(the J is for)

Where does the time go? I now know why a thesis can take several years to complete. Everything else gets in the way and everything else needs to get done yesterday. The thesis only needs to get done later. My teaching load is going up next term (which is in just over two weeks), but, hopefully, I'll be able to cut out a lot of the other things that have been keeping me busy lately.

I'm still working on the plone project with the Freiburg student. Most of the course is a collection of static HTML pages, downloadable documentation and good ol' fashioned discussion boards. Sounds rather bland, doesn't it? Well, we are going to try using wikis when it comes to dealing with assignments. Each module of the course will have a wiki wherein each course delegate (student?) can create their own page to do their assignment(s), have others comment on and add on to each other member's work. We want the students to learn as much from each other as they do from the course facilitators. The course will, naturally, also host several face-to-face sessions. Blended e-learning! w00t!

Unfortunately, my partner on this course is not too proficient with HTML, nor plone, so I'm doing a bit more than I thought I would. I have to go through tomorrow afternoon and help out some more. I hope that I can sort everything out with her tomorrow so that I can have some time off before I go to Johannesburg to earn money next week. Money! w00t!

I'm a member of the executive committee of the Stellenbosch Chapter of UNASA (the United Nations Association of South Africa). We busy ourselves in trying to help achieve the Millenium Development Goals on a local level. That's a really big simplification of what UNASA stands for. For more info on the UNASA and all UNAs, visit the world federation of UNAs. Recently we held a vastly successful awareness campaign, entitled BYBAC - Burst Your Bubble Campaign. We filled balloons with various statistics and went around campus asking people to pop the balloons (burst their bubble). The statistics really broke open some comfort zones. I'll see if I can get hold of all the other stats and post them later.

One of our upcoming projects involves us 'adopting' three children taken off the streets. A local family has taken in the children and we aim to hold collections for this family, whom are themselves not well off. It may not sound like much, but I think that we could really make a change in 3 individuals' lives. If you're in the Stellenbosch area, I urge you to help in any of our projects (I'll keep you posted) and if your not from around here, take a look on the net and see if you can find your local UNA and get out there and do some good. Just in reading this blog, with your good internet connection and fancy computer makes you a privileged individual.

After surfing around for about an hour now, I have realised that, even though I've read about blogs, known about blogs and even read some blogs over the years, there are some aspects of blogs you cannot know about without blogging. Since I am a new blogger, I haven't much experience and only recently have I stumbled upon the meme (pronounced 'meem') phenomenon. According to Wikipedia, a meme "refers to any unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea or concept, which one mind transmits (verbally or by repeated action) to another mind. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods in addition to concepts such as race". So, unless horribly mistaken, I believe memes, in a blogging sense, refers to the spreading of such units of cultural information through blog posts about other blog posts on other blogs. I couldn't find a specific definition for the blog-meme phenomenon, but I believe anything can be considered a meme. One example I found was a quiz as to what type of girl you are or what type of girl she is. My girlfriend was shoulder surfing at the time, so we ended up each doing the quiz. Our results were the same (phew). Do you think this quiz could count as a meme?

She is Progressive Girl Click on the picture below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Is She?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

We all know what email is. I could probably even argue that it is one of the first forms of social software, but that's not what I want to talk about now. I wish to argue that email, though often a useful tool, can these days cause quite a hassle when written incorrectly This post isn't going to be very academic, if at all. It's actually just going to be a personal rant about something that happened to me recently.

Everybody uses email today, just as everybody used letters a long, long time ago. Well, at least the literate did. It hasn't been that long since I was in high school, and I remember, quite clearly, that I learnt the CORRECT way in which to write a letter. Address in the top right corner, Dear X, Intro, Body, Conclusion,

Sincerely
Me.

Remember that? Why did we learn to write letters correctly and why do we not learn how to write emails correctly or even other forms of electronic communications (though I won't go into those in too much detail right now)?

