As I begin (along with "Aaron Zinman":http://web.media.mit.edu/~azinman/) to create the framework for a new reading group at the Lab (tentatively titled _In Situ_ ) that will offer cross-, multi-, and inter-disciplinary analysis of technology, I'm encouraged by a previous experience of this sort over 16 years ago entitled the "Narrative Intelligence Reading Group". An account of their experiences was presented in a paper in 1999: "A Brief Overview of the Narrative Intelligence Reading Group":http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~mateas/nidocs/DavisTravers.pdf : bq. As early graduate students in the Media Lab, we were faced with trying to synthesize an intellectual framework in which we could situate our work. The desire of the founders and early members of NI to create a common discourse and practice connecting artificial intelligence and literary theory also stemmed from a growing frustration with the limits of our respective disciplines in their ability to inform the analysis, design, and construction of computational media. bq. After several years of overcoming our disciplinary prejudices and habits, what did eventually emerge was a new type of interdisciplinary methodology for Narrative Intelligence. The primary breakthrough occurred in our developing ways to interleave and cross-pollinate theory (analysis of texts, people, and computational systems) with practice (creating new forms of computational media). By having read, discussed, and critiqued each other’s core texts, we were able to develop a common discourse that supported a dialectic between the theoretical frameworks we inherited from artificial intelligence and literary theory and our practical experience of analyzing and building computational media systems. They offer a detailed list of readings covered, many of which we can probably use in our group as well. The list of people involved in the group, given as a set of acknowledgments at the end of the paper, includes many who are quite influential in media studies and AI today.

Via "purse lip square jaw":http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/2006/07/mediacommons.php : The "Institute for the Future of the Book":http://www.futureofthebook.org just launched a new project entitled "Media Commons":http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2006/07/introducing_mediacommons_or_ti.html, an attempt to bring scholarly discourse into a "scholarly network" through development of new means for creating and reading scholarly works. While I agree in principle with the desire to revamp the means of academic production, I have a number of worries, highlighted below. bq. This need has grown for any number of systemic reasons, including the substantive and often debilitating time-lags between the completion of a piece of scholarly writing and its publication, as well as the subsequent delays between publication of the primary text and publication of any reviews or responses to that text. I have seen this argument raised often in the cry for new forms of publishing. However, I have not seen evidence that the problem actually exists. In the neurosciences (at least in my experience, _caveat lector_) there is not this incessant call for speed in publishing: true, researchers worry about being "scooped" by others working on similar problems, but this does not seem to be the concern that is raised by the quote. Rather, I read in it a worry that the topics on which media studies authors write might become stale before they receive feedback. I am sure that I am missing something here, since what I just articulated would suggest that the pieces were journalistic rather than depth-treading. Not that I disagree with having regular, immediate feedback as to our work; yet I regularly worry about the need for speed that underlies these requests. bq. Such openness and interconnection will also allow us to make the process of scholarly work just as visible and valuable as its product; readers will be able to follow the development of an idea from its germination in a blog, though its drafting as an article, to its revisions, and authors will be able to work in dialogue with those readers, generating discussion and obtaining feedback on work-in-progress at many different stages. Because such discussions will take place in the open, and because the enormous time lags of the current modes of academic publishing will be greatly lessened, this ongoing discourse among authors and readers will no doubt result in the generation of many new ideas, leading to more exciting new work. I question the connection between shortening time lags and the "generation of many new ideas". Like my concerns highlighted in the previous paragraph, I