maart roert zijn staart

iiiits snowing!





last week it was almost summer, but in retrospect it was a bit early for that summer haircut... (the title means: march wags its tail - i think the ducth have a joke about the bad weather for every month actually)

2 quick things

(1)i just read something on the MIT OpenCourseWare site (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Science--Technology--and-Society/index.htm - if you enjoy the site youre also a nerd!) regarding sociology of knowledge... you see now iv been wondering just how is knowledge created - more specifically: how are objects of knowledge formed? - and it was put so simply that i feel a bit stupid for wondering: by experiments, by theories and framing questions and by ethical presuppositions...
(2)but back on earth iv also been thinking about how to wash my bike living on the 6th floor of a building without a garden... just how angry can a landlord get if he catches you washing your bike in the shower (or a girlfriend for that matter)? at least the grease seems to leave a slightly sticky layer on the floor rather than a slippery one... anyone got a good recipe for bike wash from common household cleaning products?

why stress?

in all my stressing about writing a masters thesis i have forgotten to write anything here about it, which is stupid cos seeing your own words on a subject most of the time allows you to think about it more clearly, or realise that you are completely stuffed and need to start again, what ever the case, write it down, it really helps... i have been thinking off adding guest writers to this blog, anyone keen, just post a comment and ill contact you. So the one thing I have realised while stressing about thesis writing (you see i decided to force myself to finish by the middle of july by buying a flight back to SA) is that interesting topics are not hard to come by, there are plenty of controversies in science and loads of inconsistent policies in the political and scientific arena, but how (the big H word) on earth does one approach it from a science dynamics or sociology of science point of view? ok ok i can almost see all the engineers cringing at the use of the 's' word (sociology) but its not all up in the air here, there is some wild hugely computer intesive quantitative research going on even in the realms of the sociology department, i could recommend a paper (have u read it yet dave?) but im not sure ud read it... back to the plan: i have meetings with two potential supervisors today and im not going to leave their offices until i have 3 examples of great methodologies that will work for a 4 month thesis projects in my hand! oh an i maxed out the credit card and bought lots of xtr too...