behind those amazing graphical representations in the Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up", got a real campus job so that she can pay the bills. I totally understand having to pay the bills.

I forgot about Michael Tyworth who received his masters and wondered off to do doctoral work in Pennsylvania. Sorry Mike my oversight was totally inadvertent.

So now our core group is seven, which gives me more collaborators then I ever would have thought possible. We've tackled great research ideas with more output on the burners, personally I can't wait to get back into BROG work with both feet. Gotta qual first though (my mantra these days).

Thanks to Susan Herring for pulling all of us together. Thanks to Elijah Wright and Sabrina Bonus for teaching me, I didn't know much about blogs or blogging when we began. I just had a serious interest in the phenomena and the desire to learn more about it. Thanks to everyone who has joined us since Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs, you challenge me to find new ways to work within a group. Who would have ever thought that work could be this much fun? It can't be legal. LOL

Sushi anyone?

Posted by prolurkr at 09:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Kathryn LaBarre - Accepted Diss Proposal

Kathryn LaBarre's dissertation proposal The Use of Faceted Analytico-Synthetic Theory as Revealed in the Practice of Website Construction and Design was accepted without revision. Way to go Kathryn!

Posted by prolurkr at 09:52 AM | TrackBack

Young People Online

My colleague in AU, Angela Thomas asked her young collaborators:

If you could write a guide for parents about the internet, would you have any warnings for them, based on any unpleasant experiences or knowledge you have gained?

Their answers are very insightful. Hint: If is hints at irony it probably is meant to do so. *S*

DON'T YOU DARE LET YOUR KIDS INTO PUBLIC CHATROOMS EVER!!!!!!! *coughs* Yeah, I have to agree with Jandalf on that. I've only been in one or two... on Barrowdowns... and that was bad enough. And, to carry on with a basic guide by me...

Do not let your children read slash fanfic. It will taint their minds.

Do not let your children see the image of Gollum in a tutu. That will taint their minds as well.

Set google on strict filtering, unless you want your kids looking at nudes. And supervise them when they search too, just in case. Especially image searches regarding female celebs.

Do not just randomly jump about in live journal.

Do not randomly email people.

Do not post your IM or email in a profile. Especially IM. Unless you actually want a wannabe jerk on all your IM lists as aliases trying to flirt with you at all possible moments, do not let them have your IM.

Keep your password secret. I haven't given mine out, but, really. ...okay, a couple people who I really trust could actually hack most of my accounts, but... heh... KEEP IT SECRET!

And don't join webpages that just have "some" evil stuff on them. Chances are it'll spread and taint the rest, no matter how nice the rest of the page may seem.

Don't read R rated fanfics if they're in the romance category.

Don't flirt with people who might take you seriously.

Heh... yes, I could go on for hours about what you should avoid doing on the internet... I've learned everything the hard way.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:39 PM | TrackBack

New book for the library

A new book was added to the library today. Not for quals exactly but surely for quotation in the revisions of a couple of papers. It also will be useful for future online diary research.

Benstock, Shari (Ed.) (1988). The Private Self: Theory and Practice if Women's Autobiographical Writings. Chapel Hill NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:32 PM | TrackBack

FBI warns against teen blogs

The Blog Herald tells us that the FBI warns against teen blogs

Not content to let their British counterparts warn alone against the dangers that blogging presents children and teens, the FBI in Little Rock has joined in the fun.

According to a report at KTHV Little Rock, the FBI is warning against posting personal information on blogs after 23-year-old Louisiana man was arrested for kidnapping a girl he met through a Xanga blog.

Bill Temple, special agent in charge of the Little Rock FBI says, "We have made numerous arrests, convicted people that have gotten on the Internet pretending to be teenagers and meeting for sexual purposes."

Temple says one in five kids every year is contacted by a predator. He is surprised at the amount of personal information kids are posting in blogs.

Temple says, "The Internet is a wonderful thing for educational purposes and a lot of other things, but it's open to everyone and we live in a dangerous world where not everyone has good intentions."

The FBI apparently has many tips for parents when it comes to Internet safety and never let your kids post pictures of themselves. Never let them give out personal information

Is the issue the technology or the lack of supervision many parents give to their teens online activities? There is no doubt that children and teens should exercise care when releasing personal information in any forum, not just online. But my experience is that in initial contacts very little information is given, it is only as relationships grow that more information is passed. This is the same process that adults use in building relationships.

One giant question that underlays this issue is one of prevalence. Studies including UK Children Go Online show that children are approached online with access to materials and offers for encounters that most adults would find inappropriate. However what I would like to see addressed in a study is who are the people making the offers and providing the materials? There is a colloquial impression, fuild by the media, that all of these are pedophilia issues. In my experience much of these issues are created by older children/teens approaching younger children/teens. The routes for handing the two issues are quite different and need detailed investigation.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:47 AM | TrackBack

The Biology of Faith

The Guardian has a fascinating research based article on the biological components that may predispose humans to faith in a higher power, see Tests of faith

Faith has long been a puzzle for science, and it's no surprise why. By definition, faith demands belief without a need for supporting evidence, a concept that could not be more opposed to the principles of scientific inquiry. In the eyes of the scientist, an absence of evidence reduces belief to a hunch. It places the assumptions at the heart of many religions on the rockiest of ground.

So why do so many people believe? And why has belief proved so resilient as scientific progress unravels the mysteries of plagues, floods, earthquakes and our understanding of the universe? By injecting nuns with radioactive chemicals, by scanning the brains of people with epilepsy and studying naughty children, scientists are now working out why. When the evidence is pieced together, it seems that evolution prepared what society later moulded: a brain to believe.

The article continues

Childish belief is one thing, but religious belief is embraced by people of all ages and is by no means the preserve of the uneducated. According to Boyer, the persistence of belief into adulthood is at least in part down to a presumption. "When you're in a belief system, it's not that you stop asking questions, it's that they become irrelevant. Why don't you ask yourself about the existence of gravity? It's because a lot of the stuff you do every day presupposes it and it seems to work, so where's the motivation to question it?" he says. "In belief systems, you tend to enter this strange state where you start thinking there must be something to it because everybody around you is committed to it. The general question of whether it's true is relegated."

As one who does not believe that she will ever get to the point of not questioning, I find this discussion of the biological basis of faith to be fascinating and very relevant to human communication in general. We have many kinds of faith in our lives...a belief in the unseen...might much of it be biologically based?

Posted by prolurkr at 08:18 AM | TrackBack

CFP - Seventh Annual Minitrack on Persistent Conversation Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS 39)

Seventh Annual Minitrack on Persistent Conversation
Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS 39)
Hyatt Regency, Kauai, Hawaii
January 4-7, 2006

=== AT A GLANCE ===

= Summary of Topic =
Persistent conversations occur via instant messaging, chat, email, blogs, bulletin boards, MOOs, graphical VR environments, document annotation systems, text messaging on mobile phones, etc. Such forms of conversation play a crucial role in domains such as online communities, the sharing and management of knowledge, and the support of e-commerce, e-learning and other network mediated interactions. The
persistence of digitally mediated conversation affords new uses (e.g. searching, replaying, restructuring) and raises new problems. This multi-disciplinary minitrack seeks contributions from researchers and designers that improve our ability to understand, analyze, and/or design persistent conversation systems.

= Who =
Researchers and designers from fields such as anthropology, computer-mediated communication, HCI, interaction design, linguistics, management, psychology, rhetoric, sociology, and so forth.

= Chairs =
Thomas Erickson, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center (snowfall@acm.org)
Susan Herring, School of Library and Information Science,
Indiana University (herring@indiana.edu)

= Important Dates* =
Abstract submission:**    Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Abstract feedback:        Thursday, March 31, 2005
Paper submission:         Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Accept/Reject notice:     Monday, August 15, 2005
Final papers due:         Thursday, September 15, 2005
One author must register: Thursday, September 15, 2005

  *  For other dates. such as end of early registration and hotel deadlines see the official HICSS conference site
**  Abstracts are optional but strongly recommended; to submit a paper without an abstract, please contact the chairs

= For More Information =
* This call for participation: http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS39pc.html
* History (papers and participants in previous minitracks):
         http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS_PC_History.html
* About the minitrack, contact: snowfall@acm.org, herring@indiana.edu
* About the HICSS conference, see:
         http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/Hicss39/apahome39.htm

=== DETAILS ===

= About the Minitrack =
This interdisciplinary minitrack and workshop brings designers and researchers together to explore persistent conversation, the transposition of ordinarily ephemeral conversation into the potentially persistent digital medium. The phenomena of interest include human-to-human interactions carried out using chat, instant
messaging, text messaging, email, web logs, mailing lists, news groups, bulletin board systems, multi-authored Web documents, structured conversation systems, textual and graphical virtual worlds, etc. Computer-mediated conversations blend characteristics of oral conversation with those of written text: they may be synchronous
or asynchronous; their audience may be small or vast; they may be highly structured or almost amorphous; etc. The persistence of such conversations gives them the potential to be searched, browsed, replayed, annotated, visualized, restructured, and recontextualized, thus opening the door to a variety of new uses and practices.