do not see immediately how increased speed leads directly to better ideas. Given the difficult and detailed arguments of scholarly discourse, sometimes time is exactly what is needed to understand, internalize, and react to new ideas. Along the same lines, I also question the belief that better work comes through "open" discussion; in fact, I would suggest, although I can't prove, that much of what we term as "great" pieces of philosophy would not have come about had they been worked on in the public eye: the ideas, the radical thoughts toned down due to feedback from peers. We are not speaking of the methods of peer review here, which exist to help find errors in quantitative logic; rather, we deal with a _qualitative_ logic at times, where the rules and the assumptions cannot be entirely agreed upon. I agree in part with Serres, where in an interview with Latour, he says, "What makes for advancement in philosophy, and also in science, is inventing concepts, and this invention always takes place in solitude, independence, and freedom---indeed, in silence." (_Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time_, p. 37) (As an aside, my copying of the above quote highlighted a present technical problem that will haunt academic discourse, unless we decide to change our conventions: I just copied and pasted that paragraph from the linked post, yet it lost the _emphasis_ on the words "process" and "product" in the first sentence. While this might be immaterial to the quoted example, in other contexts, where these subtle choices of typographical highlighting are crucial to the point of the argument, the visual loss might lead to interpretations not intended. Thus for academic discourse, which does often rely on nuance, such technical hurdles (softened slightly, I hate to admit, by word processors such as Word which preserve formatting in pasted excerpts) need to be dealt with.) bq. Moreover, because participants in the network will come from many different perspectives -- not just faculty, but also students, independent scholars, media makers, journalists, critics, activists, and interested members of the broader public -- MediaCommons will promote the integration of research, teaching, and service. This relates directly to a post by Anne Galloway discussing the special problems of "generalisation and inter- and multi-disciplinary work":http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/2006/07/specialisation-and-cosmopolitics.php. I wrote there, and still contend, that perfect translation between different disciplines is not possible, and that the person who straddles or works between boundaries acts as a mediator and lives in a space of continual cognitive dissonance, with conflicting modes and means of discourse. I worry that a stated attempt at "integration" is not only doomed from the start, but is contrary to what we actually want. Instead of integration, why not _nesting_? Instead of trying to tie everything together in a neat, enlightenment-influenced package, why not focus on multiple understandings, from a variety of perspectives, realizing some will always disagree, some will always agree, and that total integration will merely eliminate the differences that are so interesting, that give life to a multitude of disciplines. Finally, regarding this entire endeavor, I worry about the issue of time: not only the archival-or-not status of these texts, but also the time need to read, digest, post, comment, revise, collaborate, and publish (and this is for only one text!). This same issue has been brought up recently on the iDC list in the context of "participation":http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2006-July/000548.html in "list cultures":http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2006-July/000547.html. I also worry about what I crudely call the "bathroom" test: can I make comments on this piece of scholarly work while sitting in the bathroom? Substitute bathroom for any other non-desk place and you see my point. Until I have the easy means to mark up a text, to write in the margins, without having to use a keyboard or a mouse, and which affords me at least as many options as pencil/pen and paper, I will not use such an annotation system on a regular basis. I worry that whatever the underlying technology of Media Commons, the same practical problems will haunt it, just like any other collaborative, annotation-type system that has been developed. Even with all of my criticisms, I am glad to see that some are working on the problem, and I wish them the best of luck: something like this will happen, incorporating answers to these and other's criticisms, and enabling a certain transformation of scholarly work.