I get a lot of daily incoming emails. Newsletters, professional and personal communications etc. I'm also quite a busy individual and I try to save time wherever I can save time. Recently, my time-saving mechanisms got me into a bit of trouble and the blame is still being shifted around. Personally, I believe that the blame is to be shared by both me, the receiver, and the sender. I belong to a particular national group and communication takes through a Yahoo! group and email between individual members or to the group as a whole. I set up my Yahoo account to forward each individual posting to my inbox. Not everything posted at the group refers directly to me, for example, one message may refer only to those members staying within Gauteng. I determine the relevance of a particular message according to the subject of the message and the first 3 to 4 sentences/lines of the message. If I can see no relevance to me within the subject or first few lines, I stop reading that post. Now this is where the problem comes in. One of the heads of the group often sends out very, very long messages. Yet, on many occassions, I could see no direct relevance to me, either in the subject or first few lines of the message. Plus, I hardly ever work directly with the heads of the group, as most of the local activity is handled by another member. However, as it turned out, the head in question would often send multiple messages within one post and one that was important to me was buried deeply within the post after stuff that was not relevant to me. My fault for missing the message? Maybe. Maybe not. The subject didn't give a clue. The first few lines didn't give a clue.

I, therefore, suggest that somebody start teaching people how to write proper emails (and, of course, other similar electronic communication methods). Ensure that the subject is relevant to the message. Ensure that the audience knows what the message contains, or to whom it is directed, within the first few lines. Use a list. Use bullets. Just make it clear.

Further searching into the field of repairing or covering up scuff marks, I delved deeper into the unknown world of stickers. There I found the following links:

Today is a sad day. I spotted scuff marks on my laptop cover. I don't know when it happened or where they came from. I've just spent a few moments* browsing the net and discovered the rumours of the art of laptop chassis modding, colouring in scuff marks using sharpies (which is a brand of pen) and that maybe the "stuff girls put on their nails" could work. I'll see if I can dig up some of this girly stuff and test a small bit of it. I hope it works. In any event, I found a new cool brand of pens to use. I hope I can purchase some locally or the import tax is going to kill me. Then I can fix the scuff marks on my shoes too.

Anybody got any handy hints for dealing with scuff marks? Would be appreciated. Otherwise I'm going to phone up my mom and ask her to post up my old Smurfy sticker collection. That should work.

*Alright, more than a few moments. It's not fair that I can dilate my personal time, but the net doesn't speed up to meet my personal time frame.

So, you've probably noticed that I have changed templates for my blog. Why the big shift? If you were to browse through to my 2nd post at this blog, you would notice that I was uncertain about using blogger as my free blogging tool of choice. I've been surfing the net for other alternatives and found a few very promising ones. All with different functionalities. Wordpress, for example, contains a useful tagging tool, allowing one to tag your posts (just as you can tag websites at del.icio.us). I was very impressed with the tagging functionality. Plus, Wordpress can import your other blogs into itself (comments and all). It's all very easy. I tried finding a similar tagging tool for Blogger, but the best I could come up with was a bit of javascript, which kinda linked a .blogspot to a list of a user's del.icio.us tags. Tagging my .blogspot posts in del.icio.us seemed like too much effort. If anybody knows of a tool for blogger that can match Wordpress's tagging functionality, please, let me know.

Why then? Why did I change the template here? Well, I was all ready to make the big leap to Wordpress. I was even going to make a MOMENTOUS FIRST POST there (with the big voice), but then I discovered that Wordpress, unlike Blogger, does not allow you to edit your template and dig into the html. That's not such a big deal for me. The most I would do, anyway, would be to change a few colours and maybe add a picture somewhere. I was quite prepared to live with a generic template. I had my Wordpress account import all of my .blogspot blog into it and was about to start writing my MOMENTOUS FIRST POST of COMPLETE MAGNIFICENCE when I noticed one, small thing... Wordpress's WYSIWG post creator/editor does not have an 'align justify' text option! Being too lazy to have to edit the html of every post I would ever make, I returned here, changed the template, smiled at the sight of my Google ads and proceeded to redeem myself by writing, nay, crafting a new, faster, stronger, better first post for the J is for.

