Louise's thoughts

Context-aware conference

Tomorrow I will be attending the local conference on context-aware computing. I am looking forward too all the talks but especially my co-advisor's because it relates the most to my dissertation (surprise...).

Mobile phone use, France vs. US

This graph shows where the participants of a large study have used their mobile phone for voice calls during the past year (the study was conducted in the fall of 2003). Note that since SMS had not really caught on in the States, there was probably lots of class room and bus communication in France by way of SMS. What I really find funny is that Americans seems to have no problem using their phones in a public restrooms.

The full paper with preliminary results

Citations

Today I found (probably after everyone knew about it for months) this wonderful Google tool: Google scholar. It is wonderful because 1. you can look up anybody and find their publications and their citations(not unlike ACM library and citeseer but more userfriendly) and 2. I found out that I am much more cited than I thought I was and in positive terms. I found one article describing my presentation at a conference as 'this paper was probably the most interesting one at the conference' and I found citations used to support a claim for other peoples work. I found no reference to my research as 'sloppy work' or 'opposite this study, we found out that...', which is good to know.

Wishlist

I might be very optimistic, but it occured to me that some people consider getting me a present in the near future (three occations are actually coming up in the next two months) so I decided to write a little wishlist. It also works as a reminder for what I should spend my money on when I get a new job.

'The social construction of technical systems', book by Wiebe Bijker that I always wanted to read

A nice pencil (one for refill lead, my favorite one broke a couple of weeks ago)

A plane ticket to Glasgow

Body shampoo (the nice one from L'Occitane)

The new CD with Gwen Stefani

The new book by my favorite author

A book that I really aught to own...

A nice Gucci purse in black (or maybe just the wallet)

Nothing decorative for my house/apartment (because I don't have one)

Things that can be put in a suitcase (or maybe even a good quality small sized suitcase...)

Defense presentation

Today I realized that my initial idea of writing notes for my defense slides while writing my dissertation would have been a good idea. You always assume that because you write something yourself, it will be eternally present in your head. That is not true. While starting my defence powerpoint at my favorite coffee shop (where else?) I realized that not only did I have to look up what I have argued in my dissertation, I would probably have to read it closely again before the defense in order to revisit the background that I thought I would never forget. When was the term context-aware computing used first?, what exactly does Dourish say about coupling and why does Chalmers think that Dourish's embodied interaction is all about Heidegger? Oh no, I have to read some of my background articles again as well... So a good piece of advise to myself and others doing research: if you think it might be a good idea to write comments for a possible presentation when writing the paper, then do it! And by the way, does anyone have any idea of what a defense presentation should consist of? I don't and I am just improvising, trying to make it equally exciting for the part of the audience who have hardly heard about ubiquitous computing and the other part who have worked in my field for 20 years. That, I admit, is quite a challenge.

Pictures

My friend has this wonderful picture blog that I think is not appreaciated enough. I was honored today to have a picture that I took put on, even though she thought it is sort of cheating...

Reception

I have invited everybody I know (pretty much) and who I know is in Copenhagen on December 4th to a reception celebrating that I can hopefully call myself doctor at that point. I opted out of the official dinner because of financial issues (plane tickets and Christmas presents are expensive!) and decided to keep it short but big. Altogether I have invited 54 people and hope that all don't show up at the same time, because I am not sure the otherwise grand apartment will fit all at once. I felt a bit weird about inviting already now, before I have defended (remember, December 1st at 13.00 hours) but that is the way things go; sometime you have to gamble a bit. I am likewise gambling with my future right now, looking into getting a new job (I guess Americans would say 'a real job', but I feel I had a real job already for two and a half years as a PhD student) somewhere outside Denmark. Now I just wish my gambling will pay off sometime soon. For both cases.

New York City

New York is treating me nice although it has been raining all of my first day here. Some of the fun include translating Scottish into American to the poor taxi drivers and shop assistants who look clueless when hearing this (cute) accent. Going back to Copenhagen Sunday = Monday.

Who wants to read a chapter of my dissertation?

I got the 4-page committee feedback for my dissertation the other day and the very last comment said:

"In its present form, the dissertation suffers from large numbers of errors, not only typographical ones, but also grammatical, syntactical or orthographic errors. The text should be subjected to thorough and careful copy editing, preferably with the assistance of a native English speaker."

