For the attention of American friends (and also for the information of friends all over):
Please save Net Radio: http://www.savenetradio.org/
Contact your Congress representatives to ask them to co-sponsor the internet equality act (S. 1353 in the senate and H.R. 2060 in the house)

Today we had a lecture by David Crystal ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crystal ) in uni, about Language and Internet. It was really interesting. And I'm feeling benevolent and organised, so I typed my notes and here you go too. :) Also, someone filmed it (I sawed them!) so if/when I find where they put that (they'll put it somewhere online), I'll link. But now.

Notes from the lecture given by David Crystal:     19th June 2007

(Intro)
-When ever new technology emerges, there is opposition.

-The CMC (computer mediated communication) has developed for about a decade, really. Yet we are already completely infused with it.

(Did internet have an impact on language?)
-Not really: The web added about 500 new words to English language (over a million words in the entire language in total). Text-type abbreviations aren’t that common. No changes in grammar. Web uses punctuation to express emotion instead of syntax or grammar. Old medieval manuscripts didn’t have punctuation or capital letters, so it’s not new to leave it out. Two new-ish plurals: old form ‘en’ (oxen, children) used for a lot of new web-type plurals and ‘z’ instead of ‘s’ for “warez” (not the same as “wares”) and “gamez” etc… Other than that, no massive effect on language and no effect on formal language (people agree that you wouldn’t use text-type where formal language is needed, and people have mutual tolerance for text-type in informal setting)

-Yes, in a way: Internet can save endangered languages. (Language can survive as long as teenagers are interested in it. Teenagers like internet.)

(Internet is constantly called "revolutionary)
-CMC is ‘revolutionary’ because it is a whole new type of communication, which is not talking and not writing.

Not like speech:
-Uses metaphors of speech (chat)
-Speech uses simultaneous feedback, this isn’t there in CMC, even with IM there is a lag.
-Conversation is two-ways. Email is one-way conversation – what an oxymoron!
-In a chatroom you can pay attention to several conversations at once, easily. No way to do that IRL.

Not like written language:
-Something written on a paper never changes. Online text does all the time (updates, scrolling text, pop-ups…)
-Hyperlink! WWW could not exist without it, without it there is no ‘web’! Books have cross-reference or footnotes, but they don’t need them. Internet needs hyperlink. And you can link anything, blogs, www, emails…
-Copy-paste. What an absurd idea IRL (someone sends you a letter, you cut out part of it, paste it on a new sheet of paper, write your letter on the same paper and send it back…?)

(General language/internet observation)
-English is no more the dominant language of the internet: 2003 less than 50% of website hosts were in English.

(Closing)
-Future of the web-language: introducing dialect and accent through audio maybe?

-How interesting for language blogs are: it is pure text from the author, no editors, nobody interferes with it! It’s the most naked form of language!

(Answers to questions)
-People don’t know how to use emoticons, there is no emoticon-grammar yet. :) is a smile, but a smile can mean a thousand things! But awesome idea to suggest facial expressions online.

Because of [Viking]'s diary, I've been reunited with PostSecret. And I've found a few familiar ones...

Fish's secret
http://bp3.blogger.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/Rl1hwYSft_I/AAAAAAAAA7U/wOelVJFymys/s1600-h/jealous.jpg

Mine
http://bp1.blogger.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/Rl1hQ4SftyI/AAAAAAAAA5s/ahQIvLMYeg0/s1600-h/socialist.jpg

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

OO1. When's the last time you ran?
Hmm, a while ago actually. Can't even remember properly. What I really love is when I'm outside without a bag and wearing my trainers and coming home, I usually run the street down to my house, the whole block. It's like flying. So when it comes to running I'm definitely a sprinter.

OO2. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them?
Yeap. -_- They always alway always tear from the butt. I don't know why, but absolutely all my trousers tear from the behind, on the same part too. Friggin' annoying.

003. What are you dreading right now?
Having to find accommodation for next year.

OO4. Do you celebrate 4/20?
No.

