The Soundtrack of my PhD

Show Me the Data

2011-06-17T23:30:00.012+01:00

"So many things that I'd like to know
Come have a talk with me
I need a sign, something I can see
Why all the mystery?
I try not to fall for make believe
But what is reality?
Where do we go?
What do we know?
Life has to have a meaning
Show me the light
Show me the way
Show that you're listening"

(John Legend)

trecho da tesinha: "The quest for transforming the vast quantity of data generated by online interactions into information and knowledge about customers has become paramount for the private sector. At the micro-level, there are several web analysis tools that have become exponentially more sophisticated and offer several complex resources. At the macro-level, and outside the e-commerce world, “Web Science” intends to understand how the web works through a systems approach - "to model the Web as a whole, keep it growing, and understand its continuing social impact". For instance, from a computational perspective (e.g. semantic web), one can go by analysing how social coordination and collaboration systems can lead to the emergence of large-scale, coherent resources such as Wikipedia, or from a social science perspective, by studying how digital records of network use could be used to understanding the sociological aspects of the Web.

In the public sector, the tendency of reorganising and reutilising data with the aid of ICTs has become more visible with the rise of “open government", a practice that gives civil society the choice to use public data as need and curiosity arise, increasing transparency and political trust. However in this research I instead look at governments and ask, as the private sector already does for different purposes, whether they are using data about citizens' interaction with their governments – for instance by giving their opinion about services - and about their patterns of electronic services use, with the goal of improving service delivery."

Chopin-ho

2011-06-17T22:17:00.000+01:00

Hoje é dia de Chopin.

E de choppinho com @s amig@s.

Entre Emusic e Jazz

2011-05-27T02:50:00.000+01:00

Depois de mais de um ano, volto a escrever. Estou realmente nos momentos ultra duper finais dessa coisa que should not be named. Eu desgosto cada vez mais de escrever, mas acho que é normal. Semana passada estava relendo os primeiros capítulos, teóricos, e até que eles não ficaram mal, viu? Dá pra escrever uns artiguinhos de divulgação legais. Não vou mais publicar em journals fechados porque ninguém que ME interessa lê mesmo.

A reflexão dos últimos meses é que, se eu tinha alguma dúvida, sei que o mundo acadêmico não é pra mim. Meu ego intelectual é grande demais para ser acadêmica - é tanta preocupação com tudo que demoro muito pra terminar pesquisas. A gente tem que saber reconhecer quando algo não é pro nosso bico, mesmo que seja interessante e atraente. Em compensação, quando ponho a mão na massa tenho uma ansiedade imensa por ver resultados; o ego vai embora e é subsituído pelo thrill de ver as coisas acontecendo. Arrepia. Outro dia saiu uma notícia de que um projeto no qual eu estive profundamente envolvida em 2005 finalmente saiu na prefeitura de São Paulo. É muita felicidade! É isso aí que gosto de fazer!

E ultimamente ouço jazz, na AccuJazz, quando estou em momento tese, e Emusic, quando estou numa vibe mais Yes, I can. Aqui tem uns sets fantásticos: http://www.killingbeats.com/blog/

e pra agora, uma do New Order remixada por um residente molt especial de Barcelona, Funk D'Void:

The Day That I Feel Intelligent (or the Days that I write in Portuguese)

2010-01-22T18:15:00.000+01:00

Every time I need to write something more analytical (and not just filling in sentences with examples and well known facts) I write in Portuguese first. It's faster, and I feel freer to play with words and concepts. Today is one of those days and I feel so damn intelligent all of a sudden :). I can't wait to go back to writing in my native tongue again.

Gleek (or the importance of having a FUN mind mapping tool)

2009-12-02T02:10:00.004+01:00

My despair didn't last long, thanks to finally giving in to using a mind mapping tool. After 3 years of work, of course I was overloaded with information and couldn't organise my thoughts in a single sheet of paper, as I am used when I write essays and articles.

I avoided as long as I could learning how to use yet another software, but at 7pm today, after spending another day struggling with logical ideas and hierarchies of concepts, I made the call and chose View Your Mind over FreeMind simply because VYM is *really* easy to use. Very importantly, both are free, and run on Ubuntu (in fact I got them in the Ubuntu Software Centre).

