It was a great movie -

yea it beat you over the head with a big 'Green' "clue-by-four".

We need to take better care of the planet - we are fat - we are too wrapped up in technology to see what a great and beautiful world we live in. - I got all that....

Yes I was completely digging on all the little inside jokes and references - I caught them just off the top of my head looking back to - 2001 a Space Oddesy , Star Wars, Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Short Circuit, The Love Boat , Blade Runner, Airplane, and many others.

But the main message I took out of this film - one line - "I don't want to survive, I want to live." - it has stuck with me and is sticking with me now.

Now I just have to do it...I may need some help, or some folks may want to join in - it will likely be difficult at times, it may even be damned hard, but it will certainly be good and worth it. Anyone want to join me? If so, check the negative waives at the door and - just take my hand.

- On the other hand It was just a funny and good film - even when I took all the messages out. luckily I'm not the kinda guy that those things can ruin a movie for me. ;)

Mirandola è la tua terra natale;
i suoi abitanti sono mirandolesi e
Mirandolina è proprio la protagonista dell'opera goldoniana.
Me derelitto; acre sconfitta.

Ha-ha, It's laundry day!
I don't care what you might think about me
You'll get by without me if you want
Don't judge it by the color, confuse it for another
You might regret what you let slip away

like the geek in the pink
well like the geek in the pink, yeah
So, Jason Mraz! He's pretty cool and is a raw foodist. I've been a fan for a while now and when i read over at we like it raw that not only is he a raw foodist, the dude has an avocodo farm!! Whats up with that?? You should all definitely check out his fabulous blog freshness factor five thousand . It's the bomb for sure!!! He writes his blog as if he's writing a song. Lyrical and funny and light! Please check out his new CD We sing, We dance, We steal things! Its really good and fun! One of my favorites on that CD is this:

The Dynamo of Volution:

[making a choice or decision...Volition means! So, Jason my friend is The Dynamo of making a decision!!! I wanna be a dynamo of volition too!!! Someday! Soon i hope!

So, that brings me to well...me!  The geek in the pink!
The geek in pink is doing major running! In an ipod induced trance, i ran 5 miles in 53 minutes FUCK YEAH!!!  Just do it! Whatever IT may be for you! Focus on what you want to accomplish and how you want it to happen! Manifest, pray, skip, whatever works for you!!! JUST DO IT!!! This is your life folks. You do not get a do over!! So, you have to work with what GOD dude has given to you. Could be beauty. Could be brains. Could be both!! Or none! Who cares really...I don't know, maybe i think too much. I was told i have too much time on my hands. So, lots of time to think. But, i'm a good thinker! See, i'm good at something!!! What i'm trying to say is that everybody is good at something.

Me? I'm a good runner and thinker! I'm also very sweet and a good friend. I'm also a geek. But, i'm good at being a geek. I embrace my inner geekness to the one hundredth degree! I am so damn good at being a geek..
Fuck...I always come here to my blog to try and prove to everybody how so very good i am!!  Don't I?  Hear me out!  This is my blog so i guess i can do whatever i want here, but i don't want to sound as if i need anybody's approval ya know?  Cause i really do not.  All i need is my own approval.  I used to (not so long ago) worry to bits about what others thought of me!!!  NO MORE!!!
I am a new and improved geek in the pink.  Why should i feel crappy all the time? It's insane isn't it? I know that what i do and how i live is right for me. If others think differently so be it. Everything i do makes sense to me. I will not ask for acceptence because i accept myself. I will not ask for opinions because only my opinion counts for me! I will be who i am and not change.
Makes sense?  I think so...FOR ME!!  I always want to stress that...whatever i write here is good only FOR ME!!!  You may have a totally different outlook on life and that is perfectly fine FOR YOU!!!  Get it?? 

my reaction to the news…. HOLY FREAKIN CRAP WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!! everyone head for the hills it’s y2k all over again! Stock up on bullets, AA batteries, jelly beans ,food, & water! (not necessarily in that order). I’m telling you people we’re headed for a computing disaster of biblical proportions. We’re talking Blue screens of death, plagues of viral identity theft, e-mail never showing up, and software incompatibility like you wouldn’t believe. No really you might as well just give up and go live in a cave thats how bad it’s going to get.

Read the rest HERE at the Millionaire Geeks blog

Anyways I watched the new episode "Forest of the Dead" with my mom tonight and it was really awesome. I have to say they continue to do amazing work with the new series and David Tennant is a wonderful Doctor. To avoid spoilers about this episode my review is hidden below....

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!

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Forest of the Dead is the second half of a two part story, the first half being "Silence in the Library". I may as well review them as one episode seeing as I never reviewed "silence". I have to say this is Doctor Who at it's finest. The Doctor is in Classic form protecting a group of people from their own stupidity while still managing to solve a mystery and keep his companion alive all at the same time. Wit in the face of danger and brilliance under pressur the doctor never dissapoints.

The story was brilliant and well crafted. Although I did pretty much nail that the little girl was the computer core from the scene right after the doctor and Donna find the camera. That aside the story was engaging and had a good mix of mystery and action. It reminded me very much of the classic serials and that is assuredly much a good thing. I have to say I was very moved and sad the first time they showed "ghosting" when Miss Evangelista dies. I did (rightly) assume this knowledge would be important later as they often introduce new concepts like this for a reason.

The Vashta Nerada are an interesting new entity to add to the Doctor Who universe and are quite a terrifying concept to be sure. What made them truly great is they were used well, and not just as a blunt instrument to move the plot.

The most interesting, although potentially worrisome thing about these two episodes was the new character River Song. She apparently Knows the Doctor in the future (his personal future) and therefor he has not met her yet and gone traveling and adventuring with her. It was a very interesting story idea and leads to some very interesting meta plot possibilities. It does however mean that barring some paradox issues she will have to be introduced into the show and presumably while David Tennant is still the Doctor as she seems to recognize him (albeit she says he looks younger). The only concern i have is the nature of their relationship and the fact that she knows his name. As no one, not even Rose has ever known the Doctors real name (perhaps the master did) this implies an extraordinarily close relationship. Now does this mean they are in love, even potentialy lovers in the future? The doctor was clearly in love with Rose, and this was Quite unusual for the Doctor. Other companions in the past may have had feelings for him, but he had never returned them except for with Rose and possibly with Romana (though she was a time lord so the doctor probably felt more free to love and less likely to get hurt as she was also long lived). This made her (rose) clearly special. The likelihood of another relationship of that type seems low from what we know of the Doctor. But beyond that the deeper issue is the name. This is concerning not just from the standpoint of the relationship that leads to him divulging it, but also because of the fact his name has neevr been said before. part of the Mystique of the doctor is his lack of a name and the fact that he uses the name he chose. He is The Doctor, the one who helps everyone. Where as his Best enemy, the Moriarty to his Holmes, chose the name The Master (of all things).

in any case aside from my few concerns this was a great couple of episodes, and I am VERY excited about where the meta plot is going. I'm really hoping to get some more answers on whats happening with rose appearing and why have they has so many mentions of the Shadow Proclamation this season. It seems like these may both somehow be tied to the meta plot. There are alot good plot hooks floating around. What with the Doctors Daughter out in space, River Song now being "alive" in the library computer core, Jack still working for Torchwood and there still being at least one Dalek out there. well I'm starting to ramble a bit so before I REALLY get going I better wrap this up. Goodnight all!

