Reading Gina Neff's Venture Labor.

I heard Gina Neff speak at Internet Research 14 ( #IR14 )in Denver and bought her book Venture Labor.

Working with SAS programming

I have moved out of school for now. I have made many work place associates. I work hard at work like I did in school. I tend to code long 100 line or more programs in the SAS computer language for work. I learned this language at school in my statistics degree. I have come to know many SAS Press authors in the last two years. I have met these authors at the annual user conference. I was tempted to write a book myself for SAS Press and started this project last year.

Studying more about data gathering and taking a part time job in coding text drawn down from the net.

I have been reading a bit about qualitative interviewing which may come before focus groups. I have read a few other books on data gathering from human subjects in the past few years. I have not read a great deal about this yet.

I started training tonight for some work in text analytics. I am being possibly employed to code or classify text coming from popular Internet sites. I am not sure this job will work out.

Technology moves forward.

Technological evolution is based on good solutions. A new technology offers a better solution. Business improvement, statistical process improvement all of these move us to a new technology that does the job better. So we use the better technology. This is the counter argument to the idea that technology is capricious or a fad object or a fetish symbol. I learned this reading

Jacques Ellul The Technological Society, (New York: Vintage 1967).

This book also describes how technology will run over traditional societies and religions.

This post is for my course in e-learning and digital technology on coursera a new learning technology. #edcmooc.

Blogging my studies in a coursera course on learning.

I just watched the first film in a new course I started today. The course is on e-learning and digital culture. The hash tag for the course is #edcmooc. The film showed the TV arriving from the sky to a primitive tribe. This in the course represents a technology. Thus I feel we are situated in the living room. Then another new technology to comes along that looks like a computer and it blue screens and dies and the film is over. My thoughts? Some people really enjoy TV. Some people really enjoy computers. There is a lot more technology behind these living room technologies. I am not sure now if living rooms are driving our technological progress or if living room technology is a side product of technologies uses in other parts of society. A TV is not just a box of electronics. There is at least a TV camera somewhere else.

Reading Internet studies on social networking, and social media.

I am reading these two books this fall.

Rainie, Lee and Wellman, Barry. Networked: The new operating system Kindle ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2012).

Rheingold, Howard. Net Smart: How to thrive online (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2012).

The Association of Internet Researcher's annual conference is over.

Once again I was unable to attend this conference.

Trying to get to Manchester England this October for an Internet Research conference.

I have been trying to get to the Association for Internet Researcher's annual conference for a few years now. These past four years I have priced plane tickets and two years ago, actually made hostel reservations in Sweden and registered before asking for a refund unable to afford the trip. This year I even tried fund raising with crowd sourcing and raised 25 dollars for the trip. I can't really justify spending our household budget on this trip.

I did spend household money on a SAS programming conference this past spring. This was directly related to my work and career so this was justified as there were threats of layoffs this spring at work. So this was an investment in my job.

Tai Chi Kung exercises done in a community group.

I attended a weekly Yoga class and we did some Tai Chi Kung. So I am moving forward with Tai Chi. I also bought a book I had been reading from the public library.

Exploring online games

I have played Eve online for about four years now exploring this game and online virtual world. There are friendships I have made and relationships I have studied.

I am reading more self-help titles and overcoming some procrastination

I have learned some new filing techniques. I have not kept up this learning though.

Reading about Estonia.

I have been reading about Estonia both about innovation in the telecommunications sector and in terms of Estonian's Internet use.

Paper about my work given at annual conference

My workplace puts on an annual conference in statistical methods. I gave a paper at this year's conference on the work I do in programming tables of numbers.

Studying Tai Chi

I have been reading about Tai Chi and working on learning excerises.

New studies.

I started reading some basic economics books.

Low income families with one employed person.

I read the July, 2011, article from Perspectives on Labour and Income.

May Luong. The wealth and finances of employed low-income families Perspectives on Labour and Income (Ottawa, Canada: Statistics Canada, 2011) (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2011003/article/11529-eng.pdf) cited August 31, 2011.

I haven't been reading books for a week or so now.

I have not read the books I borrowed anymore. I did read about bass playing a bit and am reading a book on my Kindle about democratic revolutions and also reading and writing in French.

I have some time off this weekend to read more. I have no volunteer work scheduled this weekend. I won't be able to afford to go shopping anywhere. I can make a trip the the library.

I did spend last weekend making live music happen as a stage hand. I heard someone sing and play live I have listened to as recorded music for forty years or so.

I have a new tool to learn about namely a computer drawing board that I purchased.

I took Friday off work this week, so really I have only two days left to work this week.

Borrowing more books.

I read the first chapter or preface and introduction to these books so far since borrowing more books.

Wellman, Barry. ed. Networks in the Global Village: Life in contemporary communities (Boulder: Co: Westview, 1999).

This editor often challenges the commonly held assumptions about networks and also challenges the negative views about the Internet. I have met him and studied much of his materials.

McLean, Scott L., Schultz, David S. and Steger, Manfred. Social Capital: Critical perspectives on community and "Bowling Alone" (New York: New York, 2002).

This book contains essays that critique Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" book and article.

Arneil, Barbara. Diverse Communities: The problem with social capital

The author brings a view of justice from feminist and cultural minorites to the thesis of Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone", that civic society is on the decline claiming that the previous civil society Putnam sees as eroding may not have been of benefit to cultural minorties.

Wellman, Barry and Haythornwaite, Caroline. eds.The Internet in Everyday Life (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002).

This book added academic reason and research to Internet writing that helped guide Internet research forward.

The Knowledge Landscapes of Cyberspace.

I started reading the second book I have read by David Hakken. Here is the citation:

Hakken, David. The Knowledge Landscapes of Cyberspace (New York: Routledge, 2003).

I have been studying goal setting, project management and more SAS programming.

I have been reading more about goal setting and other self help topics. I also started to buy more SAS publishing books and reading these. I gave a book review at our local SAS user group last spring. I have taken to using a lot of SAS conference papers to learn new stuff. I also started to use loops in SAS by using SAS macros. I guess also in the last few years I have been exposed more to database programming and some SQL stuff. My understanding of logic is also very clear these days because I am using IF statements everyday. I still have a great deal of trouble passing logic courses in school though. I am working on a conference paper in statistics and in particular statistical computing. The paper is due at the end of summer and has only to be 6 pages long and a short 20 minute Power Point show. It will be published, so I am still being an academic, even though, I am not working in a school. I am studying project management from the Project Management Institutes' body of knowledge book. The self help learning includes areas of health and stress management and other personal developent topics and self care. Goal setting in my daily life seems to be a good way of getting stuff done and moving along.