New Year's present from Google

Who could imagine i will receive a present from them... but yes, they moved my blog to the new blogger and now i will have to spend some time learning the new features. I am particularly happy about the labels, which are actually the reason why i am writing this post.

OK, now i am back to my paper :)

Digital Divide and Modernization Theory

I am reading a book called "Approaches to development communication" and one of the chapters, by Jan Servaes and Patchanee Malikhao, is telling the story of theoretical approaches to development, basically starting with modernization, through dependency to more complex and holistic approaches.

Describing modernization, one paragraph particularly caught my attention. Outlining the modernization perspective's focus on economic growth and uni-direction evolution, Servaes and Malikhao write:

"In order to be a modern society, the attitudes of 'backward' people – their traditionalism, bad taste, superstition, fatalism, etc. – which are obstacles and barriers in the traditional societies have to be removed. The differences among nations are explained in terms of the degree of development rather than the fundamental nature of each. Hence, the central problem of development was thought to revolve around the question of 'bridging the gap' and 'catching up' by means of imitation process between traditional and modern sectors, between retarded and advanced or between 'barbarian' and civilized sectors and groups to the advantage of the latter."

And I couldn't pass by the 'bridging the gap' without thinking about the digital divide rhetoric. After all the term itself – digital divide – is based in the ideology claiming that there are the advanced and the retarded in ICT adoption, and that getting more advanced necessarily means being better off. Further reading the chapter and thinking about the link, the notion that the two are really linked grew stronger. And I think there is a caution note for all of doing research in the field, or even more so, working in the field, to treat technology more critically, to remember that technology itself is not the goal, but people are.

As the development thinking seems to be moving forward to more sophisticated approaches, the research and practice related to the digital divide should catch up. I just read another article overviewing the digital divide research since the beginning of the millennium and there is a shift, but it is slow. More on that in the next post. Have to finish the paper :)

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In case you are interested, the full citation of the article is:
Servaes, J., & Malikhao, P. (2003). Development communication approaches in international perspective. In J. Servaes (Ed.) Approaches to development communication. Paris: UNESCO.

P.S. Did you notice how the donation bar at Wikipedia jumped from some 300K to 700K overnight? I wonder what has happened….?

Only in Ithaca 2

We don't need no cinematography! The story continues:

From: bounce-810576-3539755@list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-810576-3539755@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Rhoda Streifer
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:00 AM
To: international-l@cornell.edu
Subject: dog walking exchange

thanks to the individuals who are interested, i cannot read the Chinese or Japanese characters in the response sent to me on Nov 26. if you are still interested, please send your mail in English. i do not have software in a different languages.

...and I am on my way to Hong-Kong.

Only in Ithaca

While i am waiting for the tea to boil, here is an email i got on one of my mailing lists:

From: bounce-799805-3539755@list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-799805-3539755@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Rhoda Streifer
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 2:59 PM
To: international-l@cornell.edu
Subject: person to walk my dog in exchange for esl lesson or simply get regular exercise

I have a very wonderful 9 yr. old dog whom i cannot walk anymore due my age i have been tutoring English as a second language for 31 yrs and i am the mother of two grown children. The dog walk would only take from 20-30 minutes and i would go along and "pick up' after the dog.The route is near my home from North Albany St around one to two blocks onto north cayuga and then home. This would be good for a man or woman of any age who would like to get some moderate exercise without having to join a gym for $400/month. also, a pre-teenager age 11 though teenager age 16 might like this job. Please let me know.. you may phone me at 277-7351 or respond to this email. . thanks and hope to hear from you soon.

Only in Ithaca :)

Peace Journalism and Development News

I am trying to understand this concept of development communication. Right now I am reading a book by Clement Asante called "Press Freedo and Development". Putting in a nutshell my understanding of the progress of the subfield of development communication it has gone from applying a modernization theory to alternative, more reflexive(?) approaches, one of which is development support communication. In a way it is a transition from the strong influences paradigm to a more moderate view – if the earlier approaches talked about communication actually leading developmental processes, the later approaches are talking about communication being part of a more complex matrix of social, economic, cultural and political influences.

One of the terms described in the book is that of "development news". Deriving from a body of research that shows that developing nations are being portrayed by the Western media mostly in terms of catastrophes, political troubles, human suffering and misery, she suggests an alternative approach. Here is how Asante describes it:

"Development news is basically a development-oriented news story that gives a positive image of a country. This news item tries to raise national consciousness, promote national unity and integration, and help to improve the quality of life of the people in terms of provision of health services, food production, community development and alike. Thus, development journalism or communication can be defined as the critical examination, evaluation and reporting of the relevance of a development project to national and local needs. In fact, any news item that tends to focus or highlight any form of social change, development, growth, or improvement in a society or nation falls under the development communication concept." (p. 150)

Well, this normatively charged approach may appear naïve, not rigorous and simplistic. Moreover there is a series of question raising about the journalistic norms involved and the role of journalism as a social institution. Later Asante quotes Narinda Aggarwala (1979) who wrote:

"Development journalism is the use of all journalistic skills to report development processes in an interesting fashion. It may require high skills and hard work but the rewards of this kind of journalism can be tremendous. It could almost lead to the humanization of international news"

And then she quotes Schramm and Atwood (1981):

"By development news, these Third World spokesmen mostly mean "good" news."

Reading all this (and more) I had difficult time accepting the idea that development news is necessarily optimistic news. What about some healthy criticism of the regime, the industry, the civil society? What about media being an accountability mechanism in a democratic (or even semi-democratic) society? There is something intuitively wrong in viewing media as a tool of dissimilation of positive news only.

