From the Clouds to the Earth

This is a short summary of a fascinating article on WIRED by Balaji Srinivasan http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/software-is-reorganizing-the-world-and-cloud-formations-could-lead-to-physical-nations/ which discusses the already present and the possible future where virtual communities existing and coming into existence in the clouds are taking physical shape on the Earth in real-life communities, groups and will perhaps even form new nations. "Software *is* reorganizing the world."

I find it important to touch upon this subject now as, I believe, we will sooner than we think be quite caught by surprise by new communities and a new world surrounding us and springing forth, as it would seem, from nowhere.

As our generation is, unfortunately, getting poorer, Srinivasan tells us that we are taking our minds to the clouds and are sort of "emigrating" there to seek work opportunities, like-minded individuals and, being of a social nature, communities to which we may belong. We may not have the slightest clue as to who our neighbour is but we may know someone as far as thousands of kilometres away like the backs of our own hands. Srinivasan calls this process, which "starts out internationally distributed and ends up physically concentrated" the "reverse diaspora". But the definitive tangible form of this new frontier is, as of yet, unknown to us.

For the present, Stanford, MIT, and others present us available quantitative studies with "cloud cartographies" that, instead of "mapping nation states" map the "states of our minds" by using the newer metric "geodesic distance" instead of just using the physical measuring unit "geographical distance". The former shows us the "number of degrees of separation between two nodes in a social network". I suppose these will be able to predict where and how the new geographical communities will take shape.

Reading the full article is worth the time. I certainly have much to learn and to find in the online world and I would not be surprised if my virtual explorations took me to places I have never even dreamt of. So we don't get left out of this brave new world let us, with caution of course, venture to connect online.

Virtually Everywhere

Technology, space, time and everything in between...countless opinions either in favour of this digitalized world or against it but the question of whether it is one of the most fascinating phenomenons of our time must indubitably have an affirmative reply. Just as much as the online world kept me in awe as can be read in my posts in 2009 so does it keep me amazed now.

We do not need to move in the physical space in order to be present at any event. Par example, the Large Hadron Collider exhibition at the Science Museum in London was easily accessible via live-stream, courtesy of The Guardian where we could enjoy the company of both Professor Higgs in the morning and Stephen Hawking in the afternoon. http://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2013/nov/12/stephen-hawking-large-hadron-collider-live-stream-video?CMP=twt_gu

We could also view a cool photo of them both on @sciencemuseum's Twitter page: http://twitter.com/sciencemuseum/status/400675840775565312

But if the value and beauty of women in science were topics of interest to us we were able to hop over to Brussels and take a look at the inauguration of the "Science needs Women" photo exhibition held at the European Parliament http://twitter.com/4womeninscience/status/400400078516801536 or to travel to Moscow, Russia to see the nominees for L'Oreal's Women in Science awards http://twitter.com/4womeninscience/status/400307121771642880

All this on November 12, 2013, in one day!

Also the National Science Foundation was live-tweeting from the Gender Summit in Washington on the following day  http://twitter.com/NSF/status/400660834919018496

So thanks to our digital presence it is this facile today to be virtually anywhere and everywhere.

The Suit and Tie Conundrum

I have just read a very good article featured in the Daily Beast by Alizah Salario entitled "Daily Woes for Women in Tech" http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/11/19/dating-in-the-stem-fields-can-women-in-science-be-sexy-and-successful.html
Women in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are faced with what Eileen Pollack  http://nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 calls the "double whammy", the sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation when being too feminine, attractive and good-looking will stigmatize women (of course not only those working in STEM fields) with the preconceived and stereotypical image of them not being serious or of them most probably being simply dumb and when being dressed in a labcoat or looking dorky enough will make women seem not worth dating. So is there a solution to these contradictions?

Pollack says she doesn't think "most of us challenge these paradigms" and that "we simply absorb them" and she is right.

I certainly think that the stereotypical images of women should be challenged but I also believe that those of men should be examined and changed as well. In some of my future posts I would like to take a look at men and fashion and how I think the "suit and tie conundrum" leaves us with men giving us the delusion that only they can always look smart. Intelligent in nerdy attire and smart, classy and sexy when all dressed up. A few questions I pose; must men look so boringly repetitive when it comes to fashion? Why does the suit and tie solve the problem for men of what to wear for dinner, meetings, job interviews, dates, etc. etc. but not for women? Should women have such an all-purpose uniform or should men be allowed to start wearing new types of attire even for formal occasions? I would opt for the latter so that the male vs. female image could be redefined and gender equality would be able to gain more ground.

