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constructions

Thursday, July 29, 2004

sunscreen

According to Digi.no the French mobile-operator SFR gives everyone in La Défense/Paris free outdoor WLAN-access. I remember being surprised when I read that there would be free WLAN-access in various parks in Oslo (more accurately Grünerløkka, where I live) from the middle of June. But I wouldn't actually call it free. Users have to register at Telenor and pay a subscription fee of 89 NOK a month. Strangely, this was still reported as "free" in various newspapers. No wonder I don't see a lot of people parksurfing. Well anyway, sun and screen do not go that well together.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

new criticism

I am becoming increasingly critical towards my own writing-skills. Around the turn of the Millenium, I was usually rather confident with my own work. Actually to such a degree that when others were of another opinion regarding the quality of my work, I rather trusted my own perception. No longer so. Definitely not. However I cannot continue to spend as much time working on the same thing apparently not getting anywhere. Writing is re-writing, as if. Ok, probably is, but it doesn't always seem very efficient.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Mintgrön

I have spent the evening redesigning a template for Mintgrön? - Er inte det lite halvbögit?. Despite its Swedish name, it will be a Norwegian team-blog. It looks awful in Internet Explorer (at least on my Powerbook). I also have problems with becoming a team-member. These are of course only details that will soon be sorted out. I will definitely redesign my constructions-template as well. Writing is re-writing. Designing is re-redesigning. Sort of.

Thursday, July 22, 2004

bicycle-lock continued

I easily found somebody to help me with my bicycle-lock yesterday. The angle grinder at Flames bikes and boards (where I also bought my bicycle) easily cut my lock in less than 10 seconds. It was actually rather fascinating to watch the angle grinder in action, as it sparkled fiercly on its way through the wire and the steel. I hope the evil man or woman from yesterday won't come back for a second try.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

morning glory

So, seems to be another day working from home. I would rather have been at the office today. Unfortunately someone has tried to open my bicycle-lock sometimes between 8 pm last night and 8.30 am this morning. Lock will now not be opened. I am paralysed without my bike, and unlike a punctured tire, I cannot fix this myself. There are of course buses and trams, but I am not particularly fond of them. I will stay home as I have to fix this bicycle-lock sometime during the day. Just have to take a few phone-calls to find somebody who can help me. A few years ago, I locked my bicycle to a fence. It proved to be impossible to unlock it. I called the police, who were kind enough to come and help me. But this time, somebody has actually ruined my lock purposely. Maybe I should be happy (s)he didn't succeed to open it. Then I wouldn't have a bicycle at all. In any case, I'd like to kick this somebody's ass.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

flexible

I am working from home today, struggling and re-writing a paper concerning mass media/personal media. I do not quite manage to make my own thoughts explicit. Anyway, it's almost 3 pm, and I am on my way to Paradisbukta. Sun, beach, swimming, and reading on the beach. Ambitiously bringing Berger and Luckmann's The social construction of reality with me.

With all windows open, I can hear my neighour playing Billy Idol. My favourite in the 1980's. Makes me smile.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

teen exhibitionism

I have been expecting an article of this kind. Norwegian tabloid VG finally writes about websites where teenagers (mostly) publish pictures of themselves. Lots of girls publish close-to-pornographic pictures of themselves. Boys publish pictures of themselves, but there's definitely a difference between the pictures of girls and boys. The most popular Norwegian ones are Penest and Deiligst. I wonder how I would react if I had a teenage daughter and found far to explicit pictures of her online. Or, wonder, I would probably be very upset. The article concerns a mother who discovered such pictures of her daughter on Deiligst, and who has consequently started to pay a lot more attention to what her daughter actually does online (which I think most parents ought to do). There are definitely borders of privacy being challenged in so many ways, but I am certainly stunned by this apparent lacking care of privacy and intimacy.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

to understand

A very important book to me when I wrote my master-thesis was James Slevin's The Internet and Society. Slevin's aim with the book is to contribute to a social theory of the Internet and its impact on who we are, our social relationships, culture and society, avoiding a post-modern approach to these questions. I found Slevin's book together with Terje Rasmussen's dissertation Communication Technologies and the Mediation of Social Life utterly significant and reliable - close to Truth (their reference lists are not too different, lots of Giddens, Beck, Thompson, Bauman to name but a few). However, during my first PhD-course in Denmark I realized that there are other approaches to studying digital media (sort of exaggerating my prior ignorance to other perspectives). In charge of the course were Niels Brügger and Niels Ole Finnemann. I found, and still find, their discourse on media theory difficult, yet obviously interesting. Both of them emphasize the level of the media materiality and technical characteristics.

I'm getting to my point: In October 2001, James Slevin participated in a workshop with among others, Brügger and Finnemann, at the Centre for Internet Research, at the University of Aarhus. They discussed Slevin's book, and as a result, a booklet was published with critique of some of Slevin's arguments posed by Brügger and Finnemann (and Jakob Linaa Jensen), and answers to this critique by Slevin. Reading the essays I got a familiar feeling: although apparently speaking of the same subject, new media researchers do not necessarily talk the same language. I am not sure whether Brügger's comments to Slevin's absent writings of the materiality of the Internet are actually relevant for Slevin's project of developing a social theory of the Internet, and I am not sure whether Slevin in his response actually responds to Brügger's questions. Finnemann too, criticises Slevin for paying too little attention to the characteristics of the specific medium. To which Slevin answers that Finnemann on the other hand stresses only this one level: the mechanical and the technical. I am exaggerating. They all seemed to get a lot out of the workshop, and they all explicitly compliment each other.

Still, communication is difficult, even to researchers of media and communication.

Friday, July 09, 2004

best of tallinn

Best experiences from Tallinn: 1) The food in general: I really enjoyed the vegetarian dishes I ordered, especially what I was served at Olde Hansa: a plate of various tastes like pickled vegetables, beans, sour-craut, some kind of grains - briefly sweet and sour and more (It sort of reminds me of what I have ordered at Zetor in Helsinki). 2) More food: garlic-bread (sepik küüslauguvõidega), small toasted bits of rye bread smothered with oil and fresh garlic - my favourite beer snack from now on. 3) The picturesque Old Town obviously with its buildings, streets and churches; packed with tourists in the summer but who am I. 4) Peace and quiet. Oh, and I like the Cinema Palace in Tallinn, the cinema-chairs there are the best. I barely dare to say what movie we saw: Troy. But I proudly admit I enjoyed the spectacle. Or maybe my comfy-chair and tired legs fooled me.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Tallinn

I am in Tallinn, Estonia for a couple of days. I must admit I did not know what to expect, but it is definitely a tourist-trap with its beautiful Old Town. There is a lot of history to experience here. People dressing in Medieval clothing is a little too much for me though.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

mobiles and sexual practice

New results from the project Ung i Norge, this time an article appearing in the latest issue of The journal of the Norwegian medical association written by sociologist Willy Pedersen. The study focused on possible associations between the use of new communication technology and sexual behaviour among youth in Norway. The results are obviously very interesting for Norwegian media, especially as Pedersen found surprisingly strong correlations between heavy users of mobile phone mediated communication and percentage having had sexual intercourse. Reading the actual article gives you a more nuanced perspective than reading the newspapers though, and my initial questions concerning the study were answered. The associations between the variables remained significant when controlled for age and a range of contextual, family, peer and individual factors. I am pleased to see that Pedersen introduces other factors to explain the correlation, and I especially approve of the possible interpretation that youth who develop an intensive use of mobile phone mediated communication are the same youth who would have been characterized by stronger possibilities for sexual practice in any case. Pedersen is moreover conscious of the interplay between online and offline.