As the same time, reading this, made me thinking about the concept of "peace journalism", which is also trying to promote a normative stand in conflict coverage. I think that there are parallels, while at the same time PJ has some more advanced ways of conceptualizing its position. The basic argument there would be that as journalists take a normative stand in issues of crime, drugs, sexual violence, etc., they can also take a stand in coverage of conflicts. The important distinction however, is that the taken stand is more of a macro character, rather than explicit support to the parties. Similarly to an overall notion in crime coverage that crime is bad, there could be a notion that in conflict situation, regardless on who is right and who is wrong, the conflict itself is bad. At first, it is rather difficult to grasp, but reading more on the subject you do realize how contemporary media do not take a stand towards conflicts, in a way assuming that conflicts are exogenously imposed and they are there to stay. The claim of PJ is by changing the prism and looking at the conflict itself as a socially undesirable phenomenon can contribute to changing the social mindset as well.

Here I can see a possible link to development support journalism as taking a macro normative stand that the development is good. However it does not imply that from now on developing nations should receive positive and optimistic coverage only. The idea is probably more of a self aware journalism contributing to the shift of social mindset.

Another interesting point which is kind of rising from out PEACE study and in a way from Galtung's writing is that talking about peace, you have to talk about socio-economic development. Galtung is talking about positive peace, which is a motion towards inclusion and transparency not just among societies, but also within the societies themselves. Thus the positive peace includes socio-economic development and inclusion within and among nations, which in turn can strengthen my point about similarities in journalistic treatment of peace and development.

Any thoughts?

More on parade

Well, Ynet has a special section dedicated to parade coverage, which is probably signifies the centrality of the issue on the Israeli public agenda.

Election and my privacy paranoia

Right now I am sitting in a living room watching, together with two classmates, the results of the US election coming in. Yes, this is yet another socializing event :) As we watch it, there is apparently a mini-history taking place as the democrates are taking back the house. Watching it with two "burned" (literally translation of שרוף from Hebrew) democrats it is rather entertaining. Judge yourself:

more :)

However, not everything is that shiny. A couple of days ago Veronica sent me that article, which was rather "eye-opening" for me. Here are some examples of articles in English describing the phenomena: [1], [2], [3] (thank you Erik for those). Basically, the idea is that in this election campaign managers used voters registry crossed with various consumer data for targeted campaigns. As a result they claim to be able micro-manage the election knowing practically everything about their voters' behavior. So today, when you shop, subscribe for a journal or send your kids to a summer camp, you've been literally monitored by the Big Brother. Is it me, or this is spooky? How come that we don't really care about that? What happened to the boundaries of our privacy? Today the monitor the behavior to target the message/political pressure and what will happen tomorrow? Are we going to be followed to the polls? After that I do start question my concerns about Google for there are worse things out there…

And here is the guy who is apparently (partly?) responsible for creation of this database, Frank Luntz, a name and a face to remember.

Is religion evil?

Well, this is a little bit long one and also probably a sensitive one, but let see…

In the last couple of weeks, there is a huge debate going on in Israel regarding a possibility of having a gay parade in Jerusalem. Well, the parade is scheduled for the end of the week (as from what I understand have happened in the last 5 years), but this time there is a huge opposition to it from the religious communities in the city. The claim, shared by various religion representatives, is that Jerusalem is a holy city and gay relationships are such a huge sin that having the parade will contaminate the place. The things are kind of going out of control at the moment while ultra religious people (dare I say fanatics) are burning trash bins and tires, block highways, throw stones on the policemen and today even attacked the mayor. The police is afraid people will get hurt or even killed. The newspapers seem to be flooded with articles on the subjects and the talkbacks (got to love them!) flourishing with comments ranging from calls to cancel the parade and even expel the gays to having it at any cost and break the bones of everyone who will try to stop it. I also had a big argument with a friend about that matter and we kind of agreed to disagree. But it made me thinking…

The argument against the parade is the holiness of the place. It is claimed that the religious feelings are going to get hurt that much by holding that parade that is not justified to have it. And I keep on asking myself if the religious feelings are more important compared to civil liberties? How do we compare? For example, one argument I heard is that the religion is deeper rooted in our culture, it has history and thus people are more sensitive compared to the gays. Well, first I am not sure how true this statement is. In a similar fashion one can claim that secular Israelis are less passionate about their secularity and thus Israel should be turned into an absolutely religious state based on religious law only. Then, I still find it difficult to decide if a long lasting believe matters more than a basic right of a person to have a different sexual orientation. If I believe for hundreds of years that the earth is flat and it really hurts my feelings when people get out to streets to celebrate the fact that they were able to travel around the world, does it make my believe more valuable than their right to celebrate a different set of believes and behaviors? Another argument I hear is "Why in Jerusalem? Aren't there other places? Why not Tel-Aviv?" And, again, I keep on asking myself, isn't Jerusalem a capital of all Israel? If that is so, why one group of citizens can express their believes and ways of living in the capital, but another is not? How do we decide whose liberties are more important than the others'? Frankly, I fail to see a difference.

I have to admit that the last few weeks gave a lot of food for though about religion, or more precisely what it has became. I do believe the original idea was good, but the contemporary version, or at least the contemporary publicly presented version, is rather bad. For me, the main focus of the last week was of course the debate, or shall I say the fight, around the parade. A few days ago I also read Lisa's post about Australian Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly basically blaming the victims of the southwest Sydney gang rapes, for what happened. I do not understand that.

When I look at religion as it is represented today I see disrespect to women and impatience towards anyone who is different. I see violence, anger and blocked minds. I see abuse of originally beautiful values and I see masses – masses of people who are either being manipulated or have chosen an easy path of being told what to think. This is not kind of a religion I am ready to identify myself with or to support.