The particular aim of the minitrack and workshop is to bring together researchers who analyze existing computer-mediated conversational practices and sites, with designers who propose, implement, or deploy
new types of conversational systems. By bringing together participants from such diverse areas as anthropology, computer-mediated communication, HCI, interaction design, linguistics, management, psychology, rhetoric, sociology, and the like, we hope that the work of each may inform the others, suggesting new questions, methods, perspectives, and design approaches.

= About Paper Topics =
We are seeking papers that address one or both of the following two general areas:
* Understanding Practice. The burgeoning popularity of the internet (and intranets) provides an opportunity to study and characterize new forms of conversational practice. Questions of interest range from how various features of conversations (e.g., turn-taking, topic organization, expression of paralinguistic information) have adapted in response to the digital medium, to new roles played by persistent conversation in domains such as education, business, and entertainment.
*Design. Digital systems do not currently support conversation well:  it is difficult to converse with grace, clarity, depth and coherence over networks. But this need not remain the case. Toward this end, we welcome analyses of existing systems as well as designs for new systems which better support conversation. Also of interest are inquiries into how participants design their own conversations within the digital medium -- that is, how they make use of system features to create, structure, and regulate their discourse.

Examples of appropriate topics include, but are not limited to:
* Turn-taking, threading and other structural features of CMC
* The dynamics of large scale conversation systems (e.g. USENET)
* Methods for summarizing or visualizing conversation archives
* Studies of virtual communities or other sites of digital conversation
* The roles of mediated conversation in knowledge management
* Studies of the use of instant messaging in large organizations
* Novel designs for computer-mediated conversation systems
* Analyses of or designs for distance learning systems
For other examples see the list of previous years' papers:
http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS_PC_History.html

= The Workshop =
For the past six meetings the minitrack has been preceded by a half-day workshop; we hope this will be continued for 2006, but will not know for sure until March or April. See the online version of this call for more details:
http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS39pc.html

= Instructions for Abstract Submission =
Submit a 250 word abstract of your proposed paper via email to the chairs: Tom Erickson <snowfall@acm.org>, Susan Herring <herring@indiana.edu> by the deadline noted above.

= Instructions for Paper Submission =
* HICSS papers must contain original material not previously published, or currently submitted elsewhere. All papers will be submitted in double column publication format and limited to 10 pages including diagrams and references. Papers undergo a double-blind review.
* Do not submit the manuscript to more than one Minitrack Chair. If unsure which Minitrack is appropriate, submit the abstract to the Track Chair for guidance.
* Submit your full paper according to the instructions found on the HICSS web site: http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/Hicss39/apahome39.htm

=== END, HICSS PERSISTENT CONVERSATION CFP ===

------------------------------------------
Tom Erickson and Susan Herring (snowfall@acm.org, herring@indiana.edu)
Chairs, HICSS 39 Minitrack and Workshop on Persistent Conversation
Digitial Media: Content and Communication Track
Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS 39)
http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/hicsspc39.html

Posted by prolurkr at 09:33 PM | TrackBack

Mutliple flavors of blogging hit the NY Times

New York Times Technology Section has an article on Bloggers Add Moving Images to Their Musings By Sandeep Junnarkar.

Web logs - the personal online journals better known as blogs - use text to dissect nearly every conceivable topic, and now video blogs, or vlogs, which incorporate moving images, are on the rise. Mobile blogs, or moblogs, have brought blogging into the cellular age by allowing people to post video and photos taken with camera phones to a blog, or to call in an audio posting.

But the object remains the same as with traditional blogs: to inspire (or to provoke) others to post responses to one's ruminations and images.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:59 PM | TrackBack

Weblog cartoons

Great fun weblog cartoons from Weblogg-ed, post entitled Blog Comics. 

Posted by prolurkr at 07:42 PM | TrackBack

Handling comments from paper and presentation submissions

I personally see much value in the comments I receive to papers I write for conferences or publication. But being human, I often don't see the value for at least 24-hours after I first read the comments I receive. After a couple of recent conversations, about comments and the reviewing process in general, with other scholars and while having three sets of comments to paper's laying on my desk - all for work that is headed for publication either in press or pre-submission - I decided to outline what I do when working with this universally required and equally despised system.

• When I receive comments I read them through as soon as I can find a moment to do so.
• Then I vent quietly. If needed I pull up a notepad and write out my issues with what was said, so that my venting is complete. Once I've written it all out, I delete the notepad or tear the paper up into very very small pieces. There is a weird level of satisfaction to hearing the paper rip.
• Then I set the comments aside for at least 24-hours, longer if possible.
• It's amazing how much more sense, how much easier to comply with, and how much more helpful and insightful all of the suggestions seem after a good nights sleep.

On the rare occasion I have received truly hurtful comments, in this single case the light of many mornings doesn't improve what was said about me personally, I try to remember that reviewers are human too - they are aren't they - and that they have bad days as well. And I try to remember this as I review for conferences and publications.

In truth, the first review I wrote for a journal editor was pretty awful - much to negative with not enough suggestions that would help the author improve the article. Luckily for me, the editor in question was very good at helping me work through my concerns and develop a better style for relaying my comments to an author. Sadly not everyone gets that mentorship.

So read your comments, go hangout with friends for awhile, then reread the comments. It does help to lessen the sting of someone else not loving your work as much as you do, or of them finding flaws with a piece that you think is nearing brilliance. Buy a beer for me too, getting graded is always a hard thing for those of us that have been socialized to want to be perfect or nearly so.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:36 PM | TrackBack

What do SPAM and HIV have in common?

From Geek News Central, Spam Filters May Unlock The Secret to HIV

What does Spam filters have to do with Bio-Med researchers around the world? It looks like Software scientists at Microsoft are testing their spam blocking techniques to see if these ideas can be used to find a vaccine for HIV. Today this alliance will be announcing a plan to use "machine learning" or "data mining" computational techniques to decipher HIV's wildly creative genetic ability to constantly change and disguise itself from immune system detection and deletion.

HIV is constantly mutating, but researches feel it shows a pattern somewhat similar to how spammers mutate their e-mails to avoid detection. What works for detecting and filtering spam may be the same technique used to find the secret of HIV mutation and someday find a vaccine. The Seattle Post Intelligencer has an excellent article and graphics that will show you more of the concept. We can only pray that something of benefit will come from this project.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:48 PM | TrackBack

CFP - The 2nd Annual Workshop on Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem

 Reminder: March 4th is the deadline for submissions

The 2nd Annual Workshop on Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem: Aggregation, Analysis and Dynamics
Chiba, Japan
May 10, 2005

http://www.blogpulse.com/www2005-workshop-cfp.html

Invited Speaker: Ethan Zuckerman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School

Theme of the Workshop

The weblogging microcosm has evolved into a distinct form, into a community of publishers. The strong sense of community amongst bloggers distinguishes weblogs from the various forms of online publications such as online journals, 'zines and newsletters that flourished in the early days of the web and from traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and television. The use of weblogs primarily for publishing, as opposed to discussion, differentiates blogs from other online community forums, such as Usenet newsgroups and message boards. Often referred to as the blogsphere, the network of bloggers is a thriving ecosystem, with its own internally driven dynamics.

The cross-linking that takes place between blogs, through blogrolls, explicit linking, trackbacks, and referrals creates implicit and explicit networks which define the communities of the weblogging world. Create a strong sense of community in the weblogging world. There is work underway to understand the dynamics of the weblogging network, much of which springs from bloggers themselves. The self-publishing aspect of weblogs, the time-stamped entries, the highly interlinked nature of the blogging community and the significant impact of weblog content on politics, ideas, and culture make them a fascinating subject of study.

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Workshop Topics and Objectives

The objective of this workshop is to provide a forum for sharing research on the blogging ecosystem. The workshop will consist of technical papers, panel discussions, and demonstrations of research prototypes. Topics of interest for technical papers include, but are not limited to the following:

* Mapping and visualization of the blogsphere
* Weblog taxonomies: automatic and/or manual construction
* Automatic classification of weblog entries
* Weblog search engines
* Applications built on top of blog data
* Aggregate measures over the blogsphere
* Dynamics of information flow across the blogsphere
* Methods for weblog census
* Weblog lifecycle
* Influence of blogsphere on the information landscape
* Alternative blog forms (podcasting, moblogging, photoblogs, etc.)

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Paper Submission and Review

Papers should be submitted via email to the workshop co-chairs at blogworkshop@hpl.hp.com. Papers submitted to the workshop will undergo a peer review process overseen by the workshop co-chairs. Each paper will
be reviewed by at least two program commitee members. Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop by one of the authors and will be published in the WWW-2005 Workshops CD-ROM and online.

Papers should not exceed 5000 words (approximately 12 pages) in length and must be submitted in PDF. Short papers (up to 6 pages) describing early research results are also welcome.

