jill/txt

My Boyfriend is a Twat is acerbic as I suspect only Brits can be, hilarious in a frightening way, and also equipped with a annotated blogroll of other blogs that don’t mince words. Hell, they don’t even dice them.

Diane’s analysis of diet blogs (Feb 25) says a lot about blogs and narrative in general. Perhaps blogs require a narrative of change: “Once you’re no longer fitting into the category of “on a diet,” which has a built-in narrative structure, it can be hard to find a satisfying new story to tell yourself about who you are.” Perhaps life does. Or perhaps it’s simply the project blog (1, 2, 3), the makeover blog that requires change, whereas other blogs can be told from a position of stasis.

Now I’m done with the PhD, which certainly used to be a major thread in the narrative of this blog, is my blog less about change and progress, or have I merely substituted other goals and adventures? My “This season on Jill/txt” suggests the latter, a need for plot.

Hanna cites some descriptions of the commonplace books many readers used to keep, and some still keep. One of the descriptions proposes a completely different way of reading — a way of reading similar to today’s netsurfer-writer:

Interesting.

I’ve no time to read this now but it looks interesting: The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities. It’s a historical article, but not written in the conventional sequential way. It presents a summary, data, statements and ways of viewing it all. (via an Educause article that Matt linked to)

Some people are really into this Orkut thing. They create zillions of communities, stage fights, complain about the administration (in-Orkut discussion here) and blog their deletion from the system. They even propose an Orkut game, which could, in fact, be kind of interesting: “It involves creativity, risk, stealth and an active orkut.com account. You will be playing in secret and, if you play it right, nobody else on orkut.com will detect that you’re even playing.” Are you going to sign up for the beta testing?

There are makeover blogs, too, of course. Not merely The Date Project, but Tales of a Bathroom Scale or Searching for Mister Close to Right or Manhunting, possibly not recently updated because a man was found?

I just found a student lab full of eMacs in the basement of our building. I have no idea how its existence has managed to escape my attention.

Such a lovely sight in a world of PCs running Windows everywhere.

The University of Bergen now has a site subscription to Rhizome! That means that anyone (any one person at a time) on the University’s network can browse Rhizome’s art base and other information without paying an individual membership. Rhizome has a great database of art on the net, a good system for linking the website and community directory to the mailing lists, and there are useful discussions about the network in general too. They’d like more site subscriptions - perhaps your university library should be getting one?

There are other ways in. You can pay $5 a year, or you can visit on Fridays, when access is free.

Uh oh. It seems the Pentagon, no less, is warning that by 2020 Britain will be Siberian and abrupt climate changes will have brought the world to anarchy after or amid the upcoming climate wars.

Reading Scribblingwoman’s links to discussions on how blogging might be given credit as scholarship, I’m thinking that that paragraph in my job application letters about blogging might change a bit. Perhaps stats of readership and inwards links and some names of people who link to me would help convince a committee that this blogging thing of mine is something they need. Here are remarks from a dean about how he’d see blogging when assessing a current or prospective employee. Another discusses blogging as a form of academic service, like reviewing articles for a conference; yes, it is often this but it is more too. In Norwegian terms, blogging is often but not exclusively formidling, it’s popularisation, discussion between different groups in society. On the other hand, we’ve all heard something along the lines of Marylaine Block’s remark: “I was told repeatedly that if anything, web-based scholarly contributions were an impediment to success in academia.”

Orkut’s put up stats, showing the connectors (people most other people are most closely connected to), the celebrities and the stars. As Danah points out this probably won’t help build community, but it’s interesting seeing who’s listed. Clark, one of the US presidential candidates who’s now withdrawn from the race, is on there. His profile is being managed by Cameron Barrett, the man behind Blogdex, but still. Presidential candidates don’t just blog, they Orkut. Or get their employees to do it for them.

Though he didn’t win.

The Case of the Molndal Murder is a Swedish location-based narrative where your movements around a museum call up videos on your PDA, using Bluetooth to determine your location in space. There’s a simulation you can view on screen.