Well, I had a few strong reasons to run my own gallery using Gallery on a Dreamhost hosted account:

• store as much as Dreamhost lets me, which is over 20GB and increases every month!
• keep granular control on what can each user do with each photo
• upload photos using rsync
• or just digiKam
• have an album-tree hierarchy replicating the one in my hard drive
• and I could use SSL at any time I wanted

I just want to put my pictures on the Internet as a backup, surely Dreamhost do backups better than me! But some pictures had to be restricted, so I needed users (accounts) and access control. This was both very important and a bad pain, specially because users are lazy and very few were willing to have yet another username and password, so they ended up not seeing the pictures.

So suddenly I realized that I don't need too granular access control and Flickr's private groups will do the trick nicely, Flickr no longer have storage or bandwidth limits on Pro accounts and I wouldn't have to bother my friends with yet another username and password they would not use --because, I insist, they are lazy... me too :D

At first I wished to make Gallery use Gmail to authenticate users, but never had the time to implement this and neither did anybody else. Later on I realized, weird as it sounds, I had friends refusing to use Gmail :-O

Well, Internet is free (as free spech, not free beer... that made me thirsty, I miss the Guinness so much after two weeks on antiboitics...) but luckily they all use Flickr, at least just enough to login and see pictures. That's fine, I don't care where they upload their pictures (Picassaweb, SmugMug, Tuenti, ... Whatever) as long as they can login in Flickr, and they do.

There is yet the problem of having a friend download all that weekend's pictures in a zip with a few clicks, there is no free (of charge) way to do it yet. In exchange, I get a very nice bulk editing facility, the Organizer. For the zip download I can just zip them myself and post the zip in my blog, optionally password proteceted.

Yet I suddenly realize of how really good is having each picture in none or more sets, so that there is a nice and easy way to browse through photos from that weekend and that beatiful friend too. Of course you can use tags, but not for slideshows.

So why not any other? Dropshots looked good in the ad, but when I tried it out... no tags, not intended to publish and worst of all no fully-working link to web uploader. Atpic is soo simple that it's a bit too simple for me, no AJAX, no bulk edit... imagine having to move 30 pictures without bulk editing! Phanfare has SSL for login (Atpic and Dropshot hasn't) but requires Java 1.5+ or Flash 9.0+ or Windows or Mac and I'm not willing to use any plataform-dependent software for my pictures.

Actually I use digiKam, which I don't know to be easy to install in Windows or Mac, but the databse is just SQLite 3 and it's really easy to extract all information from it. Try that with iPhoto, Picassa or any other.

So in the end I user Flickr not only to post my best pictures but also all my pictures as a backup and an easy way to keep them reachable by authorized people only --which is everybody for public pictures.

For the pictures I have already uploaded to my primary Flickr account (miguev) I have two options: (a) delete it, if it has no comments, no notes and nobody call it a favorite (which means no body will miss it) or (b) redirect to it from the new copy in my secondary (backup) Flickr account (private miguev), like this.

So, let's the show get started. I have just over 6000 photos, not including some trips!

Connected: The Movie - Abilene Christian University

Sure, it's a bit campy. Sure, some features aren't available on the iPhone yet. But the basic concepts are pretty much what I had in mind.

Among things I like in the video:

• The very notion of student empowerment runs at the centre of it.
• Many of the class-related applications presented show an interest in the constructivist dimensions of learning.
• Material is made available before class. Face-to-face time is for engaging in the material, not rehashing it.
• The technology is presented as a way to ease the bureaucratic aspects of university life, relieving a burden on students (and, presumably, on everyone else involved).
• The "iPhone as ID" concept is simple yet powerful, in context.
• Social networks (namely Facebook and MySpace, in the video) are embedded in the campus experience.
• Blended learning (called "hybrid" in the video) is conceived as an option, not as an obligation.
• Use of the technology is specifically perceived as going beyond geek culture.
• The scenarios (use cases) are quite realistic in terms of typical campus life in the United States.
• While "getting an iPhone" is mentioned as a perk, it's perfectly possible to imagine technology as a levelling factor with educational institutions, lowering some costs while raising the bar for pedagogical standards.
• The shift from "eLearning" to "mLearning" is rather obvious.
• ACU already does iTunes U.
• The video is released under a Creative Commons license.

Of course, there are many directions things can go, from here. Not all of them are in line with the ACU dream scenario. But I'm quite hope judging from some apparently random facts: that Apple may sell iPhones through universities, that Apple has plans for iPhone use on campuses,  that many of the "enterprise features" of iPhone 2.0 could work in institutions of higher education, that the Steve Jobs keynote made several mentions of education, that Apple bundles iPod touch with Macs, that the OLPC XOXO is now conceived more as a touch handheld than as a laptop, that (although delayed) Google's Android platform can participate in the same usage scenarios, and that browser-based computing apparently has a bright future.

Where else are you going to see Chewbacca and a Jawa getting down to 'Footloose'??
Vader + 'Thriller' = complete pwnage. Anything with Vader or the 'Thriller' dance wins hands down.
I wasn't really digging the Leia and Padme' performance. But the other two make up for it.

Don't act like you're not impressed.

Edit: One of my friends sent me a link to THIS apparently I'm not alone in my feelings afterall.

It's currently in Alpha testing and is available only to those who are paid members of one of their other games.  So far it looks pretty promising and is soon to go into beta.  I'm excited to say the least.  I love AQ Enough that I plan on eventualy building a set of Dragon Slayer armor for cosplay so that should tell you how excited I am.  Also I find it extreamly interesting as I never thought it would be feasable to make a flash based MMO.  Somehow though AE has managed to pull it off.