Ok, it saved my life. Really. I've always needed to build a conceptual map of my arguments before writing, but it was becoming nearly impossible to do that by hand with that huge amount of information. Every time I had to change one argument I lost track of all the others. It used to be a nightmare... but now it's FUN!

So, "Gravity" no longer in my spirit, just Glee :)

Glee - Don't Stop Believe
Cargado por Bugabookas. - Mira más videos de TV y películas.

Gravity (or C'mon keep me where the light is)

2009-11-29T22:33:00.000+01:00

Winter is almost here and I am still struggling with the first chapter. It's probably because I know this chapter means a lot more than just what it is - the first. It sets the tone for the whole lot coming ahead of me. Kind of scary.

Gravity - John Mayer

Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down

Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away

Oh Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down

Oh twice as much ain't twice as good
And can't sustain like a one half could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees
[repeat]

Oh gravity, stay the hell away from me
And gravity has taken better men than me (now how can that be?)

Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where the light is
Oh... where the light is! [repeat]

Bon Iver

2009-11-06T02:35:00.000+01:00

This will probably be my last winter in Barcelona... time to wrap things up - the thesis, but mostly a period of my life that is actually already gone...

let's do it!

2009-09-29T03:22:00.000+01:00

Edgar, Dani, let's do it! It's time already...

but you don't look Brazilian!

2009-08-30T00:10:00.001+01:00

I always get that look when I say I am from Brazil, accompanied by "but you are so...white". I should be used to it by now. Here in Spain people probably think that I should look like Ronaldinho or Sonia Braga. And that I should be able to pull off wearing a really small bikini. Sorry, can't. Funny thing is that when I was doing my masters in England most people thought the same, although there was a big difference - there I wasn't considered "white" because... I was from Brazil! I had a priori "race". I never understood that - one thing is where I am from, another is the colour of my skin (not that any of that really matters to me, but it seems to matter to others). If here I am not Brazilian enough, in England I was "latina", "latin american", or "hispanic". How do those oppose to "white" or "Caucasian"? Why put culture, place of birth, ethnicity, etc. in the same bag? What is even funnier is that I was actually born in England, but grew up in Brazil. My mother is Israeli, her parents were Polish. My father was born in Brazil, but his parents are Italian. I guess *that* is what makes a Brazilian - the mix. Why does it matter how I look like if I am *telling* you that I am Brazilian?

I am feeling very Brazilian today, so I decided to make two playlists of Brazilian music, one in Spotify, one in Deezer (I found more songs in Spotify, but their service is not available in most countries). No bossa-nova, no carnival music. I started with some samba-rock, traditional samba, a touch of forró and bit of your typical MPB, but always with some groove.

Enjoy!

Discover the playlist Brazilian Groove with Trio Mocoto

who the frak is kara?

2009-08-23T10:25:00.009+01:00

It doesn't really matter, I just miss her, I miss Starbuck, I miss her nervous laugh and kick ass attitude. I miss the whole crew at Battlestar Galactica. They became sort of my family twice in the last year. During my 6-week field work in Québec in October/November 2008 I watched the first three seasons of BSG at once. They were my only friends in a pretty, but already too cold city where I didn't know anyone. Back in Barcelona I watched the first half of the fourth season eagerly awaiting for the finale to start in April 2009. Besides the amazing stories about-all-the-grand-themes-of-our-lives being told, I fell completely in love with the soundtrack. Created by Richard Gibbs (the pilot mini-series only) and Bear McCreary, the ethnically-influenced music fits perfectly with the space-opera that BSG is. Anyway, about three months ago finally Dani decided to watch it and I joined in. And again, it became part of my daily routine to philosophize about... why should I kill all the roaches that suddenly invaded our home with boric acid - in a slow genocidal fashion - if I thought humans should peacefully coexist with cylons?(we killed them btw) And now I feel a void, my family is gone again. Well, I'll wait for Caprica and till then, listen to and sing along "...there's too much confusion, I can't get no relief...."

scratching my thesis

2009-08-22T23:57:00.004+01:00

Maybe this DJ mouse can help me finish my PhD! DJing my thesis... sounds good!

via digitaldrops

Hey, ho, Holidays!

2008-08-04T23:27:00.003+01:00

In the last couple of months I lost touch with my blog - end of the semestre, loads to do, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, most people stop blogging when they are on holidays but, although I am not formally on holidays, I will have a bit more time to listen to music while *everyone else* in Spain, including the baker across the street, is enjoying a jolly good time on the beach or in the pyrenees. So let's start the "holiday" blogging with this :-) :

*dica do Jean Boechat

Talk Nerdy to Me

2008-05-23T10:43:00.003+01:00

I just read a NYT article (David Brooks) about the nerds and geeks taking over the world.

