some celebrate the 1st of may at work, dancing and enjoying themselves.

evil mouse about the project

photo from sandbox.randomactdesign

it's getting closer, and closer, and it's not the smell of chese that could make any mouse happy.
it's the light at the end of the tunnel.
papers are piling up in my room, while cat sleeps wherever she feels like. [it's not the first time i've noticed that she must be the happiest family member of all.]

this entry is about the evil mouse, that is ME, and the project on blogging. i guess, men could say it's like a woman: always changing, and terribly moody. yes, i've had to deal with this feminine project for some time now, and we still have to guess eachother from time to time.

i have a friend who works for a tiny company in germany, calibrating measuring machines of all sorts. and he told me once: machines are like men and women. some are loud, moody, and you have to work a lot to fix them, others are silent, stubborn and won't tell you a thing about their problems. well, i can perfectly understand his point. just like this blogging project: the blogosphere is so loud, so moody, so hard to guess, so unstable, that sometimes i feel like i will never reach the end. there are so many buttons to push, and turn, and wheels to stear, and screws, and pins, and yes - tons, and tons of patience - :D
but now i've got the right thread in my hands, and i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
the breeze on the other side smells delicious...

^^

shouting it lound!

the 3 most important things in my life:
thing nr. 1
thing nr. 24
thing nr. 73

though the order is not strict. may i have more?

i wonder why 3, and why putting them on a list in the center of the city.
maybe because someone believes that this bellybutton of the grey, and dusty bucharest has enough spiritual energy to make wishes come true.


this is the initiative taken by a television chanel - realitatea tv - as an attempt to make the needs of the people heared, actually read:

"forget about politics. and the politicians. think about yourself. write down three important things in your life!"


to me it seemed hilarious, some sort of "mary & john sitting in a tree" burst of discourse. but looking at the comments on their website, it looks like there are some serious things going on:

free press, no corruption, down with the politicians!, a normal country, health, family, democracy, freee press again etc.
i wonder why these things would be on the top of the list for anyone. i do care about them all, but if this initiative hadn't come on a shaky political ground, the answers could have been different. we all know these things, but ranking them on the first places in life, gives to politics the rights of an invited intruder who should never rule our own world.

other cases:
3 most important things in life, when in traffic:
1. free press
2. no corruption
3. democracy

3, when brushing teeth
1. a normal country!
2. democracy
3. no corruption

3, when walking the dog:
1. down with the politicians!
2. free press
3. a normal country

3, when drunk:
1. fr98y98eeee prrrrrresydoisss
2. \[058m=3797485
3. 98w457'sgj[0tu

anyway,
so where do these lists go to?

Walking - talking

18th of may, walking and talking about blogging, in amsterdam.

BlogWalkEleven

the walking-talking part may be as old as the time [i would like to say hello to mr. greek people, and their wise men];
as i was saying, as old as the time, but as refreshing as a lemonade while having nice talks, and enjoying the spring.

hackers' camp of great anthropological interest

planning the vacation will be easy this year.
because i found the perfect place for starting an "animal planet" research.
it's not whatever jungle, desert or big city, it's the
Chaos Communication Camp - a Chaos Computer Club hackers' camp - at finowfurt, close to berlin.

it's the place with the following on the discussion list:

+flying and non-flying autonomous robots
+security, encryption and anonymity
+software projects
+technologies for the day after the climate change
+rapid prototyping and fabbing
+software and hardware for disaster-resistant infrastructure
+bringing broadband to the countryside
+politics and propaganda
+anti-crowd-control tactics and technologies
+lock picking
+alternative energy systems
+citizen surveillance, data mining technologies, and social networks
+data forensic methods
+all things radio (preferably digital)
+self-sustaining and -reproducing hardware
+pollution free transport systems
+hacker anthropology and sociology of the scene
+flying cars, saucers and carpets
+42
+tesla generators
+telecommunication technologies
+FPGA based analysis
+military technologies
+all kinds of voting computers
+ebooks
+satellites and rockets
(and countermeasures against all of the above).


since all it's just chinese, except here and there, i will stick to the animal planet approach, and subscribe for the hacker anthropology in-depth studies.

so, there will be 5 days of hacker watching, and behaviour observing, of meeting the chief of the tribes, smoking the peace pipe with them, and eventually meeting their kids, and women. this way the rest of the world will know:
the eating, sleeping, breeding, time wasting, creating, inventing, destroying, planning, self cleaning habits of the hacker, this odd anthropological invention of our computer times.

happy hacker's week --> 8 - 12 august 2007

^^

Agreed to help ^^

i've made a list of all those who agreed to help me with the project.

big thanks!

next

[upgrading soon with photos ]

re:publica 3

3rd day is over, and the whole story of blogging goes back inside the computer, behind the keyboard, like some sort of genie back in the bottle.
there is a victorious feeling of having conquered the virtual world, since the early hours of the morning. we are then announced, again, that old media is dead, and that the internet will eventually eat us all. journalists are complaining of the old fashioned design of newspapers that used to surf on the big wave. it's not only me who notices, but it's someone else who points it out: what is actually so good about the new media that is so bad about the old ones? as i get it, it's more a question of methodology, since the overall feeling is that there are arguments missing, there are empirical results missing, there is the academical approach missing.