I'll keep you all posted on it's progress of course.

Well Have you ever been on one of those trips where you wonder “what freakin god did I piss off before I left the house.” thats kinda how our trip went.

We left on time to be at the theater with time to stair for getting our popcorn and those goodies. We had to drive quite a ways to get to there as the closest theater was about 40 miles away. A good hour assuming no major traffic issues. In any case we left and were on our merry way all was well with the world. We were making good time, there was no traffic. Hallelujah! For once we were going to have a trip go right! But wait, oh no somehow we missed our exit. Mind you I was paying close attention to the exit numbers so how this happened is beyond me, but somehow it happened. No worrys we thought we'll get off the next exit and things will be fine. Of course around the bend in the highway traffic awaited us.

We did manage to fight our way past the hoards of cars and make it into White plains NY which is thankfully the right city and again things seemed to be going well. Before I go on let me say White Plains has a lot of great shops and a wonderful downtown area with some great little pubs and bars to visit. However it's got one of the WORST designed street systems I've ever seen. I hate cities that intermix one way streets and normal streets. And I hate even more when they don't put street signs in easily viewable places (or in some cases leave them out entirely). We found the theater, but it took us alittle while to find a place to park, and once we did it took a few goes around to get where we actually wanted to go with all the one way streets which of course as an out of towner are not easy to anticipate when there isn't always a pattern. Apparently Main street (or at least large chunks of it) is a one way street in White Plains. I think you could see where that could be a problem in downtown.

Amazingly we did find parking (in a walmart parking garage of all places) and managed to make it to the mall with the theater on time. However the theater was not on the main floor and the directory in the main lobby did not say which floor it was on. I guess that one “small” little detail wasn't important enough to include? I dunno maybe it was just temporarily missing and is usually present, but it was just a tad annoying. Thankfully some helpful folks in the elevator knew the right floor and we were once again on our way.

Now we had about 10 minutes till the movie, and again fate intervened *dramatic music* this time in the form of incompetent theater employees. This theater was one of those new fancy ones with the concession area that has actual fast food franchises built into it. That way they can sell burgers, hot dogs, and other unhealthy crap to you along with your Humongous tub of popcorn, and your gigantic tub of soda too large to all fit in your bladder. Now there was only one teeny tinny little problem. Apparently the people at the concession stand didn't know how to work their register, make the food that it's their job to make, or really understand any basic customer service skills. It took two of them to make the food and just barely made it right. Also how does a place that predominantly sells burgers and hot dogs not have any burgers? Apparently they didn't have any. Nice one guys. Nice one. But amazingly we made it through the crushing incompetence of their employees and still arrived in the theater in time with snacks in hand.

The movie as I said before was great. I wont give any spoilers so don't worry. What I will tell you is it had great plot, great writing, great everything really. They of course used the same voice actors as the series does in America which is always a plus (and I happen to think they did a decent job casting the voices). Also unlike some anime series who change their animation style drastically from the original series when they make a theatrical movie Bleach did not do this. They also did not contradict or alter any major plot points of the series. For those reasons I give them a gold star. What made it even better than great was the behind the scenes special they showed before the movie showing how Viz Media makes the American manga and anime version of Bleach including special interviews with all the voice actors. The only criticism I have is that Orihime, Uryu, and Chad have little to do and are barely on screen without much of a legitimate reason why. But thats forgivable with everything else being so awesome. So again the Movie was amazing and well worth the 40 mile drive and $22 for tickets. Of course after the movie thats when things took a turn for the worse.

After the Movie we decided to look at the cool fountain that was outside the mall and talked for alittle while. It was cooler out now that it was dark and was a good place just to hang out and enjoy the night. After we chatted about the movie, politics, some Millionaire Geeks stuff and whatever else we chatted about we headed back to the garage. Now we figured it would be about another 45 minutes to an hour to get home (at this point it was about 10pm). So we got the car, paid our parking fee ($4 not too bad) and were on the road again.... sort of. Unfortunately because of the one way streets it was a pain to get back to the highway but after driving around in circles for a while we managed to find the highway entrance. Unfortunately it was under construction and we couldn't get on the highway going in the direction we needed to go. We figured we would get on the highway going the wrong way, get off the next exit and get back on in the right direction right..... WRONG! Apparently the next exit did not have an entrance ramp back onto the highway so we were now stuck wandering the city for a while trying to figure out where the hell we were and how to get back to the highway and get home. Also we were running low on gas at this point.

We did eventually find out way back to the highway which was nice. And we managed not to die when we almost hit some concrete barriers (which wasn't our fault btw). For you see it's always nice when you come face to face with your own death at the hands of incompetent construction people who failed to realize that not all cars are equipped with magical x-ray windshields. So the drivers cant see through bridges and around curves and magically know the lane that was there a moment ago is no longer there. Apparently they had closed off a lane (literally right around a blind curve) with concrete barriers. However they didn't put up signs or have anyway what so ever to warn us of this. Now I realize they may have literally just done this as they were actually working as we passed by (thankfully not dead). The problem is that any number of horrific accidents could have occurred in the time that there was no warning.

So back on the highway we somehow got lost and turned around on the connectors and ended up going the wrong way again. So we decided to get off the highway find a gas station so we didn't run out of gas and die cold and alone in the wilderness of Yonkers New York. While Drake filled the tank I busted out the GPS unit to figure out where we were and more importantly How the hell to get home from here. After all that excitement we thought we were golden. It wouldn't be long now till we got home. But it wasn't meant to be. For the GPS apparently has something terribly terribly wrong with it. Because while the address it said we were heading to was home in Connecticut. It was sending us deeper into New York State. I know nice right? AND it gets better. The GPS kept dropping out signal and recalculating the rout we were on ever few minutes which changed it's mind on what road we should take.

So we busted out the backup GPS (Dave's old unit which thankfully was still in the car) and after driving around for 10 minutes to find a reliable signal we got back on the road home. This time it was actually correct and got us home. By this time we were hungry so we decided to stop at the Diner and get some food in us. By the time we got to the Diner it was about 2 am. Which was quite exciting let me tell you. After we had something to eat, did alittle brainstorming for this brilliant site you're currently reading part of and paid the bill it was later than that. So we didn't get to actual home and the hope of sleep till like 3am.

And that my Friends is the story of our great and epic adventure. All that just so we could see Bleach in the damn movies.