"At first, a nerd was a geek with better grades. The word described a high-school or college outcast who was persecuted by the jocks, preps, frat boys and sorority sisters. Nerds had their own heroes (Stan Lee of comic book fame), their own vocations (Dungeons & Dragons), their own religion (supplied by George Lucas and “Star Wars”) and their own skill sets (tech support)."

"Geeks not only rebelled against jocks, but they distinguished themselves from alienated and self-pitying outsiders who wept with recognition when they read “Catcher in the Rye.” If Holden Caulfield was the sensitive loner from the age of nerd oppression, then Harry Potter was the magical leader in the age of geek empowerment."

"The jock can shine on the football field, but the geeks can display their supple sensibilities and well-modulated emotions on their Facebook pages, blogs, text messages and Twitter feeds. Now there are armies of designers, researchers, media mavens and other cultural producers with a talent for whimsical self-mockery, arcane social references and late-night analysis."

"They can visit eclectic sites like Kottke.org and Cool Hunting, experiment with fonts, admire Stewart Brand and Lawrence Lessig and join social-networking communities with ironical names. They’ve created a new definition of what it means to be cool, a definition that leaves out the talents of the jocks, the M.B.A.-types and the less educated. In “The Laws of Cool,” Alan Liu writes: “Cool is a feeling for information.” When someone has that dexterity, you know it."

hmmmm... either i fit in those categories or i am surrounded by people who do...

Dani gave me a t-shirt that says "talk nerdy to me".

Well, leave you with Tina Fey, the queen of geekland (my hero). And she can actually sing!

Fidelio!

2008-05-21T11:33:00.002+01:00

back by popular demand (i.e. Edgar and Dani)...

so, on a break from our *very* important discussions about the usefulness of the concept of "practices" for our dissertations, I asked Edgar what has to be THE question of the decade: how come Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise couldn't have children and adopted two kids and *now* Tommy has a child with Katie Holmes and Nicole is pregnant of Keith Urban? Seriously, I don't get it!

Leave you with a GREAT song by Chris Isaak, "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing", which is on the soundtrack of "Eyes Wide Shut":

Done With Writing

2007-04-13T13:12:00.000+01:00

Will be a DJ instead!
Tchau chicos!

Elephant Sound

2007-04-13T12:10:00.000+01:00

I would love to have this rug and everytime someone stepped on it, it could also make this sound.

Now I Know What Was Missing

2007-04-12T23:38:00.000+01:00

I am starting to feel that I *belong*.
Dani is starting to feel she belongs too.
We bought a doormat with a pink elephant drawing.
And a set of loudspeakers.
The house says "hello!"
Goldfrapp sings "Lovely Head".
Almost home :)

The Gossip: How did I miss them?

2007-04-09T22:59:00.000+01:00

Beth Ditto is cool. Even better, a cool lesbian. With curves!!! :D. She screams a bit too much for my ears, but hey, when I am drunk I just feel like jumping and boxing in the air when I listen to Standing in the Way of Control.

"The band's breakthrough song "Standing in the Way of Control" was written by Ditto as a response to her government's decision to deny gays the right to marriage in the U.S. "Nobody in the States was that surprised or shocked by what Bush did, but it made everyone I know feel helpless and cheated," Ditto says. "I wrote the chorus to try and encourage people not to give up. It's a scary time for civil rights, but I really believe the only way to survive is to stick together and keep fighting."" (Wikipedia)

Standing in the way of control, we will live our liiiiiiives (liiiives, liiives, liiives, ooooouuuuuu, heeeeeeeeey)

The Gossip

I have to go back to Razzmatazz, where the "children" go dance, the only place in Barcelona where they would play such songs... (we missed Cansei de Ser Sexy live last Friday, but it was worth it). I don't mind at all getting older, don't mind becoming a fake academic intellectual, but I want good music!!!! Tired of the 80s...

