this has been a tough week. I’m really drained. I’m behind in reading, thanks to the Michicago Paper. And I’m just sorta feeling, i dunno, separated from my surroundings. I’ve got less than five weeks to go. Well, after that it’s all thesis all the time until I finish it.

The weird part is, I just feel unstatisfied. I got an excellent grade on a midterm that I wrote in two hours. And that doesn’t feel right. I’m not completely satisfied with the Michicago paper I’ve been working on straight for the last few weeks.

Clearly I’m losing a sense of perspective. I expect to have it back in a day or two.

Here is the draft of my presentation for the Michicago conference. These scant eight and a half pages are a summation of the first thirty or so pages of my thesis. Now I just need to figure out how to get through those eight pages in fifteen minutes.

Any feedback on the paper will be very, very welcome.

The Michicago paper is done. Its the tightest 8 and 1/2 pages I’ve ever written and I still need to find some way to cut out an additional page. Oy. For interested parties, here’s a copy for those who wish to read/provide feedback.

Now its time for sleep.

Neil Gaiman is speaking on campus tomorrow. After pulling a number of strings and a couple hair brain plots, I’ll be going to see him. More on that tomorrow.

For the moment, I’m desperately trying to open a vein and write this paper for Michicago. Unfortunately, all that is coming is air. Less than five days until it’s due. This is not good. Plus I also have a midterm due in the same time frame. So, for the moment, I draw at least some solace from this mini comic from Gaiman call An Honest Answer.

… Divine, I could you a little help here (and no cat suggestions)… read the comic, I swear it makes the last bit make far more sense.

Google Scholar has been an indispensable tool in gathering research for my thesis. For those not familiar, its a google search engine that is indexing the content of academic journals (including PDF content) and websites.

Interestingly, the most powerful aspect of it, in my opinion, is that it separately categorizes citations. For example, Sherry Turkle of MIT, has published a great deal on the subject of interactions with artificial intelligence online. Her book Life on the Screen is a seminal work. Google scholar allows you to specifically search for all the papers in it’s database that cite Turkle’s work. Since that returns an ungodly numbers, you can also restrict it to the papers that cite Turkle’s work AND contain “bot” in the body of the paper.

Anyone who is doing any form of serious research and not embracing Google Scholar is, quite frankly, doing themselves a significant disservice.