Sticking My Neck Out (Executive Summary)

I think that participants in many technology-enthusiastic movements which carry the term "social" would do well to learn some social science. Furthermore, my guess is that ethnographic disciplines are very well-suited to the task of teaching participants in these movements something about social groups.

Disclaimer

Despite the potentially provocative title and my explicitly stating a position, I mostly wish to think out loud about different things which have been on my mind for a while.

I'm not an "expert" in this field. I'm just a social scientist and an ethnographer who has been observing a lot of things online. I do know that there are many experts who have written many great books about similar issues. What I'm saying here might not seem new. But I'm using my blog as a way to at least write down some of the things I have in mind and, hopefully, discuss these issues thoughtfully with people who care.

Also, this will not be a guide on "what to do to be social-savvy." Books, seminars, and workshops on this specific topic abound. But my attitude is that every situation needs to be treated in its own context, that cookie-cutter solutions often fail. So I would advise people interested in this set of issues to train themselves in at least a little bit of social science, even if much of the content of the training material seems irrelevant. Discuss things with a social scientist, hire a social scientist in your business, take a course in social science, and don't focus on advice but on the broad picture. Really.

Clarification

Though they are all different, enthusiastic participants in "social web," "social marketing," "social media," and other "social things online" do have some commonalities. At the risk of angering some of them, I'm lumping them all together as "social * enthusiasts." One thing I like about the term "enthusiast" is that it can apply to both professional and amateurs, to geeks and dabblers, to full-timers and part-timers. My target isn't a specific group of people. I just observed different things in different contexts.

Links

Shameless Self-Promotion

A few links from my own blog, for context (and for easier retrieval):

• “Social Butterfly Effect”: More Than a Silly Pun?
• Swiss Made Smiling
• Technology Adoption and Active Reading
• Handhelds for the Rest of Us?

Shameless Cross-Promotion

A few links from other blogs, to hopefully expand context (and for easier retrieval):

• the cluetrain manifesto
• Raising standards -- by lowering them
• Web 2.0 != AJAX
• Qu'est ce que l'autorité cognitive
• Les 6 cultures d'Internet
• Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Note to Web 2.0 Companies: Early Adopters are not the Mass Market
• Perspective 2.0: The emperor has designer clothes
• Dissemination of Knowledge

Some raw notes

• Insight
• Cluefulness
• Openness
• Freedom
• Transparency
• Unintended uses
• Constructivism
• Empowerment
• Disruptive technology
• Innovation
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking
• Technology adoption
• Early adopters
• Late adopters
• Forced adoption
• OLPC XO
• OLPC XOXO
• Attitudes to change
• Conservatism
• Luddites
• Activism
• Impatience
• Windmills and shelters
• Niche thinking
• Geek culture
• Groupthink
• Idea horizon
• Intersubjectivity
• Influence
• Sphere of influence
• Influence network
• Social butterfly effect
• Cog in a wheel
• Social networks
• Acephalous groups
• Ego-based groups
• Non-hierarchical groups
• Mutual influences
• Network effects
• Risk-taking
• Low-stakes
• Trial-and-error
• Transparency
• Ethnography
• Epidemiology of ideas
• Neural networks
• Cognition and communication
• Wilson and Sperber
• Relevance
• Global
• Glocal
• Regional
• City-State
• Fluidity
• Consensus culture
• Organic relationships
• Establishing rapport
• Buzzwords
• Viral
• Social
• Meme
• Memetic marketplace
• Meta
• Target audience

Let's Give This a Try

The Internet is, simply, a network. Sure, technically it's a meta-network, a network of networks. But that is pretty much irrelevant, in social terms, as most networks may be analyzed at different levels as containing smaller networks or being parts of larger networks. The fact remains that the 'Net is pretty easy to understand, sociologically. It's nothing new, it's just a textbook example of something social scientists have been looking at for a good long time.

Though the Internet mostly connects computers (in many shapes or forms, many of them being "devices" more than the typical "personal computer"), the impact of the Internet is through human actions, behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. Sure, we can talk ad nauseam about the technical aspects of the Internet, but these topics have been covered a lot in the last fifteen years of intense Internet growth and a lot of people seem to be ready to look at other dimensions.

The category of "people who are online" has expanded greatly, in different steps. Here, Martin Lessard's description of the Internet's Six Cultures (Les 6 cultures d'Internet) is really worth a read. Martin's post is in French but we also had a blog discussion in English, about it. Not only are there more people online but those "people who are online" have become much more diverse in several respects. At the same time, there are clear patterns on who "online people" are and there are clear differences in uses of the Internet.

Groups of human beings are the very basic object of social science. Diversity in human groups is the very basis for ethnography. Ethnography is simply the description of ("writing about") human groups conceived as diverse ("peoples"). As simple as ethnography can be, it leads to a very specific approach to society which is very compatible with all sorts of things relevant to "social * enthusiasts" on- and offline.

While there are many things online which may be described as "media," comparing the Internet to "The Mass Media" is often the best way to miss "what the Internet is all about." Sure, the Internet isn't about anything (about from connecting computers which, in turn, connect human beings). But to get actual insight into the 'Net, one probably needs to free herself/himself of notions relating to "The Mass Media." Put bluntly, McLuhan was probably a very interesting person and some of his ideas remain intriguing but fallacies abound in his work and the best thing to do with his ideas is to go beyond them.

One of my favourite examples of the overuse of "media"-based concepts is the issue of influence. In blogging, podcasting, or selling, the notion often is that, on the Internet as in offline life, "some key individuals or outlets are influential and these are the people by whom or channels through which ideas are disseminated." Hence all the Technorati rankings and other "viewer statistics." Old techniques and ideas from the times of radio and television expansion are used because it's easier to think through advertising models than through radically new models. This is, in fact, when I tend to bring back my explanation of the "social butterfly effect": quite frequently, "influence" online isn't through specific individuals or outlets but even when it is, those people are influential through virtue of connecting to diverse groups, not by the number of people they know. There are ways to analyze those connections but "measuring impact" is eventually missing the point.

Gone Viral

The term "viral" is used rather frequently by "social * enthusiasts" online. I happen to think that it's a fairly fitting term, even though it's used more by extension than by literal meaning. To me, it relates rather directly to Dan Sperber's "epidemiological" treatment of culture (see Explaining Culture) which may itself be perceived as resembling Dawkins's well-known "selfish gene" ideas made popular by different online observers, but with something which I perceive to be (to use simple semiotic/semiological concepts) more "motivated" than the more "arbitrary" connections between genetics and ideas. While Sperber could hardly be described as an ethnographer, his anthropological connections still make some of his work compatible with ethnographic perspectives.