I've recently moved to a new location near Davis Square in Somerville, quite close to a number of my favourite haunts ("Diesel Cafe":http://www.diesel-cafe.com/main.html (flash warning), "Someday Cafe":http://boston.citysearch.com/profile/4751852/, and "McIntyre and Moore":http://www.mcintyreandmoore.com/ (another flash warning, and for the main navigation as well!)). My new place apartment didn't have network access, and for the first day or so it was okay, as there was an open wireless spot nearby. That disappeared by my second day (even though it had been working fine for months, according to my new apartmentmate). So the next few days were without network access, which I have to say was quite a nice change: coming home from work and not constantly checking my e-mail, or reading web pages, a relief from the constant connectivity of the Lab. Yet I realized that as much as I enjoyed the absence from the wired world, I knew that I required it because of being at the Lab. Thus came my search for new broadband options, limited to simply cable or DSL. I quickly dismissed cable access, as it would cost over $40 a month, whereas DSL was only $20/mo. from...Verizon. Yes, I have decided to sign up for a company whose business practices I despise. Yet there are not really any other options (I know that I could choose a provider like "Covad":http://covad.com, yet I would still need local access from Verizon). Unlike most other times when I do these things, I actually read (skimmed) through their terms of service, finding some rather disturbing passages: bq. 2. Verizon reserves the right to deny Service to you, or immediately to terminate your Service for material breach, if your use of the Service or your use of an alias or the aliases of additional users on your account, whether explicitly or implicitly, and in the sole discretion of Verizon: ... (d) is objectionable for any reason; ... "Objectionable for any reason"? This of course means that they could terminate my account for posting political views that they do not agree with, even if they are legal. bq. 3. You may NOT use the Service as follows: ... (j) to damage the name or reputation of Verizon, its parent, affiliates and subsidiaries, or any third parties; ... So, once I actually have DSL access at home, the posting of this post might be cause for me to be in violation of Verizon's acceptable use policy (AUP). This is all part of a contact that I must "sign" before receiving their service. There was a time when contracts were made between people sitting across of the table; yes, it was formally between the person and the company, but the company was represented by a person whom you could see, touch, and talk to. Now my contract is between myself and a system, an agent to which I can talk, but which will not talk back to me. Before, at least in my limited understanding of this, if I did not like the terms of the contract, I could discuss them with the person (working on behalf of the company) and come to some agreement about changing the disputed items. Now, I have no chance to offer new options, to suggest ways that the contract might be better for me, as the customer. (Isn't it sad that that last sentence feels absurd in today's climate?) When did contracts become something that we couldn't negotiate over, when they became as if chiseled in rock? Yet that rock is merely an artifice, as the company has access to its materiality and can re-form it anytime it wants. We are given commandments to follow; their truth is taken for granted. We must accept on faith the words that the company provides to us, assuming (in our naïve view) that they cannot be changed. We have no recourse, except writing posts such as this (which might, in a draconian instance, cause us to be in breach of the contract we do not agree with). Wikis and collaborative software are not the answer to all of these problems, but I wonder how a group of people would modify the AUP to fit the needs of the user, while trying to balance business and statutory requirements.

Along main street, the pointless decorative flags flap with captured fury; I cautiously arrange my umbrella so it doesn't feel the same anger. The rain mutates from drop to pellet, ignoring the will of the Earth to fall straight down, sometimes being pushed to the side by the same fury. But at some point the drop-pellets become a clear mass of liquid, deceptively deep in places. Instead of going "as the bird flies", I detour to the left, to the right, unconscious straightness morphing into unconscious curves—not for exploration's sake, but because I don't trust the waterproofing of my black leather boots; already the tread has worn smooth in parts. All I do is walk at least two miles a day in them, on concrete. "Worker's boots" they are called, the bourgeoisie in me shouldn't push them so close to uselessness in only three quarters of a year. These are the days that even though the facts suggest global warming; even though the calendar says June; even though commencement is soon; I cherish the regression to the days of March. As long as this continues, I can put off my continual grumbling about the weather. I finished yesterday _The Deleuze Connections_; more on that in a later post. I also began and finished recently _Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health_ by the "Critical Art Ensemble":http://www.critical-art.net/. I'm going to work on a grown-up "book report", known as a _book review_, soon. Perhaps I will publish it here, or perhaps I will try and shop it places; who knows. In the end, however, the listlessness I feel in my research is the only reason I have the time to read these things. At some point I need to latch onto something for an extended period of time. I have ideas, but I await responses before unknowingly walking into the chasm. Perhaps in the meantime I can let these softly-formed thoughts fly around inside my head, and focus on what others consider to be more concrete. Maybe if I choose one question a day, and see what I can find out about it. Of course I can't cover everything, but enough to be conversant. So: is tonality innate in humans? Can you _recognize_ emotions in music, or do you experience them? What is known about relationship-forming in creative groups? _Etc._ Overarching, the need to combine these things with technological things of my own making.