Of course, what I am doing here is a rough, and probably unfair, generalization. I've been discussing this with people and many have told that majority of people who believe are not that fanatic. And as a communication scholar I understand that media represent the extremes for they look better on screen. And still I keep on asking myself, why do all those who believe and keep their faith private and pure, do not speak? If they are the majority, how do they allow this bunch of fanatics abusing their religion? How do they allow introducing more evil and anger through this religion that they love and respect? I do not understand that…

I am sorry to admit, but it seems like religion has became a source of all the things we do not want in a modern, moderate, thinking, liberal and patient society. In a ways it has became a source of evil :(

Any thoughts?

P.S. Interesting, looking for articles in English to illustrate some of mine points, I saw that they are actually much more PC than those in Hebrew…

Wild Ithaca

Well, it seems like since I moved here, the calm town became very wild. There were 3(!) crime instances here in the last two and a half months. However, even when the crime does happen, it is still not very ordinary… Here are two examples from the yesterday's "crime alert" email:

"The Ithaca Police Department is investigating an incident reported to their agency on October 19, 2006, at approximately 5:30 am.
The incident reportedly occurred in the 400 block of E. Seneca St., approximately two hours before the report was made to police. An unknown subject knocked on a resident's door, once the resident opened the door, several masked intruders forced their way into the apartment and demanded money and marijuana. One of the intruders was armed with what appeared to be a rifle or shotgun. The resident reportedly surrendered money and marijuana to the intruders, who then fled."

Maybe that is me, but I find the mere mentioning of the resident surrendering marijuana to the intruders, as part of a police report, amusing. It is ok to hold an armored-robbery-worthy stock of marijuana at home, but stealing it is a crime… OK... But wait! Here is another one:

"The Ithaca Police Department is investigating a trespass complaint that occurred on College Avenue on October 15, 2006. The incident occurred at approximately 5:30 am but was not reported to the police until approximately 10:30 am. A female resident reported that she was awakened by a subject who reportedly was removing her bedroom covers from her. The subject reportedly fled the room when the resident was awakened. The resident fell back asleep. A few minutes later, the female resident was again awakened, by the same subject turning a light on in her room. The intruder again fled when the resident was awakened this second time. The victim described the intruder as an Asian male, in his 20s, wearing a light colored shirt and blue jeans."

And I keep on asking myself: What would you do after being woken up by a stranger trying to pull off your covers? Would you go and check your house? Would you check your locks? Would you call the police? Or maybe just a friend? No, no, no, no!!!! Usually people just turn on the other side and keep on sleeping. That's normal. Happens every day… Unless of course someone turns on the lights - that's wrong!

The mystery of the floating bar

A few days ago, Lisa pointed out that my blog was broken. And indeed it was. Now I figured out what it was about. Apparently, Blogger has a really weird feature… when you place a picture which is too big for the post area or a link that is too long, it simply shifts the side bar and puts it down. Nice, isn't it? And apparently there are many people who suffer from this problem. I found this idea on the blogger's help group and simply changed the source pictures for my post about the book sale. The really weird thing is that when I insert the pictures, I give them exact dimensions, so I really don't understand why the size of the source would matter. Any ideas?

Dangerous Ithaca

Here is a message I received a few days ago in my email:

Campus Crime Alert
Oct. 13, 2006

The Ithaca Police Department is investigating a strong arm robbery that occurred on October 10, 2006, at approximately 9:30 p.m. in the 500 block of E. Buffalo St. The victim, a Cornell student, was walking on E. Buffalo St. when she was approached by a male subject. The subject knocked her purse from her hand, picked up the purse from the ground and fled west down the Buffalo St. hill. The subject was described as a male, 5 foot, 6 inches tall, medium to heavy set build, wearing a dark-colored, hooded jacket.

Students and others are reminded to be aware of their surroundings and to walk in well lit areas.
Contact the Blue Light Escort Service at 255-7373 to arrange for walking escorts around campus.

Report suspicious persons on campus to the Cornell Police at 255-1111 or, off campus, to the Ithaca Police Department at 272-3245, or dial 911 in the case of an emergency.

This is the first time I heard of crime in this town. And as it happened (well, almost), they actually sent an alert to the entire campus! I find this amusing. And yes, the university police offers escort services for those who afraid walking alone in dark. Well, after all there was a "strong arm robbery"… first one in two months.

What a dangerous place this world…

Weather

I was checking the weather for tomorrow, trying to figure out if it is going to rain and look what i saw:

(pay attention to the low temprature tomorrow)

Couldn't help myself from posting this. Now i am back to my home exam.

Prelims

I guess those of you who visit this blog from time to time, noticed that I didn't update it for a few weeks. Well, this is a sign that I started the semester and it is rather busy. These days, thanks to Columbus, we are having a Fall Break – 2 days to extend the weekend. But this is not a real break. In the best tradition of the Israeli academia the whole break is dedicated to preparations for exams which are called here "prelims". Some of them took place before the break and some are supposed to be after. The difference between prelims and midterms is that there is only one midterm exam in a class, but there can be several prelims. For example, on Wednesday I am going to receive an exam in communication theory class and there is going to be another one later in the semester.

But let leave the techniques aside and, risking loosing the few readers I have here, let me have a prelim for you. It's an easy one:

What would you do at 5:30 (am) on Saturday morning?
a. Sleep
b. Preparing to sleep
c. Go to take a spot in a line for a huge book sale that opens at 8:00

Exactly! Last Saturday, Erik, Josh and I woke up at 5:30 to go and sit in line for the Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library book sale. Apparently this is one of the largest book sales in the country and it has about 250,000 items. Basically, as I understand it, what happens is that there is an NGO which collects used books throughout the year and then sells them in a huge sale, lasting 3 weekends. It is so huge that people actually stand in line to get to the sale first. We arrived there around 6:00 and I got number 150(!). We were told that there was one guy who actually slept two days in a tent in order to be the first. So, we were relatively sane and spent only two hours on approximately 10 degrees cold sipping coffee and chatting.