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Important Dates

Deadline of electronic submission: March 4 , 2005
Author notification: March 28, 2005
Workshop: May 10, 2005

Posted by prolurkr at 04:35 PM | TrackBack

Links to BROG Sunbelt presentations

From SLIS Blogs

Various members of BROG have just returned from the Sunbelt Social Networks conference in Redondo Beach, California, sponsored by the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) as well as USC, UC Irvine, and UCLA.

Presentations by BROG members were as follows:

Social Network Dynamics in the Blogosphere (PPT)

Mood, Music And Friends: Mapping The Culture Of LiveJournal (PPT)

Revolutionary Vanguard Or Echo Chamber? Political Blogs And The Mainstream Media (PPT)

We hope that everyone enjoys the slides - these projects are currently "in process" and will develop further in the coming months.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:24 PM | TrackBack

PEW Internet & American Life Project - The advent of spim

PEW Internet & American Life Project's Lee Rainie posted The advent of spim as part of their PIP Comments series:

Some 42% of America's 134 million online adults use instant messaging and almost a third of those instant message users have gotten "spim" - or unsolicited commercial instant messages. That translates into nearly 17 million adults who have gotten the instant-message version of spam.

New survey results we received from a nationwide telephone poll taken between January 13 and February 9 show that younger internet users - also the most likely people to use instant messaging - are the most likely internet users to get spim. Fully 39% of those under 30 who use instant messaging have gotten spim. By comparison, 27% of the instant message users between 30-49 have gotten spim.

No other demographic trait stands out in the spim universe. Instant message users in all income brackets and in all racial and ethnic groups are equally likely to receive spim. Somewhat surprisingly, broadband users at home are no more likely than dial-up users to receive spim, even though, presumably, those with always-on broadband connections keep their instant message programs running for longer periods of time than dial-up users.

The results come from a monthly tracking survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In all, 2,201 adults 18 and over took part in the telephone survey. The results for the spim findings have a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points.

The survey questions did not probe the kind of unsolicited commercial messages were contained in the spim.

The survey found that 52 million online adults are instant message users. Fully 66% of the internet users under age 30 are instant message users, compared to 35% of those above age 30. Internet users from relatively poor households are among the most likely users of IM. Some 52% of online adults who live in households earning less than $30,000 use instant messaging.

Again, surprisingly, there is not great variance in instant messaging use associated with broadband connections. Some 50% of those with broadband at home use IM, compared to 42% of dial-up users.

Posted by prolurkr at 02:20 PM | TrackBack

Blogging Sunbelt

Pete Welsch blogged presentations at Sunbelt. Check the links to the specific posts:

• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Weblogs As Indicators of Urban Culture
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Blogging For Votes
• Done!
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Open Source Software Blogs
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Social Space in Cyberspace
• Sunbelt Liveblogged Presentation: Attitudes Towards Women
• Sunbelt Liveblogged Presentation: Race & Social/Sexual Networks of Adolescents
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Network Shape
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Terrorist Networks
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Usenet
• Sunbelt LiveBlogged Presentation: Semantics of SND

Posted by prolurkr at 02:07 PM | TrackBack

Where in the world have I been?

From Sarah Mercure. Where in the world have you been? I have covered a fair amount of the United States though my world travel is not very broad. Didn't have a passport until 2 years ago. *shrug* I have lost time to make up for.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:37 PM | TrackBack

Daily Dig Quote of the Day

From Cornel West

The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never to allow despair to have the last word.

I think I will have to add this one to my sidebar quotes.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:29 AM | TrackBack

Palm sized writing tips

MikeShea.net has a writing tips sheet drawn from several popular books, including Strunk & White, and Orwell. Originally sized for folding into the pocket of a Moleskine journal the sheet would be helpful to anyone. Increase the size if it helps your eyes. As for me I carry a pocket magnifier in my Moleskine's pocket...very helpful with reference texts.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:25 PM | TrackBack

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS

User-Centered Evaluation of Online Communities

Submission Deadline: April 30, 2005

A book edited by: Niki Lambropoulos, Intelligenesis Consultancy, London, UK
and
Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris, Centre for HCI Design, City University, London, UK

Overall Objectives of the Book
------------------------------

The main objective of this book is to bring together, in one book, contributions on the topic of User-Centred Evaluation of Online Communities. A significant portion of the book will also focus on real life case studies where such evaluations have been applied and validated.

As such, the book will be of great use to those who study, design, construct, moderate, evaluate and maintain online communities in organizations, e-learning, eBusiness, e-government and other related domains.

Since the ultimate goal of the suggested methodologies is the use of the results of successful interventions, the target audience is everyone who owns, develops, evaluates and moderates online communities - either individuals, universities other organizations or companies.

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before April 30, 2005, a 2 page (maximum) manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by May 31, 2005 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by August 31, 2005. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by Idea Group, Inc., publisher of the "Idea Group Publishing," "Information Science Publishing," and "IRM Press" imprints in 2006. Inquiries and Submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Posted by prolurkr at 01:34 PM | TrackBack

Alternative memorials for Katie Collman

Marlayna Glynn Brown sent me an email in response to my post Katie Collman. In that post I said:

Katie's grieving father has a plan to collect money to destroy the apartment complex and raise a park in his daughter's memory. In part it is a nice thought, a park where other children can play and Katie can be remembered. But there are few apartment complexes in this small town and families that can not afford rent on other homes live there. Better to clean up the drug activity and let the apartments stand. Here is a New York Times story on his plan, Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge.

Marlayna has suggested to the family that money should be raised to rehab the apartment building and

create an orphanage-home for victims of meth abuse. I suggested the name be "Katie's Kids", and even offered to write their grants for FREE

She is a professional grant writer, check out MGB Proposals Plus, and should have the know how to help them raise funding. Marlayna added that she has not received a response from family. I sincerely hope they are entertaining alternative ideas for ways to memorialize Katie and to help the community so that chances of such violence against the children can be minimized.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:26 PM | TrackBack

New books added to the reading stack - the growing reading stack

Two new books have been added to the reading stack via Friday's mail. The Dorner is quals reading. While the Allen is more of a life reading then but will undoubtedly impact on quals.
	Allen, David (2001). Getting Things Done. New York: Penguin. 43 Folders recommends this book for hints and theories on productivity and organization. I think I do ok on both counts but can always use new tips. This is my carry around and read book for waiting in line, etc.
	Dorner, Jane (2002). Writing for the Internet. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This will be a sitdown, read, and take notes book - for close reading only. So it sits in line on the stack.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:50 AM | TrackBack

Preparing Future Faculty Graduate Student Conference at IU

Friday (February 18, 2005) was the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) Graduate Student Conference at Indiana University (IU).

The Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program is a national movement to transform the way aspiring faculty members are prepared for their careers. PFF programs provide doctoral students, as well as some master's and postdoctoral students, with opportunities to observe and experience faculty responsibilities at a variety of academic institutions with varying missions, diverse student bodies, and different expectations for faculty.

At IU the Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship, of which I am a recipient for academic year 2005-2006, is designed to provide these experiences for students outside departments that are participating in PFF directly...at IU the Sociology Department is the leader for PFF activities.

Over the course of the Conference (9:00 am to 4:30 pm) 11 SLIS doctoral students were present. I'm not sure I have ever seen that many doctoral students from my program over that short a period of time, let alone as a single venue. It was very cool. Normally when I go to these type of campus activities I am either the only SLIS student present or one of no more then three who usually attend.