OO5. When is the last time you saw your significant other?
I don't have one, but the last one I had I saw him about a month ago when he stalked me on the street >.<

OO8. Do you get the full 8 hours of sleep a night?
More than that too.

O11. whats your current favorite song?
If I Had A $1,000,000 by the Barenaked Ladies is teh sex as usual... Dang, I just love all their stuffs. :3

O12. If anyone came to your house on your "lazy days" what would you do?
Is lazy days something I don't know of? But if someone came round I'd do whatever we'd usually do: sit, talk, entertain them in any way necessary. I'd be a good host.

O13. Who last grabbed your ass?
Can't remember... my ass isn't really that grabbable. I'm more "talented" in the frontal areas.

O14. Have you ever been in your school's band?
Kinda. And I was always in the choir. But note that in my schooly things "band" doesn't mean a marching band. It just meant a band with people playing music and singing.

O15. Do you own a pair of Converse?
Yeah, somewhere... I'm not sure if they're still wearable, or whether I threw them out already.

O16. Did you copy and paste this survey?
As opposed to...? Making my own questions? Who'd do that? Or typing the questions by looking at them offa something else? So yes, I copy pasted and wrote my answers in.

O17. Do you eat raw cookie dough?
Nope. I eat cooked cookies though.
Hmm, never noticed the connection between cookie and cooking before... o.O

O18. Have you ever kicked a vending machine?
Think so. I often result to the "frustrated player manouvers".

O19. Don't you hate when the radio ruins good songs by playing a slow one right after it?
Why would that ruin it? Sides there are good slow songs too.

O21. Do you watch Trading Spaces?
No, I don't even know what that is and I don't have a TV either.

O23. Have you ever stayed online for a very long time waiting for someone?
Yes, I often do that. But I also stay online for a really longtime out of having nothing to do, so there's hardly a difference.

O24. Are you cocky?
Hmm, don't realy think so.

O25. Could you live without a computer?
Yes, yes I could. I'd do something else. But as it happens to be available, I'll use it. It's a tool.

O26. Do you wear your shoes in the house?
I don't like to, no. I'd rather take them off, and I'd rather everyone took their shoes off in my house too.

O27. At what age did you find out that Santa wasn't real?
Santa is real. I work for him. Everyone in Finland works for Santa.

O28. How many phones, house phones and cell phones are in your house?
In England I have a mobile and my roommate has one, and she can also make calls on the computer by using Skype. And at home everyone has a mobile so that's six in total.

O29. What do you do when you're sad?
Good question, honestly. I get quiet and want to be alone, retreat away from people. Get restless and annoyed by company and possibly go for a walk.

O30. Who would you call first if you won the lottery?
My younger sister maybe.

O31. Last time you saw your best friend?
I live with my best friend so I saw her in the morning before she went to work and I'll see her at home in a bit.

O32. Who or what sleeps with you?
In the same room my aforementioned best friend roommate, in my bed no one.

O33. Are you in high school?
No.

034. Is anyone on your bad side now?
I'm not sure if I have a bad side :P There are some people I avoid because I don't like them, but I'm not actively upset at anyone.

O35. What jewelry are you wearing?
A crucifix around my neck only atm.

O36. What's the first thing you do when you get online?
Log into MSN if it's available, if it's not go to Hotmail.

O37. Do you watch Grey's Anatomy?
No, but my family does and they really like it.

O38. Would you wear a boy/girlfriends clothes?
Yes.

O39. Where do you work?
Uni, all my work is uniwork.

O40. What are you doing Friday?
Gonna finish taking down the degree show exhibition, have "farewell drinks" with my coursemates and tutors and then prolly go to a pub with my friends and go "oh noes I'll never see you evers again ;_;" - emotional times.

O41. Is Justin Timberlake becoming the next Michael Jackson?
Don't care really, but I don't think that's possible for him to do that.

O42. Favorite name for a girl?
Lucy is a pretty name.

