Considering I have three hours before I have to wake up to catch a flight back to Chicago from Amsterdam, I think I will forgo a blog entry till a little later as it would take me at least that long to write a blog entry about WTH. But I am digging the warmth and prospective bed even as I miss the mud and friends.

So, I have not had so much time to write about What the Hack but the short version is: hot, muggy, and awesome. But if you want to hear more, I have been hanging a lot with Gweeds and he has a nice “diary” entry about our filming escapades

I am not surprised that Seth Schoen is asking us to rethink rationality. And he has done so, beautifully:

Second, and more importantly, this mythical version of rationality denies that anyone has an inner life that matters or that is worthy of respect. It suggests that the inner life, and especially emotions, should always be subordinated to external goals, to decisions related purely to physical survival value. So in this account, whether something will kill you is a valid rational consideration, but whether you are afraid of it is not a valid rational consideration.

You know, sometimes, words just don’t cut it to capture the essence or spirit of a term, meaning, or definition. Since it has been a while since I have clarified what I mean by Wholesome and Not wholesome, here is a visual representation:

Wholesome
vs.
Not wholesome

But really, the lines between the two, especially these two, do blur.

So it is about time I link to my dissertation abstract and conclusion. If you know nothing of the wonderful world of free and open source software, I recommend the abstract. If you know about F/OSS but are particularily averse to academic jargon (words like ethicalize, articulate.. nested within tons of citations etc) steer clear from the conclusion. It is probably my most “academic” chapter, where I sort of whipped out all the jargon that I kept somewhat, though not totally, controlled in the rest of my dissertation. If you know of F/OSS and words like “problematize” excite you, read the conclusion. For the feel good section of my dissertation and to commemorate the end of debconf5 and celebrate the coming of What the Hack, here is a excerpt on the hacker con, titled In-Person Sociality: The Hacker Conference and the Distillation of Lifeworld

A big thanks to Shay for the title suggestion. I look forward to writing the acknowledgements this weekend; there are many folks I need to thank!

A sample chapter is coming soon. And if you see typos, please do email me and let me know. It is been quite a task catching every last one…

So one of the things I stopped doing to finish writing my dissertation was reading. And soon I will once again have the chance to catch up with exercising my eyes and hopefully mind… Recently I have been brought to the attention of and in contact with two folks that write aboout hackers and F/OSS. One is Tim Jordan over at the Open University and the other is law professor Greg Vetter over at Houston University. Both have very interesting writings that I am excited to dive into!

Taran is in Guyana, the site of my previous project on Kali Mai religious healing. He is updating his blog with a lot of good information and stories on the F/OSS work he is doing down there. Anyone interested in the politics of free software adoption and Guyana/Caribbean, should check out his posts.

As he often writes about, we rarely hear news from this region of the world, and the Guyanas and Suriname probably top the list in terms of “relative obscurity.” Back in 98, 99, when many newspapers were still not online, many of Guyana’s publications were available, making it very easy to keep abreast of developments.

Today, via Anarchogeek I learned that there is a new TV station down in the “Global South,” Telesur. They are tackling the problems of corporate media and their broadcasting and mission look very promising. Read more from rabble.

CHAos is a biting parody of a recent, Leo Burnet PR campaign, CHAnge run for the Chicago Housing Authority. The CHAos folks have done a brilliant job at reworking, really unmasking, the message.

Oh wow. It is painful. I am revisiting my least favorite chapter and there is little joy in tightening a few screws when the screws don’t fit so snugly. It feels a little fruitless, sort of like sparc hacking but perhaps a little worse.