of course, it was a conference of "how do you dos", of getting to know ourselves non virtually, of non virtual interaction. still, there is a feeling of dissapointment: there have been so many great ideas, so many good observations, so many slides spent, and so little empirical argumentation! the feeling of having noticed certain fenomena in the blogoshpere has to be proved, and studied. else we'll move around feelings, opinions, and other forms of uncertain expression of the reality.

which brings me to the conclusion that this was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship, whilst the research on communication, on interaction through blogging, on the sociology, and anthropology of the blogger are now to come.

i guess that johnny from www.spreeblick.com came up with a very nice conlcusion, a little bit of a paradox: after debating over the new media - old media opposition, he announced that since the blog spreeblick has been so succesful over the past years, they thought about giving us its new printed version. classy(c), or?

re:publica 2

there are good reasons why i didn't write this blog yesterday, after the 2nd gathering of the great senat of the re:publica. some of them include finally getting to see parts of berlin, and meeting old friends over a coffee.
i am always surprized by the lively atmosphere of this city, and i try now to catch that as much as i can, since last time when i was here, i barely had time for shopping for my basic needs.

as about yesterday's presentations, i could say that they keep the diversity alive: from pleasant surprizes concerning what the inquisition does to those heretic bloggers who harm copyrights over whatever immaterial informational belongings, to unprepared discussions on very interesting topics like measuring the blogs' relevance, plus all in between, fluid talks and no silent moments, cooling systems snoozing in the background, keyoards tacataca, and recorded presentations for podcasting them later.

after that, just the noises of the city, the silence of the broken windows of the tacheles house (http://super.tacheles.de/cms/), the graffitties, the sand in the backyard, the boats on the spree, and again, the feeling of being placed in the right spot.

re:publica 1

I'm between the presentations and I have a first impression of having come to the right place.
Even though just a 3rd of the first day has passed, I got into the spirit and enjoy myself among this paradoxical swarm of blogging men. As presented already by Jan Schmidt from the University of Bamberg, 66% of bloggers are women. Which also led someone from the RBB to ask me what I am doing here. Curiosity and fun :D + a lillebitofwork.

Funny idea from the organizers: putting an extra shield for questions during the presentations, with the foxy comment "we've thought about those who don't enjoy speaking in public, so please feel free to sms the question to this number and it will be shown on the screen".
Tricky choice though, as the screen got bombarded with lots of comments, ranging from the most innocent of "Little Phillip got lost, parents please contact the organizers", to the spam attitudes of "viagra, taxes holdem, FREE RINGTONES". Actually noone asked any questions over this sms service, which proved again, that contrary to the commom belief, just as Jan had pointed out, bloggers are neither overweighted men in their early 30s, nor people who can't address a question publicly!
Another myth has died, let's burry it with respect.

i was browsing on neville hobson's page when i got to this list with some communication conferences in europe he will attend this year. greato! the geek inside showed big grin, and big eyes. so i clicked and saw great list of great men and women, from great companies with great smiles.
just as i was about to register myself on the list of great attendants, i saw this weird text on the page:

now, why would anyone waste the energy to add a third option that leads to nowhere, except to an error on the page. Geez! totally off a normal pshycological thinking path. unexpectedly, it got me the bad feeling of being excluded form an inhouse party which is wrong to be so exclusivist................. so i am asking myself pensively: why are there such huuuuuge price differences between 2 conferences on similar topics, with similar smart, curious and interesting people? the one in berlin has a student's price of 60 euro. this one in belgium of 1,800 [i think it's the better coffee, and cookies]. i think it's pretty unfair to keep the knoledge in the house, since new ideas swarm mostly outside the walls.

anyway, i should be happy with the ticking of the 3rd question. i haven't been to the conference, but i've proudly been on their website. hurray!

^^

re:publica 07

i am usually listening to the radio while doing the translations for my part-time job.

radio fritz - good music and funny comments --> http://www.fritz.de/_/hoeren/index_jsp.html

yesterday, between 2 nasty comments and 3 punk singles, i heared about this conference in berlin, called

leben im netz - living in the internet --> http://re-publica.de/info/

where there will be 3 days of presentations, workshops and discussions on blogging, podcasting, wikis, rights, politics, wrongs, law and whatever passes through their crazy minds. The schedule is pretty full, 90% of the talks - in german, but what a nice location, what super duper topics, lots of speakers, big teams, i counted about 70 people talking. i will move there, between the 11th and the 13th of april, in the internet too, i will actually do that once i am done with my paper. i miss my second life, cos the second time i went there was some months ago, i forgot how i look like. what a pitty i have just one life to run them both.

the blogs in the new media era

-a qualitative research on the role of the blogs in public relations-


data about the project:

how i got here: it must have been one of the rooftop sessions in berlin, when i was looking for inspiration.


what hit me: blogs could make a tempting theme for my project, but they seem such tricky creatures..


so, what i did next: i went to the library to tame the beast.


after researching for some time: i got to this idea that blogs could be those means of communication, closest to the win-win theory of grunig, grunig&dozier i had studied some time ago.


to prove this idea: i thought of applying an interview to company representatives on one hand, and to the future or present clients, both team's members being active bloggers.


my big hope and guess: blogs will actually prove to support a 2 way, symmetrical communication, with lots of feedbacks and negociacions of a win-win position.


declaration of affection: this paper is extremely catching, and i write it with great passion.


^^ ptzai