Analysis of the spread of ideas does correspond fairly closely with the spread of viruses, especially given the nature of contacts which make transmission possible. One needs not do much to spread a virus or an idea. This virus or idea may find "fertile soil" in a given social context, depending on a number of factors. Despite the disadvantages of extending analogies and core metaphors too far, the type of ecosystem/epidemiology analysis of social systems embedded in uses of the term "viral" do seem to help some specific people make sense of different things which happen online. In "viral marketing," the type of informal, invisible, unexpected spread of recognition through word of mouth does relate somewhat to the spread of a virus. Moreover, the metaphor of "viral marketing" is useful in thinking about the lack of control the professional marketer may have on how her/his product is perceived. In this context, the term "viral" seems useful.

The Social

While "viral" seems appropriate, the even more simple "social" often seems inappropriately used. It's not a ranty attitude which makes me comment negatively on the use of the term "social." In fact, I don't really care about the use of the term itself. But I do notice that use of the term often obfuscates what is the obvious social character of the Internet.

To a social scientist, anything which involves groups is by definition "social." Of course, some groups and individuals are more gregarious than others, some people are taken to be very sociable, and some contexts are more conducive to heightened social interactions. But social interactions happen in any context.
As an example I used (in French) in reply to this blog post, something as common as standing in line at a grocery store is representative of social behaviour and can be analyzed in social terms. Any Web page which is accessed by anyone is "social" in the sense that it establishes some link, however tenuous and asymmetric, between at least two individuals (someone who created the page and the person who accessed that page). Sure, it sounds like the minimal definition of communication (sender, medium/message, receiver). But what most people who talk about communication seem to forget (unlike Jakobson), is that all communication is social.

Sure, putting a comment form on a Web page facilitates a basic social interaction, making the page "more social" in the sense of "making that page easier to use explicit social interaction." And, of course, adding some features which facilitate the act of sharing data with one's personal contacts is a step above the contact form in terms of making certain type of social interaction straightforward and easy. But, contrary to what Google Friend Connect implies, adding those features doesn't suddenly make the site social. The site itself isn't really social and, assuming some people visited it, there was already a social dimension to it. I'm not nitpicking on word use. I'm saying that using "social" in this way may blind some people to social dimensions of the Internet. And the consequences can be pretty harsh, in some cases, for overlooking how social the 'Net is.

Something similar may be said about the "Social Web," one of the many definitions of "Web 2.0" which is used in some contexts (mostly, the cynic would say, "to make some tool appear 'new and improved'"). The Web as a whole was "social" by definition. Granted, it lacked the ease of social interaction afforded such venerable Internet classics as Usenet and email. But it was already making some modes of social interaction easier to perceive. No, this isn't about "it's all been done." It's about being oblivious to the social potential of tools which already existed. True, the period in Internet history known as "Web 2.0" (and the onset of the Internet's sixth culture) may be associated with new social phenomena. But there is little evidence that the association is causal, that new online tools and services created a new reality which suddenly made it possible for people to become social online. This is one reason I like Martin Lessard's post so much. Instead of postulating the existence of a brand new phenomenon, he talks about the conditions for some changes in both Internet use and the form the Web has taken.

Again, this isn't about terminology per se. Substitute "friendly" for "social" and similar issues might come up (friendship and friendliness being disconnected from the social processes which underline them).

Adoptive Parents

Many "social * enthusiasts" are interested in "adoption." They want their "things" to be adopted. This is especially visible among marketers but even in social media there's an issue of "getting people on board." And some people, especially those without social science training, seem to be looking for a recipe.

Problem is, there probably is no such thing as a recipe for technology adoption.

Sure, some marketing practises from the offline world may work online. Sometimes, adapting a strategy from the material world to the Internet is very simple and the Internet version may be more effective than the offline version. But it doesn't mean that there is such a thing as a recipe. It's a matter of either having some people who "have a knack for this sort of things" (say, based on sensitivity to what goes on online) or based on pure luck. Or it's a matter of measuring success in different ways. But it isn't based on a recipe. Especially not in the Internet sphere which is changing so rapidly (despite some remarkably stable features).

Again, I'm partial to contextual approaches ("fully-customized solutions," if you really must). Not just because I think there are people who can do this work very efficiently. But because I observe that "recipes" do little more than sell "best-selling books" and other items.

So, what can we, as social scientists, say about "adoption?" That technology is adopted based on the perceived fit between the tools and people's needs/wants/goals/preferences. Not the simple "the tool will be adopted if there's a need." But a perception that there might be a fit between an amorphous set of social actors (people) and some well-defined tools ("technologies"). Recognizing this fit is extremely difficult and forcing it is extremely expensive (not to mention completely unsustainable). But social scientists do help in finding ways to adapt tools to different social situations.

Especially ethnographers. Because instead of surveys and focus groups, we challenge assumptions about what "must" fit. Our heads and books are full of examples which sound, in retrospect, as common sense but which had stumped major corporations with huge budgets. (Ask me about McDonald's in Brazil or browse a cultural anthropology textbook, for more information.)

Recently, while reading about issues surrounding the OLPC's original XO computer, I was glad to read the following:

John Heskett once said that the critical difference between invention and innovation was its mass adoption by users. (Niti Bhan The emperor has designer clothes)

Not that this is a new idea, for social scientists. But I was glad that the social dimension of technology adoption was recognized.

In marketing and design spheres especially, people often think of innovation as individualized. While some individuals are particularly adept at leading inventions to mass adoption (Steve Jobs being a textbook example), "adoption comes from the people." Yes, groups of people may be manipulated to adopt something "despite themselves." But that kind of forced adoption is still dependent on a broad acceptance, by "the people," of even the basic forms of marketing. This is very similar to the simplified version of the concept of "hegemony," so common in both social sciences and humanities. In a hegemony (as opposed to a totalitarian regime), no coercion is necessary because the logic of the system has been internalized by people who are affected by it. Simple, but effective.

In online culture, adept marketers are highly valued. But I'm quite convinced that pre-online marketers already knew that they had to "learn society first." One thing with almost anything happening online is that "the society" is boundless. Country boundaries usually make very little sense and the social rules of every local group will leak into even the simplest occasion. Some people seem to assume that the end result is a cultural homogenization, thereby not necessitating any adaptation besides the move from "brick and mortar" to online. Others (or the same people, actually) want to protect their "business models" by restricting tools or services based on country boundaries. In my mind, both attitudes are ineffective and misleading.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

I think the Cluetrain Manifesto can somehow be summarized through concepts of freedom, openness, and transparency. These are all very obvious (in French, the book title is something close to "the evident truths manifesto"). They're also all very social.

