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constructions

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

pennies

One of the major industrial owners in Norway, Jens Ulltveit-Moe, claims that Norwegians have to work more for less money in order to secure Norwegian industrial workplaces. The fact that Mr. Ulltveit-Moe himself earned close to 90 million NOK last year (appr. 13 214 500 $) is of course of minor interest. Besides, poor Norwegian leaders do have so meager wages compared to their international companions.

Monday, June 28, 2004

distraction, bicycles

I easily get distracted during a day at work. I am currently reading Andrew Feenberg's Questioning technology. Feenberg's project is to develop a theory of technology based on a revised constructivist approach. Technological change cannot be explained from a deterministic perspective with a belief in a uniliniar development of technology and in determining technical imperatives on social development. Rather there are various technological potentials and the development of technology must be comprehended in a social and political context. So in order to explain a more constructivist approach, Feenberg refers to Pinch and Bijker (biker-Bijker!) example of the early evolution of the bicycle. The bicycle was originally comprehended as two different devices, a sportsman's racer and a means of transportation (I guess it still is). These ideas of the bicyle had different designs. Corresponding to the first definition, the bicycle had these typical hight front wheels. The second type of bicycle are the ones we recognise today with equal-sized wheels. But these two similar but still different technologies co-existed in the field for years, and the big-wheel bicycle was not a stage in the other's development. The equal-wheeler represented the alternative with the best fit between design and the interest of various social groups that further influenced the desing process. I must admit I have believed that the big-wheeler was kind of stage one in the development of bicycles. I googled, and found Bicycle Museum of America. There you are: beautiful examples of early bicycles. Until appr. 1900, there were examples of both types. I would love to pick a couple of bikes from their collection though...

Saturday, June 26, 2004

nyc

Nina and I have just booked rooms at Chelsea Star Hotel. We will probably be four or five friends going to New York in September, five years after our first visit. The next 2,5 months will be spent researching what to do: culture, art, music, clubs, food, clothes. First, Nordic summer, then NYC late summer. I am so much looking forward to it!

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

life

A few of us who started studying media and communication in 1997 are meeting on Friday. In 1997 I was 22, studying my third and final discipline of my cand.mag (sort of bachelor) degree (1995: political science; 1996: social geography), and with no idea of what the future would look like (except I expected it to be with my then-boyfriend, who later, actually on New Years Eve 97/98, left me, but only after 9 months of multi-media/film studies in Vancouver, how bad is that). 1997 suddenly seems to be far away. Ok, life inevitably changes and will continue to change. I enjoy being 29, I am physically and psychologically healthy, I have great friends, a lovely family, I have the best boyfriend, and I get paid every month. In short: a life I am so grateful to live. But, I get dizzy by the ever-increasing speed of life.

Friday, June 18, 2004

newness and ordinariness

Last week I finally got a new cell-phone (after four years with Nokia3210). I love my new pearl white Nokia 6230. Moreover I intuitively understand how to use it (thanks to what I believe is one of the best interfaces in the world). It is obviously a giant leap from my previous last millennium phone, and I am still fascinated with what my phone is able to do. I was truly amazed when I first bluetoothed picture- and mp3 files from my MarikaBook to my MarikaPhone. My machines communicate! Actually, I was near ROFLOL, at least laughing out loud. Or maybe it was more like a high-pitched whine. First time experiences are great. I so easily get accustomed. Things get ordinary.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

e-mail

I just recently signed up as a gmail-user, but I haven't really started using my new e-mail. I have used Yahoo! forever, and changing accounts is hassle. Thus I will probably continue using my work-e-mail for work and yahoo-mail for fun. Today Yahoo! increased the mail-box storage capacity for all users to 100 mb, which is probably sufficient for me. But thanks to gmail, for being a real competitor. Compared to hotmail's 2 mb, my 6 mb with Yahoo! seemed a lot. Compared to near-endless storage capacity with gmail, 6 mb seemed lousy.

Monday, June 14, 2004

small world, beautiful people

Ana is from Argentina and attended the summer school media-course last year. She's great, and I enjoyed getting to know her. It's a small world and a friend of mine met her (by chance) when she went to Latin-America to learn about the Telenovellas. She brought with her a small present from Ana: a small 'movie-booklet' on Tango. I love it. It will be strange not to be in charge of the summer school course this summer. Six weeks last year and six weeks in 2002 were filled with great experiences and people from all over the world. Instead I will concentrate on my own PhD-project and hopefully get more chances to enjoy the Nordic summer.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

digital childhood quantified

I have just read Leila Torgeresen's report Ungdoms digitale hverdag (pdf) (The digital everyday life of youth: contains a brief English summary of the survey), which is part of the "Digital Childhood" project at NOVA (Norwegian Social Research). The analysis is based on a survey of 12 000 youths in the age 13-19 years old. Basic research questions concerned possible relations between user patterns of computer/Internet/vide-games and offline social relations, grades at school, offline lifestyles (with a focus on conceived problematic aspects such as drinking, sexual experience and violent behaviour) and depression. Important background variables were gender, age, educational levels of parents and ethnicity. I would have hoped for a more explicit emphasis of the connection between online and offline. Some of the correlations she found would certainly make more sense then: Playing violent computer games is correlated with violent behaviour; use of cmc is correlated with extensive social networks (offline) and to a certain degree a lifestyle more strongly characterised by alcohol and sexual experiences; computer experience is correlated with better school grades (but obviously in relation to the specific use of computers). However she frequently underlines that the causal relations may very well be, and probably in many cases are, the other way around. Youth with extensive social networks make use of CMC; youth with a tendency to use violent turn to violent video-games (together with the rest of their friends, but who do not necessarily become violent by playing); eager pupils make use of the computer and the Internet in school-related projects. Anyway, reading the project made me very aware of the importance of more qualitative methods to explain the why's and how's. Torgersen's findings are interesting, but more than anything confirms with numbers what I already suspected. The numbers do not explain anything.

Aftenposten had several articles based on Torgersen's findings: "The computer does not steal time from friends", "More sex and alcohol among extreme-chatters", "One out of three have meet new people online".

Monday, June 07, 2004

can't get no sleep

Went to bed just before midnight yesterday. I was watching Saving Private Ryan on TV2 (haven't seen it before) but decided to record the last part and get some sleep. I can usually decide when to sleep. I couldn't yesterday. Got up from bed, read book (I thought J. Joyce was a good option to cure insomnia, he's not), returned to bed, counted, tried to empty my mind (I was deliriously thinking about laying our new vinyl-tiles in our toilet-room). I may have semi-slept somwhat, but I was definitely awake again from about 3 am till 4.30 am. Then finally: sleep. I am so happy these nights are the exception. Feel fine today though.

Friday, June 04, 2004

online

In a week or so I can take my powerbook with me to Sofienbergparken (about 200 m from home) and be online for free.. Seems appealing to enjoy parklife with wireless connection. Online at home, outdoors and at work. Ubiquity. Still need my office though, I concentrate much better there.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

coffee and cigarettes

From today on, people have to smoke their cigarettes at home or outdoors. Norway is the new Ireland, you cannot have coffee and cigarettes at bars and restaurants anymore. Which is fine by me. I sort of like the idea of going out and coming home without being annoyed by the smell of cigarettes. Smoking certainly illustrates how we encode and decode values and meaning into any phenomena. It is now officially and unofficially un-cool.