Some nights you just want to write; pull back from living and reflect - pen on paper - without worrying how many words it takes to say something, to let an idea bubble up to the surface and out itself.
August 22, 2005
May 15, 2005
Moleskine Notebooks
I've taken the step back into using paper journals. To this end I purchased a Moleskine notebook. It's so tempting to be in some 'secret' band of creative types, to have chanced upon - unknown and unexpected - a great secret. I feel that a lot of the 'Moleskinesque' webpages that we see are no more than covert viral marketing ploys. And they work - I've gone out and bought a Moleskine myself. But 'real' artists / dreamers / poets / philosphers / diarists / notetakers and plain old compulsive paper-purchasers, well they write because 'its' in them; the urge to be, to release on paper, some part of oneself. But the page can be lonely too and it's only natural for us to want to face that off-white challenge in the company of others - even if we only know that those others are out there in time and space. Hey, thanks for the marketing to let me know that I don't need to be alone!
Perhaps (hopefully) what people are really excited about is the idea of thinking and writing when all they seem to be doing is raving as if the notebook had just been invented?
To be fair though, the Moleskine suits me - it's a touch larger than A4 folded in half and the paper is a nice buff tone and the covers are hard enough to write anywhere. The corners are rounded which is practical and the binding opens flat. All over a good range of qualities. Not cheap, but not bulky either. By the way, the paper seems fine even though many people complain of ink seeping through the pages. I'm using a medium Waterman (Phileas I think?) of some sort with blue Waterman ink. There's the odd splotch that appears on the underside of a page, but nothing significant. I've ordered a few Hero 329's (eBay - 3 for $9.95 plus postage!) as they have fine/fine nibs - plus they'll remind me of the old Parker 51 that I lost all those years ago ...
April 29, 2005
My Search history
I've started to use Google's "My Search History" service. I feel as if I've taken the next step in computing. Whilst people may be concerned over privacy, as you are storing a record of the things you are interested in on someone else's computer, I feel that the benefits really outweigh the concerns implicit to that. Consider how many times - for example - that you've searched for something, followed the link in your search engine and found that magic page, the page with exactly what it is that you were looking for. Google will record that moment for you and locate it in a calendar for a visual date search (I looked at it last week, last month) or you can search your old searches and find it that way; absolutely brilliant, instead of searching through every page you search through your old searches - a few hundred or a few thousand pages instead of millions of pages. Plus once you've logged in you seem to be able to use the separate search window found in Safari or Firefox, for example. For people that work across multiple computers, the ability to record your searches and go back to them is a godsend. You do need to have gmail mail account to log in and use it. I wonder if this is going to make bookmarks redundant?
Check it out at http://www.google.com/searchhistory/
Check it out at http://www.google.com/searchhistory/
April 23, 2005
Japanese bike ride
The sun rises and the morning is cool. My bicycle hums as overinflated tyres rush along 1970's terrazzo floors. I pass through near empty arcades. Everywhere is a blaze of Kanji in all the colours that the Nippon Densu Neon Works (or whoever they are) is capable of creating. Faces on billboards smile with whiter than white teeth; straight and narrow and even. Jean Reno, the French movie star, has something good to say about soda. Above me, exactly 1000 Japanese Summer Festival Bells tinkle - lazy in the cool breeze. All is well when the day is new. Even Japanese workers rest sometime.
Shadows play a game of tag whilst running alongside my bicycle. Old men and short men in hard polyester pants (shiny with wear) glide alongside me, their bicycles dull with age and use. They are burdened with strange cardboard cargoes. They are a disappearing past of cheap paint gone dull and rough and crinkly. Rust nibbling away at the extremities. Blink and you'll miss Japan.
One hundred and twenty million Japanese. A billion Chinese. Countless stars fallen behind the dawn. How many bicycles are rolling along in the cool of the morning at this exact moment?
"We Japanese like details."
The gentle breeze is to my back now, the half remembered speckling of light must remain outside this cool passageway - but a memory of that light brightly fluttering as white dice on sooty baize remains with me.
It's Summer Festival week which is a time when Japanese people dance badly, spontaneously and unselfconsciously in the street. All whilst marching in well organised lines. There is the constant banging of drums that continues for hours on end. Men dressed in white with great big headbands hammer away furiously at wine barrel sized drums. A splash of red dye on white is to be seen. People stare, endlessly watching on. Fireworks will explode in tidy, well mannered, arrangements. Each individual spark a conscious well arranged part of the whole.
Lucky morning.
Shadows play a game of tag whilst running alongside my bicycle. Old men and short men in hard polyester pants (shiny with wear) glide alongside me, their bicycles dull with age and use. They are burdened with strange cardboard cargoes. They are a disappearing past of cheap paint gone dull and rough and crinkly. Rust nibbling away at the extremities. Blink and you'll miss Japan.
One hundred and twenty million Japanese. A billion Chinese. Countless stars fallen behind the dawn. How many bicycles are rolling along in the cool of the morning at this exact moment?
"We Japanese like details."
The gentle breeze is to my back now, the half remembered speckling of light must remain outside this cool passageway - but a memory of that light brightly fluttering as white dice on sooty baize remains with me.
It's Summer Festival week which is a time when Japanese people dance badly, spontaneously and unselfconsciously in the street. All whilst marching in well organised lines. There is the constant banging of drums that continues for hours on end. Men dressed in white with great big headbands hammer away furiously at wine barrel sized drums. A splash of red dye on white is to be seen. People stare, endlessly watching on. Fireworks will explode in tidy, well mannered, arrangements. Each individual spark a conscious well arranged part of the whole.
Lucky morning.
April 22, 2005
Seminar
I went to my 'first' graduate or higher seminar today -I know what have I been doing with my time? Imagine, if you will, a room full of post-structuralists nodding their heads sanely while this Dr Dude out the front embeds the wildest assertions about the nature (or lack thereof) of 'tings into his presentation. Its a pity that my other supervisor hadn't turned up - he would have gone wild. And I mean WILD - and he would have definitely used the word incoherent. Ahh, these university guys - they all know each other anyway.
Call ME reactionary, but when someone says Yes, language determines the nature of physics, my dander gets up.
Anyway, I took notes and copied the (extensive) handouts that were provided and I've got some other readings, and a contact out of the 'effort' of going. To be fair, the presenter handed out an excellent overview / flowchart that he'd drawn up; it indicated what intellectual traditions are involved in this area (dating back to the Enlightenment) and how they connect with each other. I'll probably end up creating an electronic form of this document and uploading it - it makes the ground a lot clearer for someone interested in the history or ideas / and the firmness of reality I think.
There have been moments recently where I've felt like I should be getting a job a buying a house. The world moves on and here I am playing 'laptop man and the thesisicons' - perhaps I want my cake and to eat too. Going to today's seminar really reminded me how much it is that I love this stuff. A world of ideas, of thinking, of questioning how it is that things are. This world is not easy to come by. Not in most jobs anyway.
Call ME reactionary, but when someone says Yes, language determines the nature of physics, my dander gets up.
Anyway, I took notes and copied the (extensive) handouts that were provided and I've got some other readings, and a contact out of the 'effort' of going. To be fair, the presenter handed out an excellent overview / flowchart that he'd drawn up; it indicated what intellectual traditions are involved in this area (dating back to the Enlightenment) and how they connect with each other. I'll probably end up creating an electronic form of this document and uploading it - it makes the ground a lot clearer for someone interested in the history or ideas / and the firmness of reality I think.
There have been moments recently where I've felt like I should be getting a job a buying a house. The world moves on and here I am playing 'laptop man and the thesisicons' - perhaps I want my cake and to eat too. Going to today's seminar really reminded me how much it is that I love this stuff. A world of ideas, of thinking, of questioning how it is that things are. This world is not easy to come by. Not in most jobs anyway.
April 20, 2005
Singlespeed
Simplicity
The beauty of singlespeeding lies in its simplicity - no gears and fewer 'knick-knacks'. There is also less abstraction of the chain line. Singlespeeding is an aesthetic and practical ideal that involves less clutter in favor of a more simple, but not less involved, riding experience. I believe that singlespeeding frees the rider from the tyranny of gear selection. Whatever gear you are in, you are in the right gear; so don't even worry about it. I think that singlespeeding reconnects a rider with some of the essentials of bike riding: the fun, the pleasure, the unpretentiousness of it all. A common misconception about singlespeeding is expressed in the worry about what happens when the hill becomes too steep. Well the answer is simple, you keep pedaling until you can't turn your legs anymore and then you get off and walk. In reality one is more likely to actually run out of top end than bottom end - i.e. you are more likely to feel the need for a higher gear on the flats than for a lower gear in the hills.
