Sunday, August 30, 2009

Desert Tortoise: Harbin as Commune, Countercultural Funkiness, Loving Bliss

Harbin as commune ... How? It is ... and it's funkiness is countercultural ...


*

It's also exploratory


**

I'm curious about codes for, and neurophsyiology of, loving bliss there ...

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Hot Sun: Home Warms in the Heat of the Sun, Harbin



Hot Sun


Home warms
in Canyon
in the heat
of the sun.

Summertime travel
to Harbin
for the waters ~

after the Contact jam
in Berkeley :)





















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/hot-sun-home-warms-in-heat-of-sun.html - August 29, 2009)

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Alligators: Neural Cascades of Pleasure, These 'gators are Struttin,' Mike Marshall & Chris Thile Making Music

Neural Cascades of Pleasure ~



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQMswzRbiu8
The Gator Strut - Mike Marshall & Chris Thile








To Mandolin at World University and School ~ http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Mandolin

{in the Music School ~ http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Music_School~ for ALL instruments in ALL languages, and for jamming with ~ http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Musical_Jamming}









Encore :)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYfL2l_trV8

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/alligators-neural-cascades-of-pleasure.html - August 27, 2009)

Sarracenia Rosea: Relaxation Response with Envisioning, Writing, Giving Form in Life

The relaxation response, especially, then with envisioning, and writing {or creating representations}, can give form in life.














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/sarracenia-rosea-relaxation-response.html - August 27, 2009)

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Iceland: Listening to the Music


Listening to the music ...
which especially moves me ~
code which sings.













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/iceland-listening-to-music.html - August 26, 2009)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Cenote Waterfall: Nontheistically Friendly Online Quaker Meetings, Clothing Optionalness, Loving Bliss

August 25, 2009

Nontheist Friends,

Here is information about online Quaker Meetings that I know of. While none of them are explicitly nontheistically friendly, I see them as interesting options. All are open to attendees, and welcoming, I suspect. Are there others?


Quaker Meetings in Second Life (meets on Sea Turtle Island in-world)
The following page mentions both the Saturday Meeting, which I've attended, as well as the Wednesday Quaker Meeting:
homefries.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page


Online Quaker Meeting (London)
And Silent Meetings here are requested at all and any times:
quakerworship.org/default.asp


I've blogged a little about these here:
scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/05/online-quaker-meeting-and-world.html

I gravitate away (a lot) from the word 'worship,' with my leanings as an evolutionary biologically-oriented nontheist friend. 'Silent meeting' nomenclature works for me. I often elicit the relaxation response in silent meetings, with its rich, salutary, biological effects, perhaps enriched in meetings among gathered nontheist Friends. I also find flax seed oil for omega-3 fatty acids (1000 mg 3-4 times a day with food, as well as a daily multi-vitamin) harmonizing and brightening. Although I haven't seen the clinical evidence for this, I'm looking for related medical studies, and suspect I will find them. (Some friends of mine have experienced this, too, and others haven't). I also find a good, supportive community to be salutary.


Someone on the nontheist Friends' email list replied (August 25, 2009):

"I went to the Second Life meeting about a month ago, but there was no one there, though I'm pretty certain it was at the right time (10:00 Pacific time, right?). But maybe it was a good thing since I'm new to Second Life and hadn't yet figured out how to get clothes; so my avatar was stark naked (no obvious naughty bits, but no clothing either). I couldn't help wondering if SL Friends would accept me as I was. Anyway, I figured out the clothing thing and am now thoroughly decent and ready to try again some day."

Ian



Nontheist Friends,

The Saturday Quaker Meeting in Second Life at 10 am Pacific Time has always had pretty good attendance - avatars sitting in silence - when I've attended (perhaps 7 times). Having an avatar (it's like having an email address, and it's free) is useful also for attending classes, conversations, lectures and concerts in Second Life. (Second Life is pretty reliable these days, in my experience, but 2 gigs of RAM (memory) help. I've taught 'Society and Information Technology' in-world - in Second Life - for a number of years there).

I did find just a few references online to Quaker naturism when I looked. Although much of the developed world has social norms of wearing clothing, as does Second Life (although not all of the 'modern' world and Second Life), I find it interesting to think about examples of non-clothing 'norms.' Since all of our ancestors over tens of thousands of generations did not wear clothes, and a fair number of people (possibly a billion-ish?) in the world still live naked, and a fair number of Western European beaches are at least topless, I affirm clothing-optionalness, and am a little wary of clothing-centric norms. Just as nontheistic Friends have not always been 'accepted' within the Society of Friends (Quakers) - perhaps nontheist Friends are making progress - I'm personally curious to see how clothing-optionalness may grow as a practice in general (and possibly in the Society of Friends and even among nontheist friends). {Note: I'm writing an ethnography/anthropology about clothing-optional Harbin Hot Springs - harbin.org - in northern California, in which I'm creating a virtual Harbin in Second Life, or Open Simulator, for comparison, where, like on-the-ground Harbin, clothing-optionalness will be the norm, and a fascinating, virtual field site}. (And some people on this nontheist Friends list have visited the parallel, also clothing-optional, Esalen and other hot springs, I think).

