Archive for December, 2008
Misc. Thought #2
(Another thought from that same proposal defense. This was a fertile session.)
In my own opinion, one of the biggest difficulties in research (particularly in my own kind of research which amounts to “Oh wow that’s interesting I want to look at that”) is breaking into that really important group of people who are doing what it is that you want to study and are doing it well. It’s tough to know that these people are out there doing what it is you’re interested in but have no way to get involved with it. Contrary to popular [research] beliefs, many people don’t care about research. What’s in it for them? Enrichment of the field? No thank you. Even having done my own masters thesis, I’m not sure I would sit through a 30-45 minute survey and followup interview solely to help out that research area.
Misc. Thoughts #1
(From time to time, I’ll have a thought occur to me that is too much to scribble onto a piece of paper or enter as a note in my phone. Most often these thoughts have a short lifetime, approximately as long as it takes me to become distracted by television, games, or food. In an attempt to economize on my limited brain power, I will be tossing these thoughts up here as a discussion point or bit of commentary. The following struck me while sitting in on a PhD proposal defense today.)
When discussing online communities, many times researchers point out that there is no need for physical or previously-existing community interactions between members. While in a pure sense of the term ‘virtual’, I can see this being true, what I wonder is how these existing physical or “real world” relationships affect the virtual spaces. What I am imagining are RL friends who join forum communities together or play MMO games with each other primarily because of their previously existant relationship. Is this something that virtual spaces need? Does it enhance the development of a virtual community by providing an anchor of sociability that need not be formed in an environment that, according to numerous researchers of virtual spaces, has a good deal of trouble letting people interact in a deep and natural way?
New things!
So as you can see, I’ve finally made a layout that is Teapot Robot-ish. I’m pretty satisfied with it for now so my next step is to throw some content up here. What I need most is a script or Wordpress plugin that will let me organize and display images (photographs and artwork). If anyone has suggestions, leave a comment.