With a 'singlespeeder' the thing is to spin
If you haven't tried singlespeeding yet - give it a go. Less can be more and it's a (quiet) revolution to discover that one doesn't need a minimum of 21 or more gears to have fun or to 'make it' to the end of one's street. Gears aren't needed for small rides any more than they're needed for long rides. So ride into town or climb that hill - you'll be surprised and possibly satisfied when you complete these simple tasks.
When I worked in Japan I rode a singlespeed almost every day. In fact if I didn't ride to work I felt somewhat diminished. That's how it is with some things in life; they just get under your skin. By now I've mentally cataloged all those riding experiences into the hazy locker of memory. The reality of riding everyday is that you get wet when it rains, cold when its snowing and sticky in the heat of the summer. But one also gains time to think a great deal about life and about living - something that's harder to do when you're hunched over and fretting about gearing and position. So spin away friends, spin away ....
The beauty of singlespeeding lies in its simplicity - no gears and fewer 'knick-knacks'. There is also less abstraction of the chain line. Singlespeeding is an aesthetic and practical ideal that involves less clutter in favor of a more simple, but not less involved, riding experience. I believe that singlespeeding frees the rider from the tyranny of gear selection. Whatever gear you are in, you are in the right gear; so don't even worry about it. I think that singlespeeding reconnects a rider with some of the essentials of bike riding: the fun, the pleasure, the unpretentiousness of it all. A common misconception about singlespeeding is expressed in the worry about what happens when the hill becomes too steep. Well the answer is simple, you keep pedaling until you can't turn your legs anymore and then you get off and walk. In reality one is more likely to actually run out of top end than bottom end - i.e. you are more likely to feel the need for a higher gear on the flats than for a lower gear in the hills.
With a 'singlespeeder' the thing is to spin
If you haven't tried singlespeeding yet - give it a go. Less can be more and it's a (quiet) revolution to discover that one doesn't need a minimum of 21 or more gears to have fun or to 'make it' to the end of one's street. Gears aren't needed for small rides any more than they're needed for long rides. So ride into town or climb that hill - you'll be surprised and possibly satisfied when you complete these simple tasks.
When I worked in Japan I rode a singlespeed almost every day. In fact if I didn't ride to work I felt somewhat diminished. That's how it is with some things in life; they just get under your skin. By now I've mentally cataloged all those riding experiences into the hazy locker of memory. The reality of riding everyday is that you get wet when it rains, cold when its snowing and sticky in the heat of the summer. But one also gains time to think a great deal about life and about living - something that's harder to do when you're hunched over and fretting about gearing and position. So spin away friends, spin away ....
April 18, 2005
Reflections around graduation
I'm not sure about this whole graduation thing ... perhaps its because I'm not feeling well. However I'm not sure if this 'unwellness' is related to my flu like symptoms or to a more metaphysical malaise. The slight temperature that I'm carrying, the dull ache running across my shoulders, the tension in my neck; perhaps all these things conspire to tell me that I'm not 100% behind turning up tomorrow? So much has changed since starting the degree; doubly so since I first countenanced undertaking it back in 2000 / 2001 (?) in Japan. Angela, that person who encouraged me then to do this, she now plays parts in other people's lives. Dim are the memories of why I actually chose to do it anyway. However I remember her beside me back then but sitting behind and slightly to my right in that Internet cafe with the cheerful owner in the 'trendy thing' department store behind the railway station in downtown Kokura. A beathless sentence for a breathless country.
I remember because today I was online at Uni via wireless internet using Apple Airport technology, I didn't realise it at that moment, but today I had been looking at the same website that I searched through four years ago whilst using that ISDN internet cafe connection back in Japan. My black coffee completed a journey lasting 4 years - all over in the blink of an eye. So thinking about this now, I'm smiling at the thought of all the keystrokes typed by me on computers over the years. I'm smiling also for a deeper reason, because at least in part I've made a connection with my past and folded the page of my life in such a way as to make two points connect and be meaningful. It's a creased sheet of paper is my life.
I'll go then to the graduation and enjoy it for what it is - a brief moment of celebration, not of achievement but of passing on - all of us in that room will be thinking our thoughts and remembering our pasts; past lives, past occupations, and indeed the people who have passed through. So much happens every day that it would be (and is), easy to miss out on what is happening to us. But in the quite moments, if we are lucky, we come to think and understand who it is that we are and what it is that we are about. To write is to understand oneself, to scratch about in the mists of one's life and start to pull out surprisingly concrete things; things which were there all along, unnoticed yet all the while troubling us like sharp splinters of reality that get under one's skin.
I remember because today I was online at Uni via wireless internet using Apple Airport technology, I didn't realise it at that moment, but today I had been looking at the same website that I searched through four years ago whilst using that ISDN internet cafe connection back in Japan. My black coffee completed a journey lasting 4 years - all over in the blink of an eye. So thinking about this now, I'm smiling at the thought of all the keystrokes typed by me on computers over the years. I'm smiling also for a deeper reason, because at least in part I've made a connection with my past and folded the page of my life in such a way as to make two points connect and be meaningful. It's a creased sheet of paper is my life.
I'll go then to the graduation and enjoy it for what it is - a brief moment of celebration, not of achievement but of passing on - all of us in that room will be thinking our thoughts and remembering our pasts; past lives, past occupations, and indeed the people who have passed through. So much happens every day that it would be (and is), easy to miss out on what is happening to us. But in the quite moments, if we are lucky, we come to think and understand who it is that we are and what it is that we are about. To write is to understand oneself, to scratch about in the mists of one's life and start to pull out surprisingly concrete things; things which were there all along, unnoticed yet all the while troubling us like sharp splinters of reality that get under one's skin.
April 17, 2005
Lorem ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam condimentum feugiat est. Donec euismod elit tincidunt arcu. Curabitur gravida magna eu orci aliquet ultrices. Donec eleifend imperdiet dolor. Mauris in leo in lacus porta luctus.
Lorem Ipsum is printing and typesetting dummy text, according to this website, it has been in use since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of latin type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. The whole point of Lorem Ipsum is that it allows a person to look at the 'form' of a page without being distracted by the content. I suspect that many honours students could use Lorem Ipsum in their theses - a possible defence of such use being 'Hey man, almost all the letters that would be found in the words that you want are there".
Surviving not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, Lorem Ipsum has remained essentially unchanged. However some feel that 'the heart' has left the Lorem Ipsum world since we all moved from cold type presses. Still others complain that moving away from woodblock lettering lies at the foundation of the great Lorem Ipsum wars that have plagued the last decades. Regardless of it's nature (electronic or otherwise) Lorem Ipsum has endured and prospered, coming to wide popularity in the groovy 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages. A follow up single "Lorem Ipsum and the brass rubbings" failed to chart.
More recently Lorem Ipsum has 'gone digital' and it can be found in such computer software programs as "Apple Pages" which comes with templates filled with Lorem Ipsum. A cynic would suggest that this is the ultimate end that computer programs are working towards: not only do they make life easier for you, they also complete the job without you having to do anything at all. A 'knock-off' of Lorem Ipsum (Morel muspl) has recently been released by a possie of Postmodernists. However nobody is sure what this knock-off looks really looks like, if it really exists anyway and why, since pages are a 'construct' and don't need to be as they are, it should be used at all.
Perhaps the most accurate thing one can say about Lorem Ipsum is that it is not simply random text; its roots lie in a piece of classical Latin literature by Cicero dating from 45 BCE. Typical of Cicero's light bedside manner some of the piece that Lorem Ipsum was based upon is as follows: "Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..." This translates as: "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..." Presumably this was the equivalent of Roman 'Light Entertainment', something light to entertain jittery locals living on the borders of the Rhine.
Lorem Ipsum is printing and typesetting dummy text, according to this website, it has been in use since the 1500s when an unknown printer took a galley of latin type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. The whole point of Lorem Ipsum is that it allows a person to look at the 'form' of a page without being distracted by the content. I suspect that many honours students could use Lorem Ipsum in their theses - a possible defence of such use being 'Hey man, almost all the letters that would be found in the words that you want are there".