The sale itself was rather impressive. It is a huge hangar with stocks and stocks of books which are sort of organized according to topics.

I got some books. Keren would be proud of me for now I can read the actual Popper, Kuhn, Durkheim, etc. I also got Adam Smith's "Wealth of the nations"… now I have to read it all…

Nostalgia…

Here is another interesting quotation from the stuff I am reading these days:

"William Niskanen (1971) made the simple assumption that bureau chiefs seek to maximize the budgets made available to them by legislatures. Budgets were, after all, both the symbol and measure of bureaucratic success, as well as the source of bureaucratic comfort and ease. Using its monopoly position, a bureau will attain a budget which oversupplies the bureau's output to the point at which consumer surplus is matched by the inefficiency of oversupply."

Reading that brought some memories from a certain 3-year period of my life…

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Full citation of the article:

Miller, Gary J. 1997. “The Impact of Economics on Political Science.” Journal of Economic Literature 35 (3): 1173‑1204

Procrastination as a statement?

I am back to school and thus read a lot of interesting stuff. Right now I am preparing for a presentation in a class called "Inside technology – social construction of technology" and am reading an article about social choice in machine design. Basically it says that mechanization of the production process in metal cutting industry "mirrors the antagonistic social relations of capitalist production".

At some point it states: "Workers practiced pacing for many reasons: to keep some time for themselves, to exercise authority over their own work, to avoid killing 'gravy' piece-rate jobs by overproducing and risking a rate cut, to stretch out available work for fear of layoffs, to exercise their creativity and ingenuity in order to 'make out' on 'stinkers (poorly rated jobs), and, of course, to express hostility to management" (I added the italic). All these are described as "collective cooperation and labor-prescribed norms of behavior".

Now I am asking myself: what about procrastination? We, as students, usually tend to procrastinate, don't we? I find the act of procrastination similar to that of pacing – postponing things without an 'objective' reason. So, when we do that, are we exercising authority over our studies or even more than that (of course) expressing our hostility to the institutions? Anyhow, it seems like procrastination can be viewed as a form of collective cooperation or kind of a norm of behavior. In other words, now, when we procrastinate, we can view it as a proletarian statement! :)

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In case you are interested, the full citation of the article is:
David F. Noble "Social Choice in Machine Design: The Case of Automatically Controlled Machine Tools." In MacKenzie and Wajcman (eds.) The Social Shaping of Technology. First Edition (1985), Open University Press. Second Edition (1999). Philadelphia and Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Beebe Lake

Last Saturday my international TA summer camp fellows, their friends and i went for a walk around one of the local attractions - the Beebe Lake. It was nice and is supposed to be even nicer later in the fall when the trees will change the color. We met some people who were jumping from a bridge to the gorge and of course the one whom i saw jumping spoke perfect Russian :)

Here are my pictures from the walk:

Walk on Beebe lake

Aug 26, 2006 - 27 Photos

Nikos has also uploaded his (despite the name he gave to his album, we didn't actually reach the plantation; just the botanic gardens).

N.B. I don't really know what the name of the lake means, but it has nothing to do with Netanyahu - that i checked :)

Wikipedia in Indian laguages

Here is another example for a reason to back Wikipedia's ideology... Isn't it cool?

Wiki-Brittanica

So, here's a thought… (copyright Sean Brin – maybe its about a time you write something there :) I just got out of the class I am TAing on Human Computer Interaction. During the lecture, Dan, mentioned that one of the great advantages of Wikipedia is that it instantly releases material and updates; something that can hardly done by Britannica in a paper version. And I was thinking…

Britannica does have a website, so technically it could somehow adapt to the dynamics, and there is an ongoing struggle between it and Wikipedia over the online dominance (well, actually the battle has gone well beyond the borders of the cyberspace). In the last year or more, Wikipedia has been criticized for being inaccurate and mediocre, particularly compared to the established encyclopedias. Although I do favor Wikipedia's model and philosophy, today's lecture made me think that Britannica could actually have an upper hand in this online battle if it would open its mind to some new models. Thus for example I think there is place for a Wiki-Britannica: something that will have the core of Britannica content with ability for people to add and edit it. In ideal world this would be based on interaction between Britannica people and the community of Wikipedia editors, thus (hopefully) leading towards better quality, more rigorously researched, and yet more diverse and culturally sensitive content.

Here are also many questions of course. For example the question of business model arises. Today, in order to use Britannica, you have to pay, and this money is probably used to do that research the encyclopedia is so proud of. What will happen if the content will become free and dynamic online? Should all the content become free? Besides, will Britannica's content gain from a real interaction with people who care? Will the spirit of Wiki community remain if it starts interacting with an institutionalized entity such as Britannica? I don't know… but I like the idea, particularly in light of the recent changes Wikipedia had in the way the community is managed. Perhaps this is the time to consider new models for both sides of the spectrum…

We want coffee!

Well, this one is really last for today, but it is really cool and in light of the hour and the time I have to get up at the morning (7 am!!!), you can get a chance to see what I will look like.

Click here and try dragging the pot with coffee towards the dogs/bunnies/whatever they are… and there are more… (thank you Gina :)

What do I study?