Off Topic: El Poder Justicero de los Blogs and Six Degrees of Separation

2007-03-26T13:24:00.000+01:00

Myself, Dani, Adolfo, Edgar and Federica spent Carnival at Sitges and bad luck, xenofobia, brutality of the police, and unfairness put our friend Edgar in a really difficult legal situation. Read his Kafkian story here. Anyway, this is his plea for any information, photograph, film of what happened that day, wich I put forward:

La idea es la siguiente. Necesito conseguir cualquier material audiovisual (fotos, videos, audios) de la madrugada del 21 de febrero en la estación de RENFE de Sitges (Cataluña, España) y de las actuaciones policiales de esa noche. ¿Por qué? Porque “el proceso” (Kafkiano), entra en su segunda fase, la de defenderme del poder disciplinar. Entonces apelo a tres premisas teóricas y de paso pongo a prueba el poder de La Red para lograr una buena causa. Si hay alguien que tenga algo de este material, pueden enviarlo a: justiciabloggera (arroba) gmail.com Y si alguien quiere echarme la mano “espejeando” este post en su blog, pues se lo agradeceré infinitamente (no importa que no esté en España, ver la premisa 1).

Premisa teórica 1

“La teoría de los 6 grados de separación, se refiere a la idea de que, si una persona está a un “paso” de lejanía de cada persona que conoce, y dos “pasos” de cada persona que es conocida por cada persona que uno conoce, entonces, todas las personas que hay en la tierra, no están a más de seis “pasos” de mi” Via Wikipedia

Premisa teórica 2

La Red (en su versión mercantil de lujo: la Web 2.0), aparece como una nueva forma de percibir al Internet como una plataforma horizontal, democrática y “social”, con una “nueva arquitectura de participación-colaboración”, donde la persona importante: “eres tú”.

Premisa teórica (utópica) 3

El mundo es justo, las instituciones son sólidas, la solidaridad existe y el karma acaba por imponerse.

Postdata teórica

Como además ya todo el mundo tiene cámaras digitales, aunque sea en los móviles, pues…

Ah... And Goldfrapp!

2007-03-22T15:23:00.000+01:00

The Blogger in Me

2007-03-22T15:06:00.000+01:00

Two days ago I sent Dani a couple of Goldfrapp's video links to Dani, by email. How f* great is Alison? She asked me whether I blogged about this, I answered no, and she obviously told me that I need to incorporate the idea of blogging into my daily activities, such as listening to music. Can't work without music => can't work without blogging. Just like Edgar does, she said, he studies while blogging, he needs his blog to study, the blog needs his thesis, and so on... That was the whole idea about having a blog on the soundtrack of my phd, wasn't it? Hmmm... this stuff is complicated. I am used to using email, I grew up on email, not on blogs. It is just not natural to me. Will it be one day? (I sense some frustration here, Ana... why am I frustrated? Why do I NEED to blog?) Which brings me to an issue raised by Prof. Bill Dutton on our PHD research seminar: why do we take face to face interaction as the ideal norm when studying online interactions and sociability? I replied that it is perhaps we need to wait for the next generation of researchers, who actually do not know what the dicotomy face-to-face x online relationships is. But we grew up with telephone calls, letters, and other media devices, he said, and we still privileged face to face interaction... oh well...

Why Study???

2007-03-12T10:36:00.000+01:00

This one goes in Portuguese - 2 Neurônio are composed of three wonderful Brazilian women in their 30s, writing about... our world :) (women's)

02 Neurônio

Jô Hallack, Nina Lemos, Raq Affonso
@ - 02neuronio@uol.com.br

Estudar pra quê?