A Tale of Two Worlds

Ah yes! "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" to quote the amazing Dickens. I do derive joy and I smile inwardly when reviewing my older posts from several years ago when the carefree days of my time at University allowed me to occupy the free hours with little adventures in the virtual world of Final Fantasy. I nonetheless explored the communities more than I played. It was the digital phenomenon of Actuality's veiled online presence that fascinated me and fascinates me still.

I hope to be able to continue this blog in a more organized and systematic fashion with interesting topics on the virtual and the real life world. Desirably, the blog will develop into a specific yet unique source for many things digital in a harmonized tone...something very much like a "virtual concerto".

Before I conclude this post I must return to Dickens and include the continuation of his magnificent introduction to his "A Tale of Two Cities" whilst bearing in mind our Digital Age;

"...it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way - in short, the period was (...) far like the present period..."

The Paradigm of Bruno Latour in Contemporary Sociology of Science (rough copy in English by Giselle Rakobowchuk) BA in Sociology at University of Pécs 2010 BA Thesis

1.     Science: Its own Master?. 2

2.     From Scientific Truth to Social Construction. 3

3.     The ANT of the Laboratory That Engulfed the World. 6

4.     Science, Society and Chickens: Did the Chicken Ever Cross the Road?. 10

5.     The Social After and Before Bruno Latour 18

6.     Sociology: 20

BIBLIOGRAPHY.. 22

1.    Science: Its own Master?

Until the relatively recent emergence of the study of science as a field of scientific research and perhaps since the triumph of the French Revolution’s rational principles, the questions of truth, knowledge and reason have been entrusted to the care of the ‘nobility of science’, the princes, duchesses and counts donned in their uniform mantles of ‘white lab coats’ and the scholastic decrees issued by these scientists have been accepted as the correct and the only plausible interpretations of the world surrounding us. With the appearance of Thomas S. Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” in 1962, a revolution of its own swept through Francis Bacon’s fort of ‘una scientia universalis’ (Bacon), fracturing it into the myriad fragments of postmodern thought and inquiry. Latour – fortress of sociology? The objectivity of science and its established principles are today in the impregnable ivory towers of the scientists themselves being continually evaporated though it is still feasible to say what Robert Merton stated in 1970, that “even now, there are scholars who would argue that science goes its own way, unaffected by changes in the environing social structure” (Merton 1973: 176).

Continued after break line...

Karubist

Karubist is one of those best friends for life one is almost certain never to lose

- ah, the joys of language barriers! :D

Other best friends for life: the Lycopodium - impossible to get enough of them!

Virtuality: The Bridge to Exploration

In today's modern, 21st century world it is easy to take for granted the technology we now use in our day-to-day activities (emails, chats, popular networking sites, etc.), without our even giving it a second thought yet the more I muse on the expanse, almost gaping depths of the virtual universe, I cannot cease to wonder...

With carefree ease are we able to traverse through the boundless space of binary codes and numbers, to caper from one planet of knowledge to the other, to immerse ourselves in the void of relentless intangibility and at the same time, in the midst of this flowing mass of information, find precisely what we are seeking...and how it boggles my mind when I am constrained to realise there still exist innumerable manifestations of absolute ignorance on the subject.

An interesting article; "Tapping Virtuality To Attract and Train 21st Century Teachers" @ http://thejournal.com/, explores the pedagogical potentials of the virtual environment, of introducing modern teaching methodologies by handing teachers digital tools while moving them to virtual classrooms and explains the absolute disfunctionality of "the old 'sit and get' model". Naturally, these innovative virtual spaces are not meant to replace RL institutions and interactivity in teaching but offer a fresh and new approach to lifelong learning. http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/08/04/Tapping-Virtuality-To-Attract-and-Train-21st-Century-Teachers.aspx?Page=3

Indeed, as my thoughts take me to another point in space, to the more abstract world of harmony, I wonder where I would be if I were not granted the possibility of listening to the contemplative beauty of music offered to me by this same space of virtuality. Were I forced to travel to distant halls, to search for ingenious ensembles, gifted orchestras and virtuosos endowed with that unique spark of talent, no energy, time or place would there be spared for my thoughts to form, develop and effectuate into written words...

Harmony, beauty and ingenuity are now truly all but a click away...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yQw3DvqEbxI