Well, this is a last one for today, but it is a semi-serious one. Today we had one of those classes when we talk about defining the field of studies we all are working in. This made me wondering, how many of the people whom I know and who know me, really know what is that I am studying. Well, one thing, the previous sentence proves, is that I can't really write, but what is that I am studying? It seems that there are only two people reading my blog, but still, what do you think? :)

Macaroni with cheese and wine

Yesterday I had another culturally-culinary experience having my first ever macaroni with cheese and of course with wine. Well, Gina, my fellow student, already laughed at me claiming I made a very simple mac and cheese sound very sophisticated. And telling the truth, I was kind of disappointed myself, since all it had in the box were some macaroni and shredded cheese. As a consumer you have to add butter and milk yourself. Not very impressive. And although Erik claimed that this was a classic bachelor's dinner, I think I will switch back to simpler cooking.

Here is what a classic bachelor's dinner look like:

P.S. About the wine. I had a rather annoying accident a few days ago when I went to buy the wine and they refused selling it to me and wouldn't accept my Israeli driving license. I had a very long argument with them, including the manager of the store, but there was a very solid "no". So, now I guess I will have to get a local driving license, even if only for purpose of drinking in pubs and buying alcohol.

Proof

A few days ago a postman came and put a label with my family name on our mailbox. Apparently, here if you receive a lot of mail to a certain address, they logically conclude that you live there and put a label with your name on the mailbox. Isn't it great? I liked it…

And here is a proof that I actually live here now:

Naming the desk

Well, today (Sunday), I finished re-building my new desk and I think I am pretty happy with it. It is big, it is nice and it smells well :) A short retrospective may be useful. Here is what we had at the beginning:




And here is what we got at the end:




And this is how my future home office is starting to look like:



Did anyone say wires? :)

And now to the big task – I need a name for the desk. Since this piece of furniture is probably destined to company me in the next few years and since it will probably serve me in writing the dissertation, it really needs a name. This is because it is now like a boat with which I am sailing and as you might know, the name of the boat predicts the quality of the sail. So, suggestions for a name are required!

Summer camp pics

I think I mentioned it before that I was going through an International Teaching Assistants training. Here are the pictures of the event. You don't have to log in, just click on "View Slideshow".

I think the best thing that came out of the workshop is that I got to know many people. After less than three weeks, I walk on campus and see familiar faces. I like it :)

The wall of fame

Tomorrow (or actually already today) the semester is about to start. Early? Yes. But what can I do about it? On Tuesday we had a departmental orientation, which included presentation of research areas of the faculty (something I believed people should've known before applying to the department, but I am not here to judge :) and giving away a lot of material about the university and more. Then there was a nice dinner where you could also have a chance to chat with the faculty and other students. However, a more amusing thing took place earlier, at the very beginning of the day, when all the new-coming faculty and students had to take a photo to be placed on a huge poster which is located at the entrance to the department. Yep, it looks like "doska pocheta" (honorary board) in the good old Soviet times. It is rather funny. And the process itself is even more entertaining. This lady photographer puts you in a very "natural" poses, to get "the best" picture for you. She takes a few and then selects the best one together with you. Mine was "sold" to me with the words: "Here you look very confident and competent. Like: 'I know what I am doing. Give me the job!'". Hopefully I will get hold of the digital version of the picture, so I could share what a composition of " I know what I am doing. Give me the job!" looks like.

Here are some pictures to get you a sense of what the situation looks like. Here is Gina being photographed:

And here is Laura going through the same process and then selecting the pictures:

I went through it too and also Amir Hezroni, who is a visiting professor from (you would never guess…) Israel.

And yes, everyone had also to sign a paper which allows Cornell to do with these pictures whatever they want. Well, that's the price of being posted on the wall of fame...

Getting settled

Well, settling to a new place may be exciting, but may be also a bit frustrating. So I've been navigating between the two in the last 2.5 weeks, while I had to "personalize" my new home and as part of it get some furniture. Since Ithaca is appears to be kind of center of the world – it centrally remote from most major cities on the East coast – instead of going to Ikea (which, I was told, is about 250 miles away), I renovated some of the used furniture left at the basement of the house I live in. Since my time at home is limited, it was a frustrating and long process. However, as the outcomes start appearing, I think I do getting excited for the place starts getting a sense of home. So I painted some of the walls (maybe will share pictures later) and am getting some the furniture finished.

Here is the first one…. [drums]… a dresser!

Here what it looked like before:

And here what it looks like now in my room:



Well, I am not sure I am absolutely in love with colors, but it makes my room more colorful (instead of plain white) and it definitely could be worse. Now, there are more things "cooking" and I will post pictures as they are ready. So far, I think I really like how my future desk is turning out. Wait and see…

Zeus and Co.

I was pleased to discover that there are people who actually practice worshiping the 12 gods of Greek mythology. I think this is rather stylish :)

(if you don't read Greek, you can use Babel Fish to translate).

Thank you Nikos for the info!

_________

An update coming from Nikos: They also have a website. So, if you are interested in details, here is the link to the English version.

Ithaca is gorges

Yesterday (Saturday) it was raining heavily:

To me, it was nice. It wasn't cold, wasn't hot and there was a feel of freshness in the air. The sad thing about it was that I couldn't go to the planned mini-track at one of the lakes in the area. However, today, when I had to walk up the hill (!!!) to the campus (since there is no bus in proximity on weekends) I took the Cascadilla creek rote and it was amazingly beautiful! The gorge was full of water and the stream was so strong and laud… a totally different experience from the calm creek two weeks ago.






So now I start understanding where the phrase "Ithaca is gorges" came from.

Getting settled

More visual updates.