VALE A pena estudar? Depende. Se você for mulher, talvez não. Quer dizer, financeiramente falando. Um estudo feito pelo Ibmec, em São Paulo, mostra que, quanto mais a mulher estuda, maior a diferença salarial dela em relação aos homens!
A pesquisa mostra que as mulheres com especialização ou pós-graduação ganham 37% menos do que os homens que fazem o mesmo trabalho e têm o mesmo currículo. Podemos ficar felizes. Afinal, em 1995 essa diferença salarial era ainda maior: 47%. Mas a verdade é que não dá para ficar feliz. Será que a gente ganha menos porque tem TPM? Será que é porque gostamos de roupa?
Ou alguma espécie de problema causado por pessoas que, quando estão perdidas na rua, pedem informação em vez de ficar dando voltas de carro?
Segundo os especialistas, isso acontece porque as mulheres entraram há menos tempo no mercado de trabalho. Com isso, têm menos experiência, portanto ganham menos. Se isso for realmente um motivo (duvidamos um pouco), as leitoras que estão fazendo vestibular vão se dar melhor que a gente. Afinal, daqui a cinco anos, provavelmente essa diferença vai diminuir. Mas, provavelmente, até lá eles vão inventar uma outra desculpa. E nós continuaremos... ferradas!
Uma outra coisa que os estudiosos falam é que a mulher tem que se ausentar por algum tempo para tirar a licença-maternidade, e isso explica a diferença salarial. Isso é um absurdo. Mulher não pode ter filho porque atrasa a carreira. Homem pode, porque ele não cuida da criança mesmo!
Socorro! Esse tipo de pesquisa nos faz ter algumas reflexões: as mulheres deveriam parar de ter filhos. Afinal, se coisas como amamentar fazem o seu salário ser menor, o mundo realmente não precisa mais de gente.
Outro ponto: quando as mulheres forem chefes, elas deveriam ter outros critérios para escolher seus funcionários. Por exemplo: se eles gostam de futebol. Se gostarem, estão fora. Afinal, se a gente tem que lidar com critérios bizarros na escolha do salário que pagam pra gente, também podemos dar o troco!
E o último critério: já que ganhamos menos, vamos inverter essa desvantagem em casa. Por isso, meninos, se preparem para lavar o banheiro! E se você é uma moça que está se preparando para o vestibular: querida, nosso objetivo não foi te desanimar. Estude. Mas depois chegue lá e grite "Viva lá revolución!".

Momento de histeria

Melhor inteligente sem grana do que rica burra neoliberal

Hide and Seek

2007-03-11T22:27:00.000+01:00

Why do I (almost) always run away from the things that are most certain? Take this PhD seminar I am taking for instance - the only two weeks I KNEW pretty well the subjects being discussed I did not contribute with anything, I did not finish the readings, I did not post any message. Why do I keep running away? Why can't I just stop being the seeker for once and become the finder?

The Who - The Seeker

I've looked under chairs
I've looked under tables
I've tried to find the key
To fifty million fables

chorus:
They call me The Seeker
I've been searching low and high
I won't get to get what I'm after
Till the day I die

I asked Bobby Dylan
I asked The Beatles
I asked Timothy Leary
But he couldn't help me either

chorus

People tend to hate me
'Cause I never smile
As I ransack their homes
They want to shake my hand

Focusing on nowhere
Investigating miles
I'm a seeker
I'm a really desperate man

I won't get to get what I'm after
Till the day I die

I learned how to raise my voice in anger
Yeah, but look at my face, ain't this a smile?
I'm happy when life's good
And when it's bad I cry
I've got values but I don't know how or why

I'm looking for me
You're looking for you
We're looking in at each other
And we don't know what to do

chorus

Louder than a Bomb!

2007-03-09T19:53:00.000+01:00

So I just got back from the Fostering Innovation in eGovernment workshop at the IN3 in Castelldefels (where I happen to work), jointly organised by the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and Oxford Internet Institute. Yesterday some of us of both institutes had a closed workshop to discuss how we could colaborate in future projects. Anyway, some stuff was quite interesting - check the "transcription" of the workshop made by Ismael Peña at ICTlogy - but I could not believe on how some people think that innovation is all... geeez, what was that thing about using SMS-Bomb to prevent crime? The idea was the following: police could send SMSs every 5 minutes to a stolen mobile phone, in other words, bombing it with SMSs, with the intention of annoying the steeler so next time he/she (and others) would think twice before commiting the same crime... WHAT???? Is this eGovernment???

TIGA - Louder than a Bomb

Passando Maaaaaaaal

2007-03-09T19:49:00.000+01:00

Nossa! O que foi esse dueto????
Eu AMO essas duas!

Já estou inspirada de novo pra começar a postar!

Five Reasons to Exile - Part 1

2007-02-11T14:59:00.000+01:00

Memes... oh well... this one comes from Adolfo. Kind of late, I know... I will do it in parts, when I feel inspired.

We're Here

The Gillimots

The world is our carpet now
The world is our dancefloor now
Remind me how to dance again
The world is our carpet now

The world is just waiting now
No staring out windows now
Our train stopped moving hours ago
We're here, we're here, we're here

Yes we're here
Free to laugh and cry
Obliged to try
And nothing here's worth winning without a fight

When I can't move
I'll enjoy the still for a while
And lose myself in waves
And mountains and the sky
And I'm back here quick as lightning

'Cause we are just seconds
Seconds in a day

It's a dancefloor now
No staring out windows now
Our train stopped moving
Hours ago
We're here, we're here, we're here
What do I do? / ? ?

