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.

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.

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.