• The day started out with a welcome from Gene Kintgen, Associate Dean of the Indiana University Graduate School.
• Our first panel discussed Developing Your Professional Record as a Graduate Student, and included presentations from Vivian Halloran, Elizabeth Grauerholz, Michael Grossberg, and Jack Martin.
  • Develop multiple copies of documentation, particularly your CV.
    • You will need a master copy with everything you have ever done, this functions as a repository from which you can draw materials to use in the other two.
    • A short version for postings that require such.
    • A long version for postings that require such.
  • Make sure to list professional affiliation on your CV. It makes it look more professional. Include your university departmental address as well, for the same reason. One example would have a contact address, probably your home address, and the university address.
  • Add teaching interests, so that faculty can see what classes you might bring to the table.
  • Collect evidence of your effectiveness in the classroom.
    • Keep evaluations.
    • Do midterm evaluations and alter course trajectory if needed.
  • Do Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoT&L) research.
  • Keep student comments your teaching. i.e., emails that comment on your ability. Ask their permission to use in your documentation.
  • Have professors observe you teaching and write evaluations and recommendations.
  • If you can't get teaching time in your department look elsewhere to get the experience.
  • If you can't get teaching time elsewhere then find slots where you can guest lecture.
  • Use your concrete evidence in your teaching portfolio.
  • Update your materials at least once a semester.
  • In preparing a teaching statement.
    • Write out your values, goals, and efforts surrounding your teaching. Be sure to include PFF and SoT&L work and training.
    • Show enthusiasm for teaching through your writing,
  • Publishing
    • Is important to show that you are engaging those in your discipline.
    • Should be used tactically to position yourself for your first job and for tenure committees.
    • Publish in the best journals for your topic.
    • Read and follow the journals submission guidelines.
    • If you get turned down, use the comments to revise the article and submit to another venue or resubmit to the first journal. [more on comments in a subsequent post]
  • Grants are important for funding at all schools.
    • First you need an original idea.
    • Then you should contact the Program Staff at the granting agency. Talk with them about your idea and ask if the agency would be interested.
    • Read and follow the rules...to the letter.
    • Emphasis your design and methods in your proposal.
    • Don't be the "Lone Ranger". Work with others such as the Grad Grants Office on campus in developing your proposal.
    • Finally you can't get a grant if you never apply for a grant.
    • In the break-out session on grants, I took the following notes:
      • From start to finish preparing a grant application can take 5 to 6 months.
      • The university, IU, wants to have the budget done one month before the due date.
      • Departments should have copies of successful grants applications on file for you to use in preparing a new application. Use them as templates.
• Panel Two was Navigating the Job Market, and included Tracy Osborn, Mike Conway, and a third presenter whose name I didn't write down...which is bad since I actually had a class with her a couple of years ago.
  • Practice your job talk within your department before giving it elsewhere.
  • Work out a two-sentence dissertation synopsis.
  • Get your application packets together early. Make several so you just have to tailor to each job, not totally re-do for each job posting.
  • Do your research on the institution and the faculty.
  • Have questions to ask about about the institution and about the faculties research.
  • Be prepared to sell yourself and your research.
  • Be prepared to interview yourself, as not all faculty will ask you questions that garner the information you want them to have.
  • When negotiating your contract:
    • You may not have much room to negotiate salary. But you should be able to negotiate:
      • Travel Money.
      • Computer Resources including software and hardware.
      • Course load.
      • Advising load.
      • Service requirements, especially during your first year.
      • Days on campus.
      • Research assistance.
      • Developing your library collection, the university purchasing books for your use.
      • A REMINDER - Get it all in writing.
• Panel Three was Life after Landing the Job: Advice from Junior Faculty with Brett O'Bannon, Jennifer Drake, Robert Terrill, and Rebecca Wilkins.
  • Learn the institutional culture.
  • What are the tenure requirements? Get as much of this as you can in writing. May require some pushing to do so.
  • What is the president and history of tenure in the institution? If no one in your area has been tenured for many years, is it likely you will be?
  • How is scholarly productivity measured?
  • What priority is given to service work?
  • If your position is going to be split between two departments, will both departments honor the others publication and service? You don't want to be in a situation where half time appointments require two-times the work for tenure.
  • Also you need to learn the student culture. If most of the students work 30+ hours per week and have families how do you take that reality into consideration when building your classes?
  • Keep yourself organized and keep everything.
  • Job hunting is a full-time job and you have to treat it as such. Don't expect to get much research and writing done while you are involved in the job hunt. Plan for it.
  • Finally, prepare an answer for the question...What would you do with tenure? What does it allow you to do that you can't do as an associate professor?
• Panel Four was Politics in Higher Education, with Julia Bondanella, Julie Knost, Purnima Bose, and Bradley Levinson.

Posted by prolurkr at 04:42 PM | TrackBack

Oh dear I guess I'm a B-list blogger. Who would have thunk it.

From Mathemagenic, Dave Pollard at How to Save the World has a post, Bloggers, Your Audience Awaits.

But what's the real competition out there? Extrapolating some work I did last year, only about 20,000 blogs (a mere 0.4% of all active blogs) have a sizeable audience (more than 10 regular visitors and more than 150 hits per average day), and readership in a typical day is only a little more than three million people, each spending an average of about 20 minutes flitting among 15 blog pages.

If you're an average A-list blogger (those getting at least 15,000 hits per day), your 150,000 40-second visitors in aggregate are spending 1700 hours per day reading and commenting on your blog. The average B-list blogger (those getting at least 1,000 hits per day) is getting 62 hours per day of 90-second-per-visit aggregate reader attention, the average C-list (150-1,000 hits-per-day) blogger 13 hours per day of aggregate reader attention, and the average up-and-coming (50-150 hits-per-day) blogger 2.5 hours per day. These are not staggering numbers, but certainly an encouraging return on time invested in writing.

Check out the link to the post for a very useful chart and links to supporting information.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:34 PM | TrackBack

Plate Tectonics and earthquakes

Many moons ago I took an Oceanography class as an undergrad at Purdue to fulfill a science requirement. I remember three things about the class:

• It was huge. The class was taught in a lecture hall in the science building and it was full. Having a last name that begins with "S" I sat way up in the middle section and remember looking down on the prof...physically not intellectually.
• Immediately following the Blizzard of 1978 - yes I am that old - the professor lectured about something having to do with lawn chairs and beer. God alone knows what the topic really was but the image of someone in a lawn chair drinking a beer during a blizzard has stuck with me lo these many years. LOL
• Plate tectonics - which means I actually learned something in the class.

I have been fascinated with plate tectonics ever since. To think that we are basically riding along on sections of crust much like one would ride a bumper car. Amazing.

So I have begun following the PubSub Earthquake alerts I mentioned earlier. Well today I heard on the news that there was a strong aftershock in Indonesia, while PubSub shows there have been lots of small quakes from Alaska to Southern California over the last couple of days. Are butterfly wings fluttering? I'm no geologist but it is interesting to watch...from a distance. Our local fault line, the New Madrid, is quiet but not forever.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:14 PM | TrackBack

Netspeak in the blog news

Both jkOnTheRun and BetaNews have entries about Microsoft's new Security at Home on Child Safety page A parent's primer to computer slang: Understand how your kids communicate online to help protect them. Check out their posts at:

• jkOnTheRun Do you speak l33t?
• BetaNews Microsoft Teaches Parents 'Leetspeek'

Nice to see that some of the research on CMC is being processed for mass consumption. I did a quick Reference Manager search on my keywords "language" and "internet" to pull together a short list of articles to post here on netspeak. Interestingly it is not a short bibliography, even when marking only those that I know address the issue directly. So I decided against posting it here...will take to much time to clean and link it.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:12 PM | TrackBack

Noonan on filter blogs and blog journalism

Weblogg-ed: The Read/Write Web in the Classroom in their Feburary 17, 2005 post Keys to the Content excerpt from and comment on Peggy Noonan's WSJ.com commentary The Blogs Must Be Crazy .

Noonan concludes "with a few predictions":

Some brilliant rising young reporter with a growing reputation at the Times or Newsweek or Post is going to quit, go into the blogging business, start The Daily Joe, get someone to give him a guaranteed ad for two years, and become a journalistic force. His motive will be influence, and the use of his gifts along the lines of excellence. His blog will further legitimize blogging.

Most of the blogstorms of the past few years have resulted in outcomes that left and right admit or bray were legitimate. Dan Rather fell because his big story was based on a fabrication, Trent Lott said things that it could be proved he said. But coming down the pike is a blogstorm in which the bloggers turn out to be wrong. Good news: They'll probably be caught and exposed by bloggers. Bad news: It will show that blogging isn't nirvana, and its stars aren't foolproof. But then we already know that, don't we?

Some publisher is going to decide that if you can't fight blogs, you can join them. He'll think like this: We're already on the Internet. That's how bloggers get and review our reporting. Why don't we get our own bloggers to challenge our work? Why don't we invite bloggers who already exist into the tent? Why not take the best things said on blogs each day and print them on a Daily Blog page? We'd be enhancing our rep as an honest news organization, and it will further our branding!

Someone is going to address the "bloggers are untrained journalists" question by looking at exactly what "training," what education in the art/science/craft/profression of journalism, the reporters and editors of the MSM [main stream media] have had in the past 60 years or so. It has seemed to me the best of them never went to J-school but bumped into journalism along the way--walked into a radio station or newspaper one day and found their calling. Bloggers signify a welcome return to that old style. In journalism you learn by doing, which is what a lot of bloggers are doing.

Finally, someday in America the next big bad thing is going to happen, and lines are going to go down, and darkness is going to descend, and the instant communication we now enjoy is going to be compromised. People in one part of the country are going to wonder how people in another part are doing. Little by little lines are going to come up, and people are going to log on, and they're going to get the best, most comprehensive, and ultimately, just because it's there, most heartening information from . . . some lone blogger out there. And then another. They're going to do some big work down the road.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:18 PM | TrackBack

Diane Rehm - Parents, Kids and Stress

I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR as I drove to campus today. Her topic was Parents, Kids and Stress.

The debate continues about whether what's best for parents is the same as what's best for kids. We'll talk with the authors of two new books about the pressures facing families today.

The guests were:

	Mary Eberstadt, research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, author of Home Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavior Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes
	Judith Warner, author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety

For those of you that missed it you can listen with Real Player here. Or you can order copies, click here for information, then look for this specific show.

