The Chinese Medicine paper is finally in. What a debacle. I bit off more than I could chew and delivered late (literally a week late). Not an ostentatious finish. But on the plus side, I’ve gotten good feedback on the thesis. And I got a free lunch from the head of the MAPSS program (perspective MAPSS students: know John. love John. Again, his bark > his bite).

Now it’s packing time. Bleh.

My brothers come in on Friday. I leave for Rochester Sunday. I have a hell of a lot of packing to do in between. And a couple important meetings in there as well.

Hey all, for those who might be interested here is a rough version that outlines where the arguement is headed and contains a breakdown of bot interactions. Download it here.

The tally of remaining work stands at:

• 2 short (4 pages each) final essays outstanding from fall quarter. Yes, I know it’s terrible. They’re outlined, I just need to finish them. They’ll be done over the summer
• 20 page final paper for Culture and Media. The draft of this is done and represents the outline of my thesis. I’ll be handing it in on Wednesday.
• 10 page paper on how Chinese Medicine is being taught in the states. I have the data, and have parsed it, but I’ve yet to form opinions. This is due on Friday.
• 20 page paper on Photography. I have no idea where I’m going with this one and it will be worked on over the summer. I have a feeling I’ll be looking at photo blogging.
• ~40-60 page thesis. The biggie. First draft is due around July 11th. I’ve got approximately 28 pages. So I need to at least double it. This will be the official challenge of the summer. You can take a look at the first pass here.

What can I say my works cut out for me. Less than two weeks before I’m back in Rochester. I really need to start packing.

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.