This post is haunting me. For quite a long time I felt the need to organise my tagging in a rational way, and this morning I decided to take action. It was supposed to be a quick thing, but I started at 8:30am and I am still here at 11:50. For my online research (which involve also academic papers, journals and even books) I mainly use three social bookmarking sites (I am not moved by a social urge, in fact. Is more that by working in this way I don’t have to be dependent on my own hard disk and I can work from any computer in the world which has a not-too-slow internet connection. So the primary reason is my own sake, not social commitment): » Continue reading “Is tagging really a “delicious” activity?”

I just joined Academia.edu, a new social networking tool that recently entered the web arena. It has been defined as a Facebook for Researchers. Well, it has some similarities, but many differences too. I can only say a few thing at face value, because I just entered into it. The idea is quite interesting.

It displays Academics around the world in a tree structure, first by University, then Departments, then individuals. The tree structure is not very user-friendly, and I am not sure it is really useful. The possibility to create a personal academic page is more valuable. Here is mine (very basic stuff as yet, but there is a link to my own website. Who knows, maybe I will transfer part of it on Academia.edu).

The margin of improvement are huge in my opinion, but there is potential.

I found some critical commentary at cogdogblog. I will come back later today and write my response to them, because now I have a lecture to give.

It has been more than a month since my previous post. This should not happen. Blogging should be more frequent.

The fact is that, in an endless search for sanity (and occasional happiness) I try to put limits to my online activities, and last month most of it has been absorbed in reshaping my website (an academic effort I am trying to do). My relationship with computers is similar to what once Said said about his relationship with humanism, i.e. “a contradictory feeling of attraction and revulsion”. I am dependent on it, because I can see how much it can facilitate a lot of daily tasks in my working life (more than that, it can actually help me discover things, in my research, that I could never have thought of, and making unexpected connections) while at the same time I am well aware of the fact that it can, and does, drain both your brain and your emotions in the process, if you are not careful. To properly use the computer and internet you need to be extremely focused, avoid traps and shortcomings but also informations overload, and always look at what you are doing from the outside. In other words, » Continue reading “My online life”