The authors, particularly Eberstadt, touched on some of the issues that I am keenly concerned with as I look at teens today. The ideas of limited parental involvement, the over use of medication, the incidence of self-mutilation and drug/alcohol abuse. She also made a excellent point that I had not reached and will be thinking on. In short she observed that modern parents not only spend less time with their children, in fact they spend less time with children and teens in general. What this means is that they have less awareness of how children and teens in general act...what is within the range of normal. So when their child does not react as they think they should, or as their memories say they would have acted - never a good indicator - they are quicker to think that something is "wrong" with their child or teen. Deeply troubling. The observation was also made that we are undoubtedly passing these traits on to the next generation as well. Time will show the effect and possible solutions.

I will be adding the Eberstadt book to my future reading list. When quals are completed.

Posted by prolurkr at 02:11 PM | TrackBack

Weblogs and Libraries

A new book arrived in the mailbox yesterday and has been added to the waiting reading stack.

Clyde, Laurel A. (2004). Weblogs and Libraries. Oxford: Chandos.

From the publisher's site, Chandos:

Summary This book discusses the topic of 'weblogs and libraries' from two main perspectives: weblogs as sources of information for libraries and librarians; and weblogs as tools that libraries can use to promote their services and to provide a means of communication with their clients. It begins with an overview of the whole weblog and blogging phenomenon and traces its development over the last six years. The many different kinds of weblogs are outlined (including personal weblogs, community weblogs, multimedia weblogs). The problem of locating weblogs is addressed through a discussion of weblog directories, search engines and other finding tools. Chapters include using weblogs as sources of information in the library or information service, the options for creating a weblog, and managing the library's own weblog

Key features

* No other book currently available specifically addresses this highly topical subject
* Weblogs are becoming more important as sources of up-to-date information on many different topics, and so librarians need to be aware of these resources, how they are created and by whom
* Weblogs are already important as sources of news and current professional information in the field of library and information science; this book helps librarians to become familiar with the best weblogs in this field
* While relatively few libraries have created their own weblogs, the use of weblogs has been recommended in the library/information press as a way of providing information for library patrons; this book helps library managers to make decisions about a weblog for their library

Content

* An overview of the weblog and blogging phenomenon - what are weblogs?, history, who creates weblogs?; types of weblogs; common features; moblogging; RSS and its use in weblogs
* Weblogs as sources of current information - how useful are weblogs as sources of information?; evaluating weblogs as sources of information; some examples of quality weblogs (in social sciences, books and reading, news and current events, technology)
* Finding weblogs - it's not easy!; directories of weblogs; search engines for weblogs; other strategies
* Weblogs in the field of library and information science - overview; weblogs dealing with library and information science as a topic; weblogs covering specialist topics in library and information science; weblogs created by professional associations and organisations; weblogs created by library and information schools; weblogs created by individual librarians (the 'blogging librarian'); finding weblogs in this field
* Weblogs created by libraries: the state of the art - library weblogs; investigating library weblogs; what kinds of libraries are creating weblogs?; purposes for which libraries are creating weblogs; content of the weblogs created by libraries; how libraries are creating and maintaining their weblogs; some examples of library weblogs; evaluation of the library weblogs
* Creating a weblog: the options - overview of the options; free weblog software options; commercial weblog software options; 'roll your own'; weblog hosting - free services; weblog hosting - commercial services; weblog hosting - the library's own web server; add-ons to spice up a weblog; moblogging; RSS feeds
* Managing the library weblog - an overview of management issues associated with a library weblog; planning for the implementation of a library weblog; making the technical decisions; identifying the potential users of the library weblog; making decisions about and managing content and other features; making decisions about and managing interactivity; allocating staff time for weblog development and maintenance; budgeting for the weblog; promoting the weblog; evaluating the weblog project
* Sources of information about weblogs - printed sources; web-based sources; weblogs about weblogs and blogging

It looks like an interesting read, since I already see misinformation in the publishers materials.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:01 AM | TrackBack

Posting and quals and life as I know it

You may have noticed that my posts have changed somewhat over the last month, or maybe I am just keenly aware of the change. I have been knee-deep in BROG research for Sunbelt and reading for my quals. As such I have been thinking about blogging and research quite a lot but have been unable to write about it here - not well formed thoughts at this point, or in-process research which should be kept close until presentation or publication is immanent. On that note, hopefully I will be able to link to the Sunbelt presentation in the next couple of days.

So, for the time being, much of my posting is likely to be filter work or fragmented quals thoughts - not giving to much away on here though you will have to wait until it's done and can read it in its entirety. Bear with me, while I stitch it all together, I'll try to keep the site interesting - through possibly not quotable - for the short-term.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:05 PM | TrackBack

Biz Stone says that teen blogs are amazing

From Stone, Biz (2004). Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Diary blogs are the ones critics use as ammo against blogging and sometimes refer to as "what I had for lunch today" blogs. The blogging communities Xanga and LiveJournal are brimming with teenagers who have no qualms about releasing obsession, rants, and secrets to their blog. The comparison between blogging and instant-messaging is apparent with those teen diary blogs. They can become a more permanent version of instant-message spamming their friends. Many come down on these blogs as trivial but they are in fact one of the most amazing facets of the blogging phenomenon. Teenagers talk about what interests them, what's on their minds, and what issues they are having. Xanga has features that allow bloggers to create and join groups, and blogging teenagers have organized themselves into categories for support of problems ranging from dating to self-mutilation. In some cases the most important thing is get it out in the open -- even if it's only whispered to your blog (pp. 53-54).

I've long felt that the online communication of teenagers tells us many things. The two most important are 1) how teens communicate to other teens when they do not perceive adults are present, and 2) allowing us to extrapolate how teens current communication will shape the future of online communication. Both are lofty goals.

It was nice to see a non-pejorative mention of teen bloggers, particularly diary bloggers, in a popular book on blogging. Often teens are dismissed online, as they usually are in the 3D world as well. To bad because it is the adults who suffer when they take that position.

Posted by prolurkr at 03:20 PM | TrackBack

Education in the time of the internet

weblogg-ed: The read/write web in the classsroom [misspelling in original] has posted a discussion on Transparency and Education.

I'm a dreamer, I know.

"You have to read some Marx," my friend said. "Don't you know that those in power will let the masses convince themselves that are in control until they become a bit too powerful, at which point they'll step in and shut it down?" (Or something along those lines.)

"So what are you saying?" I asked. "You think if the Web gets too disruptive to education 'they'll' try to censor it?"

His answer was, for all intents, yes, that if things ever got to the point where the status quo was seriously challenged, there would be serious attempts to limit the technology. That people in charge would start saying that education was going in a direction that wasn't healthy for our kids, and that we have to take steps to rein it in.

"Yeah," I said. "But this is different." (Great comeback, I know.)

"But things were 'different' in the 40s and the 60s and the 80s...all these things that were supposed to change education and never did," he said. "How is this different?"

And that is the question, isn't it? And that's what's been on my brain ever since...how do we articulate how this change, this technology, is different? Because it's easier? Cheaper? More global? Democratizing? More connecting and collaborative? All of those?

Brain...hurts. But in a good way.

they raise some interesting issues. How will digital technologies change education? Will it just be the changes in delivery systems that we taking effect around us? Or will there be fundamental changes that force us to look at our roles differently.

It does make the brain hurt but that kind of thinking is important to academia and to survival within it.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:20 AM | TrackBack

PubSub eartquake alerts

PubSub, with data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating seismic networks, is posting information on earthquakes worldwide. You can subscribe to or look at a sideblog of recent activity at their Earthquakes page. Results can be sent RSS, Atom, or email. Though the site says SMS is coming.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:36 PM | TrackBack

Pew Internet and American Life - More Americans have home computer networks

More Americans have home computer networks

According to our January 2005 survey, 46% of homes with more than one computer said they had a home network of some sort. Among those networked at home, half (52%) have wireless networks with the rest using cables to network their homes.

...increasing use of laptop computers by Americans. Fully 36% of household computer users said that at least one computer at home was a laptop in our January 2005 survey; half of these laptops are equipped with wireless modems.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:22 PM | TrackBack

Blogs as publishing tools for tenure

ScribblingWomen posted her letter to the Tenure Committee discussing her blog as academic writing, see What I told the tenure committee. Very interesting to think about how the new forms of communication may force changes in traditional academic systems.

Posted by prolurkr at 03:38 PM | TrackBack

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

I have had my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) preordered at Amazon for sometime. Scholastic, the US publisher, has now released the cover art for the book so here is a look at the design and a link to the book.The stated released date is July 16, 2005.

Posted by prolurkr at 02:35 PM | TrackBack

Reading done and still more to do

I finished:

Stone, Biz (Sept., 2002). Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content. Indianapolis IN: New Riders.

Tomorrow I finish:

Stone, Biz (2004). Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs. New York: St. Martin's Press.