Harbin Hot Springs (which is clothing-optional) is officially / legally a church in the state of California {Heart Consciousness Church}; it began in its current form in 1972, emerging out of the 60s ('counterculture'). And it's a curious and beautiful place. I find the relaxation response greatly enhanced in the Harbin warm pool, with a lot of parallels with opening to gatheredness (group relaxation response?) in Quaker silent meeting. Here's a letter I've written with more thoughts about Quaker Meeting online in Second Life, the relaxation response vis-a-vis silent meeting, and potentially in your bathtub, as well as ideas for eliciting the neurochemistry of loving bliss, naturally :) ~ scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissFriends.htm.

With friendly greetings,
Scott

scottmacleod.com
worlduniversity.wikia.com


(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/wilderness-falls-nontheist-friendly.html - August 25, 2009)

Monday, August 24, 2009

False Morels: Human Experience vis-a-vis the Material, Biological, Symbolic and Neurophysiological, Flourishing Brain Chemicals, and Bliss

I'm interested in questions of the human experience vis-a-vis the material, biological, symbolic and neurophysiological.


*

I wonder, in a related vein, how the 3 1/2 pounds of meat inside our craniums can flourish, and grow in flourishing, over time. What are the neurochemicals of flourishing, and how might we elicit them over decades so our bodyminds grow in flourishing toward loving bliss, naturally and richly? {On the neurochemical level, for example, you could take a dose of ecstasy (MDMA) and many (possibly 75%) would experience a kind of remarkable affective euphoria}. Engaging ideas is one likely way, but uniquely - as code. Here's one example: For friends who would like to spend a few minutes in 'flow' today, here’s a Bollywood road song, which is great ~ youtube.com/watch?v=NXC-VaRMkK0


How might one teach eliciting loving bliss? {And at World University & School, for example}?


**

Gyromitra infula (Schaeff.) Quél. 1886 - eol.org/pages/133489 - False Morels


***

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/false-morels-human-experience-vis-vis.html - August 24, 2009)

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Gap: Place Creates Its Own Culture, Variation, Loving Bliss

The island I'm visiting creates its own world. I'd say place gives rise to (socially constructs, in a sense) culture or subculture. And humans do this all the time vis-a-vis place, and have done this very far back into ancestral (evolutionary) environments. This human variety is wonderful, and occurs today in conjunction with the homogenizing processes of globalization, modernity, post-modernity, internetity etc.

I think of such unique cultural expressions as ongoing developments of singularization vis-a-vis Kopytoff's writing about this (see, for example: scottmacleod.com/2002May24SocialMeanings.htm).


*

Can one focus such subcultures on something unique like eliciting loving bliss? Yes, but I can't yet think of many historical examples that have been successful in the way I envision here: scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm.


**

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/gap-place-creates-its-own-culture.html - August 22, 2009).

Friday, August 21, 2009

Ripples: Windmill, Nearby Penikese Island, Hippie-mindedness, Lands End

Cuttyhunk Island in the 1970s, and good ideas ...


*

A windmill was built on Cuttyhunk in the 1970s and stood for decades without generating power for the island. The person who built it was conservationist-minded (as was his father), built this windmill with his own money, and the windmill was an expression of alternative-energy thinking of the 1960s and 70s. Unfortunately, the town of Cuttyhunk wouldn't pay for the system to hook it into the existing power generator, which still runs on diesel fuel.

The person who envisioned and built the windmill hired many of his friends, also hippies, to build it.


**

On nearby Penikese Island, Dave Marsh and George Cadwallader created new possibilities for juvenile delinquents, by setting up a state program in a very rustic place, where at-risk kids, who were 'offenders,' from communities on the mainland closeby could come to live and work for many months. Kids had to want to come to be admitted to the Penikese program. The program was paid for by the state of Massachusetts, and kids learned building and other skills, in a radically different environment. The program still is helping kids almost 40 years later. (In a way this Penikese program is an interesting social psychology experiment, vis-a-vis Zimbardo (1972), Milgram, et als.' research, but I never heard of it being conceived of as this).