Social scientists often become activists based on these concepts. And among social scientists, many of us are enthusiastic about the social changes which are happening in parallel with Internet growth. Not because of technology. But because of empowerment. People are using the Internet in their own ways, the one key feature of the Internet being its lack of centralization. While the lack of centralized control may be perceived as a "bad thing" by some (social scientists or not), there's little argument that the 'Net as a whole is out of the control of specific corporations or governments (despite the large degree of consolidation which has happened offline and online).

Especially in the United States, "freedom" is conceived as a basic right. But it's also a basic concept in social analysis. As some put it: "somebody's rights end where another's begin." But social scientists have a whole apparatus to deal with all the nuances and subtleties which are bound to come from any situation where people's rights (freedom) may clash or even simply be interpreted differently. Again, not that social scientists have easy, ready-made answers on these issues. But we're used to dealing with them. We don't interpret freedom as a given.

Transparency is fairly simple and relates directly to how people manage information itself (instead of knowledge or insight). Radical transparency is giving as much information as possible to those who may need it. Everybody has a "right to learn" a lot of things about a given institution (instead of "right to know"), when that institution has a social impact. Canada's Access to Information Act is quite representative of the move to transparency and use of this act has accompanied changes in the ways government officials need to behave to adapt to a relatively new reality.

Openness is an interesting topic, especially in the context of the so-called "Open Source" movement. Radical openness implies participation by outsiders, at least in the form of verbal feedback. The cluefulness of "opening yourself to your users" is made obvious in the context of successes by institutions which have at least portrayed themselves as open. What's in my mind unfortunate is that many institutions now attempt to position themselves on the openness end of the "closed/proprietary to open/responsive" scale without much work done to really open themselves up.

Communitas

Mottoes, slogans, and maxims like "build it and they will come," "there's a sucker born every minute," "let them have cake," and "give them what they want" all fail to grasp the basic reality of social life: "they" and "we" are linked. We're all different and we're all connected. We all take parts in groups. These groups are all associated with one another. We can't simply behave the same way with everyone. Identity has two parts: sense of belonging (to an "in-group") and sense of distinction (from an "out-group"). "Us/Them."

Within the "in-group," if there isn't any obvious hierarchy, the sense of belonging can take the form that Victor Turner called "communitas" and which happens in situations giving real meaning to the notion of "community." "Community of experience," "community of practise." Eckert and Wittgenstein brought to online networks. In a community, contacts aren't always harmonious. But people feel they fully belong. A network isn't the same thing as a community.

The World Is My Oyster

Despite the so-called "Digital Divide" (or, more precisely, the maintenance online of global inequalities), the 'Net is truly "Global." So is the phone, now that cellphones are accomplishing the "leapfrog effect." But this one Internet we have (i.e., not Internet2 or other such specialized meta-network) is reaching everywhere through a single set of compatible connections. The need for cultural awareness is increased, not alleviated by online activities.

Release Early, Release Often

Among friends, we call it RERO.

The RERO principle is a multiple-pass system. Instead of waiting for the right moment to release a "perfect product" (say, a blogpost!), the "work in progress" is provided widely, garnering feedback which will be integrated in future "product versions." The RERO approach can be unnerving to "product developers," but it has proved its value in online-savvy contexts.

I use "product" in a broad sense because the principle applies to diverse contexts. Furthermore, the RERO principle helps shift the focus from "product," back into "process."

The RERO principle may imply some "emotional" or "psychological" dimensions, such as humility and the acceptance of failure. At some level, differences between RERO and "trial-and-error" methods of development appear insignificant. Those who create something should not expect the first try to be successful and should recognize mistakes to improve on the creative process and product. This is similar to the difference between "rehearsal" (low-stakes experimentation with a process) and "performance" (with responsibility, by the performer, for evaluation by an audience).

Though applications of the early/often concept to social domains are mostly satirical, there is a social dimension to the RERO principle. Releasing a "product" implies a group, a social context.

The partial and frequent "release" of work to "the public" relates directly to openness and transparency. Frequent releases create a "relationship" with human beings. Sure, many of these are "Early Adopters" who are already overrepresented. But the rapport established between an institution and people (users/clients/customers/patrons...) can be transfered more broadly.

Releasing early seems to shift the limit between rehearsal and performance. Instead of being able to do mistakes on your own, your mistakes are shown publicly and your success is directly evaluated. Yet a somewhat reverse effect can occur: evaluation of the end-result becomes a lower-stake rating at different parts of the project because expectations have shifted to the "lower" end. This is probably the logic behind Google's much discussed propensity to call all its products "beta."

While the RERO principle does imply a certain openness, the expectation that each release might integrate all the feedback "users" have given is not fundamental to releasing early and frequently. The expectation is set by a specific social relationship between "developers" and "users." In geek culture, especially when users are knowledgeable enough about technology to make elaborate wishlists, the expectation to respond to user demand can be quite strong, so much so that developers may perceive a sense of entitlement on the part of "users" and grow some resentment out of the situation. "If you don't like it, make it yourself." Such a situation is rather common in FLOSS development: since "users" have access to the source code, they may be expected to contribute to the development project. When "users" not only fail to fulfil expectations set by open development but even have the gumption to ask developers to respond to demands, conflicts may easily occur. And conflicts are among the things which social scientists study most frequently.

Putting the "Capital" Back into "Social Capital"

In the past several years, ”monetization” (transforming ideas into currency) has become one of the major foci of anything happening online. Anything which can be a source of profit generates an immediate (and temporary) "buzz." The value of anything online is measured through typical currency-based economics. The relatively recent movement toward ”social" whatever is not only representative of this tendency, but might be seen as its climax: nowadays, even social ties can be sold directly, instead of being part of a secondary transaction. As some people say "The relationship is the currency" (or "the commodity," or "the means to an end"). Fair enough, especially if these people understand what social relationships entail. But still strange, in context, to see people "selling their friends," sometimes in a rather literal sense, when social relationships are conceived as valuable. After all, "selling the friend” transforms that relationship, diminishes its value. Ah, well, maybe everyone involved is just cynical. Still, even their cynicism contributes to the system. But I'm not judging. Really, I'm not. I'm just wondering
Anyhoo, the "What are you selling anyway" question makes as much sense online as it does with telemarketers and other greed-focused strangers (maybe "calls” are always "cold," online). It's just that the answer isn't always so clear when the "business model" revolves around creating, then breaking a set of social expectations.
Me? I don't sell anything. Really, not even my ideas or my sense of self. I'm just not good at selling. Oh, I do promote myself and I do accumulate social capital. As social butterflies are wont to do. The difference is, in the case of social butterflies such as myself, no money is exchanged and the social relationships are, hopefully, intact. This is not to say that friends never help me or never receive my help in a currency-friendly context. It mostly means that, in our cases, the relationships are conceived as their own rewards.
I'm consciously not taking the moral high ground, here, though some people may easily perceive this position as the morally superior one. I'm not even talking about a position. Just about an attitude to society and to social relationships. If you will, it's a type of ethnographic observation from an insider's perspective.