I also get to do reading for the IRB meeting on Thursday. If time permits I may start on the next batch of books including:

Bausch, Paul, Haughey, Matthew, & Hourihan, Meg (Eds.) (2002). We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs. Indianapolis IN: Wiley.

Burnett, Robert & Marshall, P. David (2003). Web Theory: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Gurak, Laura J., Antonijevic, Smiljana, Johnson, Laurie, Ratliff, Clancy, & Reyman, Jessica (Eds.) (2004). Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Retrieved Aug. 25, 2004 from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/.

Rodzvilla, John (Ed.) (2002). The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing.

van Leeuwen, Theo (2005). Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:38 PM | TrackBack

Statistics from PEW on iPod & MP3 player staturation

iPods and MP3 Players storm the market

We just got the results of the survey we took between January 13 and February 9 and for the first time asked a question to find out how many American adults have iPods or MP3 players. The answer is 11% -- or more than 22 million of those who are age 18 and older. It's safe to say that there are several million more MP3 players owned in the teen world, but we did not survey teens in this poll.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:03 PM | TrackBack

Harry G. Frankfurt's new book

Ok I'll admit it, when I saw the title of Harry G. Frankfurt, emeritus professor of philosophy at Princeton, new book I was a bit curious. I mean come on how often do you see a book, with a word in it's title that the newspaper refuses to print? Check out the New York Times article A Princeton Philosopher's Unprintable Book Title. Read the Times article and then take a look at the book yourself. It is looking like a must read to me, I deal with a lot of bullshit in my world, as do most of us, and have always been shocked that so few people question any of it.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:19 AM | TrackBack

The definitive love song list

The folks at Folk Alley have put together [t]he definitive wedding song list. Personally I think it is an excellent list of love songs. What could be more appropriate for Valentine's Day? The Folk Alley post have links to Amazon for the albums that are available there. Check it out if you are interested, note their list is not in alphabetical order.

45 Years -- Stan Rogers

All I Want to Do is Sing Your Name -- U. Utah Phillips Riddle Song

Reading goals for the week

I am trying to get through my blog reading before the end of the month, a lofty goal that undoubtedly will not be met. But without a goal how does one know they are late? So I'm starting on Monday with:

Stone, Biz (Sept., 2002). Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content. Indianapolis IN: New Riders.

Once I have the Stone (2002) read, notes taken, and outlined then I am going to return to Stone (2004). I started it previously, and blogged about it, but sat the book aside for other reading. Now I get to read, take notes, and outline it as well.

Stone, Biz (2004). Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs. New York: St. Martin's Press.

I'm looking forward to getting these two under my belt. I have a feeling they will be very useful for quals.

I have a ridiculously high goal for article review per day. I know it's to many but then I also know many of the articles in my Reference Manager are already processed - read, notes taken, and notes entered. So for those articles the daily handling is a quick review to see that they are ready to go. We are cookin' here.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:56 PM | TrackBack

Blogger Wear

Radent Marketing Group has put together a set of Blogger Wear. Radent Marketing is a Buzz Marketing Consulantcy...which kinda gives me the willies but they are cool shirts and stuff.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:42 AM | TrackBack

Visualizations of blogosphere connections

I am knee deep in coding work for the BROG presentation at Sunbelt. So since we aren't ready to link some pretty pictures here yet I think I will give you someone else's visualizations for blog interconnections. From Jon Schull's Weblog check out Visualizations of Blogspace.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:24 PM | TrackBack

Valentine's Day artwork

If you are looking for some cute gif's to use for valentine's day check out adoptables by otto. He does cute but polished work in these minitures.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:59 AM | TrackBack

Jakob Nielsen invented spam?

For more info check out Hacking Jakob Nielsen: Even Internet Gurus Have To Start Somewhere.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:12 PM | TrackBack

When your week just won't go the way you want it to

That is how this week has gone. Nothing really terrible just nothing on que. So today I decided to stop fighting it and to just zen the whole thing.

I had planned to spend the day reading for quals and doing library research on my pc at my local library (it's a really ugly website so don't be shocked), via their wireless connection. I can't regularly do this from home because my DirecWay satellite hookup doesn't support VPN, this will be resolved later this year when we change to Blue Sky. I did work with the computer tech folks on campus to get this problem resolved and we did find a way that works sometimes...but not all the time. So once the local library went wireless routinely pack up and head for town to work.

Of course today I got to the library, snagged one of the few carrel's with power (such is the world of architectural wonders you can have wireless or power but very few spots get both), get set-up, and find that there is a glitch with the wireless and it doesn't want to keep me connected consistently. *sigh*

Oh well I'll have lots of work to do tomorrow morning on campus I guess. It will be two computers at once I'm sure. My laptop humming in the card catalog looking for the few books, related to my quals, that aren't already living on my desk. Plus a second one in the PhD Lab that will be accessing Oncourse to print out the labs and test reviews I need for the class I TA. Can't print those at home because of the same VPN issue.

My one real bright spot of the day related to putting my hands on a history of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). I had been looking for a single source or at least related sources, for a history that came close to the present. This morning I have a brain storm and checked my bookshelf's - who would have thought it - and first reviewed:

Jones, Steven G. (Ed.) (1995). Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications.

The introduction includes material on the history of CMC but it is not up to present obviously.

Then I noticed that right there on the shelf next to Cybersociety and Cybersociety 2.0 was:

Jones, Steve (Ed.) (2003). Encyclopedia of New Media: An Essential Reference to Communication and Technology. New York: Sage.

Everything I wanted is right there. Look up the name of a CMC media, say email, and there it is a nice concise history at the front of the entry. Excellent. Even has an entry for blogs...though that one will be supplemented I'm sure.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:15 PM | TrackBack

The proud owner of multiple Moleskine's

I am now the proud owner of multiple Moleskine notebooks. Though when you stack the three of them up next to the Palm it begins to look like a stupid choice. Oh well notebooks never turn themselves on and dump their entire batteries so you can't access your information. Notebooks never treat you like that.

I have three styles all pocket size - a ruled notebook, a 2005 weekly diary, and a memo pockets accordion file folder (to keep my 3x5 cards organized). You can see all the style and size choice here or here to give a bit of profit to another blogger the 43 Folders blog.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:36 AM | TrackBack

Fascinating BBC article about images of the sea floor post earthquake/tsunami

Navy releases tsunami images

UK scientists have released images of the ocean floor near the epicentre of December's giant Asian earthquake.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:35 AM | TrackBack

Katie Collman

On January 30, 2005, I wrote a post about the abduction and murder of Katie Collman, Missing girls body found. A few days later Charles Hickman confessed to her murder and was arrested. Two other local men have also been arrested for giving false information to the police and FBI.

The motive for the murder? Apparently Katie stopped to tell someone she knew that a dog had been hit on the train tracks. In so doing she stumbled on to a meth lab that was located in the same apartment complex. Rather then have her tell anyone about their activities, the men involved killed her. So now they are in jail awaiting trials and possible death penalties, and a child is dead...all because of methamphetamine.

Katie's grieving father has a plan to collect money to destroy the apartment complex and raise a park in his daughter's memory. In part it is a nice thought, a park where other children can play and Katie can be remembered. But there are few apartment complexes in this small town and families that can not afford rent on other homes live there. Better to clean up the drug activity and let the apartments stand. Here is a New York Times story on his plan, Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge

I have held off posting about this case since the FBI and the local police keep hinting that there are more arrests to be made. We shall see that is fore sure.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:31 PM | TrackBack

Naming your goals outloud and productivity

It seems that this week is not turning out to be nearly as productive as I was hoping it would be. I should have known I would be in trouble as soon as I posted the to-do list yesterday. LOL I put the jinx on it, because yesterday I got almost nothing on the list done. I finally had to put it away with the decision to just go with the flow until Wednesday.

So today, Wednesday, I tried to tackle a few things on the list, as well as adding new stuff, of course. Today I read and took notes on:

Crump, Eric & Carbone, Nick (1998). Writing Online: A Student's Guide to the Internet and World Wide Web. (2nd ed.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

I took a fair amount of notes on the authors discussion of the three types of netiquette: "netiquette for using the Internet, netiquette for communicating on the Internet, and netiquette for acknowledging people and resources on the Internet" (p.5). I have not seen the term broken up so succinctly previously.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:23 PM | TrackBack

A good article discussing Harvard President Lawrence Summers's remarks

I have avoided weighing in on Harvard President Lawrence Summers' remarks, about the biological reasons why women are under-represented in the sciences, because I wanted a well thought out article to point to before I posted. Today I got my article.

I am always loath to criticize someone based only on the media's representation of them. Do one research project where a review of media representations of what you are studying is a part of the methodology and you will never look at the media quite the say way again. I have been unable to find a full copy of his remarks so I have no choice but to rely on a variety of sources - triangulation - to assess common threads.

After all that I sincerely think his undergraduate speech teacher should, retrospectively, change is grade to an F. While there are points that were made in the discussion that I see as appropriate, read the Pinker article below for insight, the presentation was a huge problem.