Surviving not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, Lorem Ipsum has remained essentially unchanged. However some feel that 'the heart' has left the Lorem Ipsum world since we all moved from cold type presses. Still others complain that moving away from woodblock lettering lies at the foundation of the great Lorem Ipsum wars that have plagued the last decades. Regardless of it's nature (electronic or otherwise) Lorem Ipsum has endured and prospered, coming to wide popularity in the groovy 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages. A follow up single "Lorem Ipsum and the brass rubbings" failed to chart.
More recently Lorem Ipsum has 'gone digital' and it can be found in such computer software programs as "Apple Pages" which comes with templates filled with Lorem Ipsum. A cynic would suggest that this is the ultimate end that computer programs are working towards: not only do they make life easier for you, they also complete the job without you having to do anything at all. A 'knock-off' of Lorem Ipsum (Morel muspl) has recently been released by a possie of Postmodernists. However nobody is sure what this knock-off looks really looks like, if it really exists anyway and why, since pages are a 'construct' and don't need to be as they are, it should be used at all.
Perhaps the most accurate thing one can say about Lorem Ipsum is that it is not simply random text; its roots lie in a piece of classical Latin literature by Cicero dating from 45 BCE. Typical of Cicero's light bedside manner some of the piece that Lorem Ipsum was based upon is as follows: "Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..." This translates as: "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..." Presumably this was the equivalent of Roman 'Light Entertainment', something light to entertain jittery locals living on the borders of the Rhine.
April 13, 2005
Tiger
Welly well well, the day after I give in to my primal urges and buy a powerbook, Tiger 10.4 is released! I'd been expecting no news on that front until the next developers conference in May(?) or maybe even until the middle of the year. Thankfully all is not lost as Apple have put out an offer where all purchases backdated up to the 12th of April qualify for an Aus$14.95 upgrade offer. I've already faxed mine off with a copy of the tax invoice. Its a good deal, but its a far cry from the 'goode olde dayes' when the system software was free and you were only paying for the mac. Ah well - I shall have to wait until the 29th of April.
Image editing freeware
I've come across a couple nice (and light)OS X image editing applications. Up until now I've used Corel Draw/Paint for my image editing needs - modest as those needs are - but to say that these programs are slow is a profound understatement; I'm sure that there are divorces that feel quicker than either of these monsters. Anyway, irritated beyond belief that I couldn't open a tiff image that I had scanned and then, after I converted the image to a jpeg, irritated even further because I couldn't figure out how to easily resample the image and make it smaller. I just gave up in disgust - I used to know how to do this with these programs but I just couldn't remember for the life of me. So I scouted around and managed to find a couple of interesting freeware alternatives:
The first program that I found is called Teal, it's all of 218kb in size! It reminds me of the sort of tight code that one used to come across all the time when hard drives were small and being an economical programmer was seen as a virtue. Anyway, Teal strikes me as being something of a simple yet enhanced "Windows Paint" program. It features a few simple brushes aswell as a couple of simple filters. It needs a nicer icon though :). Teal doesn't seem to open tiffs or bmps at the moment - it is fine with jpegs though. At the moment this program is listed as being in a preview stage, but it looks really promising. Take a gander at it here.
The second program, called Seashore, is to quote it's developer:
an open source image editor for Cocoa. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format.
Now I've never been a big fan of the Gimp (fairly steep learning curve, lots of features, usually needs X11 on OS X), but this (2mb) program was a real eye-opener; fast and light, pretty powerful but not so overwhelming that you can't get into it quickly and an aqua application aswell. As the original author admits in the 39 page user manual, this program was started to solve a need that he had. I found it straight forward to use, it handled the file types that I was working with, and it allowed me to resample the size of my image in an intuitive manner. Of course one person's intuitive is anothers ... Anyway an excellent program that does have a really pretty icon. If your interested in seeing what it looks like:Go here. Good stuff.
The first program that I found is called Teal, it's all of 218kb in size! It reminds me of the sort of tight code that one used to come across all the time when hard drives were small and being an economical programmer was seen as a virtue. Anyway, Teal strikes me as being something of a simple yet enhanced "Windows Paint" program. It features a few simple brushes aswell as a couple of simple filters. It needs a nicer icon though :). Teal doesn't seem to open tiffs or bmps at the moment - it is fine with jpegs though. At the moment this program is listed as being in a preview stage, but it looks really promising. Take a gander at it here.
The second program, called Seashore, is to quote it's developer:
an open source image editor for Cocoa. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format.
Now I've never been a big fan of the Gimp (fairly steep learning curve, lots of features, usually needs X11 on OS X), but this (2mb) program was a real eye-opener; fast and light, pretty powerful but not so overwhelming that you can't get into it quickly and an aqua application aswell. As the original author admits in the 39 page user manual, this program was started to solve a need that he had. I found it straight forward to use, it handled the file types that I was working with, and it allowed me to resample the size of my image in an intuitive manner. Of course one person's intuitive is anothers ... Anyway an excellent program that does have a really pretty icon. If your interested in seeing what it looks like:Go here. Good stuff.
April 12, 2005
Powerbook
My ibook/powerbook 'debate' has been resolved with the purchase of an 'old stock' 12" G4 1.33ghz superdrive powerbook. For this sort of purchase (and after the event) one can be very measured and list out all sorts of pros and cons for their decision; why this model and not some newer, 'better' alternative? Perhaps the best thing to reflect on, in the end, is that this purchase complied with a deep seated fundamental that's required for a sale to happen; namely I wanted to buy something ASAP. In other words I got the fever and had to do something about it.
In the store I was really tempted to buy an ibook 12"/30gig/1.2ghz (low weight, rugged, low initial purchase price) but I decided that by the time I purchased and installed a larger hard drive it would cost, if not as much as a powerbook, then enough to put me off the idea of bothering - and it would still have no proper clamshell mode or monitor spanning support either. Plus the ibook is due for an upgrade and I didn't want to wait up-to-a-month for a special order. I've always half regretted getting my 14" ibook as it was half kilo bit heavier than the 12" ibook. I also want to make my purchase and pick it up at the same point in time. Not order something and then wait ...
So first thoughts/impressions - I absolutely love it!
I definitely complied with a fundamental requirement for a sale to happen - I was 'the' motivated buyer - I wanted a laptop more than the people on the other side of the counter wanted to sell. In fact after asking if they had any 1.5ghz 12" powerbooks and being told no, I had to think and then ask a second time if they had any of the old models (this was after the salesman told me that he couldn't guarantee any order that I might make within less than a month). Anyway the dude makes a call down to the storeroom and then says "Oh, you do! How many? Four? Oh could you bring one up please?" And up comes the little black box. After a $500 discount and making sure iLife05 was included I've got my next 24 month interest free purchase - for about $5 a month more than I was paying for a 933 mhz iBook with no DVD burning, no airport, no bluetooth, a smaller HD (40 gig v. 60 gig), 32 v. 64 mb video, no digital/spanning video out and a slower system bus.
In the wash-up this unit works out as being about $400 cheaper than the current base model superdrive 1.5 Powerbook. For that $400 I give up Bluetooth 2, a 5400 rpm HD, a scrolling trackpad, 8x DVD (- and +) v. 4x DVD-R, a newer revision of Airport (g v. b) and a hard drive that will suspend if I drop the laptop. However using iScroll2 gives me excellent two-finger trackpad scrolling features and I don't mind having slower bluetooth (I have no bluetooth devices) or slower airport and hard drive. The only DVD burning that I plan to do is data backup so I'll pretty happy just to have the extra capacity that that brings me. The real deal for me was getting it on a 2 year interest free offer which I obviously can't get from Apple.
Going back to first impressions, I must say how 'nice' this machine is; the screen seems brighter and with better contrast than my old ibook. It is certainly much sharper and crisp. Fonts on the the old 14" ibook screen now seem to be HUGE in comparison. Probably the single nicest difference lies in the quality of the trackpad mouse button; the powerbook's is more crisp to view and tactile to use, with much less 'clunk' when it's depressed. In other words it has more of a precision 'click'. The keyboard is a delight to use, the keys seem to have greater indent and a more tactile response than the old ibook. I'm somewhat concerned about the battery life - it seems to be less than my (18 month old) ibooks at this point. But we'll see how we go on that count after I've power cycled the battery a few times.
In the store I was really tempted to buy an ibook 12"/30gig/1.2ghz (low weight, rugged, low initial purchase price) but I decided that by the time I purchased and installed a larger hard drive it would cost, if not as much as a powerbook, then enough to put me off the idea of bothering - and it would still have no proper clamshell mode or monitor spanning support either. Plus the ibook is due for an upgrade and I didn't want to wait up-to-a-month for a special order. I've always half regretted getting my 14" ibook as it was half kilo bit heavier than the 12" ibook. I also want to make my purchase and pick it up at the same point in time. Not order something and then wait ...