Free, free to run and cry
Obliged to try
And nothing is worth winning without a fight
Oh yes we're here
Free to go insane
Joy and pain are fighting in the corridors inside

When I can't move
I'll savour the pause for a while
And lose myself in waves
And mountains and the sky
And I'm back here quick as lightning
'Cause we are just seconds
Seconds in a day

Best Song For S&M Sex

2007-01-27T21:26:00.000+01:00

Oops... no, best song for reading Castells...

Closer - Nine Inch Nails

You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you
Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I've got no
Soul to tell
Help me the only thing that works for me, help me get
Away from myself
I want to f**k you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to f**k you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to god
You can have my isolation, you can have the hate that
It brings
You can have my absence of faith, you can have my
Everything
Help me tear down my reason, help me its your sex i
Can smell
Help me you make me perfect, help me become somebody
Else
I want to f**k you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to f**k you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to god
Through every forest, above the trees
Within my stomach, scraped off my knees
I drink the honey inside your hive
You are the reason I stay alive

(com'on, it's a joooooke!! topic suggested by Edgar and Adolfo... I will make it a regular here :))

Top Ten???

2007-01-25T19:02:00.000+01:00

When most DJs are asked to give their top 5 songs, or when a famous actress is asked for her top 10 movies of all times they often cannot answer and come up with a clever answer that show their preferences, but not really. Du-uh! Of course... our mind does not work like that, linearly; it works in contexts, it all depends... of the network of related songs we are living at the moment... (why do I post here instead of where I supposed to make smart posts about networks? - in my PhD super-ultra-cool-and-somewhat-arrogant seminar taught by Dutton and Castells; but what PhD seminars are not? what PhD students are not? :))

So... those are some of the songs playing in my mp3 player at the moment (haven't got an iPOD YET). I was going to make a super network of networks of relationships with them, following the fantastic idea of Musicovery. But... since I could not install a Photoshop (or any editing/drawing software for that matter) in my work computer, you will have to use your imagination!

Born Slippy - Underworld
Talisman - Air
Poison - Astrix
The Way You Look Tonight - Billie Holliday
Michael - Franz Ferdinand
Man Eater - Nelly Furtado
Venus as a Boy - Bjork
What You Waiting For - Gwen Stefani
Climson and Clover - Velvet Underground
Girls and Boys - Blur
You Gonna Want Me - Tiga
I Don't Feel Like Dancing - Scissor Sisters
Let Forever Be - Chemical Brothers
Superafim - Cansei de Ser Sexy
Flawless - George Michael
The Seeker - The Who
Release Me - Infected Mushroom
Madonna -Fever
Simphony n.7 - Beethoven
Pure Morning - Placebo
Hyper-Ballad - Bjork
Triptico - Gotan Project
The Test - Chemical Brothers
Blue Monday - New Order

Lizzy the Lezzy Part II

2007-01-22T15:02:00.000+01:00

You won't believe this! Dani has downloaded the Lizzy the Lezzy ringtone for her new mobile so... today we woke up listening to Lizzy singing! OH-MY-GOD! What do I do now?

NOT a Serious Person... "I'm Lizzy the Lezzy..."

2007-01-17T17:34:00.000+01:00

I've waited days and days to publish this, but I simply could not resist... Bloody hell, this was supposed to be ¨kind of a serious blog". But it isn't because simply... I am NOT a serious person... Can't lie... this song (and its variations), sang by Lizzy the Lezzy - an adorable creation of Ruth Selwyn - has been stuck in my head for the last week and I cannot stop (silently) singing it. What now? How do I get rid of it? I can't concentrate on anything else anymore! It's hilarious!!!! This is one is the first episode, in English, but my favorite is definitely the one in Spanish (the one in French is also fantastic!).

Lizzy the Lezzy

Check the other episodes here

Dani asked me the other day "when have we become such lesbians???"...

Haven't, but it is so interesting to identify certain attitudes of ours as a "lesbian" thing. Aff... complex stuff... those stupid labels...