O43. Favorite name for a boy?
Harrison, closely followed by George :P

O44. Will you keep your last name when you get married?
Not likely, I think I'll take his name.

O45. When is the last time you left your house?
Today morning, I came to uni (where I still am).

O46. Do you return your cart?
Yes of course, it's got my pound in it usually. o.O I do even when it doesn't.

O47. Do you have a dishwasher?
No. I don't really mind washing the dishes to be honest (I know this didn't seem to be so to [Draugluin], but I honestly don't. :)

O48. what noise do you hear?
I'm listening to my Yahoo!-radio and it is currently playing Jamiroquai.

O49. Would you survive in prison?
I think so, I keep to myself, mind my own business and have a fair dose of common sense. But then again if I went to prison I'd go to prison in Finland where we don't treat prisoners like animals, so it'd be very different from what it is like in TV.

I was awayness for the weekend and
-all my friggin' stalkees decided to fill in questionnaires that I generally would like to read but not when they've all done them at the same time.
-over 200 postings in junk, wtf. Ally and PUNK, get off the computer for a week *must... catch... up*

Because I never change my mood, I'd like to mention here that actually my current mood is: "meep!" ^^; *hides*

I'd also like to add that "Diversity Provides A Wide Variety of Scary."

I want to confess to a secret, guilty pleasure: I love reading http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/

It's like masochism, because I'm not the perfect student... But I love to read those ventings by college professors, to think whether my tutors might be thinking along those lines as well... and I read those for hours on end, loving it all.

It scares me a little, because I would like to teach in a college or university at some point, too. o.O


One more art project:
http://www.stanick.com/indexsl.html
(I find these through rhizome.org if you care)

I wore a t-shirt yesterday that said "FREE HUGS" and went around hugging anybody who wanted to claim their free hugs that day. (I wanted to wear the t-shirt today also, so I washed it by hand, but because university accommodation office is so frustratingly unfair all the time, the heating wasn't on all day so it didn't dry in time today - and I was trying to dry it with a hairdrier too! But you can always claim a free hug from me, even when I'm not wearing that tee).

Anyways, some may know what it was all about, some might not, so I thought I'd just link you guys to where it originates from. It's the free hugs campaign by Juan Mann, which has gotten a lot of attention all over (he was interviewed by Oprah about it, for example) and it spread far and wide. I came to know about it through the very inspiring video on YouTube - you can watch it
here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

I just thought of writing free hugs on a teeshirt on monday night when I was already half asleep, had to get out of bed to do the shirt and then wore it to uni the next day.

It is awesome and I heartily recommend doing that to everybody.

Another quite interesting art project: www.braball.com/

Never in my life I imagined that I would complain about this but... the word limit for one part of my professional practice degree show report is too short! o.O I need to write 150 word report about the setting up of my individual degree show space. I've written 550 and that doesn't even start on the physical setting up, only the mental process behind it. o.O And on the other end, I'm meant to write 500 words about individual roles within the groups we were assigned to for degree show preparation... that's... doable, although I do have to write a lot of bs to fill all those words, and another 450 to describe the professional context of my work - this is the painful one, I just don't have interesting things to say about the context of my work. -_-

So. How do I show all my beautiful 550 words of text to my teacher without going over the word limit a zillion times? Ah-haa, appendices to the rescue! What was meant to be my report will become relevant evidence to the report! Hooray! So instead of being a report it will become thoughts written down, more accurately, a diary entry. So yeap, the following might be completely meaningless to you guys, yet I do not apologise for doing it. Because it's pretty cool stuff. :P


READ MY THOUGHTS
To me the thought-process behind the artwork is very important and thus it is something I'd wish to share with the viewer, hence all the notage on the walls. The note-writing is a habit natural to me for many years now, while the idea of actually exhibiting these extensions of thought was prompted by a tutor in a crit. The selection and presentation of the notes is influenced by Marcel Duchamp's boxes of notes that accompany his Large Glass, and by a deaf artist Joseph Grigely (!Check this!) whose work consist of organizing and exhibiting little notes people have given the artist when they wanted to tell him something.