So first thoughts/impressions - I absolutely love it!
I definitely complied with a fundamental requirement for a sale to happen - I was 'the' motivated buyer - I wanted a laptop more than the people on the other side of the counter wanted to sell. In fact after asking if they had any 1.5ghz 12" powerbooks and being told no, I had to think and then ask a second time if they had any of the old models (this was after the salesman told me that he couldn't guarantee any order that I might make within less than a month). Anyway the dude makes a call down to the storeroom and then says "Oh, you do! How many? Four? Oh could you bring one up please?" And up comes the little black box. After a $500 discount and making sure iLife05 was included I've got my next 24 month interest free purchase - for about $5 a month more than I was paying for a 933 mhz iBook with no DVD burning, no airport, no bluetooth, a smaller HD (40 gig v. 60 gig), 32 v. 64 mb video, no digital/spanning video out and a slower system bus.
In the wash-up this unit works out as being about $400 cheaper than the current base model superdrive 1.5 Powerbook. For that $400 I give up Bluetooth 2, a 5400 rpm HD, a scrolling trackpad, 8x DVD (- and +) v. 4x DVD-R, a newer revision of Airport (g v. b) and a hard drive that will suspend if I drop the laptop. However using iScroll2 gives me excellent two-finger trackpad scrolling features and I don't mind having slower bluetooth (I have no bluetooth devices) or slower airport and hard drive. The only DVD burning that I plan to do is data backup so I'll pretty happy just to have the extra capacity that that brings me. The real deal for me was getting it on a 2 year interest free offer which I obviously can't get from Apple.
Going back to first impressions, I must say how 'nice' this machine is; the screen seems brighter and with better contrast than my old ibook. It is certainly much sharper and crisp. Fonts on the the old 14" ibook screen now seem to be HUGE in comparison. Probably the single nicest difference lies in the quality of the trackpad mouse button; the powerbook's is more crisp to view and tactile to use, with much less 'clunk' when it's depressed. In other words it has more of a precision 'click'. The keyboard is a delight to use, the keys seem to have greater indent and a more tactile response than the old ibook. I'm somewhat concerned about the battery life - it seems to be less than my (18 month old) ibooks at this point. But we'll see how we go on that count after I've power cycled the battery a few times.
April 10, 2005
Why?
Of course one wonders why it is that they feel compelled to do anything in life? For example why is it that I want to change laptops all of a sudden? Where did this thought come from and why is it with me now? Will my current 933 14" unit no longer do the job? Or is this current process a ripple brought about by some stone thrown into the pond of my life, the ripples that are created for me now being no more than reactions to something that has happened in the past. If this is so, who then threw that stone? Me? Advertising? A pent up consumerism that must out itself and be sated?
April 08, 2005
The claims of social constructionism
Its been a while since I've managed to say anything about my uni work, despite me spending day after day working on or around it. I had to do a presentation today to let the honours coordinator know that I was on top of things and that everything was moving ahead. I gave my best impression of coherance and presented a 20 page paper that I'd prepared. In this paper I basically outlined a brief and very limited history of social constructionism, the main claims of social constructionism, a brief outline of how a consideration of this would inform an empircal document based study and a small reflection as to why any of this is of interest anyway.
The claims of social constructionism:
1. Individuals engage in communication processes that generate meaning and create knowledge (moderate)
2. Social phenomena are created, institutionalised, and made into tradition; there is an implicit relationship between human thought and the context within which it arises (moderate)
3a. There is no given, determined nature to the social world or to people who do not contain 'essences’ that make them in any way what they are
3b. Anti-essentialism: There is no given, determined nature to the world or to people who do not contain ‘essences’ that make them in any way what they are
4. Anti-realism: Knowledge does not arise from direct access of reality (moderate)
5a. Anti-realism: Knowledge of the social world does not arise from access to reality; there are no objective facts about the social world
5b. Anti-realism: Knowledge does not arise from reality at all; there are no objective facts about the world.
The claims of social constructionism:
1. Individuals engage in communication processes that generate meaning and create knowledge (moderate)
2. Social phenomena are created, institutionalised, and made into tradition; there is an implicit relationship between human thought and the context within which it arises (moderate)
3a. There is no given, determined nature to the social world or to people who do not contain 'essences’ that make them in any way what they are
3b. Anti-essentialism: There is no given, determined nature to the world or to people who do not contain ‘essences’ that make them in any way what they are
4. Anti-realism: Knowledge does not arise from direct access of reality (moderate)
5a. Anti-realism: Knowledge of the social world does not arise from access to reality; there are no objective facts about the social world
5b. Anti-realism: Knowledge does not arise from reality at all; there are no objective facts about the world.
April 04, 2005
Hacking the ibook
I've thought of another nice feature of the iBook - you can cut and polish it! Seriously the polycarbonate shell (sounds much more 'tech' to me than saying 'covering') responds very well to a dose of cutting compound - my ibook's lid had numerous striations running across its surface from being slid into and pulled out of my Crumpler McBain's Baby L. A good hand cut and polish really reduced these minor surface imperfections.
At the moment I'm kind of leaning towards an ibook, especially if I could get something like a 12" G4 1.2 demo unit or even a second hand example (I saw a one and half month old unit - the updated model with built in Wireless - advertised on the wall at Uni for AUS$1400. Hmm, I like the idea of 'project' mac and something like that would suit if the price was 'right'. Thinking along project/low end terms has led me to dredge up a few links that may be of interest. Various people have hacked their ibooks to add such things as internal bluetooth, a larger hard drive in the dual USB G3 ibook and in the current model G4 ibook which is somewhat easier to do because it does not not require the bottom plate of it's shell removed.
At the moment I'm kind of leaning towards an ibook, especially if I could get something like a 12" G4 1.2 demo unit or even a second hand example (I saw a one and half month old unit - the updated model with built in Wireless - advertised on the wall at Uni for AUS$1400. Hmm, I like the idea of 'project' mac and something like that would suit if the price was 'right'. Thinking along project/low end terms has led me to dredge up a few links that may be of interest. Various people have hacked their ibooks to add such things as internal bluetooth, a larger hard drive in the dual USB G3 ibook and in the current model G4 ibook which is somewhat easier to do because it does not not require the bottom plate of it's shell removed.
April 03, 2005
ibook tensions
After one and a half years of brillance from my 14" G4 933, the urge to upgrade is upon me once more. After a brief dalliance with the darkside that saw me scratch an itch and purchasing an old Libretto CT50 off of ebay (thinking 'well at 850 grams that's small enough to carry around') I've come to realise that what I really want is a 12" mac to carry around. But the big questions remain: Do I wait for 10.4 Tiger to make its appearance? Do I wait for the upgraded iBooks that have been promised? [Or] Do I purchase a powerbook instead? All of these things are rumoured to be occuring in the month of April.
Its hard to hold off as I just want to rush out and buy something today, but hold off I must. The primary applications that I use are MacJournal, Word X.v, Safari, Mail, and iPhoto in fits and starts. I'm attracted to the Powerbook because of its supreme (in Mac terms) thinness and lightness, but it does seem to be a bit expensive when you compare it to the ibook which almost as light (2.2 versus 2.1 kgs) but substantially cheaper (Retail is Aus$1599 versus $2399) in its basic form. In real terms an equivalent ibook would cost $1839 with a 60 gig HD and 512mb of ram). The key points of distinction would then be the new scrolling trackpad, hard drive monitor safety stop, monitor spanning, bluetooth, 3oo mhz, a slightly faster system bus /ram, and a faster hard drive (5400 v 4200). I'm not fussed about the hard drive safety system, don't use bluetooth anything and I'm not sure what difference the speed aspects would make to e-mail, browsing and word processing.
However both the ibook's trackpad and its display can be hacked to give both 2 fingered scrolling and monitor spanning; just like the powerbook. There is of course some concern about a possible relationship between monitor spanning and fried video cards/logic boards. Now that the ibook comes with 256mb of ram in a single slot one is also free to buy ram from other, much cheaper, sources than Apple. The same potentially applies to hard drives; it seems to be possible to open up a G4 ibook and replace its hard drive. Tricky but not impossible. One could then upgrade to a faster hard drive and still have a spare 30 gig drive to either sell or put into an external case. I've noticed that such 2.5" cases sell for ridiculously cheap prices on ebay.