***

Envisioning possibilities on Cuttyhunk as a teenager in the milieu of the 1970s, and with radical intellectual, Marxian friends ... with much creativity, I found Cuttyhunk very stimulating and fun, a place where I experienced freedom and sometimes loving bliss. A commune de Cuttyhunk?


****

In the mid 1970s, there was also a garbage can painting competition on Cuttyhunk. This involved recycling! 55 gallon drums again as trash receptacles, to be used then to keep Cuttyhunk trash-free. In the competition, people could paint their can any way they wanted. People were very creative, and made these unsightly cans beautiful. The competition was one of many summer happenings that brought people together, and benefited the island in multifaceted ways. I haven't seen any of these beautiful works of art in years.

So many benefits emerged from this clever countercultural way of thinking.


*****

I can think of a lot of examples of countercultural thinking from Cuttyhunk from the 1970s. Counterculture was fascinating in its pervasiveness in the U.S.


*****

Cuttyhunk Island's native American name is Pocutahunconoh, meaning something like "land's end," and people have come to Cuttyhunk to get away - for its remoteness - and for decades. In a way, it's a pretty hippie thing to do.

And Cuttyhunk's fishing culture, which is signficant, is a parallel example, but perhaps without the colorfulness or creativity of counterculture, as it found expression on Cuttyhunk in the 1970s.

Cuttyhunk is hard to get to, and people have come here for a long time just to get away from it all, including from modernity ...


*****

In a way, life on Cuttyhunk dovetails sweetly with (and precedes, too) hippie-mindedness - (turn on, tune in, drop out).


******

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/windmill-nearby-penikese-island.html - August 21, 2009)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Mists Roll Over This Fair Isle


Mists roll over
This fair isle as
Floating waters.





















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/mists-roll-over-this-fair-isle.html - August 20, 2009)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Baker Beach Dunes: Live Broadcast TODAY: "Introducing World University & School in Second Life"


Live Broadcast

Today

Introducing World University & School
in Second Life


see: https://web.archive.org/web/20120623125559/http://www.justin.tv/scottmacleod
(was: justin.tv/scottmacleod)

from the
Second Life Community Convention 2009
in San Francisco
Thursday, August 13, 2009

3:30 pm Pacific Time
6:30 Eastern Time
11:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time
(bandwidth permitting)


worlduniversity.wikia.com


scottmacleod.com/papers.htm


(scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/baker-beach-dunes-live-broadcast-today.html - August 13, 2009)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Ocean Rocks: Broadcasting "Introducing World University & School in Second Life" LIVE Th Aug 13, 3:30 pm PT

Presenting tomorrow at the Second Life Community Convention ... in San Francisco.

I'll broadcast "Introducing World University & School in Second Life" LIVE tomorrow Th. August 13, 3:30p PT justin.tv/scottmacleod & scottmacleod.com/papers.htm (bandwidth permitting).


Scott MacLeod / Aphilo Aarde
(I’ve taught “Society & Information Technology” on Berkman Island (not on Harvard’s faculty) for 4 semesters.

http://scottmacleod.com
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com


*

Yesterday I went to Stanford University and talked with the great folks there who produce Stanford Online.

They've recently posted "Stanford Engineering Everywhere" to the web, and I posted these to World University and School - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses.

You'll find 10 Stanford computer science engineering courses here - see.stanford.edu - all open and freely available at Stanford.


**

Use the amazing JUSTIN.TV to broadcast what you want to - live to the Web.


***

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/ocean-rocks-broadcasting-introducing.html - Aug 12, 2009)

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Butterfly Emerges: Turning Practicing a Musical Instrument into Flow Experiences, and into Loving Bliss?, Transformation of Neurophysiology

How to turn practicing a musical instrument into remarkable 'flow: the psychology of optimal experience' experiences, and as a way to generate richly qualities of loving bliss {vis-a-vis ecstasy - MDMA} naturally? The relaxation response can help, and simply practicing can grow or develop the focus aspect of practicing, but this isn't loving bliss {in the way that some of Mozart's arias, and contra dance with contra dance music can elicit these neural cascades of enjoyment with great regularity for me}. For me, in general, this is a question of the transformation of one's own neurophysiology through engagement with code.


*

Practicing involves an output (like a computer output, where a computer is an input-output device) of musical notation (code which I'm reading from paper, or which I've memorized), for me, with considerations of expressiveness, execution, etc. to shape something musically.


**

I write about how we might elicit loving bliss naturally, in part, so that you, who reads this, might begin to explore eliciting it for yourself, as you want.


***

Heading to Contact Improv ...