Here is my house:

Well, actually only about 2/5 of it is mine and even that is shared with Erik, my housemate. The right half of the house is ours, the left side is shared by another 4 people (but they have full autonomy, so it is a separate unit) and above us, in the attic, is another one bedroom or a studio place.

This is Erik:

And this is a street which I take on my way to and from the campus (after the creek):

To be continued…

"Head reduction"

I finished one TA training workshop (for international students) and started another one, this time a more general one. One of the latest points in the international TA workshop was about solving problems in class, particularly issues of cheating and plagiarizing. The message there was clear – if there is a problem in class (e.g. you catch someone cheating), do not do anything yourself and report to your supervisor. You have to remember that you are just a TA... Compared to a one and a half workshop, that was a rather minor, though strong, point there. Now, in the general workshop, it has grown huge. Basically this is one of the main themes in this one – whatever happens, do not make decisions! Whatever happens do not try solving anything yourself! Never make your own judgment – ask your supervisor!

Well, maybe this is the cultural shock, but this seems to me a little bit too much. How could you ever be active and to initiate, if you are being "emasculated" from the very beginning? On the one hand you are taught to be creative and to think out of a box in the class. On the other, you are very limited in your freedom to build you class environment as you see it right.

For me, this entire session reminded the army. In Israel this is called "haktanat rosh" (which I literally translated as "head reduction") - a behavior when you are (mentally) lazy, not willing to make decisions and/or to take responsibility. If you think about this, this is a rather illustrative expression…

Cascadilla creek

Well, it's been a little bit over two weeks since I moved to Ithaca and it seems like an appropriate time to start sharing my experiences about the place. I think for me, the strongest impression so far was that this town (well, more like a village :) is extremely green! Everywhere you look now, you can see green and I enjoy it a lot. Everyone is telling me that this is going to change soon as it will get colder, so I cherish the moment. Here are some pictures from the rote I take back home from the university, which is right by a very beautiful creek called Cascadilla creek:

The pictures are not in any particular order, but still, think it is beautiful and I can walk by this beauty as long as it is warm :)

Welcome to the USA

Since I am starting a new phase in the US at the moment, I believe this blog may shift into a bit more personal vein particularly since I think it may be a good way to share pictures and share some observations and insights from my current adventure.

So here we go with the first one. I am participating in this International TA Development Program and today I received an "International Teaching Assistant Manual". On page 5 it has an explanation of what small talk is and one of the paragraphs goes like this:

"In many cases, small talk is initiated when one person comments on another person's appearance or belongings. However, there are a few social norms to be aware of in these situations. Women can generally compliment other women on their clothes or shoes. However, men generally do not compliment women, and women do not compliment men on their clothes. An exemption may be when someone is wearing a shirt or a hat with the name of a place you have visited."

Well, welcome to the USA! :)

Long time no Google...

Sometimes i am sorry i do not blog in HE or there is no (good) translation from any language to any language... I was checking papers in "New Media and Society" course, where students had to analyse verious media products about technology. One of the papers had a very intersting article about Google (the article is in HE). It followed a book by John Battelle called "The Search", which just got translated from EN to HE. Looks like an intersting reading.

Maybe i should start posting some books reviews here... hmm...

The boycott…

Well, it actually passed. NATFHE actually decided to boycott Israel. I don’t really know even how to react to this for frankly I didn’t believe it’ll happen. I fail to understand the logic behind the decision, which appears ignorant to me and the fact that it was done in between discussion on wages makes it even insulting. I try to imagine how it was actually done: “Now, when we finished discussing the decrease in our pension funds, let talk about boycotting Israel and then will come back to the question of our travel expenses since the gas prices have risen…” Do they really believe that this is what will change the situation? That this is what will encourage the sides to find a solution? It seems like a populist and arrogant decision by which someone probably gained some political capital. Here is this decision is counterproductive by the very least. It creates a situation where people are pushed to the ages. You are not allowed to have a sophisticated opinion (support the existence of a separation wall/fence and argue for full withdrawal from the territories for example). You have to take a stand either you are with “us” or with “them”. How useful can it be? Moreover the decision shows the deflation of words we are having around this conflict (genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, etc. are so easy to use these days and yet bear so little of the original meaning), but that’s an entire different issue for another post.

I tried following what is being in media about this and then in blogs. Of course Haarretz covered this both in HE and EN. Also Ynet had an EN publication about this. If you googled boycott in the last two day you could get the whole bunch of articles about the decision. Same goes for Technorati (only there I searched for “academic boycott Israel” – almost 30 posts in EN in the last two days). The reactions in blogs are rather predictable – there are those who only condemn the boycott or only support it (hmm… I think my own post fits this pattern too). There were more blogs who condemned it and just a few that supported it and even fewer that went into any kind of discussion on the topic (either pro or con). As always, the comments are the best part :)

Good news for bloggers…

...though not sure if it is as good for the readers.

Another article in HE Haaretz today (I am stopping with it for my subscription to the newspaper is gong to end in just two days :) told a story of Apple’s loss in a suite where they tried to force bloggers to expose their sources. The court said that it has no tools to distinguish between “legitimate” (read “mainstream and/or established”) and “non-legitimate” (read “grassroots and/or alternative”) news. Thus all the rules applied in order to protect journalistic practices should be applied to blogs as well.

Seemingly, it is a positive development strengthening the blogsphere. At the same time, I think there are question rising as to the parallels between blogging and journalism. When I am writing that, I have in mind the issue of ethical norms. While established journalists are subject to a certain set of ethical norms and rules, are the bloggers subject to same criteria? Should the be? Even when the journalists do not comply with the ethical code, there is scale to assess their activity, but is there such measurement for blogs? And again, should there be? What will stop me tomorrow from attacking a company, an institution or a person, without any basis? What will stop me from spreading lies over the blogshpere? Is there any shared code of conduct here according to which I may check if my actions are legitimate? Or anything is legitimate?