J

PS Wordpress is still a great tool. Check it out. I'm backing up this blog there. Because I am paranoid. I might be tempted to move over if they get to adding justify to their editor...unless, of course, Blogger gets some built-in tagging functionality...or I start paying for my blogging.

PPS The first rule of Google Ads is that you don't talk about Google Ads. I hope they don't take my Google Ads away.

PPPS Happy Human Rights Day ZA!

Tomorrow, instead of taking the day off and having a 4 day weekend, I will be helping a Freiburg forestry student design an e-learning course. We'll be using plone as the platform. Then it struck me; why don't we incorporate a blog and/or wiki (i.e. bliki) into the course. The Freiburg student doesn't have much technical experience and maybe a blog or wiki will give her the functionality she needs, but make it simple enough for her to use. This is when I identified another potential context in which I can conduct my research: Education. Still need think about it for awhile and do some additional reading, but I think I may have found my research context.

It feels kinda weird to write for an international audience, when I doubt I even have much of an audience yet. My girlfriend will probably tell me to look beyond my audience awareness. Anyway, for those who don't know, a PDI is a Previously Disadvantaged Individual. According to South African law, they are supposed to be granted certain "benefits" when it comes to finding a job, applying for a bursary etc. This doesn't fully explain the situation, but it gives you the general idea in a very, very broad sense.

I am a South African born Chinese (SABC), as were my parents. They (my parents) had to deal with apartheid as did any non-white individual. Yes, they were classified as non-white and were not allowed to vote until 1994. Shock and Surprise! "I thought you counted as white," says the white man, says the black man. Now there are many others, better qualified than I, out there to tell you about the SABC's woes. I'm still a victim of racist verbal abuse on the streets. I haven't seen a white guy bad mouth a black guy on the streets (or vice verca) of the democratic Republic of South Africa, but I get "ching-chong" and "discount, discount" quite regularly. I attribute such racial intolerance too poor education, bad upbringing, lower SES or general good-natured stupidity and usually ignore it. However, I have come across two South African bastions of great intellectualism and academic might, which through exclusion, have made me felt the all-too-familiar sting of racism. Both the NRF and University of Stellenbosch require, upon registration, that you inform that as to which racial group you belong to - for government or statistical reasons. I, personally, think this practice is unnecessary. I believe that the colour of your skin shouldn't matter in a true rainbow nation. Anyway, I go to register and my options for racial group are (insert drumroll):

Ouch. Where did the 'Asian' option go? Though I didn't particularly enjoy being lumped together with Koreans, Vietnamese and Indians, at least they made a veiled attempt at incorporating little ol' me. They didn't even have the courtesy of creating an option 5 entitled 'other' or 'none of the above'. The university had me registered as Indian. I complained. They changed it to White. Wow. Thanks guys. I feel so much better now. The NRF wouldn't give me a bursary, because I wasn't a PDI. I dug up the necessary paperwork - PDI's (basically) include:

The NRF then said I wasn't black and so I couldn't get the bursary.

Quothe a friend of mine: "We discriminate against everything in this country, except for ability".

I use to be part of the executive committee of above-mentioned society. I was their treasurer for over a year. Towards the end of last year, a new exec comm was elected. I stayed on as treasurer and two or three others shifted to new positions and the rest were all new (including the chair). The first thing which this new committee had to do was organize the prize-giving of a competition we ran and our year-end closing function. Due to time constraints, it was decided to hold them together as one event. Most of the work, however, got shouldered by the older members of the exec comm, myself included. I made one appeal to the rest to pitch in and pull their weight. They did not. I handed in my resignation. Went to the event I helped organise and then left the organization. There was too much conflict between myself and another member and I did not wish to work under an incompetent liar* of a chair.

So my meeting went well. My supervisor brought up several valid points upon which I now have to ponder. One problem with studying social software lies in the fact that it is such a broad topic and takes place in a variety of contexts. So, right now, I've got to decide in which context I want to study social software. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following:

And I'm sure there's more - a bit of research should dig up some more. Then I just have to decide. Well, what makes a good masters aside, we talked about what would make a good topic for a doctorate (sorta). Hmmm, Doctor J.