***

static.zooomr.com/images/3385998_2df95690be.jpg


(scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/butterfly-birth-turning-practicing.html - August 8, 2009)

Salmon Leaping: Books at http://webnographers.org, Information Technology Revolution

There are 87 book titles now at webnographers.org 'Books' webnographers.org/index.php?title=Books and 42 sections. Academic researchers have written a lot about the information technology revolution in ways that are edifying for virtual ethnographers!

Some of these are accessible online at Webnographers.org for free. (For the record, I've posted most of these books, and I'm posting this as a kind of record, as well).



Also, check out the article by Fuchs about Castells' "Communication Power" on Webnographers.org 'Papers' - webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers Castells, a la Fuchs, is pretty Weberian here.




* 1 Cultural Geography
* 2 Cultural History
* 3 Digital Divide and Internet Ethnography
* 4 Digital Youth
* 5 E-Living
* 6 Ethics in Cyberspace
* 7 Ethnography
* 8 Ethnographies Relating to the Internet
* 9 Film as Ethnography
* 10 Free Software Culture
* 11 Future of the Internet
* 12 Hacker Culture
* 13 History of Computing
* 14 History of the Internet
* 15 Identity and Internet Ethnography
* 16 Information Technology and Nonmarket Information Production
* 17 Internet and Business
* 18 Innovation and Open Source vis-à-vis Virtual Ethnography
* 19 Language, Linguistics and Virtual Ethnography
* 20 Machinima
* 21 Media Studies
* 22 Mobile Device Webnography
* 23 Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications
* 24 Network Society
* 25 New Media
* 26 Open Source Information Technology
* 27 Place, Space, and 'Field' in Virtual Ethnography
* 28 Programming Languages and Ethnography
* 29 Social Change and Virtual Ethnography
* 30 Social Implications of Information Technology
* 31 Social Networking
* 32 Social Theory and the Internet
* 33 TCP/IP and Ethnography
* 34 Television Ethnography
* 35 The 'Virtual' vis-à-vis Internet Ethnography
* 36 Virtual Archives and Ethnography
* 37 Virtual Communities
* 38 Virtual Ethnography
* 39 Virtual Ethnography and Globalization, Governmentality and Neo-Liberalism
* 40 Virtual Ethnography of the Law
* 41 Virtual Worlds
* 42 Webnographies



Cultural Geography

Saxenian, AnnaLee. 2006. The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Saxenian, AnnaLee. 1994. Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


Cultural History

Turner, Fred. 2006. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.


Digital Divide and Internet Ethnography

Norris, Pippa. 2001. Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.


Digital Youth

Bennett, W. Lance (ed.). 2007. Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Palfrey, John, and Urs Gasser. 2008. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. New York, NY: Basic Books.


E-Living

Anderson, Ben, Malcolm Brynin, Yoel Raban, and Jonathan Gershuny (eds.). 2007. Information and Communications Technologies in Society: E-living in a Digital Europe. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.


Ethics in Cyberspace

Ploug, Thomas. 2009. Ethics in Cyberspace: How Cyberspace May Influence Interpersonal Interaction. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.


Ethnography

Cerwonka, Allaine and Liisa Malkki. 2007. Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Clifford, James and George E. Marcus (eds.). 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.


Ethnographies Relating to the Internet

Postill, John. (forthcoming). Grounding the Internet. Oxford and New York: Berghahn. The book is an ethnography of residential politics in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Subang Jaya centred on the uses of internet technologies for activism, sociality and local governance.


Film as Ethnography

Crawford, Peter Ian, and David Turton (eds.). 1992. Film As Ethnography. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.


Free Software Culture

Kelty, Christopher M. 2008. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.


Future of the Internet

Anderson, Janna Quitney. 2005. Imagining the Internet: Personalities, Predictions, Perspectives. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Anderson, Janna Quitney, Lee Rainie and Susannah Fox. 2008. Up for Grabs: The Future of the Internet (Vol. 1). Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.

Anderson, Janna Quitney and Lee Rainie. 2008. Hopes and Fears: The Future of the Internet (Vol. 2). Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.

Anderson, Janna Quitney and Lee Rainie. 2009. Ubiquity, Mobility, Security: The Future of the Internet (Vol. 3). Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.

Zittrain, Jonathan. 2008. The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.


Hacker Culture

Himanen, Pekka. 2001. The Hacker Ethic and Spirit of the Information Age. (Prologue by Linus Torvalds; Epilogue by Manuel Castells). New York, NY: Random House.

Thomas, Douglas. 2002. Hacker Culture. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.


History of Computing

Ceruzzi, P. 2003. A History of Modern Computing (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.


History of the Internet

Abbate, Janet. 1999. Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

Berners-Lee, Tim. 2000. Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Hafner, K. & Lyon, M. 1996. Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the Internet. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben. 1997. Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press.

Salus, P. H. 1995. Casting the Net: from ARPANET to Internet and Beyond. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.