WELCOME TO MY WORLD
I need my degree show space to feel comfortable, inviting and intimate to the visitors. I wish them to feel at home and confident enough to sit at the computer for a while and explore the Flash-work. This is why the space evolved into a kind of installation: I wanted to make it welcoming by making it different from the usual intimidating gallery environment. My work when accessed through the internet will most likely be seen in the user's own home or office, which is a very different space to that of the gallery, so I wished to simulate or at least suggest a more comfortable, casual space. I realised that the space should be a frame for the work, but I also wanted it to promote curiosity and exploration in the viewer and thus introduced many elements that would spark those emotions, such as ambiguous-looking machine parts and interesting books. There were other things I considered adding to the space to create atmosphere, but during the setup of the exhibition I needed to take a step back and remember that I wasn't creating a space, I was using one, so I decided to leave some of the furniture I had considered in order to bring the focus back to the work.

I was very worried about making the space stand out too much from the other spaces near it, but it seems to have worked out quite alright: the natural shape of the area outlined by the walls hides the space from a distance, and only if the viewer approaches the corner can they see the setup. The decision to leave half of the space blank helps isolate the environment, and putting my statement outside the main work helps pin point the entire space as my artwork.

My original plan was to put the pencil drawings on the desk, since I don't want to force any idea of 'right-way-up' on them, and I really want the viewer to touch the drawings. But since they are done on paper with pencil, they have that certain preciousness to them, and I was concerned over the work getting damaged during the exhibition. So I decided on a compromise of hanging the drawings on nails on the walls with bulldog clips: the drawings can be easily taken down and examined closely by holding the paper, allowing the viewer to turn it, and it also heightens the exploration and rewards the curiosity, because when the viewer takes the drawing down, more notes are revealed for them to read.

This is coolness:
http://www.automatedbeacon.net/

Finnish friends, go read an idea for a book in here
http://www.kirjeitaaidille.net/kirjaidea.html

It's fantastic. Someone in Finland is planning to comple a book about letters to mothers, written by normal people. She is currently collecting letters so anyone and everyone is asked to participate (I asked in her guestbook if she'd be interested in getting letters from non-Finns, and I also volunteered to translate if she'd like foreigners - if that's the case I'll ask all of you kittens to join)

The project is still much in the beginning, but she seems to have some very solid ideas, and she is discussing giving most of the profit from the book to a charity.

I will now make a point.

A quick and dirty career quiz, with the following questions (my answers in bold)

You prefer to work:
In a group
Alone

You rather have a job that...
Challenges your mind
Helps people in some way

You work best:
In a less structured environment
With deadlines

You rather solve a problem with:
Reasoning and logic
Solid facts

RESULTS:
Archeologist
Astronomer
Book editor
Business manager
Civil engineer
Designer
Economist
Inventor
Judge
Scientist

Now, if I change the question

You work best:
In a less structured environment
With deadlines

The RESULTS are:

Architect
Artist
Business strategist
College professor
Computer programmer
Mathematician
Neurologist
Philosopher
Photographer
Video game developer

Err, what? At least (possibly all of those) the architects, artists, college professors, programmers, photographers and video game developers all need to work to deadlines in a structured environment. o.O
This quiz's maker doesn't know much about professions, I gather.

Dear English people.
My degree show is on the 2nd of June til the 7th of June. Please come see. :) It's free. In Coventry, West Midlands, from 10am-5pm every day. You are also most welcome to the private view (opening night, free wine) is the Friday 1st of June from 6-8pm (with possibly something else somewhere else afterwards), but I'd like to point out that I'll have to rub elbows with all the really important arty people that evening, and thus won't have much time to just hang out. So if you want a cool arty evening surrounded by art and arty people, do come for the private view; if you want me to show you around the exhibition and what-not, come any other time, I'll be there all the time probably because I've got nothing else to do :P