So, if you are passing through Puerto Rico and net Internet access, there are of course a number of Internet cafes around the metropolitan area but then tend to be pretty expensive. So if you need to spend some time on the computer and don’t have too much money, one of your best bets is to go the Biblioteca Publica de La Comunidad Carnegie located on Ponce de Leon just outside of Old San Juan. Also there is supposdely wireless access at the University of Puerto Rico but there was something wrong with my own wireless devices when I tried yesterday so I can’t confirm. All the relevant information is in my cheap guide to PR which I have recently updated..

Today Puerto Rico’s premier salsa station 93.7 FM is paying tribute to Celia Cruz who passed away today of cancer. With over 70 records to her name, the station can play and play her enchanting songs all day and night long. Unreplaceable, I am sure her legacy will long continue.

I am nearly done packing. Really. The bike, the books, files, odds and ends. Even my bags to PR are almost packed. I still have 1/2 of my stuff to move to my friend’s basement but otherwise I am nearly done. I mean sure there is lots of stuff left to do: find a hub, get my free 45 day earthlink account activated (it is mysteriously not working), ship a couple of boxes, email and email, write my reflections on SF, see friends and of course karaoke tomorrow night. If you are in town, please come at 8:00 to Ocean beach. I promise it will RawK. Bonfires are fun, karaoke bonfires are HOT.

But now I am tired, so tired lying on my bed (loving wireless), my brain nagging me to get offline till I am better equipped to deal with with typing, computers, blogs and all…

Trevor wants to write a Disciplinary Heretics Manifesto to keep us academics from DD, disciplinary death, and DR, disciplinary rigidity. Great idea.

I have thought a lot about what causes DR and one thing that contributes is the need to establish one’s credentials and “make it” (aka, fight for tenure) which makes one often rigid or follow the disciplinary path too closely. That is, there is a sort of pressure to conform although one can also make ones mark though revolution, underturning and overturning that which can before you (Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions minimally discusses how younger generations of scientists help to usher in a new paradigm by overturning their views of their mentors as a means to establish their careers). But I think that is the exception. But once one gets tenure, one is supposedly in the structural position to think as one pleases, right? One would at least like to think that

I have no time to write now about my view of UNIX as a form of cultural property but one day I want to make ‘em. IN the meantime, enjoy the new legal battles over UNIX. That’s what happens when this thing, is at once a commercial product, a tool, a teaching method, a techno-philosophical paradigm, a collective adventure, and cultural heritage…. A huge fascinating muck.

Speaking of muck. I am in one right now trying to write a paperfor the digitalgenres conference. My paper puports to compare IRC banter to the social banter produced by the Caribbean “man-of-words” who loiters and talks for hours in public spaces building reputation, extending networks of friends, gaming with cards and dominoes, entertaining those around him, meta-commenting on all things local and global, and even engaging in some good ol business transactions. Let’s see if I can clear the muck in time…

I think this is what they were talking abouttoday at the conference.

I have always been envious of my social science comrades who get to use spiffy graphs and statistical data to cleanly “prove” their arguments. Us anthropologists have to construct all our arguments ground up through narrative because really how the hell can one “represent” culture? (Ok, Levi-Struass had some pretty wild graphs of the “totemic operator” but really it is a hard sort of enterprise).

But every night, while lying in bed, my mind has wandered to the neat land of the graph and chart to see whether I could wrangle up some graphical processes to capture the deep processes of ethical doing and ethicalized labor that I am writing about in my dissertation that is so evident on the Debian project. I can now sleep in peace. My friend has depicted the subtleties, the force, the doing, that is ethical doing on the Debian project. Oh the power of the image…

Just in case you don’t religiously follow “The Onion” here is a recent article of thiers that will make you smile a a mile wide.

Many have heard about San Francisco rant, still yet to be written about the fact that SF is really a Disneyland for young hipsters (yipsters), especially in comparison to Chicago, a real city with lots of grit. BUT if CA really ever does put this train in effect, I am so here. I mean, why not make the whole state a Disneyland in which we can easily travel to play at the beach, the mountains, and the desert without the guilt of using a car? Can you imagine the bike possibilities?

It is always tough to leave for 4 weeks especially when you want to take your bike, computer, recording gear and the like. It becomes all the more tough when you throw out your neck the day before leaving. Friends rule though and I hear (from Geoff) that all Dutch people are like 6’2 and strong so maybe they can help with all my stuff..