Identity and Internet Ethnography

Turkle, Sherry. 1997. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.


Information Technology and Nonmarket Information Production

Benkler, Yochai. 2007. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.


Internet and Business

Aspray, William and Paul E. Ceruzzi (eds.). 2008. The Internet and American Business. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.


Innovation and Open Source vis-à-vis Virtual Ethnography

von Hippel, Eric. 2005. Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

von Hippel, Eric. 1988. The Sources of Innovation. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.


Language, Linguistics and Virtual Ethnography

Baron, Naomi. 2000. Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading. New York, NY: Routledge.

Baron, Naomi. 2008. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Crystal, David. 2002. Language and the Internet. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Danet, Brenda, and Susan C. Herring (eds.). 2007. The Multilingual Internet: Language, Culture, and Communication Online. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Posteguillo, Santiago. 2003. Netlinguistics: Language, Discourse and Ideology in Internet. Castellón de la Plana, Spain: Universitat Jaume.


Machinima


Media Studies

Briggs, Asa, and Peter Burke. 2005 (2002). A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet, 2nd ed. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Castells, Manuel. 2009. Communication Power. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Gitlin, Todd. 2003 (1980). The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the New Left, 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lessig, Lawrence. 2006. Code 2.0. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Lessig, Lawrence. 2005. Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. New York, NY: Penguin.

Lessig. Lawrence. 2008. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. Penguin Press HC.

Levinson, Paul. 1999. Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium. New York, NY: Routledge.

Levinson, Paul. 1998. The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution. New York, NY: Routledge.

McLuhan, Marshall. 1962. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Thompson, John. 1995. Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.


Mobile Device Webnography

Castells, Manuel, Mireia Fernandez-Ardevol, Jack Linchuan Qiu, and Araba Sey. 2006. Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

Vavoula, Giasemi, Norbert Pachler, and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (eds.). 2009. Researching Mobile Learning: Frameworks, Tools and Research Designs. Oxford, England: Peter Lang.


Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications

Packer, Randall and Jordan, Ken (eds.). 2001. Multimedia: from Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.


Network Society

Castells, Manuel. 2003. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Castells, Manuel. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society. (Vol. 1 - 2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell.

Castells, Manuel. 2004. The Power of Identity. (Vol. 2 - 2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell.

Castells, Manuel. 2000. The End of Millenium. (Vol. 3 - 2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell.

Stalder, Felix. 2006. Manuel Castells: The Theory of the Network Society. Cambridge, England: Polity.


New Media

Jenkins, Henry. 2008. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY: NYU Press.

Lister, Martin. 2003. New Media: A Critical Introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lundby, Knut (ed.). 2009. Mediatization: Concepts, Changes, Consequences. New York, NY: Peter Lang.


Open Source Information Technology

Raymond, Eric. S. 2000. The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. (First presented at the Linux Kongress in 1997). O'Reilly Media.


Place, Space, and 'Field' in Virtual Ethnography

Meyrowitz, Joshua. 1985. No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.


Programming Languages and Ethnography


Social Change and Virtual Ethnography

Dutton, William H. 1999. Society on the Line: Information Politics in the Digital Age. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.


Social Implications of Information Technology

Shirky, Clay. 2008. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York, NY: Penguin Press.


Social Networking

Ito, Mizuko, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Rachel Cody, Becky Herr, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Martinez, C.J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims, and Lisa Tripp. 2008. Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media. E-Book. Researchers at the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley have been conducting ethnographic research on kids' informal learning with digital media since 2005. This is what they found.

Ryan Jenny. 2008. The Virtual Campfire: An Ethnography of Online Social Networking. E-Book. Anthropologist Jenny Ryan explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between human and machine, public and private, voyeurism and exhibitionism, the history of media and our digitized future. Woven throughout are the stories and experiences of those who engage with these sites regularly and ritualistically, the generation of "digital natives" whose tales attest to the often strange and uncomfortable ways online social networking sites have come to be embedded in the everyday lives of American youth.


Social Theory and the Internet

Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York, NY: Routledge.


TCP/IP and Ethnography


Television Ethnography

Mankekar, Purnima. 1999. Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood, and Nation in Postcolonial India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Spigel, Lynn. 1992. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.


The 'Virtual' vis-à-vis Internet Ethnography


Virtual Archives and Ethnography

Fabian, Johannes. 2008. Ethnography as Commentary: Writing from the Virtual Archive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.


Virtual Communities

Rheingold, Howard. 1993. The Virtual Community. Written at the dawn of the cyberculture, The Virtual Community explores the heart of the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (more commonly known as the WELL}. Part ethnography, part history, part journalism and part philosophy, Howard Rheingold's engaging seminal work is a must-read for those interested in online communities.