Another concern is that if the ibook is upgraded, will it get a 'better', fully Tiger compliant video card supporting 'core image'? And would that be important? Alot of rumour sites seem to think so (or have forums were people think so) but I'm not so sure - I seem to remember how the G3 didn't fully support OS X but that didn't stop Apple from selling them. Anyway my main reason for upgrading to Tiger would be for Spotlight as working with as many documents as I do (word/pdf's/e-mails) makes a powerful search function seem like a compelling upgrade.
Of course the obvious answer is 'just wait', but I'm in a bit of quandry for two reasons; the first is that whilst I am a student and can get academic discount, I don't have the cash at hand and I don't want to purchase a computer on my (rather limp) credit card - certainly not at 16.5% PA which will quickly gobble up the academic discount. However I do have a David Jones store card which offers 18 months interest free on purchases over $500 but is at the moment offering 2 years interst free. The offer ends next friday. I purchased my current ibook in this manner and this is certainly the best way (for me) to go. On top of all of this, iBook and Powerbooks seem to be completely out of stock at the moment - some stores have a 17" or perhaps a 15" on display and some stores even have a 12" iBook available, but only 30 gig models. Orders are being quoted into the weeks/months range at the moment as Apple is apparently having supply issues. The other reason is of course the price I will get for my old 14" ibook, the sooner I sell it, the more I will get for it.
Its hard to hold off as I just want to rush out and buy something today, but hold off I must. The primary applications that I use are MacJournal, Word X.v, Safari, Mail, and iPhoto in fits and starts. I'm attracted to the Powerbook because of its supreme (in Mac terms) thinness and lightness, but it does seem to be a bit expensive when you compare it to the ibook which almost as light (2.2 versus 2.1 kgs) but substantially cheaper (Retail is Aus$1599 versus $2399) in its basic form. In real terms an equivalent ibook would cost $1839 with a 60 gig HD and 512mb of ram). The key points of distinction would then be the new scrolling trackpad, hard drive monitor safety stop, monitor spanning, bluetooth, 3oo mhz, a slightly faster system bus /ram, and a faster hard drive (5400 v 4200). I'm not fussed about the hard drive safety system, don't use bluetooth anything and I'm not sure what difference the speed aspects would make to e-mail, browsing and word processing.
However both the ibook's trackpad and its display can be hacked to give both 2 fingered scrolling and monitor spanning; just like the powerbook. There is of course some concern about a possible relationship between monitor spanning and fried video cards/logic boards. Now that the ibook comes with 256mb of ram in a single slot one is also free to buy ram from other, much cheaper, sources than Apple. The same potentially applies to hard drives; it seems to be possible to open up a G4 ibook and replace its hard drive. Tricky but not impossible. One could then upgrade to a faster hard drive and still have a spare 30 gig drive to either sell or put into an external case. I've noticed that such 2.5" cases sell for ridiculously cheap prices on ebay.
Another concern is that if the ibook is upgraded, will it get a 'better', fully Tiger compliant video card supporting 'core image'? And would that be important? Alot of rumour sites seem to think so (or have forums were people think so) but I'm not so sure - I seem to remember how the G3 didn't fully support OS X but that didn't stop Apple from selling them. Anyway my main reason for upgrading to Tiger would be for Spotlight as working with as many documents as I do (word/pdf's/e-mails) makes a powerful search function seem like a compelling upgrade.
Of course the obvious answer is 'just wait', but I'm in a bit of quandry for two reasons; the first is that whilst I am a student and can get academic discount, I don't have the cash at hand and I don't want to purchase a computer on my (rather limp) credit card - certainly not at 16.5% PA which will quickly gobble up the academic discount. However I do have a David Jones store card which offers 18 months interest free on purchases over $500 but is at the moment offering 2 years interst free. The offer ends next friday. I purchased my current ibook in this manner and this is certainly the best way (for me) to go. On top of all of this, iBook and Powerbooks seem to be completely out of stock at the moment - some stores have a 17" or perhaps a 15" on display and some stores even have a 12" iBook available, but only 30 gig models. Orders are being quoted into the weeks/months range at the moment as Apple is apparently having supply issues. The other reason is of course the price I will get for my old 14" ibook, the sooner I sell it, the more I will get for it.
March 24, 2005
Dennis Wheatley
All this study will be the death of me; to this end I've been hiding from its evil clutches by escaping into some Dennis Wheatley. An almost shameful thing to say in this day and age, I know - however I've always found the 'Roger Brook' series to be good value, and whilst I won't even apologise or try to excuse some of the rascist language and ideology present in Wheatley's books, I can't quite bring myself to condem out of hand such good adventure writing. At the moment I'm re-reading 'The Man Who Killed the King' and I find it a pleasant diversion to read through the through the final days of the Ancien Regime and the rise of the great trerror preceeding the Napoleanic era.
It's interesting to compare the Roger Brook / James Bond canons. Both characters are only children, spys, of vaguely Scottish extraction, have a single master that they (usually) defer to, both are ready to give their all for King/Queen and country and both are to be found in roughly 12 volumes a-piece. Although Roger Brook at least has had the good fortune of dying. Both authors, Wheatley and Fleming, were upper middle class sorts, both men's writing contains rascist content and to some extent both authors believed that 'evil' people can easily be recognised as such through their physical characteristics (or Europeaness). Both authors served as British officers engaged in WW2 'Intelligence' related areas. Probably the biggest difference between the two authors lies in their styles of writing. Fleming has been widely praised for his 'dash' and elan, for the exciting flow of his books and for his sharp eye for (then current) period detail. Fleming has also been noted for his (if not with praise) tendency towards sado-masochism. Wheatley also presents a certain amount of sado-masochistic content, however his work is often seen as being much more dull in its style, but nonetheless, historically accurate; a good yard type of writer comparable with the likes of Bulldog Drummond et al (as has Fleming been compared also). Sounds terrible really. I wonder why I bother to read it all?
Probably for prose such as this:
Ye Ha! (With apologies to the French)
It's interesting to compare the Roger Brook / James Bond canons. Both characters are only children, spys, of vaguely Scottish extraction, have a single master that they (usually) defer to, both are ready to give their all for King/Queen and country and both are to be found in roughly 12 volumes a-piece. Although Roger Brook at least has had the good fortune of dying. Both authors, Wheatley and Fleming, were upper middle class sorts, both men's writing contains rascist content and to some extent both authors believed that 'evil' people can easily be recognised as such through their physical characteristics (or Europeaness). Both authors served as British officers engaged in WW2 'Intelligence' related areas. Probably the biggest difference between the two authors lies in their styles of writing. Fleming has been widely praised for his 'dash' and elan, for the exciting flow of his books and for his sharp eye for (then current) period detail. Fleming has also been noted for his (if not with praise) tendency towards sado-masochism. Wheatley also presents a certain amount of sado-masochistic content, however his work is often seen as being much more dull in its style, but nonetheless, historically accurate; a good yard type of writer comparable with the likes of Bulldog Drummond et al (as has Fleming been compared also). Sounds terrible really. I wonder why I bother to read it all?
Probably for prose such as this:
The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling - a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension - becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it (Fleming, Casino Royale, 1953: 1).
Roger's fists clenched spasmodically and his teeth closed with a vicious snap. It was all he could do to restrain himself from striding after de Batz, boxing his ears and kicking him into the road ... No doubt he would meet de Batz again in due course on the continent, and he could then spit this French turkey-cock on a yard of good Toledo steel without fear of legal repercussions (Wheatley, The Man Who Killed the King, 1951: 448).
Roger's fists clenched spasmodically and his teeth closed with a vicious snap. It was all he could do to restrain himself from striding after de Batz, boxing his ears and kicking him into the road ... No doubt he would meet de Batz again in due course on the continent, and he could then spit this French turkey-cock on a yard of good Toledo steel without fear of legal repercussions (Wheatley, The Man Who Killed the King, 1951: 448).
Ye Ha! (With apologies to the French)
March 20, 2005
Thermal Binding
I can't believe how quickly time moves on. Forgetting I even have a blog I've gone and rediscovered an old world (bicycles) and actually discovered a whole new world of binding, thermal binding - think 'perfect bound' paperback books and you'll pretty much know what I mean. Thermal binding promises to sort out all my photocopy management needs into one discretely bound collection of papers.
I'm still scratching around with realism and relativism. I feel like its all there at my finger tips - the answers all slippery and wet, waiting to squit away. Hopefully I'll get there.
