I hope that Mary can get me some duty free cosmetics - link –
non-prof health blogs… Thursday, Feb 8 2007
Uncategorized 11:26 pm
This blog is about vaccinations, and the right to choose. ‘Rob‘ is an American who is debating whether the US government has the right to prescribe vaccinations. But he quotes Megan who thinks that the ‘herd’ mentality of vaccinating is a good thing: that vaccinating “denys the virus a sufficient number of people to make a disease reservoir”. Rob uses strong statements: “we should be able to decide” and “they (vaccinations) should be opposed because…..”. He sites the government as an expert, but one that is not acting in the best interests of ‘the people’. “Once we allow the government to tell us which medicines to take they’ll take that inch and then demand another mile when it comes to the food we eat and the exercise we get. ” Which is a whole other discussion about government intervention, and the definition of health using the bio-western medical model.
What do you think?
reading 2 – Seely & Duguid Monday, Jan 15 2007
Uncategorized 2:47 am
This article seems to ask the question: is IP and/or knowlege able to be kept within desired parametres, or will it ‘leak’ out despite efforts to contain it? Didn’t really answer the question to my satisfaction; gave a few examples of knowlege going from organisation to organisation (ex Xerox to Apple), but as the topic was so vast, got bogged down in teminology. Gave a model of a cluster matrix that made little sense to me, and coined terms such as clustering and clustered ecologies. Talked about the frustrations companies have with encouraging innovation but at the same time, needing to think outside the square to use that innovation – and doesn’t happen easily. Questions whther the ‘firm’ is a dead prospect, and is that a good thing anyway. I didn’t get much from this article at all.
week 2: reading 1-Braun Monday, Jan 15 2007
Uncategorized 2:17 am
Having a husband who is a Business/sytems analyst who has been working with small and (very) large business systems, I found the teminologiy and ideas easy to understand and very interesting. Especially the comment that ” Strassman was unable to establish a relationship between company performance and computer expenditure. terminology: communities of practice – ie – one on one knowlege sharing, within informal groups very good concept – internal networking groups another one. Interesting that even as technology has grown, the outcome of a successful company still depends on the individual choosing to share knowlege (or not!). Knowlege flow model very good – makes sense.
3rd reading – Burnett Thursday, Jan 11 2007
Uncategorized 6:32 am
A good breakdown of ‘what goes on’ on the Internet. At times it was stating the obvious, but overall a good summary. I liked the heading then sub heading format – made alot of sense. Measured realationships and then behaviour. His comment on ‘berry-picking’ that is, people situating themselves within information neighbourhoods for the purpose of ‘accidentally’ getting the information they were originally looking for, is an interesting concept but not one that I think was well argued. Surely this is simply looking for information – whether it is quickly found, or whether the ’seeker’ has a general or specfic aim isn’t relevant. A good point is that each community emphasizes its own patterns of interaction, and sets its own norms and expectations; I’d like to explore this by finding specific examples. He defines non interactive behaviours such as ‘lurking’ – for example 50% of messages written by 1% of (community) population and interactive behaviours such as posting are broken down further into hostile(flaming/trollling/spamming) and positive (neutral/humourous/empathetic) behviours. All of these behaviours were not orientated towards information gathering and other information gathering behaviour (announcements/queries/projects) resulted from being very embedded in the virtual community of choice. Article had some good facts, but I found it a little pretentious.
first reading Wednesday, Jan 10 2007
Uncategorized 12:50 am
Not really sure of the requirements for this blog, but it seems that there is q requirment for comments on the readings and lectures. So here are some thoughts on the first reading
(but before I start, this concept of critically anaylsing course content in such a ‘non-academic’ way, ie – in a colloquial fashion, doesn’t sit easily and, outside the strict writing framework, I’m not sure what ‘the rules’ are. Are there any?)
The first reading -Barkardjeiva - impossibly wordy at times, and, as a first reading, introducing so many theories that I was tempted to look through the rest of the readings to reassure myself that it wasn’t all going to be a heavy as this. The task of defining, was seems to be indefinable, also seemed to depend on ones perspective.
Willers talks about groups ‘which have no voice, but which will nevertheless be affected by it’. I think this is an important point which I’d be interested in exploring, but no examples are given. The different approaches/theories are all united by the idea that the user and the environment are constantly flexible and changing entities, but the degree to which one influences the other are where the theories diverge. The concept that technology is not neutral was introduced to me in my last course, Media and Propaganda, is a very interesting premise. After reading the ‘story’ of how eBay was born and has grown to be the internet trading giant that we know today, Werry’s (1999) observation on the how virtual communities are built by users is also interesting to me. The ‘script analysis’ approach proposed by Akrich is a good, if not simplistic explanation of how technology can be seen as a type of text – I liked it. I also particularly Woolgars idea of ‘configuring the user’ – that in having preconceptions about the user, the producer of technology ‘determines’ how the user will interact with the technology, and if the user chooses (as he/she is always free to do) NOT to use the technology in that way, (in a non-preferred way), there is a cost to the user, that is, more effort and resources are required than if the technology was used in the preferred way. This is a form of determinism that really made sense to me.Having found some interesting ideas in the reading, the last chapter got very wordy again and I almost lost the will to live.
first 245 lecture Monday, Jan 8 2007
Uncategorized 11:37 pm
I use the internet on a ‘need-only’ basis, so this course is going to stretch me in a huge way! I knew this, and am apprehensive about it, although looking forward to it. Today was full-on, and I’m hoping that it will not continue at the same info-intensive rate. Like many courses, I understand that theory is important to set a foundation. I would like more opportunities to discuss and challenge and to receive feedback from Mary on our comments rather than just asking us what we think, and then moving on with her lecture. I’m under no illusions that I will have to put in alot of time between lectures to keep up with things.
Hello world! Monday, Jan 8 2007
Uncategorized 11:16 pm
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