I accept that there are biological differences between males and females. I accept that some of the differences we see are socialization rather then biology, but that also means that in some areas biology trumps socialization. I accept that there are fewer women in the sciences then men. I accept that models of education and scientific work are more adapted to the male pattern of thinking and working. (Find a women who has made it through the education and academic gauntlet without more then a few scares because of her way of looking at things and I will show you a rarity.) What I do not accept is that the current models are the only viable ones for education, academia, or the sciences. Nor do I accept that womens achievement is limited by their biology. What I do accept is that few women want to fight their way through the existing structures to achieve in fields that are hostile to them because of their biology.

From The New Republic, The Science of Difference by Steven Pinker

Posted by prolurkr at 09:39 AM | TrackBack

So now you can only be critical of the President if you have the right tax status?

From National Public Radio:

NAACP Spars with IRS over Tax Status

Morning Edition, February 9, 2005 · The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] refuses a request by the IRS to turn over information related to a speech given last July by the group's chairman Julian Bond. The IRS says Bond violated the NAACP's tax status by delivering the speech, which was critical of President Bush.

Sad and scary days

Posted by prolurkr at 09:04 AM | TrackBack

New reading for the day, and everything else

Today, after hours of reading and answering email and trying to catch up on blog reading I have settled on my to-do list for the day - written out on a nice lined yellow notecard. Set-up the Master File for quals writing. Start reading and take notes on: Burnett, Robert & Marshall, P. David (2003). Web Theory: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Nielsen, Jakob (2000). Designing Web Usability. Indianapolis IN: New Riders. Get the blog site ready for renovation. Do deep water workout (at least one hour and preferably two).

Posted by prolurkr at 10:11 AM | TrackBack

New Nanci Griffith - Hearts in Mind

I am a singer who likes to listen to other singers. I am a writer who wishes she had the talent to be a songwriter. Both are why I love to listen to Nanci Griffith's work. This new album, released February 1, 2005, is a very good mix of familiar, with new arrangements, and new songs to give any folk fan a satisfying addition to the collection.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:24 PM | TrackBack

Entering reading notes

Today I am spending time entering reading notes into Reference Manager. The notes go back to readings I did in early December through the present, with the most recent readings being the Serfaty and Blood. Humm kinda tacky that the prices are with the pics. Have to figure out a better way to post these links. Now that is better. Small pictures with no prices or "Buy it from Amazon" tags, with links that get you to all that information if you want it.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:56 PM | TrackBack

A Bateson Quote

I'm doing some cleanup work entering notes into Reference Manager which caused me to pickup my copy of Bateson's Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. In reading the introduction again I was struck by a quote and thought I would share it with you:

There seems to be something like a Gresham's law of cultural evolution according to which the oversimplified ideas will always displace the sophisticated and the vulgar and then hateful will always displace the beautiful. And yet the beautiful persists (p. 5).

Ahhh so true. I wish I had more time to read Bateson and contemplate his work. I always find my interludes with it to be very thought provoking and insightful. This books and Steps to an Ecology of Mind would definitely be on my short list for books I would want to take to a desert island.

Reference List:

Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Bateson, Gregory (2002). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:33 PM | TrackBack

The Hipster PDA

I have long been a fan of the 43 Folders: a bunch of tricks, hacks & other cool stuff blog. Though much of their advise is geared for Mac users, I still find very useful tips and pointers that can lead me to analog or Windows solutions.

So when I decided to ditch my Palm and return to the old 3x5 card system, I stopped by 43 Folders to set-up a "hipster pda" like Merlin Mann recommends.

I'm not totally new to the 3x5 card organizational system. I've used regular lined cards (in a variety of colors), unlined cards, and even used Levenger's Pocket Briefcase Cards but only the sampler pack, the regular cards are cool but pricey.

Here are two links that take you to the 43 Folders entries about hipster pda's:

Introducing the Hipster PDA

Organizing Your Hipster PDA

Posted by prolurkr at 06:04 PM | TrackBack

Ok I'm finally doing it

I am finally declaring that I hate Palm OS and systems architecture. About 10 years ago I entered the PDA world after purchasing a HP 200LX rather then an early Palm. I decided that the Palm was pedestrian and inefficient to use. My 200LX, while not as small as a Palm, ran DOS applications so I could do almost any work I wanted on it with space being the main limiter.

But then it became a Windows world so I moved up to an HP Jornada 720. It was a good machine but because it has a Strong ARM processor there were very few applications for it.

So then I gave up and got a Palm. A Tungsten E to be exact. I have had this machine for over a year and I can only give you one thing to recommend it, it fits in a shirt pocket. That's pretty sad.

In the time I have had this PDA I have had to hard boot it regularly because so many of my programs conflict. I have found it has a predilection to turning itself on in my handbag and running its battery down to nothing. Oh and if a Palm is completely dead there is no resuscitating it when you are away from your primary computer, because to be revived it has to get an update. And now two of my programs will not communicate and one will not reinstall after failing.

I have written numerous emails to all the companies involved and have found that the primary problem is the OS and architecture. Now that is not to say that there are not individual issues with the software riding on the OS...there is and are and probably always will be since nothing is perfect. But the main problems are embedded in the device and its operating system.

So I will be moving to a something like a Sony U50/U71p or an OQO or something with that form factor that will run Windows. At least I will be making that change as soon as I can afford it. In the mean time I am going back to Moleskin's and what 43 Folders calls a hipster pda. So merrily I march back into the analog world for now, until the digital world of PDA's comes up with something better or I get rich...which ever happens first.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:13 PM | TrackBack

Writing checklist

Lokman I. Meho posted this checklist of evaluation questions and guidelines for writing research papers and/or literature reviews to the SLIS email listserv. I think it's good so I am passing on the link.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:19 PM | TrackBack

CFP - Re-Visualising Writing: Page, Canvas, Screen

Centre for Cultural Poetics,
University of Southampton Re-Visualising Writing: Page, Canvas, Screen One Day Conference,
June 10th 2005

This conference will address the relationship between writing and visual culture. It is particularly interested in exploring how technology continues to shape our understanding of the visual, spatial, experimental, and iconic properties of writing.

Questions to be addressed can include:

How have the visual properties of books, printing, painting, and computing influenced the development of writing practice and its theory?

How have technological advances encouraged art forms to combine word and image in new ways?

What opportunities for re-examining the visual properties of writing does new technology offer?

What new forms of social practice (reading, community formation, textual dissemination) does an attention to the visual suggest?

Forms to be addressed can include:

Electronic and digital culture (eg: Digital Poetics, Hypertext, Programmable Media, Blogs, E-poetry)

Textual Experimentation (eg: Visual and Concrete Poetry, Modernism and Postmodernism, Procedural or Aleatory Poetics)

Emerging or established 'hybrid' genres (eg: the artist's book, the performed poem, the illustrated page)

Collaboration (eg: between visual artists, writers, interactive media specialists)

Deadline for submission of abstracts (300 words) is March 31st.

Please send to Nicky Marsh at English, School of Humanities, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ or nm8@soton.ac.uk

Posted by prolurkr at 08:08 PM | TrackBack

Just for the fun of it!

The following video is a scream. I have watched it several times now and always end up smiling. Numa numa is taking over my brain. LOL Newgrounds has multiple versions even one with subtiltes. Have fun guys it's Saturday.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:56 AM | TrackBack

A walk down memory lane

Frame work of the questions stolen from Sarah:

15 years ago today I would have been...
- sending out resumes to get out the post-MPA job I hated.
- working two jobs to pay school loans and living expenses.
- starting to think about planning my wedding.

10 years ago today I would have been...
- still sending out resumes.
- still hating the job.
- driving two hours one-way to work so I could go home to my hubby.

5 years ago today I would have been...
- beginning MIS classes.
- noticing that when I talked about life online, as I had and was observing it, people stopped and listened.
- starting to seriously think about applying for the doctoral program.

1 year ago today I would have been...
- worrying that I would not win a Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship - I did.
- thinking about Quals, but not writing it yet.
- finishing up with filing.
- researching, writing, and publishing.

This year I am...
- writing my Quals, I'm done thinking about it exclusively.
- comfortable with where I am professionally.
- working my tushee off. LOL

Yesterday I...
- was recovering from Wednesday. Long days wear me out.
- working on pulling BROG coding together and establishing final numbers.
- reading for Quals.

Today I...
- was on campus by 9.
- will attend two colloquia.
- will have lunch with friends, I'm looking forward to it.

Tomorrow I will...
- take the cats - well 3 of them - the vet to be weighed and get new meds.
- finish pulling BROG coding together, assuming I get everyone else's in by then.
- spending some time with my hubby.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:14 AM | TrackBack

Scholars Retreat

The February 2005 (Vol. 41, No. 2) issue of the National Communication Association (NCA) newsletters Spectra has an announcement about the Scholars' Retreat at University of Colorado at Denver. Interesting idea to lock a bunch of scholars in rooms for a week and force them to write. I wonder if it really works as well as they say...plus it's kind of pricey. But an interesting idea none the less.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:14 PM | TrackBack

"New Media"

There is an interesting post on The HUMLab blog about the issues of "New Media" and digital's place in that family.