I've gained a major concept of understanding to the whole endeavour. I now think that constructivism per se creates things which appear to be objects but are fact just fictions. By this I mean that an object would be, for example, a person. A fiction or a 'thing' would be a certain characterisation about a person - locating them in some sort of grouping. So object equals person whilst thing equals (for example) 'refugee' or 'gifted youth' or what have you. Thus we can say that language can powerfully shape the identity of people but it does not create people. Rather, people can (and do) exist quite independently of our perceptions and characterisations of them. This will have powerful implcations for teaching and constructivist teaching pedagogy because a large part of teaching, an inherently social endeavour, revolves around perception. Separating things from the objects they are derived from may also be useful in helping us to answer such knotty questions as "who am I?" But more of that at another time.
So what does this all mean for me? Well it means that I can start to break down the problem and think about what it is that I'm looking at when I talk about education. I think that it means I can avoid certain problems such as:
Being stuck in the act of creating meaning - either as author or reader. I'm thinking here of the postmodern dilemma of there being nothing but the text. Sure , the meanings that we construct are important, up to a point, but if I can show them as being about 'things' and not 'objects' (and of course that objects can exist), then I may be able to sidestep a move into relativism and have some recourse to the more 'fixed', shall we say, ends of realism. I believe that there are some things that are certain and these things can be grasped - if only with difficulty - through the haze of our subjective existences.
This will somehow connect with constructivist teaching methodology - which seems to imply that there are certain things to be learned by students. Either from a Piagetian perspective that sees children having cognitive structures (and cognition implies that there are things to cognate about, things independent of existence) or the Vygotskian perspective which sees that children move through a zone of understanding about the world. Moving implies that some cognitive/language structures are more advanced than others.
Its all very jumbled and I'm just thinking aloud.
I'm still scratching around with realism and relativism. I feel like its all there at my finger tips - the answers all slippery and wet, waiting to squit away. Hopefully I'll get there.
I've gained a major concept of understanding to the whole endeavour. I now think that constructivism per se creates things which appear to be objects but are fact just fictions. By this I mean that an object would be, for example, a person. A fiction or a 'thing' would be a certain characterisation about a person - locating them in some sort of grouping. So object equals person whilst thing equals (for example) 'refugee' or 'gifted youth' or what have you. Thus we can say that language can powerfully shape the identity of people but it does not create people. Rather, people can (and do) exist quite independently of our perceptions and characterisations of them. This will have powerful implcations for teaching and constructivist teaching pedagogy because a large part of teaching, an inherently social endeavour, revolves around perception. Separating things from the objects they are derived from may also be useful in helping us to answer such knotty questions as "who am I?" But more of that at another time.
So what does this all mean for me? Well it means that I can start to break down the problem and think about what it is that I'm looking at when I talk about education. I think that it means I can avoid certain problems such as:
Being stuck in the act of creating meaning - either as author or reader. I'm thinking here of the postmodern dilemma of there being nothing but the text. Sure , the meanings that we construct are important, up to a point, but if I can show them as being about 'things' and not 'objects' (and of course that objects can exist), then I may be able to sidestep a move into relativism and have some recourse to the more 'fixed', shall we say, ends of realism. I believe that there are some things that are certain and these things can be grasped - if only with difficulty - through the haze of our subjective existences.
This will somehow connect with constructivist teaching methodology - which seems to imply that there are certain things to be learned by students. Either from a Piagetian perspective that sees children having cognitive structures (and cognition implies that there are things to cognate about, things independent of existence) or the Vygotskian perspective which sees that children move through a zone of understanding about the world. Moving implies that some cognitive/language structures are more advanced than others.
Its all very jumbled and I'm just thinking aloud.
February 20, 2005
Meeting reflections
Meeting Reflections.
I’m starting to get more of a sense of the thesis now and how it is that realism connects with education. Basically I’m of the position that the reality of objects transcends our subjectivity. Our subjectivity certainly contextualizes things for us and makes them meaningful in relation to a problem. But I feel that subjectivity alone seems to limit our ability to really ‘know’ or understand our situation as human beings because it directly limits what we can know to the extent, limits or boundaries of our experience.
I think that using Social Constructionism alone, in the classroom, as a means of understanding the ‘processes’ at work is a case of too much human agency with too little consideration given to underlying structures. ‘Too much human agency’ (i.e. placing people at the final centre of things) could, perhaps, be argued as being consistent with a common sense approach to the classroom and to life; and this can be beneficial - and I won’t deny that. However whilst I am willing to concede, in line with common sense, that people do get the ends or rewards that they work for (i.e. what they ‘deserve’); it is a very different thing to say that the relationship between ‘effort and reward’ is the only variable at work in a, for example, classroom. This is not that there can ever be - and indeed this relationship is not the total nature of the world.
I’m starting to get more of a sense of the thesis now and how it is that realism connects with education. Basically I’m of the position that the reality of objects transcends our subjectivity. Our subjectivity certainly contextualizes things for us and makes them meaningful in relation to a problem. But I feel that subjectivity alone seems to limit our ability to really ‘know’ or understand our situation as human beings because it directly limits what we can know to the extent, limits or boundaries of our experience.
I think that using Social Constructionism alone, in the classroom, as a means of understanding the ‘processes’ at work is a case of too much human agency with too little consideration given to underlying structures. ‘Too much human agency’ (i.e. placing people at the final centre of things) could, perhaps, be argued as being consistent with a common sense approach to the classroom and to life; and this can be beneficial - and I won’t deny that. However whilst I am willing to concede, in line with common sense, that people do get the ends or rewards that they work for (i.e. what they ‘deserve’); it is a very different thing to say that the relationship between ‘effort and reward’ is the only variable at work in a, for example, classroom. This is not that there can ever be - and indeed this relationship is not the total nature of the world.
January 30, 2005
Changes in direction
I wonder - black on white - if I'm slowly loosing my grip on this thing. I started with ideas of social justice and unintended consequences, but know I seem to be branching (dangerously) into the world of phenomenology and things that seem to speak of the ultimate nature of reality. All very interesting, just a bit of a concern for someone doing honours education.
At any rate after talking to my second supervisor my potential thesis now looks like this:
.
At any rate after talking to my second supervisor my potential thesis now looks like this:
- Chp. A substantial discussion of Social Constructionism. Trying to clearly spell out the implications for educational practice.
- Chp. Realist critique of SC and a little discussion of 'practice' from the realist perspective.
- Chp. Discussion of the limits of SC with the implications of these for the debate.
- Chp. Could include an analysis of an empirical study; perhaps something that connects with work done Brian Butterworth, "The Mathematical Brain".
.
January 28, 2005
Beat up and battered around
(I've) been beat up and battered aroundbut like a tall ball hitting the wall I bounce back. It's been a hard week as I try (before Uni even officially begins) to figure out just how it is that I'm going to mix work and study. At the moment I'm doing 5 shifts a week - so pretty much full time. The problem is that a typical shift runs from 4pm to 11pm. So when you factor in things like exercise, procrastination time, a generally slow note taking ability; well the words don't write themselves and I do like the time to drink a cup of coffee or two. Anyway, I called in sick on Wednesday and this week they gave me only 3 shifts.
Getting less shifts is actually a blessing in disguise because I feel that it frees me up to now make myself less available and hopefully this will save me from getting more and more depressed and less and less happy as 5 days is just too much with a full time study load. But life and all that coffee costs money. Hopefully this change will be just enough to free me from looking into the 'mental mirror' and seeing myself as grumpy, complaining bitter guy. It's not a pretty site.
It's funny how the human condition works; it seems to be in turns that you're happy then you're sad, then you're miserable, then you're depressed, then the light shines through and you're happy and joyful again and then something else rears up. Either money is OK or you've spent too much. Damn all this 'binarity'! I want to deny that things are as simple and predictable as all that. I want to deny that we are acted upon. I want to refute externalism. I want to be miserable because it's who I am.
At the moment I'm doing a fair amount of thinking about realism and relativisim. I think that there's a lot to be said about the idea that discourse shapes our realities. But I maintain (at this point) that saying that discourse "is the world" is a bit like taking a tail, a furry tail, and inferring that there's a dog connected to it. Sure a dog is consistent with the 'existence' of a furry tail but I think that discourses merely serve to give shape and colour and definition to that tail. The tail neither exists or not exists because of language. It is perhaps more of a found thing that 'floats' in a sea of language. Now all I have to do is prove it.