In approximately 3 hours and 39 minutes...no, 38 minutes, I'll be going to a meeting with my supervisor for my master's thesis. We're going to work on refining my research question, as, though accepted, my proposal was a bit over-ambitious. I'm aiming to base my study on understanding and better defining social software.

What is social software? Many of us make frequent, sometimes daily, use of it, but know nothing more of it beyond its usefulness and/or coolness. In fact individual instances of social software are oft very different from one another (compare del.icio.us to wikipedia) and others very similar and some even being hybridised together (43 things uses both blogging and tagging). An exact definition of the subject does not yet exist. I want to see what I can add to the understanding of the phenomenon. All very interesting. More later, after my meeting.

Two months ago... the Chuck Norris jokes were funny. I stumbled across them one day while browsing randomly through del.icio.us. Using my gifted brain for evil, I immediately memorized a few and threw them out into everyday conversation. It was funny then. It is not funny anymore. Why not? Sadly, I have to admit that I am somewhat of an elitist. When things become too popular, too readily available, they lose their 'specialness' for me. Yeah, I'm a snob. However, for the next two months, we can all enjoy the following:

• Riaan Cruywagen never has his back to you, in fact Riaan has no back.
• Riaan Cruywagen is fluent in twenty seven of the eleven official languages.
• Riaan Cruywagen knows the news before it happens.
• Riaan Cruywagen knew you would say that.
• Riaan Cruywagen is cryogenically frozen every night for EXACTLY eight hours. His brain impulses are monitored during this and used as templates for deciphering elaborate ancient manuscripts.
• Riaan Cruywagen had a telekinetic showdown with Johan Stemmet. After draining all of Stemmet's powers and rendering him severely retarded, he created Noot vir Noot and made Stemmet the host.
• Some people believe Riaan Cruywagen wears a toupee - he has, in fact, one perfect hair. The one that covers his entire head - giving it that, 'not quite real' look.
• If Riaan Cruywagen does not read it out on the 8 o'clock news, it never happened.
• One night during an ad break on the 8 o'clock news, Riaan Cruywagen mentioned to the makeup lady that he was 'tired of this apartheid nonsense'.
  Nelson Mandela was released from prison the next day.
• Riaan Cruywagen wasn't born, he thought himself into existence.
• Riaan Cruywagen never blinks; if he does the entire world would just not happen for that split second.
• When Sir Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Mount Everest, he was welcomed by Riaan Cruywagen, who briefly interviewed him, before wiring the information through to the SAUK.
• The SAUK is actually a front for a secret society of Swiss Bankers who manipulate the world's economy, and is chaired by non other than his most Worshipful Master, Riaan Cruywagen.
• In binary code the word "Riaan Cruywagen" looks like the shroud of Turin.
• Riaan Cruywagen will never die. His soul gets transferred to another identical body via various arcane rituals and current nano-technology thrice fortnightly.
• Bruce Willis' character in Die Hard is based on the unpublished autobiography written by Riaan Cruywagen at the age of 15.
• Riaan Cruywagen does not believe in Chuck Norris.
• Riaan Cruywagen's first job was tutoring Pythagoras.
• After reading the news Riaan Cruywagen built the pyramids. It took precisely 1 minutes to draw up the plans and then a further six minutes to think them into existence.

I haven't been a very good blogger. It has been more than a month since my last (and only) post. At least I've bypassed the one-post-wonder blog stage. I started this blog primarily to live the blogging experience and to demo blogging for an internet skills training course I help out with. I just haven't blogged anything. I don't know why I haven't. I have several topics I want to talk about. I just don't seem to work up the energy to actually do it. Well, that's about to change, I hope.

One of my initial problems with using blogger is the .blogspot in the URL. It doesn't seem professional. I would never trust a geocites website as a trusted source of information, so why would I trust a .blogspot? Why would I even use one? And then, by chance, I discovered another, extremely popular, blog here at blogger: http://postsecret.blogspot.com. Though not anything remotely related to anything I would expect a blog of mine to be, it inspired me to give blogger another try. So, let's see where it goes from here.