I think I’ll go to sleep on this happy note :)

Following up the boycott initiative.

Here is another article published in the EN Haaretz about the boycott issue. The writer’s position is pretty known in advance (just try googling his name), but, once again, the article proves that reading the comments is one of the more interesting things :)

Also I took a quick look at other Israeli sources covering the boycott issue. There was only one article in HE Ynet and what seems like a simple translation of it in the EN version. Interesting that the title is “Academics resist boycott of Israeli universities”, which is quite different from what Haaretz had (but to be honest, Haaretz dedicated much more attention to the issue – is it a question of how each one see its audience?).

Jerusalem post also had some coverage of the issue. Looking at the comments you cannot stop wondering what a different crowd reads the different papers (ironically, there was someone named Mike Epstein among the commenters :) Apparently the boycott was already supported by Canadian Union of Public Employees. It is a pity though the JP takes money for the archived content, for it’d be interesting to see what they wrote in the previous articles on the topic (apparently they too covered it for some time already).

I couldn’t find anything on the topic in NRG (Maariv), who has on of the most user-not-friendly websites I ever saw… also I don’t think they have an EN version too.

But the most fascinating things happens of course in the blogsphere. I searched for a string “academic boycott Israel” and got 1,079 results in English with any authority. Although there are not that many blogs dealing with the issue (look at this chart) the topic has been discussed pretty much constantly through out the year (at least one post a day I think) with some peaks (one really distinct was at the end of December last year – I wonder why was that?). However, I couldn’t find anything too fascinating there. Just the standard reference to mainstream media publications.

Tomorrow is the vote for boycott.

Well, tomorrow, the British National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE – how do you pronounce that?) is going to vote on the boycott issue. There was an article in Haaretz on this subject, focusing on the efforts to stop the initiative.

Interestingly enough, there is a significant difference between the English and the Hebrew versions of the article. The EN one is much more ‘parve’ I would say, and in this way diminishes the complexity of this situation. For example, the HE version ends with a quote of Prof. Arik Monman from the City University of London, who is actually an activists against the boycott. He says a few things, such as: “For many members of the union the boycott is simply another aspect of leftists activity”. Then he adds that the boycott will actually be a very minor issue at the summit, since the major topic is going to be (surprise, surprise) diminution in the real values of the salaries of the association’s members.

I think quote like this puts the entire idea in a bit different proportion and yet again emphasized my initial idea that people who are actually acting for such action do not really appreciate its importance and complexity. In a way it reminds me all the early anthropologic studies when (frequently British :) researchers even didn’t leave their comfortable armchairs writing about the aborigines and the native societies from a pretty arrogant perspective (or when they did go, it still was a patronic attitude towards their subjects – because the developed world knows much better what is good for you) … History tends to repeat itself, and it is interesting to find yourself in a position of an aborigine…

Academic boycott

A few days ago I read about the renewal of an academic boycott on Israel by the British academics and I fail to follow the logic of it. Not only it attacks the sector which probably holds the most liberal views and is promoting a leftist agenda, the argumentation provided is so lousy, stereotypical and blindfolded, that it crates an obstacle by itself towards any kind of dialogue. There was an article in the Hebrew version of Haaretz today, which made me wonder, how many of those who so passionately advocate such boycott (it is already the second large scale attempt) do really understand what is going on here? Is any idea, articulated strongly enough able to carry away even the very intelligent groups of European academics without trying to go into the depth of it? Weird feeling… Still thinking about it…

First we took Ashdod, then we took Tel-Aviv…

… (and probably Neve Elan too)

Just a short remark, trying to keep the blog alive. Yesterday I discovered that the Israeli channel 10 has simultaneous voice-over translation to Russian. That was pretty weird watching it, but nevertheless interesting. Of course I run to check the leading Israeli TV channel, channel 2, and their news didn’t have any translation.

Have no idea what to do with this info yet, but I was fascinated…

Anoter brick in the IG debate...

An interestsing article i just got through Cyber-Society mailing list:

US: Tollbooths on the Internet Highway

by Editorial, The New York Times
February 20th, 2006

When you use the Internet today, your browser glides from one Web site to another, accessing all destinations with equal ease. That could change dramatically, however, if Internet service providers are allowed to tilt the playing field, giving preference to sites that pay them extra and penalizing those that don't.

Continue reading...

On another note, here is a link to an article which Leonichka sent me today:

The Credible Threat.
Dr. Michel Geist
Feb. 28/06

...Starting tomorrow, China's Ministry of Information Industry plans to begin offering four country-code domains. In addition to the dot-cn country code domain, three new Chinese character domains are on the way: dot-China, dot-net, and dot-com. As the People's Daily Online notes this "means Internet users don't have to surf the Web via the servers under the management of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of the United States." In other words, the Chinese Internet becomes a reality tomorrow...

Continuing the search engines theme...

There is an apparently interesting workshop on the subject is going to take place in June in Berlin. The title is: The Rising Power of Search-Engines on the Internet: Impacts on Users, Media Policy and Media Business.

A PDF with further information can be found here. I would really like to see the proceedings of such an event...

The future of mobile :)

Just got this video by e-mail... Nothing like laughing on technology. Enjoy! :)

Google is coming! So what?

It is a bit weird to write what I am going to, using Google's platform. This is something I'll have to think about… But anyway… If you read "Haaretz" today, you are certain that it is a very big, even historical, date – Google is coming to Israel! Or as it was also phrased: "Google is coming to take its share of the Israeli advertisement market".