Virtual Ethnography

Boellstorff, Tom. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hine. Christine. 2000. Virtual Ethnography. London, England: Sage Publications.

Hine, Christine. 2005. Virtual Methods. Oxford, England: Berg Publishers.

Markham, Annette N. and Nancy K. Baym (eds.). 2009. Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method. London, England: Sage Publications.

Marshall. Jonathan Paul. 2007. Living on Cybermind: Categories, Communication and Control. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Miller, Daniel and Don Slater. 2000. The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford, England: Berg.


Virtual Ethnography and Globalization, Governmentality and Neo-Liberalism

Arterton, F. Christopher. 1987. Teledemocracy: Can technology protect democracy? Newbury Park, CA and Washington, D.C.: Sage Publications.

Axford, B. and Richard Huggins. 2000. New Media and Politics. London: Sage Publications.

Bimber, Bruce. 2003. Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Chadwick, Andrew. 2006. Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication Technologies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Chadwick, Andrew and Philip N. Howard. 2008. Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics. London: Routledge.

Coleman, Stephen and Jay G. Blumler. 2009. The Internet and Democratic Citizenship: Theory, Practice, Policy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Wilhelm, Anthony. 1999. Democracy in the Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace. London: Routledge.


Virtual Ethnography of the Law



Virtual Worlds

Castronova, Edward. 2006. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games As Social Worlds. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Malaby, Thomas M. 2009. Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Pearce, Celia. 2009. Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.


Webnographies

Hillis, Ken. 2009. Online a Lot of The Time: Ritual, Fetish, Sign. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.


*

I think ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy is one of the most fascinating ideas at Webnographers.org page of 'Ideas'webnographers.org/index.php?title=Ideas, along with World University & School - worlduniversity.wikia.com


(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/salmon-leaping-books-at.html ~ August 8, 2009).

Friday, August 7, 2009

Chimpanzee Pant Hoot: Dancing Meme in Action, World Univ. & Sch. Memes?, Loving Bliss Culture and Language Can Spread Like Music



Here's an example of a meme ('replicating cultural unit'?) in action: EVOLUTION OF DANCE PARTY - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4SjZw47b5A (& how memes - the video camera meme and the dance meme - work?). Memes happen a lot in life, but the idea of memes as a way of explaining human action isn't that widespread in daily thinking in any culture or society.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4SjZw47b5A

(aka  "Sasquatch music festival 2009 - Guy starts dance party" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk)

*

And for growing World University & School?


The way World University & School ~ worlduniversity.wikia.com ~ will grow is through something like, again, EVOLUTION OF DANCE PARTY - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5rqk4nGBZ0 ...

come dance with idea-sharing, teaching and learning :) ...

and, of course through ideas you want to share, and classes you want to teach and take.


**

and for loving bliss to flourish? Dance? and the Harbin warm pool? :)

and these 5 letters about loving bliss: scottmacleod.com/links.htm


***

Chimp vocalizations, including pant hoots:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080420101420/http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/media/chimpcalls.html (was - wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/media/chimpcalls.html)
(In Jane Goodall's "Chimps: So Like Us," she demonstrates and explains pant hoots; they're primarily for identification).


****

{http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/chimpanzee-pant-hoot-dancing-meme-in.html ~ August 7, 2009}








...

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Chimpanzee Feet: Please Do Post Ideas You'd Like to Teach, World Univ. & Sch., People's Creativity, 'How to' at SL Comm. Conv.

Please do post ideas you'd like to teach, as well as courses - worlduniversity.wikia.com. It's like Wikipedia and MIT Open Course Ware. Teach and Learn interactively in Second Life.

It's the open aspect of World University and School, and people's creativity, which will perhaps give rise to fascinating and alternative ways to teach and learn.

World University & School is growing. There are already a lot of resources at World University & School. Check out the Library Resources: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Library_Resources.

And check out the Educational FREEWARE here: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software.

I'm presenting World University & School at the Second Life Community Convention: slconvention.org/convention-tracks-and-topics/edtrack-introducing-world-university on Thurs., Aug 13 at 3:30 pm. I hope (it's still pending) to stream this to the web and into Second Life concurrently, so people (and you) in this workshop can learn how teaching something at WUaS might work. Stay tuned to this FB group page if interested.

~ Scott
scottmacleod.com

Chimp Family Grooming: People Engage Computers in Cafes Like Primates in a Forest?

Sometimes I think that the way people engage their computers in a cafe, for example, may parallel somehow how our primate ancestors lived socially in a forest, distributed a little randomly in a sylvan area, finding food, grooming, sitting in the sun ... similar bodyminds a few 100 generations later. Internet cafes and computers as forest where human primates groom?