(I've) been beat up and battered aroundbut like a tall ball hitting the wall I bounce back. It's been a hard week as I try (before Uni even officially begins) to figure out just how it is that I'm going to mix work and study. At the moment I'm doing 5 shifts a week - so pretty much full time. The problem is that a typical shift runs from 4pm to 11pm. So when you factor in things like exercise, procrastination time, a generally slow note taking ability; well the words don't write themselves and I do like the time to drink a cup of coffee or two. Anyway, I called in sick on Wednesday and this week they gave me only 3 shifts.
Getting less shifts is actually a blessing in disguise because I feel that it frees me up to now make myself less available and hopefully this will save me from getting more and more depressed and less and less happy as 5 days is just too much with a full time study load. But life and all that coffee costs money. Hopefully this change will be just enough to free me from looking into the 'mental mirror' and seeing myself as grumpy, complaining bitter guy. It's not a pretty site.
It's funny how the human condition works; it seems to be in turns that you're happy then you're sad, then you're miserable, then you're depressed, then the light shines through and you're happy and joyful again and then something else rears up. Either money is OK or you've spent too much. Damn all this 'binarity'! I want to deny that things are as simple and predictable as all that. I want to deny that we are acted upon. I want to refute externalism. I want to be miserable because it's who I am.
At the moment I'm doing a fair amount of thinking about realism and relativisim. I think that there's a lot to be said about the idea that discourse shapes our realities. But I maintain (at this point) that saying that discourse "is the world" is a bit like taking a tail, a furry tail, and inferring that there's a dog connected to it. Sure a dog is consistent with the 'existence' of a furry tail but I think that discourses merely serve to give shape and colour and definition to that tail. The tail neither exists or not exists because of language. It is perhaps more of a found thing that 'floats' in a sea of language. Now all I have to do is prove it.
January 27, 2005
Buzzed to the Core
I'm still feeling 'buzzed to my core' by the things that are happening. It's funny but I know that I'm some kind of 'structural realist' (bare with me I still learning about all this stuff), because I keep using words and articles that imply absolute things: things like 'I', 'core', 'choice', 'meaning' and so on. I believe that I've got some kind of 'identity' separate from the limits and context of language and that's what I'm following (in part) in this thesis process.
Just the other day a friend told me that this thesis choice was a profound one - because there are going to be repercussions. At the time she phrased this in the context of the film "Sliding Doors"; I thought 'hey, that's a really nice thing to say' - at the time I thought that anyway! And it was a nice thing to say. But it's only now that the real 'meaning' of what she said is starting to sink in.
You see, I was going to be doing the 'teaching thing' as a first year teacher. And that implies all sorts of ideas about me being 'sure and certain' about what good teaching might look like, it would also seem to imply me thinking about classroom issues like behavior management, about kids refusing to 'comply' with instructions / activities / tasks, about unhappy (and happy) parents. It would also seem to imply a whole range of discourses that I already have some idea about - discourses that I kind of think I fit into. These discourses include 'me being' a white, male, middle class educator. Job, house into mortgage, professional development, rosters, reproduction.
So starting to write an honours thesis is a different thing with an element of the unknown in it for me. I don't know where it will take me in any positive sense but I'm pretty sure that it's moving me away from the 'mainstream'. Certainly becoming 'more academic' doesn't seem to be perceived as a good thing when your out on the ground teaching and doing the 'real' (non-theory) thing.
Anyway to bring this to an end I shall quote from my friend's e-mail:
"It's exciting ... I get buzzed by 'tings' that remind me I am a part of the critical mass - the realisation that, by engaging in research, I'm actually engaging at the most profound level of ideas ... I was both daunted and stunted at first by the indoctrinated, 'socially constructed' nomothetic belief that, either I had to be 'right', or [relativism] I was destined to wallow in the syrupy world of ... if everything’s valid, then what’s the point … of existing? Until I shifted my focus and thought more broadly about the possible ‘aims’ of research. The following quote also helped:
‘to admit the perspectival character of knowledge should be to sharpen rather than blunt your critical stance’ (Dean ?)
Anyway ... I’m in the study zone and called to ask you to look up a term in the glossary of Burns, if he has one … but you were obviously out either playing or getting buzzed by conversation. Anyway, doesn’t matter because I changed the context and worked around my ignorance ...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH DEADLINES
I'm still feeling 'buzzed to my core' by the things that are happening. It's funny but I know that I'm some kind of 'structural realist' (bare with me I still learning about all this stuff), because I keep using words and articles that imply absolute things: things like 'I', 'core', 'choice', 'meaning' and so on. I believe that I've got some kind of 'identity' separate from the limits and context of language and that's what I'm following (in part) in this thesis process.
Just the other day a friend told me that this thesis choice was a profound one - because there are going to be repercussions. At the time she phrased this in the context of the film "Sliding Doors"; I thought 'hey, that's a really nice thing to say' - at the time I thought that anyway! And it was a nice thing to say. But it's only now that the real 'meaning' of what she said is starting to sink in.
You see, I was going to be doing the 'teaching thing' as a first year teacher. And that implies all sorts of ideas about me being 'sure and certain' about what good teaching might look like, it would also seem to imply me thinking about classroom issues like behavior management, about kids refusing to 'comply' with instructions / activities / tasks, about unhappy (and happy) parents. It would also seem to imply a whole range of discourses that I already have some idea about - discourses that I kind of think I fit into. These discourses include 'me being' a white, male, middle class educator. Job, house into mortgage, professional development, rosters, reproduction.
So starting to write an honours thesis is a different thing with an element of the unknown in it for me. I don't know where it will take me in any positive sense but I'm pretty sure that it's moving me away from the 'mainstream'. Certainly becoming 'more academic' doesn't seem to be perceived as a good thing when your out on the ground teaching and doing the 'real' (non-theory) thing.
Anyway to bring this to an end I shall quote from my friend's e-mail:
"It's exciting ... I get buzzed by 'tings' that remind me I am a part of the critical mass - the realisation that, by engaging in research, I'm actually engaging at the most profound level of ideas ... I was both daunted and stunted at first by the indoctrinated, 'socially constructed' nomothetic belief that, either I had to be 'right', or [relativism] I was destined to wallow in the syrupy world of ... if everything’s valid, then what’s the point … of existing? Until I shifted my focus and thought more broadly about the possible ‘aims’ of research. The following quote also helped:
‘to admit the perspectival character of knowledge should be to sharpen rather than blunt your critical stance’ (Dean ?)
Anyway ... I’m in the study zone and called to ask you to look up a term in the glossary of Burns, if he has one … but you were obviously out either playing or getting buzzed by conversation. Anyway, doesn’t matter because I changed the context and worked around my ignorance ...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH DEADLINES
January 26, 2005
Meeting with another supervisor
Far out, I've just come out of a (just short on) 3 hour meeting with the man who is now my second supervisor, he's a lecturer in my Universities Philosophy department and he's going to help me with some of the philosophical implications of a realist engagement with social constructionism in the classroom.
I feel absolutely stuffed - and a little apprehensive and a little buzzed and a jazzed all over. It's like there's this needle and it's starting to thread more and more strings of 'interconnectedness' into me. Strings that bind me to other people, strings that bind me to a world of new ideas - ideas that are almost forced onto you. Strings that thread new directions into one's life. Threads that bind me to people that have 'real' work commitments and meetings with agendas and diaries and expectations. All at once it's like there's this 'thing' building up around me. Both fully formed and yet without shape. It's very confusing and I'm not sure if I'm even going to be up to the task. And so it is that people - real people - are getting involved ....
Far Out!
Not only are real people getting involved but they are bringing with them questions to be problematised - and readings to be looked into. Paper, paper shining white where will your words take me tonight. So I'm starting to feel a little FfffK! I've just had a little bolt of empathy for all those people that get involved in 'undertakings'.
Far out, I've just come out of a (just short on) 3 hour meeting with the man who is now my second supervisor, he's a lecturer in my Universities Philosophy department and he's going to help me with some of the philosophical implications of a realist engagement with social constructionism in the classroom.
I feel absolutely stuffed - and a little apprehensive and a little buzzed and a jazzed all over. It's like there's this needle and it's starting to thread more and more strings of 'interconnectedness' into me. Strings that bind me to other people, strings that bind me to a world of new ideas - ideas that are almost forced onto you. Strings that thread new directions into one's life. Threads that bind me to people that have 'real' work commitments and meetings with agendas and diaries and expectations. All at once it's like there's this 'thing' building up around me. Both fully formed and yet without shape. It's very confusing and I'm not sure if I'm even going to be up to the task. And so it is that people - real people - are getting involved ....