Actually Google announced opening of an Israeli branch a few months ago, but yesterday they held their first ever press conference here. "Haaretz" dedicated four(!) pages covering the event and looking on it I couldn't help myself but wondering why?

Except for the fact that the articles recycled already known information about Google again and again, it focused on the (already existing?) tension between Google and the institutionalized advertising. From a title like: "Google is coming to take its share" (EN version) you are getting a sense that Google will revolutionize the advertising industry in Israel - no more and no less. The veteran advertising agencies are shaking from the thought that Google will push them off the market making them irrelevant. Another article, was titled in Hebrew: "The advertising agencies are sending Google a clear message: if you want to make money – work with us" (EN version). Reading that I remember the “offer he couldn’t refuse” from the “God Father”. The most amusing statement quoted was by Yanon Landenberg of "Ideologic". He explained how important the established advertising agencies are, for (only?) they have the knowledge that will allow an effective match between search terms and advertising-worth results. Another article, by Eitan Avirel (EN version), explained how revolutionary Google's entry is for it will make advertising more transparent (and thus more cost-efficient) for the advertiser.

And again, reading all the articles, I couldn't help myself, but thinking what the all fuss is about. Maybe I do not understand something? Particularly being kind of an Internet junky, how come I fail to appreciate the great revolution happening in front of my eyes? Somehow these thoughts reminded me of the times I worked in a VC during the bubble days. I had the same, "dumb" questions back then, but I didn't dare to sound them thinking that I lack the experience to see the entire picture. Thinking back, the naïve questions I had were in place, so now I am trying to raise them again even if only in a blog. Moreover, today I do have a bit more experience to be able to put things in proportion, which again urges me to ask these questions.

The first question rises about the "revolutionarily effect" of the model. There is no doubt that Google's Adword and Adsense are interesting models for online marketing and they apparently work. However, to claim that they revolutionize online advertisement is an exaggeration in my eyes. The entire branch of online advertising is no more than a decade old. During that decade we all could see that simply copying offline advertising strategies online doesn't work and since then the industry was looking for workable models (actually not only in advertising). The process is accompanied by consciously, and I think to a great extend artificially, encouraged hype around the online advertising. The veteran advertising agencies continued playing the same game online trying to lock the web's profitability on them, just as it worked with television (thinking about it, this idea is pretty similar to what Schiller is saying). However, no equilibrium was reached yet, and the industry is still looking for workable models. But the media seem to enter the bubble mode again and comparative institutionalization of the dot.com industries gives more fuel for an exaggerated coverage of every sign of normalization. So, how can you revolutionize something that was not established yet? There is no such a things as an established online advertisement industry yet, so what is the contribution of such coverage?

At the same time it seems like the shake of the dot.com bubble was so strong that the related industries are looking now for some kind of tranquility which will allow them making money without too much crises. Isn't this discourse similar of an "austere strategy" when the industry with the help of media is hiding its head in the sand refusing to learn the trends and adjust to changes? Google has found one profit model that works in the new industry and this is great. Shouldn't this be learned, applied and further developed? In my eyes these are rhetorical questions and I do have unhealthy flashback from the early 2000's thinking about this.

Another point helping to put things in proportion is thinking about the relative size of the online advertisement compared to the total size of the industry. According to various news reports online advertising in Israel accounts for 5-7% of the entire share of the advertising industry, which is estimated around US $805-859 millions. Although it enjoys the fastest growing rates (around 60-70% in 2005), how can it endanger (or revolutionize) the established advertising agencies? Is it me, or the entire issue is way blown out of the proportion? Add on this a very simple fact that only about half of the Israeli population has access to the Internet and you see yet another question mark on the issue of Google-revolution.

Regardless to what is said above, I had another thought I couldn't shake off. It was a great similarity of the treatment Google's opening got and that gained to the visit of Bill Gates a few months ago. Is Google already the next Microsoft? Or it is only in the eyes of the newspapers? Or one particular newspaper? Anyway, I put the paper aside with a weird and unpleasant feeling…

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23/02/2006: Hebrew, edited version of this post was published today in online TheMarker. TheMarker is the economic branch of Haaretz. You can find the article here.

(Don't) Do no harm...

Just read in Hebrew Haaretz about Google's recent agreement with Chinese government. The results from google.ch are going to be monitored and censored. So much for ubiquity of the Internet and the "embedded" freedom of speech...

Couldn't help myself but try :)

Search terms: communism critique
(google.cn: 1,020,000 results / google.com: 1,760,000 results)

Search terms: human rights watch

(google.cn: 55,600,000 results / google.com: 55,700,000 results)

And a bit more complex one: human rights watch china

(google.cn: 12,800,000 results / google.com: 103,000,000 results)

And now checking the e-mail i came over another today's article featuring the same topic in Guardian. I tried searching for "Tiananmen Square massacre", which is mentioned in Guardian as a forbidden search, and i got some results. Actually the first page results were pretty much the same at both google.com and google.cn. The mainly apparent difference was in the umber of results (281K in .com and 158K in .cn), which i think was also shared by the previous searches (for some reason in all searches at .cn the number of results was lower compared to a similar string at .com).

However, it seems to me that the fact that i got results for supposedly forbidden strings, might be dependent on my IP address. A few months ago some of my friends and i did a small experiment searching google.com for the same string, but from different locations (Pakistan, Brazil and Israel). Not surprisingly we got different results. Makes you think...

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28 Jan 2006: I am sorry, just noticed that you can't really enlarge the screen-shots, so they are not really readable... Well, the point is that filtering works :)

22 Feb 2006: I edited this post once again. Added links from the screen-shots to the actual search results (from today of course) and also the number of results per search term on each site.