Makes sense?

I don’t know how many of the rest of you follow along with the J.K. Vadimort saga about the small publishing of the “Harry Potter Lexicon” that is being assaulted by her dementors oops I mean her lawyers.

Well Orson Scott Card has spoken out about the situation, and I have to say I like what he has to say, and I found the article very enlightening.

For credit - It can be found here - http://www.linearpublishing.com/RhinoStory.html

But the body of it is below:

Alert! Due to the popularity of this article, we have moved it to a static HTML format. After reading this article, if you would like to visit our Web site, greensboro.rhinotimes.com, Click here.

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything
J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz
by Orson Scott Card

April 24, 2008
Can you believe that J.K. Rowling is suing a small publisher because she claims their 10,000-copy edition of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a book about Rowling's hugely successful novel series, is just a "rearrangement" of her own material.

Rowling "feels like her words were stolen," said lawyer Dan Shallman.

Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.

This paragraph lists only the most prominent similarities between Ender's Game and the Harry Potter series. My book was published in England many years before Rowling began writing about Harry Potter. Rowling was known to be reading widely in speculative fiction during the era after the publication of my book.

I can get on the stand and cry, too, Ms. Rowling, and talk about feeling "personally violated."

The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender's Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote.

Mine is not the only work that one can charge Rowling "borrowed" from. Check out this piece from a fan site, pointing out links between Harry Potter and other previous works: http://www.geocities.com/versetrue/rowling.htm. And don't forget the lawsuit by Nancy K. Stouffer, the author of a book entitled The Legend of Rah and the Muggles, whose hero was named "Larry Potter."

At that time, Rowling's lawyers called Stouffer's claim "frivolous."

It's true that we writers borrow words from each other ? but we're supposed to admit it and not pretend we're original when we're not. I took the word ansible from Ursula K. LeGuin, and have always said so. Rowling, however, denies everything.

If Steven Vander Ark, the author of Lexicon, had written fiction that he claimed was original, when it was actually a rearrangement of ideas taken from the Harry Potter books, then she'd have a case.

But Lexicon is intended only as a reference book for people who have already paid for their copies of Rowling's books. Even though the book is not scholarly, it certainly falls within the realm of scholarly comment.

Rowling's hypocrisy is so thick I can hardly breathe: Prior to the publication of each novel, there were books about them that were no more intrusive than Lexicon. I contributed to one of them, and there was no complaint about it from Rowling or her publishers because they knew perfectly well that these fan/scholar ancillary publications were great publicity and actually boosted sales.

But now the Harry Potter series is over, and Rowling claims that her "creative work" is being "decimated."

Of course, she doesn't claim that it's the Lexicon that is harming her "creative work" (who's she borrowing from this time?); it's the lawsuit itself! And since she chose to bring the suit, whose fault is it? If she had left Vander Ark alone to publish his little book and make his little bit of money, she wouldn't be distracted from her next novel.

But no, Rowling claims Vander Ark's book "constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work."

Seventeen years? What a crock. Apparently she includes in that total the timeframe in which she was reading ? and borrowing from ? the work of other writers.

On the stand, though, Rowling's chief complaint seems to be that she would do a better job of annotating and encyclopedizing her own series.

So what?

Nothing prevents her from doing exactly that ? annotating and explaining her own novels. Do you think that if there were a Harry Potter Annotated by the Author, Vander Ark's book would interfere with her sales in any way?

This frivolous lawsuit puts at serious risk the entire tradition of commentary on fiction. Any student writing a paper about the Harry Potter books, any scholarly treatise about it, will certainly do everything she's complaining about.

Once you publish fiction, Ms. Rowling, anybody is free to write about it, to comment on it, and to quote liberally from it, as long as the source is cited.

Here's the irony: Vander Ark had the material for this book on his website for years, and Rowling is quoted as saying that when she needed to look up some 'fact" from her earlier books, she would sometimes "sneak into an Internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter."

In other words, she already had made personal use of Vander Ark's work and found it valuable. Even if it has shortcomings, she found it useful.

That means that Vander Ark created something original and useful ? he added value to the product. If Rowling wants to claim that it interferes with her creativity now, she should have made that complaint back when she was using it ? and giving Vander Ark an award for his website back in 2004.

Now, of course, she regrets "bitterly" having given the award.

You know what I think is going on?

Rowling has nowhere to go and nothing to do now that the Harry Potter series is over. After all her literary borrowing, she shot her wad and she's flailing about trying to come up with something to do that means anything.

Moreover, she is desperate for literary respectability. Even though she made more money than the queen or Oprah Winfrey in some years, she had to see her books pushed off the bestseller lists and consigned to a special "children's book" list. Litterateurs sneer at her work as a kind of subliterature, not really worth discussing.

It makes her insane. The money wasn't enough. She wants to be treated with respect.

At the same time, she's also surrounded by people whose primary function is to suck up to her. No doubt some of them were saying to her, "It's wrong for these other people to be exploiting what you created to make money for themselves."

She let herself be talked into being outraged over a perfectly normal publishing activity, one that she had actually made use of herself during its web incarnation.

Now she is suing somebody who has devoted years to promoting her work and making no money from his efforts ? which actually helped her make some of her bazillions of dollars.

Talent does not excuse Rowling's ingratitude, her vanity, her greed, her bullying of the little guy, and her pathetic claims of emotional distress.

I fully expect that the outcome of this lawsuit will be:

1. Publication of Lexicon will go on without any problem or prejudice, because it clearly falls within the copyright law's provision for scholarly work, commentary and review.

2. Rowling will be forced to pay Steven Vander Ark's legal fees, since her suit was utterly without merit from the start.