With the recent visit by Jeffrey Schnapp in HUMlab I adopted a term from him: "Dynamic Media". I prefer this over "New Media" mainly because I believe it is not so new in 2005 and, by implication it needs to take its full and rightful place at the media family table.

I thought about this issue a couple of years ago but didn't resolve the issues in my own mind. The internal dialogue was sparked by the anouncement that a new professor would be joining the faculty at Communication and Culture at IU. Her specialty was New Media and the new media in question was silent films. The idea that digital and silent films are in the same "family" really made me start thinking.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:20 PM | TrackBack

New book on website archiving

Archiving Websites. General Considerations and Strategies
by Niels Brugger
76 pages

Cover text
"This book treats the micro archiving of websites, i.e. archiving by researchers, students or others without special technical knowledge who, using a standard computer, wish to save a website for further study. The phenomenon is discussed from the standpoint that Internet research must be able to stabilise and save the object of its analysis. However, the Internet is endowed with certain fundamental media-specific dynamics that make stabilisation difficult. Based on an account and discussion of these dynamics (linked as they are to sender, text and recipient) the following double conclusion is reached.

Firstly, unlike other well-known media, the Internet does not simply exist in a form suited to being archived, but rather is first formed as an object of study in the archiving, and it is formed differently depending on who does the archiving, when, and for what purpose. Secondly, this means that there is an element of subjective creation in the archived material, so that methodical deliberations are necessary - in other words, the answers to why and how the archived material has been created. These conclusions form the starting point for the last section of the book, which, based on comprehensive tests of archiving software, discusses in depth the elements that can be included in an archiving strategy."

The book is free of charge, and as long as in print, copies of the book may be obtained by contacting cfi@imv.au.dk. Please specify complete address. An electronic version of the book can be obtained on http://cfi.imv.au.dk/eng/pub/webarc (for the purpose of citation please note that the printed and electronic versions are identical).

In connection with the publication of the book a website has been established where it is possible to find the conclusions of the test, the detailed test results, recommendations for using the individual programmes, a detailed description of the test, and links to resources on net archiving. The website address is http://cfi.imv.au.dk/eng/pub/webarc.

Niels Brugger, PhD, is an associate professor of Media Studies at the Institute of Information and Media Studies, University of Aarhus, Denmark, and co-founder of the Centre for Internet Research.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:45 AM | TrackBack

Cool hand and body warmers

Yesterday afternoon hubby and wandered around the Home Show a bit. The only things we bought he had actually seen, and a acquired a couple, earlier in the week...but I wanted more.

What he had found were these very cool reusable, always a good word in my book, instant hand warmers called Quantum Heat Packs. They are pouches of food grade, don't eat it please, sodium acetate gel that when activated turn into a crystalline solid and produce a lot of heat. A similar product I found online said it could reach 130 degrees F. All I know is these things are wonderfully warm.

So we went back and bought me a set of hand warmers, one for use at the desk in the study and one for my book bag. My hands are often very cold this time of year. Makes typing difficult sometimes.

We also got a medium wrap and a large wrap. I used the medium one on my knee last night, to much walking on concrete yesterday. It did a great job loosening everything up.

To recharge them after they are used you drop them in boiling water, let them "cook" for 10 minutes on medium, then allow them to stay in the pan while the water cools. Couldn't be easier.

So if you see me in the library or at a conference holding a small bright blue pouch in my hands, you will now know that, a) my hands are really cold, and b) I am warming them up with a Quantum Heat Packs.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:29 AM | TrackBack

Visualizing a blog posts network

Taken from The Blog Herald:

Findory, the "personalized" RSS service has introduced a cool new service that makes it possible to visualize a blogs "neighborhood."

The service allows users to see how a specific blog is related to others. The large the font size, the bigger the relationship.

To use the service, visit Findory.com
1) Search for the blogs title
2) Find an article from the blog and click on the title link
3) Look for the neighborhoods link on the right side of the page

Posted by prolurkr at 08:57 AM | TrackBack

Teens don't like to read long blocks of text online

From the MercuryNews found via Weblogg-ed News

The teens in the study, from California, Colorado and Australia, didn't like to read long blocks of text, preferring illustrations and pictures. They quickly gave up on sites once they encountered navigation and other problems. They also displayed poor searching skills, usually clicking on the first hit after a search query.

The study also found that while the teens paid more attention than adults to the appearance of a site, they don't care for ``glitzy sites with heavy, blinking graphics,'' preferring clean, modest and ``cool'' designs, such as Apple Computer's Web site.

Teens are drawn to sites that offer interaction with others, whether it be answering an online poll or adding to public commentary on the site. The test group was put off by sites that tried to serve both children and teens, preferring content just for ``teens.'' Putting the word ``kid'' on a Web site was the kiss of death, the study found.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:53 AM | TrackBack

CFP - Caught in the Web

CALL FOR PANELS
The Center for Humanities, Arts, and TechnoScience (CHATS) presents:

Structure, Space and Transmigrations
April 15-17, 2005
University at Albany, SUNY
Albany, New York

The State University of New York at Albany will host its third annual CHATS conference, which focuses on examining the intersection between humanities, science and technology.

The three-day conference will host an array of events, including academic papers and multi-media presentations, performance, exhibits, a plenary discussion, and keynote speaker (to be announced). We are particularly interested in panels and papers that take an interdisciplinary approach, and incorporate perspectives from a wide range of disciplines. Priority consideration will be given to those speaking to this year’s theme, "Structure, Space and Transmigrations." Works from all fields and disciplines are welcome.

CAUGHT IN THE WEB
Call for Papers on the exploration and examination of text on the Web

As a freelance writer for a webzine, I have been interested in the growing phenomena of text on the net. Of interest will be diverse opinions on the concept of writing for the internet. Topics can include, but are not limited to: Anonymity – how does anonymity play into creating a community between the virtual audience and authors? Can there be a community when there is anonymity? What constitutes a community? Are these "real" or "imagined" communities? How does writing for the web differ from "paper" texts? Is writing for the web to be considered a legitimate means of communication versus printed texts? Is printed text becoming obsolete? Where does 'blogging' fit into this and what is it? Is a blogger an author? Are we all authors? Are we "caught in the web"? Where will our fascination with the web lead us? Papers from a variety of disciplines are welcomed, such as, but not limited to: Psychology, English, History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, etc.

Proposals should be no longer than 500 words and should be directed to Paula Yablonsky at _pachya1@aol.com no later than February 23, 2005.

For further info, visit www.albany.edu/humanitech

Posted by prolurkr at 10:44 PM | TrackBack

Quals reading - Outlining in Blood

I spent yesterday finishing:

Serfaty, Viviane (2004). The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

My only negative on the book is that I would have liked to have had the specific titles/names for the technological tools discussed at various points. For example she discusses her perceptions of the differences between online diaries and weblogs by relating to both forms globally saying,

Weblogs and diaries differ in the way responses of readers are organized. The diaristic form keeps up the familiar patterns of traditional correspondence, where letters were expected to be shared by several members of the same family or a circle of friends. ... Weblogs are different in as much as the software is in charge of displaying readers' answers; the blogger has very little scope for editing or deleting answers (p.66).

Today I have begun reading:

Blood, Rebecca (2002). The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing.

At 2:00 pm I'm skipping out of my six hour reading session to go wonder the Home Show with hubby. It's a great time to see all the amazingly useless stuff that can be sold to people with a little arm-twisting. The back to IUPUI to help teach this evening. Wednesday's are very busy days this semester.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:18 PM | TrackBack

American adolescents reject something they do not directly experience - the First Amendment

From the BBC: US teens 'reject' key freedoms, other news outlets have carried the same material.

Over a third of the 100,000 students questioned felt the First Amendment went "too far" in guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, worship and assembly.

Only half felt newspapers should be allowed to publish stories that did not have the government's approval.

A primary cause behind this is that American teens do not live under the First Amendment in the same way American adults do. Court cases have consistently found that schools and municipalities can limit rights of student in favor of control issues, i.e. school newspapers can be, and usually are, censored for topics so as not to offend parents, or inflame or upset students.

I should add that in my experience talking to teens in online venues, their understanding of the First Amendment is often inaccurate in that they believe that they have the right to say anything they think and no one can do anything about it. The understanding that the First Amendment is actually fairly narrow is news to them.

I have to agree that part of the answer to this issue is clearer instruction at several points in the curriculum. But unlike the authors I don't put that solely in the hands of the schools. I think we need much more public discourse on how structures like the Constitution and Amendments frame our way of life. I actually think adults need to be talking about these issues too.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:01 AM | TrackBack