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Mono Lake Sierra Dawn: Learn How to Teach at World Univ. & Sch. in Second Life From Your Computer on Thurs. Aug. 13

I hope to stream my presentation 'Introducing World University & School in Second Life' workhop so you can learn to teach at World University from your own computer wherever you are, at this event ~ slconvention.org/convention-tracks-and-topics/edtrack-introducing-world-university ~ on Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 3:30pm.

If you don't have Second Life, you can get it for free here: http://secondlife.com/download.

I hope also to stream this presentation on how to teach at World University & School to the web, perhaps through http://justin.tv, and later to post a related video to worlduniversity.wikia.com.

Stay tuned here for further information ... and let me know if you're interested.


*

Interactively, I’ll invite people to teach something to their webcams which people might like to teach in SL, too, and post it to the WuaS wiki. The WUaS wiki is a free, open, all languages (3000-8000) digital approach to a world university and school wiki, which will potentially help a lot of people, even those who are illiterate (through video capable handhelds). It will potentially thus bring new languages into Second Life, anticipating languages as they come online. And it will also thus further the digital revolution and idea sharing in virtual worlds in multiple ways.

slconvention.org/convention-tracks-and-topics/edtrack-introducing-world-university


{http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/mono-lake-sierra-dawn-online.html ~ August 5, 2009}.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Monterey Pine: "Introducing World University & School in SL" at the Second LIfe Community Convention 2009 in SF, WUaS Teaching Opp. at this Workshop

EdTrack: Introducing World University


The workshop “Introducing World University & School in SL” will be lead by Aphilo Aarde on Thursday, August 13th, from 3:30 – 5pm.


World University & School is developing a global, (potentially degree-granting), free-to-students, open, virtual, all-languages university and school, with great universities (e.g. MIT, etc.) as key players, using a Wikipedia model, and for everyone, and especially the developing world (One Laptop Per Child countries) – which anyone can edit, primarily by teaching, adding, requesting or taking courses. Virtual worlds are central to interactivity in digital learning in World University & School. And Second Life will play potentially a key role, – as classrooms, sites for innovation, design studios, laboratories and more. World University & School is already open – http://worlduniversity.wikia.com. Stream a course now via Veodia.com using the Second Life events’ schedule. WUaS is potentially in all languages, subjects, nation states and at all levels, and thus potentially will bring a lot more interested people to Second Life, to build, create and innovate. In this presentation, I’ll introduce many aspects of WUaS vis-a-vis Second Life.

Interactively, I’ll invite people to teach something to their webcams which people might like to teach in SL, too, and post it to the WuaS wiki. The WUaS wiki is a free, open, all languages (3000-8000) digital approach to a world university and school wiki, which will potentially help a lot of people, even those who are illiterate (through video capable handhelds). It will potentially thus bring new languages into Second Life, anticipating languages as they come online. And it will also thus further the digital revolution and idea sharing in virtual worlds in multiple ways.



www.slconvention.org/convention-tracks-and-topics/edtrack-introducing-world-university/

(At the Second Life Community Convention 2009 at the Westin St Francis in San Francisco on Thursday, August 13th, from 3:30 – 5pm).

Migrating Grebes: Thoughts about Loving Bliss, World University & School as Open Classroom Idea

Hi, Tarry,

Here are some of my thoughts about loving bliss:

scottmacleod.com/links.htm. (Also, click on the 'loving bliss' label to the right, in this blog).

You might begin with the eudaimonia letter. Thinking a little out of the box, I guess I have biology/neurochemistry as reference experiences in mind. What's loving bliss's neurophysiology vis-a-vis ecstasy (MDMA or X), naturally, without MDMA? How can we go there? (I'm a little 'wired' for this naturally, as well). Words and music can facilitate it, certainly, and traditions and language (like Vipasana Buddhism language) can shape a milieu where this is more likely to occur, is how I think about it, but I'm curious about 'rocking out' qualities relating to the biology, naturally. What's the metaphorical on/off 'switch' for this neurochemistry? I do explore the relaxation response regularly (see links in letters above), which is a kind of biological, meditation practice - eliciting a specific response of easing in my body - which I see as providing a kind of basis from which I sometimes elicit bliss, but without having 'found' the switch yet. My letters above explore some of this and more.

Regards,
Scott


*

World University & School - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com - is the open classroom idea, now mediated by the web and information technology. I attended 2 open classroom schools growing up - in Hamden, Connecticut (Ridge Hill), and Rockville, Maryland (Green Acres) - scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/07/ivory-gull-60s-in-switzerland.html, and WUaS's openness reflects this approach to openness.


