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.

I have been reading a little about digitial inequality.

I have been reading a little bit about digital inequality. This study goes beyond access to the Internet and looks at skills a bit more. The study asks questions such as does a person need help with a mouse and keyboard? Can they use a spreadsheet or a word processor? Can they navigate a file system? Do they have basic literacy.

My home computer ownership history.

I used to use an Apple Performa 580CD computer in 1995 to 1998 as my main home computer. This was my first computer with a mouse and colour screen. I then got a hand me down Hewlet Packard 166 Mhz Pentium I computer running Windows 95. This began my Outlook Express e-mail client use phase. This computer was the only computer I did not save the email from. Then I purchased with my school's help an IBM Aptiva running Windows 98 in late 1999. With this computer I got Broadband Internet in my home for the first time. Then a year or two later again with help from others I got a Duron 850 Mhz clone PC running Windows 98. Some of the e-mail from this computer is still locked up on a hard drive I can not access. The case of this computer is still being used for Remembrance my present quad boot PC. I then went back to Mac's and got an early model eMac and that was my main machine for years. I also got an IBM Thinkpad laptop refurbished with Windows XP and that got me through most of my last BA. I then bought a last model eMac that I still have. The IBM laptop screen broke and I got all the data off it. For awhile in those days I used an IBM rack mount server for daily home used with a Windows NT 3 desktop. It also booted into Red Hat and then later when Red Hat started to cost money Red Hat's free Fedora Linux. I then in 2006 got a first model Macbook which I still have. I used an IBM Thinkcentre with XP for a while for a windows machine and I then built Remembrance a 64 bit Windows XP machine in 2008. I continued to use the Macbook and eMac. The eMac and Macbook became my regular machines for home use and I only used the Windows really for Eve Online ( a game) and some Windows based school related programming. I then started to buy Dell computers in 2009. This then began my more extensive use of Linux phase. I also used an Inspiron laptop running Vista for one year then got an Alienware M11X running Windows 7 and then this Dell Studio also Windows 7 and when I got the Studio laptop I retired the Macbook. I also use a Vostro running the latest Kubuntu. Also all my PC's have the ability to boot into Debian Linux including Debian 4 and 6.

Started to read a book about ethnicity and human rights in Canada.

I started to read this book:

Kallen, Evelyn. Ethnicity and Human Rights in Canada 3e (Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University, 2003).

The author proposes to map international human rights rules and documents onto the inequality in Canadian society. She will probably be exposing the existing racism in Canada. I will read more.

I completed the five conference paper reviews in draft form.

I completed my reviews after getting some guidelines from the conference organizers. I changed my mind about some of the papers. I read each one through one more time and then wrote my review notes and rated the papers. I will now sleep on this for a couple of days and do a final submission later in the week.

I have conference paper submissions to review this weekend.

I have been assigned, as a volunteer, five conference paper submissions to review. I have read each of the five abstracts once throught thoughtfully. I have some ideas and critiques in mind. I should read some instructions on how to format and write a paper review, as I have no formal training in this other than being a fellow researcher. I need to check online for some instruction.

Planning conference travel.

I need to budget for two conferences and there is a third I would like to attend where I won't be submitting an abstract.

I helped organize a panel submission to an Internet Research conference: IR12.

I helped organize a submission for a panel discussion of participation and the Internet including exclusion and inclusion and underground art. I also volunteered to review submissions and have some to read and comment on now.

I have a fair amount of paperwork piling up at Computers For Communities

I need to type up our committee terms of reference documents that each committee chair has submitted. This is just the newest document set I have volunteered to do work on. I also need to work on the privacy policy and the educational committee documents.

I am reading the consumer reports automative review for 2011.

I am looking at used cars. I read the review of the used cars in the Consumer Reports annual auto issue. This is how my dad always shops for cars.

I attended the Canadian Internet Forum's founding meeting.

Many of the well known Canadian Internet scholars were at this the first meeting of the Canadian Internet Forum (hash tag (#CIRAif). It was sponsored by the Canadian Internet Registry Authority. I spoke of the plain political stances represented in the issues that were coming out of this forum. Each statement of an issue or concern by Canadians could be matched by planks in our major political parties platforms.

I also spoke of the disconnect between high tech firms claiming that there is a labour shortage and the number of unemployed persons who know programming or have taken at least one course in computer programming in school. I also meantioned that I was teaching someone at work to program and he was doing a fine job in his middle age. Proving hopefully what I was saying about this labour market disconnect.

I also citicized the idea of pushing for school reform as outsiders to the educational system. I tend to think that Internet literacy is not too different from classical literacy, as in the end these are all reading and writing skills. Making the digital world out as a different skill set is a false strawman argument.

Motivation to learn was also questioned when I spoke outside the meeting room over coffee with another person who had commented on education and her access to university lectures online. She really believed that all classrooms should be online and that if one missed a class one should be able to attend via the web. I told her to read The University of Google.

The book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It was recommended.

I mentioned in introducing my self as I began to make my comments that, I am a volunteer with Computers for Communities and another ITC community group that Computers for Commmunities recently partnered with, iSisters also made some comments at the fcrum.

Continuing to read about Australian hackers on an Amazon Kindle

I read the second chapter now in

Dreyfus, Suelette. Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier Kindle 1st ed. (No location: Digital Download: Amazon, 2010).

This chapter covered the Bulletin Board System BBS where the author claims Australian hackers came together. Also this chapter covers various activities of these early hackers before laws were made against hacking.

I have been reading a book about the Australian computer underground.

I want to focus studies as there is just so much out there to read. I went back to an old focal point of computer crime. I read the first chapter in

Dreyfus, Suelette. Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier Kindle 1st ed. (No location: Digital Download: Amazon, 2010).

This chapter covered the case of a worm in Digital Equipment Computers used by NASA and other US government computers. Suelette claims this was the second worm in existance and also claims it was made by an Australian hacker and further that this hacker has never been identified. The politics of the music group Midnight Oil is covered, as it is claimed their politics of environmentalism is also involved in all this hacking from Australia.

I am still reading in privacy studies and surveillance.

These studies I am doing are unrelated to my work in my nine to five job. They are related to my continuing knowledge of intellectual terrain. I am also reading John Stuart Mill on Auguste Comte to solidify my sociological thinkers/theory foundational knowledge.

I am reading in the area of law, criminology and privacy this past month.

Here are the books I am reading in law, privacy, surveillance and crime:

Zureik, et al. Surveillance, Privacy and the Globalization of Personal Information (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010).

Monihan, Torin. Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity (NA: Rutgers University Press, 2010).

McGuire, Michael. Hypercrime: The New Geometry of Harm (New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007).

I am also reading some of the chapters of this new computer ethics book:

Floridi, Luciano ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010).

I investigated doing a Ph.D at Curtin University in Australia.

I exchanged some e-mails with an Internet studies faculty member at Curtin university in Australia. The cost is very high as a foreign student though 25,000 dollars a year in tuition.