Yet another proposal I just submitted a minute ago in reply to a call-for-papers. The hellish thing with sent-in abstracts is that they sometimes are accepted. And then you indeed have to write up the paper or article you suggested. Nowadays the Internet and its subsidiary, the World Wide Web, constitute conceptual spaces for rich human communication and interaction. The still growing technology-based possibilites for human action mediated online seemingly render this spaces in certain respects evermore similar to the offline world. It can be tentatively stated that seen from the emic vantage point of many users the whole … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: August 2006
Within its comparatively short time span of existence, ↑cyberpunkreview.com developed to be a genuine premium resource on cyberpunk and related issues. There is not only the vast collection of reviews, which was expanded from movie-reviews to including game- and literature-reviews as well, at its main page, but the ↑virtual meatspace quickly became a highly interesting forum, carrying some high-calibre discussions. I am especially entranced by the discussion-thread ↑Cyberpunk Narrative started by ↑illusivemind, dealing with the issue of cyberpunk being postmodern literature or not—and what good classifications like that do at all. In my view during the discussion again striking similarities … Continue reading
If I remember correctly it was back in 1987 that I was in Lhasa for the last time. Unfortunately [?] during my “career” my original regional focus, Karakoram and the Himalayas, somehow went out of sight and I defected to cyberanthropology. Now tech culture journalist and co-editor of ↑boingboing ↑Xeni Jardin travelled “to the top of the world to learn how ancient cultures adapt to a new, interconnected world while still holding on to their sacred traditions.” Seen from my anthropologer’s vantage point I’d jettison the “adapt” and would phrase the statement a bit differently, but we get the … Continue reading
The ↑webcomic above is copyrighted by ↑David Malki ! and to be found at ↑wondermark.com … “Although he is an experienced artist and graphic designer, David does not draw the figures in Wondermark; rather, they are culled from a variety of 19th-century primary sources courtesy of the Rare Books Dept. at the Los Angeles Central Library, as well as his own ever-growing collection.” via entry at boingboing … Continue reading
a sports-journalist’s biased commentary Last night 100-metres-men Olympic champion Merton Fuller was belatedly disqualified because of the results of a “doping test” done within the hour after his triumph. Inside one of the joints of his prosthetic augmentation a silicon-based “banned lubricant” was discovered. The tragedy of the case lies in the fact that none of the lubricant’s ingredients is to be found on the list of banned substances. Neither is the composition of the lubricant illegal. This is little wonder as there is no list of banned substances since 01 January 2020. So, what happened yesterday evening? … Continue reading
the mystery of the broken bicycle tyre inflator The uncanny breaks into everyday-life spontaneously and unpredictably. Today it hit me for the third time. The first two instances were “The riddle of the vanished filling station attendant” and “The amazing locked away broken flask” which I may relate at a later date. In both cases it took me quite some time to construct satisfying explanations for the events experienced. For today’s phenomenon I still completely lack an explanation. This morning I rode by bicycle to the office. Early on my way I realized that there was way too less air … Continue reading
Back in May I in here summed up a part of the ↵situation at my institute, especially describing the situation of the Lehrbeauftragte. Today I read oneman’s ↑“Living and Teaching in the Information Economy” which perfectly complements my experiences and observations. See also ↑“The “Informal Economy” of the Information University” by Marc Bousquet, to which oneman refers. Well, I do neither adjunct nor part-time labor at the university, as the Lehrbeauftragte do, but am a Wissenschaftlicher Assistent, the German equivalent to an assistant professor struggling for tenure. So my situation is decidedly different, but … please read Thomas Eriksen’s tremendously … Continue reading
After so many shiny weeks with brilliant steel-blue sky and burning sun in a row the heat finally is gone and an eternal seeming downpour has taken its place. But it’s sunday and I nevertheless undertook a lengthy stroll along the river. Lots of new graffiti to be seen. I’ll continue my stroll in a minute or so—eternally. … Continue reading
night of the living dead When hell is full the anthropologists will return to Earth—good gracious, we all look like straight out of “Doom III”. Amazing what some months of coursework can do to people … UPDATE: dusk till doom ethnoparty photoshop contest—mix and r.i.p. Well, it’s not my fault, I only had a look at the ↑photos taken at the last ethnoparty and unwillingly associations with the computergame “Doom III” and the movie “From Dusk Till Dawn” came up. So I sat down, gathered some eerie portraits and made the composite picture seen above. ↑2R saw it, fired … Continue reading
a do-it-yourself guide to the future Brooks Landon’s 1993 article ↑Hypertext and science fiction, a review of Branwyn, Sugarman, et al.’s 1991 HyperCard classic ↑“Beyond Cyberpunk! A Do-It-Yourself Guide to the Future” [ah yes, it’s available on the Web meanwhile] starts with a gorgeous rant I just have to quote almost in full: Better add “hypertext” either to the list of words you’ve already heard waaaay too many times or to the list you know you’ll be hearing waaaay too many times in years to come. You know the list; top-heavy with “de-” and “post-” prefixes, it has recently … Continue reading