3. People who hear about this suit will have a sour taste in their mouth about Rowling from now on. Her Cinderella story once charmed us. Her greedy evil-witch behavior now disgusts us. And her next book will be perceived as the work of that evil witch.

It's like her stupid, self-serving claim that Dumbledore was gay. She wants credit for being very up-to-date and politically correct ? but she didn't have the guts to put that supposed "fact" into the actual novels, knowing that it might hurt sales.

What a pretentious, puffed-up coward. When I have a gay character in my fiction, I say so right in the book. I don’t wait until after it has had all its initial sales to mention it.

Rowling has now shown herself to lack a brain, a heart and courage. Clearly, she needs to visit Oz.

Premetto subito che sono stato affascinato fin da subito dall'ambientazione di questa tragica avventura raccontata in "La strada" di Cormac McCarthy.
Senz'altro questo libro può fregiarsi di aver risvegliato il mio piacere per la lettura, un po' sopito, ma ahimé a posteriori non ne posso parlare troppo bene.

Il libro è completamente incentrato sul viaggio che compiono due persone, un uomo e suo figlio, protagonisti innominati, attraverso un mondo devastato e completamente in rovina.
Le vicende sono raccontate attraverso l'utilizzo di un narratore esterno, che, alle volte, si sovrappone al pensiero del padre, e cosa puittosto insolita, con lunghissimi e frequenti discorsi diretti tra i due protagonisti.

Questo espediente ha sicuramente il pregio di calcare la tensione e delineare perfettamente, come china su foglio, il rapporto e le emozioni tra i due protagonisti.
Purtroppo però, tale soluzione paga lo scotto di appesantire sostanzialmente la lettura; quando le nostre maestre alle elementari si arrabbiavano dicendo che non si possono mettere righe su righe di discorsi diretti, beh, questo è il caso ed avevano ragione.
La lettura rimane comunque abbastanza fresca, e tal soluzione adottata dall'autore entra in sinergia con lo stile in cui viene dipanata la vicenda: prettamente descrittivo.

McCarthy si ferma più volte per descrivere il paesaggio, decisamente pittoresco, e ogni singolo dettaglio che passa sotto l'occhio dei protagonisti.
Questo rende l'avventura veramente incalzante, e aiuta molto ad immedesimarsi nel libro.

Venendo al lato narrativo, non posso certo dire di ritenermi soddisfatto.
O meglio, non fraintedetemi: è tutto ben fatto, l'adrenalina non manca, ma la sensazione prima che sale dopo aver finito di leggere "La strada" è un senso di terribile incompletezza.
L'avventura in se' è fantastica; la mancanza di un vero e proprio prologo contribuisce certamente al senso di desolazione e ingiustizia verso tali sofferenze; ma l'assenza di un epilogo è proprio ingiustificata.
Il finale sembra esser solo la conclusione affrettata di un'opera che raggiunge il suo culmine ben prima dell'ultima pagina.

Questo "La strada" quindi mi lascia un fastidioso amaro in bocca per il suo difetto di galleggiare in mezzo all'aria, senza nulla a sorreggerlo. Anche l'ipotesi che l'autore abbia voluto scrivere un "finale non-finale" per lasciare una libera interpretazione al lettore mi sento di scartarla, visto che il libro manca di striscio il suo obiettivo di parlare di temi difficili.

In una situazione borderline come questa, con gli eventi che si susseguono nel libro (sconsigliato a quelli un po' schizzignosi) il lettore si aspetta più lunghe riflessioni su temi come la vita e la morte, l'aborto (perché no?), l'amore padre-figlio.
Invece questi obiettivi mi sento di dire che sembrano sacrificati per un miglior sprint dell'avventura, che si affretta a concludersi in poco più di duecento pagine.

Che dire insomma, bello, "La strada". Un'avventura da gustare tutta d'un fiato senza farsi troppe domande; se cercate qualcosa di riflessivo, cercate altrove; se invece avete piacere di staccare un po' da letture impegnative e avete il piacere nel gustarvi una tragedia ambientata in un'atmosfera un po' curiosa, non potete mancare di leggerlo.

Se dovessi riassumere il mio commento con un sottotitolo per il libro sarebbe:
"La strada, un'occasione mancata".

The time has come for me to depart from my trusted friend of two years. I am talking about my laptop, Kapowie. We've been through a lot, and I have laptop envy of so many people. First it was my ex when she got her MacBook Pro, then it was my best friend Joe when he purchased a new Lenovo, now its my brother and I found out a co-worker just purchased a MacBook Air (he brought it to work with him. Why do you need a laptop when you're a cashier?). So now its come down to what I want, and its a MacBook. I could go all out and get myself a MacBook Pro and give it a Czech name (I miss you Anezka!) or I could just get myself a MacBook and give it another Czech girl name (I'm leaning towards Eliska or I could go Spanish and name her Gabriela).

I'm also going to go with the black MacBook, or BlackBook as its called on the Internet. I'm going to also get iWork '08 for it since I think its a really neat program with a lot of useful features. Also, I'm thinking of investing in Time Capsule. Looks useful, plus it will give me a great place to store all of my movies and all of the digital pictures I have accumulated.

I can't wait until August comes. That's when I will get my new laptop.

The "Lo Five," which I left in the basement, is also showing clear signs of fermentation. Thick kräusen, frequent bubbles, yeast smell... As it's the first batch in which I use US-05 yeast, I didn't know what to expect. The smell is actually fairly similar to the S-04 but less assertive. The fact that I'm using this yeast for the first time is also a reason I couldn't attest to its fault tolerance. Judging from the smell, at least, I'd say that it's as "robust" as S-04 and Ringwood but that it might still make for a cleaner profile which doesn't hide small flaws really well.

My intention is to "drop" the fermenting beer away from the yeast pretty quickly on the "So Far" to intensify diacetyl. Can't find the reference, but some British brewery is still doing this, with special equipment. Maybe it's called "dumping" or "crashing." Racking the beer early, the yeast isn't able to "chew up" the diacetyl so more of it is left in the finished beer. Yeah, I know. Diacetyl isn't typical of mild ales. But I tend to like some level of diacetyl in British-style beers. In this case, if the beer is complex enough despite its low ABV, a bit of diacetyl could round off the finished beer.

As is often the case in homebrewing, I'm already thinking about other batches I might want to do. One could be a doubled-up version of "So Far" (twice the grainbill, maybe twice the hops). Another would be a light weizen, brewed with Lallemand's Munich strain.

It's too much fun.