Far Out!
Not only are real people getting involved but they are bringing with them questions to be problematised - and readings to be looked into. Paper, paper shining white where will your words take me tonight. So I'm starting to feel a little FfffK! I've just had a little bolt of empathy for all those people that get involved in 'undertakings'.
January 19, 2005
Meeting with my supervisor
Basically we were able to define my thesis question as: A realist critique of social constructionism and it's practice.
Important questions that were raised included:
1. What will we use to cast a critical eye on SC ?
2. What are our theoretical boundaries?
3. Empirical Side of the study ...
A potential outline looked like:
Early Chp's: Doubts about social constructionism
Middle: Policy documents of the department
And/or: Talking to or observing teachers in action
Words that floated into the conversation included: realism, Marxism, Post Structuralism, the structure-agency problem,
Basically we were able to define my thesis question as: A realist critique of social constructionism and it's practice.
Important questions that were raised included:
1. What will we use to cast a critical eye on SC ?
2. What are our theoretical boundaries?
3. Empirical Side of the study ...
A potential outline looked like:
Early Chp's: Doubts about social constructionism
Middle: Policy documents of the department
And/or: Talking to or observing teachers in action
Words that floated into the conversation included: realism, Marxism, Post Structuralism, the structure-agency problem,
January 18, 2005
Quantegy files for bankruptcy.
Another small milestone of sorts passed by a week or so ago, as Quantegy, the last manufacturer of 2“ studio quality tape filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As with many people in their 30's I remember when CD's first came out and how much better they were touted as playing and sounding (wow and flutter were effectively unmeasureable) and I vividly remember those impressive scratch/gouge demonstrations. However, the potential demise of Quantegy as a going concern reminds us all that we should maintain some reservations about combining the words "digital" and "archive" in the same sentence. I love iTunes, and iPhoto, and my academic and other writing is very important to me, but I wonder how I’m going to preserve all of my work - turning to photocopies, printouts hardly seems like the solution (especially in terms of space). At any rate, it's a lot to keep track of.
Tape had it's heyday in the period running from the middle of the 1940's through to the beginning of the 1980's. Basically it’s claimed that anything put onto tape since it came into being in the 1930's can still be played back today - often with a high degree of fidelity. It's salutory to compare this with the reality of digital copies and archives and the notion of a "digital master - perfect forever". Perfect yes, but held on what media? Since I started with computers I've recorded data on cassette tapes, 5 1/4" floppies, 3 1/2" floppies, memory sticks, CDR's, and hard drives that I've sealed and stored. Already I struggle to read back copies of data preserved for the moment on 800k 3 1/2” floppies. USB floppy drives won’t read them.
Hopefully Quantegy will be able to get the US$10 million investment that it's CEO, Richard Lindenmunth believes would be enough to save the company.
Another small milestone of sorts passed by a week or so ago, as Quantegy, the last manufacturer of 2“ studio quality tape filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As with many people in their 30's I remember when CD's first came out and how much better they were touted as playing and sounding (wow and flutter were effectively unmeasureable) and I vividly remember those impressive scratch/gouge demonstrations. However, the potential demise of Quantegy as a going concern reminds us all that we should maintain some reservations about combining the words "digital" and "archive" in the same sentence. I love iTunes, and iPhoto, and my academic and other writing is very important to me, but I wonder how I’m going to preserve all of my work - turning to photocopies, printouts hardly seems like the solution (especially in terms of space). At any rate, it's a lot to keep track of.
Tape had it's heyday in the period running from the middle of the 1940's through to the beginning of the 1980's. Basically it’s claimed that anything put onto tape since it came into being in the 1930's can still be played back today - often with a high degree of fidelity. It's salutory to compare this with the reality of digital copies and archives and the notion of a "digital master - perfect forever". Perfect yes, but held on what media? Since I started with computers I've recorded data on cassette tapes, 5 1/4" floppies, 3 1/2" floppies, memory sticks, CDR's, and hard drives that I've sealed and stored. Already I struggle to read back copies of data preserved for the moment on 800k 3 1/2” floppies. USB floppy drives won’t read them.
Hopefully Quantegy will be able to get the US$10 million investment that it's CEO, Richard Lindenmunth believes would be enough to save the company.
January 16, 2005
I've been using MacJournal (MJ) for over a year now - in fact I started using it not long after I bought my 14“ G4/933 iBook; the first 'Mac' I've owned since a Colour Classic 4/16. When I took up with MJ it’s principal attraction was that it was easy to use and that it was free - but not in that order. ☺ Look, I’ll be honest, like most people I *hate* paying for stuff like software which is inherently intangible. I'm certainly not going to pay if it's offered to me freely. However at the moment I'm staggered by the amount of negative commentary flashing around Version Tracker where many people are talking about a supposed breach of trust and so on. However the author, Dan Schimpf, originally released MJ as a freeware application - not an open source application. To start reading on the significance of this difference go here.
Plainly put then; MJ has never been anything other than a privately controlled program, the author's model of development (freeware) has it’s pros and cons extensively outlined in various free/Open-source software websites, rants, blogs, discourses and articles. Now I’m sure that there are plenty of Open-source programs that people could pick up for free and use or build on from and develop. Otherwise there are plenty of opportunities for people to start projects of their own; projects that will always be free if they're defined and licensed as such.
I suspect that this program has a big future in front of it and wish it all the success that it gets.
Plainly put then; MJ has never been anything other than a privately controlled program, the author's model of development (freeware) has it’s pros and cons extensively outlined in various free/Open-source software websites, rants, blogs, discourses and articles. Now I’m sure that there are plenty of Open-source programs that people could pick up for free and use or build on from and develop. Otherwise there are plenty of opportunities for people to start projects of their own; projects that will always be free if they're defined and licensed as such.
I suspect that this program has a big future in front of it and wish it all the success that it gets.
January 08, 2005
A Dream
The wind, the moon, the stars - they rise for us in our dreams. Soft voices take form and whisper of happy times past. There is the distinct, gentle sound of leaves rustling as a memory from childhood stirs and tilts up. I remember running through impossibly tall pampas grass under a tropical sky. Colours vivid straw brown and ultramarine blue with the resolution that only memory can give. Tack sharp I can now feel the sticky humidity and prickly pinking of grassy spears getting into my long socks and between a Clarks leather shoe and soft ankle. When you are 5 years old and have dirt on knee (and elbow), a couple of handy scrapes and a Pirate's dream of gold and silver, all is well with the world.
January 06, 2005
Potential
So many places to go, so many things to do.
I had thought that I'd been to a fair number of countries and 'seen the sights' as it were. But it's salutory to lay out those places on map and see how few and far between they really are. How Eurocentric they've been. I realise that so many places are unknown to me like the black hand of night; dark and behind the veil.
The world really is a large expanse and when you finally reflect and look at just where it is that you've been - all laid out like it were a dining table of past meals, well perhaps it's then that you begin to realise just how limited your choices have been and how small your everyday frustrations are. And yet to look and ponder where next ... there is an enormity of places to go and things to do: new faces, experiences, possibilities. What indeed is 'our' world?
So many places to go, so many things to do.
I had thought that I'd been to a fair number of countries and 'seen the sights' as it were. But it's salutory to lay out those places on map and see how few and far between they really are. How Eurocentric they've been. I realise that so many places are unknown to me like the black hand of night; dark and behind the veil.
The world really is a large expanse and when you finally reflect and look at just where it is that you've been - all laid out like it were a dining table of past meals, well perhaps it's then that you begin to realise just how limited your choices have been and how small your everyday frustrations are. And yet to look and ponder where next ... there is an enormity of places to go and things to do: new faces, experiences, possibilities. What indeed is 'our' world?
January 03, 2005
Takoyaki
Takoyaki
The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.
Takoyaki is serious business. It's cooked in front of you, but smiles aren't included - on the signs at least. Curiously enough all of my memories of Takoyaki stalls are of places peopled by rather happy and cheerful souls deftly spinning the ball of dough (they have octopus inside them) around on a cast iron hotplate. Sign and place, a study in contrasts. As is Japan.
The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Takoyaki is serious business. It's cooked in front of you, but smiles aren't included - on the signs at least. Curiously enough all of my memories of Takoyaki stalls are of places peopled by rather happy and cheerful souls deftly spinning the ball of dough (they have octopus inside them) around on a cast iron hotplate. Sign and place, a study in contrasts. As is Japan.