In response to the supply – side of sushi, I do not want to analyze the paper for where the author stands what is useful for me is the fact that it works well for me, as I am interested in the use of language, language as commodity that uses and is used by technology to create commodity chains that influence the way we interact in our own spaces or places. As I am trying to follow the trail of specific collections of words – i.e. the illegal immigrant, precocious puberty or simple comic book war sounds I find their meanings to be embedded with predefined and inscribed meanings. These meanings are created many different ways, as the article on Tuna and Sushi so succinctly describes, but an emphasis is placed not only on the top down notion but the fact that the bottom plays a significant role in the cultural significance of the fish in different markets. This is how the use of technology and language overlap and I am interested in how they can create a space and place that influences us phenomenologically and literally.

So if we are to look at the flow of the Tuna fish and use this as an infrastructure for the way globalization can be manufactured and perceive, my interest comes with the creation of the Scapes and chains and I want to translate this onto my understanding of how language is mediated (to act as a medium that transfers something from one place to another) by use of different technologies, and this creates a place where “people perceive their positions in global processes, form partial and inherently cultural – points of view..” (P80) Which is an underlying argument in the sushi paper – there is no one point of view that perhaps how things get to the market place is a mixture of big and small process that are real and inferred.

For example Each set of words that I am interested at the moment have a different mapping, overlay of circumstances that is relevant to a particular, pervasive institutional use of the iconic words.
Illegal Alien – the technology is the media, military, government, farmers and fruit production….
Precocious Puberty – the technology is the research, data collection, production of disease and cures, medical profession shaman, the child, pesticide and steroid manufacturer.
Comic book war sounds which are exemplify the disjuncture of the personal act of violence from the actual action – this just happens to be even further divorced from the action, the technology is the media that informs and interprets the actions, that is TV, news, games, comic books, pod casts, etc the military, surveillance.

So looking at the infrastructure on how we use language and the implication that technology can create a mediated space, Mediated meaning through which we are to interpret our environment then language is the like ‘labor’ (p80) which can be divided in to “specialized realms that are integrated or coupled in multiply contingent ways, rather than any flat executive flat or managerial omnipresence” – look at the way we now perceive the AVIAN FLU as a TERRORIST and how the media facilitates the production of scientific technology for solutions to stop the mutation of the disease, and the institutionalization of medical facilities to contain the terrorist as well as offer injections for anti flu virus.

“ The structure of a commodity chain - the links, stages, phases and hands through which a product passes as it is transformed, combined, ‘fabricated and distributed between ultimate producers and ultimate consumers – is a highly fragmentary and idiosyncratic social formation, itself a product of the often minutely calibrated linkages, the provisioning relationships, that exist between every pair of hands along the way.” (P80)

So commodity chains as a form of structure (in the way we use technology and language) can be used to facilitate and create a path where the flow or the path can move more easily without confrontation or question facilitating global production and distribution and hence commerce? Perhaps language facilitates and is used to cover up “channel domination” – the exploitation, deployment or negotiation of cultural meanings and influences connected to commodity flows”. So if this is a valid understanding of the infrastructure of how globalization works then perhaps the redeployment of technology to be used on a local level and positively influence and inform the public of alternate solutions.

I like the use of the word ‘channel’ with domination – does that mean a TV channel or a channel as an avenue or path?

If we look at the way Sushi interprets the commodity of the tuna fish then I would like to suggest the way technology is distributed, consumed and invented is like the “dominant cultural power extends outward from a uniform market core to diverse production peripheries” but also comes back to the dominant culture as a slightly different product due to the local influences so I agree with Bestor that we can assume the big brother syndrome is the best analysis. – For me it is important to pay attention to the e periphery uses and understanding of technology and language. At the local an individual systems with regards to economic and cultural practice can be locally specific although influence by the technologies dominant channel. Whether we are aware of this or not, the infra-structure the use of the channel can be reversed or played with – Now we are aware perhaps the local can use the “fragmentary idiosyncratic” apparatuses to mediate the space for a different use.

However, despite the fact that it does raise the issue of gender and house hold chores, does it really solve the problem. We will never escape the normalized gender relationships by having a given technology address them. Sure, it does address such problems, but sometimes, that is as far as it goes. Further changes don't seem to occur.

As with eating habits, instead of people changing their diet to prevent them from suffering from acid reflux, upset stomache, diarrhea (yes, the entire pepto bismol theme song) companies just create "technological" products to ease consumers' symptoms. So my question is, with the washing machine in mind, are we really solving problems when we approach them through the creation of technological products or are we just putting off the problem?

What's wrong with good old fashioned advertising(brainwashing)/social engineering to "change" social practices? (i'm bound to get criticized for saying this, but oh well)

if we take agre's work(s) as guidelines for thinking about, reflecting on, and pursuing 'critical technical practice,' how closely do the authors of the other three papers follow his guidlines? in what ways do they break from them, and why might they do so? in what ways do they adhere to them? do they fall into the same pitfalls agre mentions, or do they successfully avoid them?

hmm, that sounds like some sort of final exam question..

Coupled with Eric's alert observation that many systems of Ubiquitous Computing (as well as other systems not ubiquitous or computational) have effects upon those opting out as well as those opting in, it seems like there is this undercurrent of people desiring to be connected along social/physical/technological axes only if they have the ability to close the gates, as it were, and exist outside of the connected realm in some way, possibly by shifting which realm they are actively taking part in at any given time.

It's funny that calmness, appropriateness, and perceptual invisibility may not be enough to make a Ubicomp system successful. It's success may also depend on it's ability not to involve the user in its realm or it's ability to allow users to escape from other realms.