Given the fact that I don't even know what 'orthographic' means, I therefore hope that I can get some outside help. If you can spare an hour, I would be delighted to give you a single chapter to read. Send me an email and I will assign you a chapter along with giving you the summary so the context of the chapter is clearer. You can also just download my thesis at [my official website]/lou_thesis04.pdf and give me comments on the chapter you find worth reading.

I would really appreciate this help, because despite my fairly proficient English, we tend to overlook our own errors continuously. I will award the best proofread with a gift certificate to Amazon.com for $50 (and I am not kidding!).

Queer eye for the straight guy

While explaining about a certain episode of the Danish version of this wonderful/horrible reality show (which I only watch because I know one of the fab fives in the Danish version), a friend of mine had a wonderful idea for much better version:

Geek eye for the cool guy.

The concept of this is that five geeks (not necessarily computer scientists, it could also be English lit, philosophy or even sociology geeks) take one cool guy and make him more interesting. They give him real interesting books to read, give him some less cool but more relaxed clothes and give him advise on talking about interesting things such as political and intellectual issues rather than cars and the internet. He gets lessons on cooking for the fun of it instead of cooking only healthy food. And finally he is introduced to geekish sports such as climbing and canoeing instead of solely going to the gym or jogging three rounds around the lake.

Hmmm, I guess the prejudice in this scenario is that cool guys can't be intelligent or academic and that academic people can't be cool. But isn't that just as bad as prejudice about gay guys always be cool and geeks needing advise for being more chic?

Nightmare

I had a replicate of Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks' on my wall for about five years because it is my favorite painting. I always knew that is was at the Art Institute of Chicago and although I would not go to Chicago specifically to see the painting, I knew immediately that seeing this was the first priority of my Chicago trip (and you thought it was the conference...). My disappointment was indescribably great as I learned yesterday in the room of the painting that it is lent out to a museum in London until mid-January. So now I have to go to London before mid-January, perhaps a good excuse for Christmas shopping.

Chicago is not in San Francisco

I am enjoying the familiar taste of chlorined water, walking in the four lane streets with the big green street signs made to be viewable from cars not for pedestrians. I also enjoy the wide selection of toothpaste and ice espresso's (jet lag) in the local Wallgreens. But one thing I am not enjoying is the fact that I feel like a way too cheerful Californian when I smile at people i pass, say bye before I leave a shop and try to make up conversation with the cab driver. Chicago is in a different state (to be precise Illinois) and they are just as non-friendly as in Copenhagen. I was told it is the big city attitude that is to be found in larger cities (I find it to be most solid in San Fransisco though). Confused me therefore have to draw on my Copenhagen attitude and try to pull it off in English. Lets see how that goes.

Chicago here I come

Ever since I got my workshop proposal accepted and funding supplied (I was actually surprised about the latter part), I have been looking forward to going to Chicago. Tomorrow I fly directly from Copenhagen (thank you SAS) and spend the next ten days in the States. I will probably be blogging a bit from the conference but my mind will likely be on my PhD defense, which is scheduled for way too soon.

Election morning

Today I woke up very early (I will not say when) to follow the election. To me the time difference is actually a practical thing making me able to follow the nerve wrecking drama going on on the other side of the Atlantic. It was unfortunately a sad predicted result I woke up to but as the naive optimist I am, I will not accept a partial result and was still hoping until way into the morning.

I am very sad about the election and what it says about America. How come that I know so many smart and nice Americans (who all vote) and still, so many Americans vote so... wrong? Why are people driven by their fears instead of their hopes and wishes? It is truely one of the issues that puzzles me the most, how people can be guided by issues relying on negative values (gay = wrong, foreign beliefs = wrong, tax = wrong) instead of possitive values (diversity = good, taking care of less priviledged people = good, freedom = good). But I guess that is what fasinates me about the US as well, its insanity mixed with wonderful people and an overall positive approach to life.

Accept

I got the good news today that my dissertation is accepted for defense. That immediately put my mind in a confused state of joy and nervousness. Now I actually have to put together a one hour lecture about 'The Context Gap' and its effect on computing technology design. But now I am also one step closer to being Miss Dr instead of just another PhD student.