But further, openning education up on the web, to complement a whole series of other educational opportunities is a great idea. MIT Open Course Ware is one example, but WUaS is a wiki (editable web pages), so it has a different complementary orientation to teaching and learning compared with MIT.


**

I post regularly about World University & School in Facebook on my wall ~ facebook.com/macleod. And here's the Facebook group for - facebook.com/group.php?gid=48753608141 - World University & School. Please join, if you'd like further updates.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Tufa Towers: Looking for People to Start Adding Free, Great Classes http://worlduniversity.wikia.com, Second Life Events Calendar - Education

A friend who attended my "Society and Information Technology" class on Berkman Island (I'm not on Harvard's faculty) in Second Life for a semester just sent me a message in Second Life.


Here's my reply:

Hi Andromeda,

Thanks so much for your ideas about free classes vis-a-vis World University & School. In part I'm looking for people to start adding free, great classes to this wiki - worlduniversity.wikia.com - which is like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware. I've posted to WUaS already the Goethe Institute's Tuesday German lesson at 8 am (Pacific Time), I think, and there are 5 day a week language get-togethers - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses. Courses like this are partly what I'm looking for, but I'm also interested video talks, and people teaching things to their web cams.

Here's the Second Life Events' Calendar, which I've posted at World University & School's courses, too: secondlife.com/events.


*

Here's part of Andromeda's note to me:

Aphilo - there are all kinds of free classes in SL. Are you interested in free German classes? The Germans have them. I think I have also seen free Chinese lessons, but I am not sure. Then there is Prof. Raymond Frog's class on racialism on Wednesdays. That is really interesting. And here's a link to Raymond Frog's (Frank W. Sweet in RL) audio lectures - thestudyofracialism.org/viewtopic.php?t=5884.


**

{http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/tufa-towers-looking-for-people-to-start.html - August 3, 2009}

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Wilderness Garden: The Garden at Harbin is Thriving, Gray Water from the Warm Pool, Words as Musical Notation

The garden at Harbin is thriving ... and gray water from the warm pool keeps it moist ... it's beautiful ... there are so many vegetables and flowers all flourishing at this time of year. There are also a number of heirloom fruit trees.

I think I met a main gardener there today, although I didn't know her from all the time I've spent at Harbin. She must have become a resident relatively recently.


*

Vis-a-vis my August 1st, 2009 (Ocean Spray: Exploring the Visual Sense of Floating as an Avatar in Second Life, SL Quaker Meeting, Avatar as Musical Notation ~ scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/ocean-spray-exploration-of-visual-sense.html) blog entry, I think we might consider words as musical notation, as well.


***

In a way, Harbin is perfect ~ its pool area, its openness, its nudity, its emergence from the culture of the 1960s and early 1970s, which gave form to this beauty and milieu ...


****

I'll start a Google group for World University & School soon.


*****

Fairfax, California, in Marin, has a lot of memes {cultural units} from the 1960s. It's pretty alternative. I saw one woman with hair down to below her calves walk by from the cafe I was sititng in. Some others in the cafe were making psychedelic poster art - looking professional - for an upcoming musical performance.


To contact improv soon ...

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Ocean Spray: Exploring the Visual Sense of Floating as an Avatar in Second Life, SL Quaker Meeting, Avatar as Musical Notation

Today in the silent, unprogrammed Quaker Meeting in Second Life, I was exploring whether seeing my avatar flying - the visual sense of flying/floating as an avatar - can heighten my experience of centeredness in Meeting. I experience the visual process of seeing my avatar fly or float (stationary) as having an effect on my bodymind, which I can then cultivate internally. (To attend the silent, unprogrammed Quaker Meeting in Second Life, click on the Second Life link in this letter: scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissFriends.htm or here slurl.com/secondlife/Sea%20Turtle%20Island/197/17/27. It takes about 10 minutes to get an avatar in the free Second Life virtual world, and you need at least 1 gigabyte of RAM).


Can seeing my avatar float in Second Life (it can - just press the 'fly' button) - which is like floating in warm water, too {at Harbin Hot Springs, for example - harbin.org} - help elicit the relaxation response yet more deeply? Yes, I think so.


Can I then begin to think of my avatar as musical notation? Here it becomes a symbol of floating. So, I see my floating avatar and, in exploring eliciting the relaxation response {with an nontheistically friendly orientation) in Second life at the same time, it has an effect on my bodymind. Like visualizing phrasing in musical expression while playing a musical instrument or singing, I can move bodymind-wise to an experience of floating. Yes ...


How sophisticatedly?





...

{scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/ocean-spray-exploration-of-visual-sense.html ~ August 1, 2009}