Sunday, 10th December, 2006

Geograph British Isles

An attempt to photograph every square kilometre of the country — I rather like this — in concept, if not UI elegance. There are some squares blank near me, so I might sign up and help out

I, Avatar : Constructions of Self and Place in Second Life

"We ought to be much less concerned about whether something is virtual or actual and more interested in the type of virtuality possessed by certain actualities" — just something I've been reading through over the past few days

The modern tendency to create dichotomies between mind/body, nature/culture, human/machine and reality/virtuality is problematic in that it encourages fear of technology as well as fantasies of transcendence like the The Ultimate Display. Likewise, Stewart and Nicholls prefer a phenomenological approach that "insists that the space inhabited by human beings is partly defined by our distinctive form of embodiment. The space in which we act, as Erwin Straus puts it, is an expansion of our 'body scheme'" (Stewart & Nicholls, 2002, p. 87). In this way, avatars become extensions of self within virtual space where interactivity, creativity and commerce can derive real meaning rather than simply being a Cartesian mind loosed in the ether. But the nagging question remains: what does it mean to be oneself?

A question, I feel, best answered through the medium of dinosaurs!

To Tag Or Not To Tag

Sorry, just had a bit of a thought regarding the organisation of this whole thing.

I don't, you might have noticed, tag the things that I write about. This isn't because I disapprove of the practice — in fact, I think it's a lovely thing to do, in that it aids navigation and encourages some kind of order (although what makes a "tag" different from a "keyword" is still beyond me )

No, it's because the home-grown nature of this blog means that I never really thought about about tagging when I was first developing it — and the prospect of going back through 1000+ (I just counted them) days of writing and tagging each post within them (considerably more) always seemed like a daunting task

Also, I've not — in the space of two years (since it first occurred to me to be a nice idea) — ever thought of a way of continuing the conceptual 'flat text', er, concept.

The closest I came to it, was the (now not working) 'tag cloud' thing that I did — which was a bit of a cheat because it was really a word-count. But not everyone liked that...

Anyway, the reason this popped into my head, was because I was looking at the two posts above this — both of which came in via my del.icio.us-scraping script — and I wondered whether I should indicate that somehow. Like by putting a little icon beside the titles.

And then I thought, maybe I should do the same for Flickr posts — you know, put the Flickr favicon next to them.

(Which has changed recently BTW. Did anyone else spot that?)

And then I thought, maybe I could form seperate RSS feeds for things — a del.icio.us-only feed; a Flickr-only feed; a comments-only feed; a posts-only feed ... which brought me back to the idea of tagging, and the suggestion that I somehow subjectify the things that I write about into categories, so (for example) you could subscribe to a tranny-only feed, or a Second Life-only feed.

AND THEN I remembered that all of that would go profoundly against the notion of continuum that I seem to recall having stated somewhere as being one of the driving concepts behind what it is that I do — and decided that my desire to have pretty little icons all over the place should give way to my desire for some semblance of 'principle.

So I stuck the kettle on instead

Yes, um, well, I'm trying not to let it go to my head

Annoyances

Yous'll have to excuse me, I'm in a bit of a bad mood at the moment.

I'm having a bit of a frustrating time just right now. I mentioned before that this year seems to have been a bit shite — that last six months anyway — and despite there being sunny skies just around the corner, I can't help but feel that as this 'bad spell' finally draws to a close, it's doing so in a hideously scrappy and irritating poo way.

Let me just try and sum the whole thing up by comparing what I'd like to be doing this evening with what's actually going on right now.

In an ideal world, I'd have my bag packed already — all set for the final week of term. It's quite an interesting one this week — as well as doing an improptu Second Life demo for some of the staff (which I'll explain in a little bit), I'm helping out with the end-of-term presentations for Level One, which means lots of activity, DVD burning, and (more importantly) the chance to see all the work that's been going on and the ensuing sense of "Ah, some of it has sunk it" that usually follows.

The Second Life demo isn't quite as cool as I was hoping (and this is the first — but tiniest — of the annoyances) in that I'd initially planned to be at home tomorrow, thus demonstrating the 'being there, but not being there' aspect to it by contributing to the session whilst sitting at home in my panties.

But because of the Level One thing, I'm going to have to simulate that by hiding in my office all day, and pretending that I'm at home...

...in my panties.

Anyway, sorry — bags packed ready for the week. That's where I was ... Also, right this second, I'd like to be swanning around the house in something frothy with a glass of red in my hand, hair just washed, preparing for Torchwood then bed with perhaps a bit of reading or mindless telly in between.

Actually, I think that would be my perfect evening right there, summed up in three words — prepared, pampered and pissed.

But, leaving out the SL demo thing ('cos it's not really that much of a hassle), the reality of this evening, is disorganised, dishevelled and dry.

...

Having said that — and before I start into a self-pitying lament about trivial things — this is, perhaps, one aspect of transvestism that's a complete boon at times like this.

It would be very easy for me to lie here on the sofa, internally whinging about stuff, and — before I knew it — it would be way past midnight, I'd still not packed or washed my hair ... and I'd get up in the morning all stressed and flustery.

But the promise of putting on a dress — which I just can't do while looking like shit — is enough, I think, to haul me upstairs and sort my fucking head out.

...

Sorry — that was a really crap post. I might try and compensate later by filming the really weird thing Biscuit has started doing with the water from the tap in the kitchen (if I can get a chance to film it)

For some reason, she's totally lost the plot recently

Well, I mean, "doing weird things in the kitchen sink" and "shitting on the front doormat" don't really qualify as "losing the plot"...

...but you get my drift.

That reminds me — did you see this?

Dr Anderson has also solved the mind/body problem, and his Book of Paragon "shows that the perspective simplex, or perspex, is a simple physical thing that is both a mind and a body". He has also reinvented computing [...]

Ben Goldacre has more on it.

They would if it was you who started doing them

True, but I poo in the back yard to show them how it should be done. I have no idea where she picked up the 'doormat' idea from

CBBC

Um, hello

Tonight's was lovely though

I thought it was pants, personally.

bugger me if you hadn't already.

Two minutes into it. I actually paused it to do that

And you called me a nerd.

I did, and I take it back

I'll take that as a good sign as [...]

Also, bear in mind that I'm a cynical, wisened old bitch, who takes the notion of sentimentality as something to vom over

Remind me, BTW, to add "an ineffectual Welsh ghost" to the Torchwood Snogometer when I get back from Leeds.

Note To Self

No really. Ignore this.

In the morning, you will need to find:

1. Clean pants

2. Clean socks of some description (stockings will do)

3. That cash you left somewhere. Probably your pocket.

4. The DVDs on your shelf that look a bit shit, but hey — your stash at work has been pilfered

5. Somewhere to sleep

A few have been slipping through the net recently. I'm going to have to update my spam-blocking stuff