:)

Català

2007-01-10T00:28:00.000+01:00

sisplau (si us plau)
...
si os plaze
s'il vous plaît
...
if you please
...

se te dá prazer???
hahaha!!!

the more romance languages I learn, the funnier the world gets!

(Gmail in Catalan from now on, so I can get used to the language the Phd students around me speak most of the time.. "safata d'entrada")

Rhythm

2007-01-08T14:30:00.000+01:00

We saw Babel a couple of days ago... totally disappointing! I am getting tired of those movies that show the world as only full of tragedies and disasters - well, it is, but com'on! What do we learn from watching an American woman being stitched up without anaesthesia in a village in the middle of nowhere in Africa AGAIN? I have seen this movie before... “If you want to be understood, listen” seemed to be a good theme for a movie, but the parts of the film were not glued well together to give that “whole” feeling that carried a message.

I guess what made me feel even worse was realising I have the same disappointment towards the theme of my PhD thesis... "I have seen this movie before"... “What is the message?”…And that is what I feel when I read most PhD thesis... why on earth someone is studying this? What is the purpose? I know most of the time theses just focus on that little tiny detail that other theses did not cover... but... I don't want to have this feeling about MY thesis. Four years feeling like that?

I have just started to develop the theme into first, a literature review paper (this will definitely be useful if I am able to pull off a new perspective for this review, a new look at things), and later, my thesis project. The theme? Broadly, eGovernment indicators. Too broad? Well, yes. When I get to the point where I can state my thesis theme in only one sentence I will be happy. Can't now. But I can try to explain more or less where I want to get...

My disappointment at the existent eGovernment performance indicators and benchmarking reports, such as Accenture's, the UN's, and all others that rank countries websites or focus mainly on the delivery of "services" to "customers" started back in São Paulo, when I was working with eGovernment cost-analysis indicators. So many questions relating to policy relevance kept coming to my mind...

How can one measure innovations?
How can we actually track new (better) ways of interaction between the government and the society?
If we measure the number and sophistication of services online and more means better, what if one service becomes completely obsolete and seizes to exist or it merges with another one as we move to online interactions - is that portal ranked lower?
Why eGovernment studies and surveys are often detached from eDemocracy themes? Isn't democracy a form of government? Is the government only a service provider? What is the definition of service? What is government after all? (I am in a period of defining things in my life...:))

Hmm… I guess I am basically concerned with the transformations in relationships (government, businesses, citizens) that are related to eGovernment and how we can track them (now I am thinking how not to fall in a deterministic view of technology, society and transformations... but I will leave this to a whole new post). I hate the feeling of being completely lost and confused and not knowing where to go!

Oh well. For now, I will leave you with a clip of the only good scene of Babel: the one at a Japanese dance club. It made me think... do I need music or a feeling of rhythm in my life?

Here We Go!

2007-01-02T12:44:00.000+01:00

Several blogs created, none started. But I am very confident I will stick to this one.

I've always been so jealous of those illuminated people who could actually write insightful things about a theme or even just blablabla about anything with refined irony a couple of times a week and make people laugh! And think! And philosophise! Pff.... I was never able to do that - too lazy to just entertain people with my thoughts. This is actually a problem I guess I've always had... laziness… or perhaps I was just not comfortable with being lost and showing that so explicitly in a blog. Never able to make choices, never staying in one place for more than 2 years, never focusing on one object of study, never starting AND following a career. But now, almost a year after Dani bought me a fridge magnet “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” I have started to believe I-AM-OK AND I can take advantage of my messy way of being (who needs self-help books? You just need a fridge magnet!).

I just need to write about my messy head. But I need to focus. Focus, focus. That’s what I have been telling my self since I started researching for my PhD thesis (on eGovernment evaluation).

It was soooooo obvious from the beginning! The Soundtrack of my life! I can't do anything without music, without tapping my feet to that lalalalalala, tchurururururu... It inspires basically everything I do. As my life from now on will pretty much be my doctorate (and the totally related conversations with Dani as the one we had last night about Second Life…) I will write about the sounds of my PhD. Maybe I can get something insightful out of it and who knows, I might actually become one of those illuminated people… but for now, the idea is just egoistic self-therapy. And I am OK with that.

So...

[hey girls, hey boys, super star DJ’s…]

HERE WE GO!

(not sure exactly what this song/video clip means to me right now… perhaps the process of finding the skeleton of my thesis…lol… oh, well, this is just my first post ;-))