Thank you all for the mental support that you’ve been sending my way. I’m half way through the final week of classes. Two and a half more weeks and I’ll be back in Rochester.

I’m feeling much better. Dre’s visit was a balm for my soul. We spent a lot of time in nature and talking about the future. And enjoying excellent food (if any future MAPers are following the blog, I will be posting a list of places to try).

I also think that I’ve made some breakthroughs on the thesis. I hope to have a draft (or something) done in the next few days.

I’m beginning to rethink everything in terms of contested spaces. Or rather acceptable behavior within spaces. Bots are accepted, or at least tolerated, in environments where they are part of the natural ecosystem. Examples include games and AI sites. But once they move into spaces where, as I posted earlier technology is only supposed to function as a mediator, then everything gets complicated. Especially if they don’t identify themselves.

That seems to be what this is all about: what is the accepted level of transparency for a given space/interaction.

Ok… I just turned in one of my outstanding finals from last quarter and registered for summer graduation. So its on. I’m going to do this!

Dre will be visiting this weekend and I’m really excited. We haven’t seen each other in three months and that’s been really, really tough.

Thesis stuff is moving forward. I’ve had a couple good meetings with faculty that are helping clarify a number of important issues.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it isn’t a train.

On the plus side I have a thesis advisor! Dr. Micheal Silverstein, sooper genius (seriously he was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship Grant, often referred to as the Genius Grant). He was the teacher of the scary Language in Culture class from first quarter, whose midterm question was immortalized in this post.

I’m actually rather excited about this. Though I have to admit that I am a little concerned that I now can actually sorta speak Silverstinian (silverstein-glossia ?)