A friendly public service announcement…

Dusk Portage

When I first purchased a domain name for this site I chose alexdefreitas.com. Soon after, I realized that .com is kinda lame for a person/academic and a .net might serve me more appropriately. Anyway, the short story is that until now this site has been accessible from both addresses but as of the end of this week I will be discontinuing the alexdefreitas.com URL. Please make sure you have your feed readers set to the www.alexdefreitas.net or the WordPress domain itself, alexdefreitas.wordpress.com.

Choice. That’s all really. I realize things have been quiet over here lately. I won’t spill my emotions right at this moment, but the task at hand has proved to be challenging. Sure, there are days of inspiration, successful funding applications and future travel/conference plans but I seem to spend 95% of my days hunched over the keyboard in a worried mess….worried that I don’t know what I’m doing. Worried that I haven’t done enough. Worried when I have done something if it is even on the right track. The good news is – I’m sure that any other doctoral students reading this probably feel exactly the same!

With that said. Life is good and a final trip to Toronto/New York City next month will serve to reinvigorate my project and hopefully my productivity. There’s always photographic action over at Imagining The City and Twitter et al. Stay tuned for some new stuff coming at you from my home away from home in Toronto.

My return trip will serve the perfect opportunity to reimmerse myself in all the public Wi-Fi I can get my hands on! I’m looking forward to taking photos, chatting to users (on and offline) and generally making sure I have enough field experience to make writing up this sucker a breeze.

Let me hear you say “you can do it Alex!”.

An encounter with the law…

I just was issued with a $55 for not wearing a helmet. It’s bugging me, so I have to tell someone about it. You see, I looked just as I do below. Following a successful day at the office I decided to head out for a kebab while Coralee was still at netball practice. Spencer was excited at the prospect of a ride, so off we went. Now I object to the helmet law on many levels – but still I always wear a helmet when I’m out on my ‘go fast’ bikes. There’s no denying that it offers some protection, the vents keep my head cool, and it looks pretty sweet matching my bike’s color-scheme. However. I’ve just come back from Toronto. I read of European cities with HUGE cultures of cycling. I just can’t bring myself to go out looking as I do below and wear a helmet. In the city. Riding a block for my dinner. It’s not necessary and I need to complain to someone!
I’m a utilitarian cyclist. That bike you see, all it does is transport my dog around the block or ferry home my groceries. I get stares. All the time. Come to think of it….it’s probably because I have a puppy in the front. But joking aside, I think I get stares just because I’m riding a bicycle with a hulking basket on the front! We have a non-existent (but slowly growing) community of plain-clothes everyday-type cyclists in Auckland. Spencer doesn’t like to ride on the road. It’s often far too bumpy. I had just bought a kebab on Queen Street and was headed across the main intersection at the bottom to enjoy my dinner with a view of the harbour.

Alas, the police had positioned themselves outside Britomart in that bus only lane. They proceeded to tell me that I also deserved a fine for riding in a bus-only area! WTF? Bikes are allowed in bus lanes in Auckland! Every single person riding to the ferry or train station every day rides that stretch of road – not allowed according to grumpy police man.

I didn’t try and talk myself out of the fine. I realise it’s the law. My fault and all that. But still, I feel angered. Worst of all – I fear telling my wife. I can’t afford a $55 fine!

But in conclusion I’ll tell ya something. I’m not going to start wearing a helmet when I’m out on that bike getting groceries or with the dog. I refuse to. Cycling is not about gearing up with all this equipment before you set off. It’s a simple pleasure where you can hop onto the machine and be whisked into another world. You wouldn’t believe how much I was smiling before I got that ticket. People smile at me as we ride by. I feel the wind in my hair and I whistle as I go….sometimes ringing my bell just for the heck of it. There’s a time and place for helmets…..and gliding across the city for some dinner is not it. I hope there is a day when I can joke with my children that their daddy got fine for riding back when he was the only one. As they hop on their bikes and ride to work in a stream of others – like Copenhagen….or something like that.

I’m never gonna change the cycle law. It’s too politicized now. No politician would dare take away a safety law.

Man, writing this didn’t help at all. I’m still mad as. I’ll see you on the streets tomorrow. I’ll be the one on my basket bike…with my laptop in the basket…..getting coffee before work…without a helmet….cause that’s just how I roll.

AAAAAGGGHHH!

The things I meant to blog about…

Oh, the things that I meant to write down. You wouldn’t believe how many moleskin journals I’ve started with such great intentions which are left with but the first few pages filled. All the time I have things that I intend on coming back here to write about. Some off the top of my head:

• The use of the Auckland Public Library Wi-Fi after hours. Regularly, I witness people hunched over their laptop screens outside the library long after it has officially closed its doors. Dan Hill did some work like this with the State Library of Queensland’s Wi-Fi users.
• I meant to talk about the slowly but surely growing free Wi-Fi scene in Auckland and places like Shaky Isles (cafe) and The Northern Steamship (bar) offering free Wi-Fi to their partons. I wanted to talk also about how these free signals extend beyond their buildings into the environment outside.
• Writing papers for conferences and presenting to my peers.
• Puppies and bicycles.
• Presenting my first ever lecture to a class of undergraduates at Summer School.
• Camping and Kiwi summers…
• Planning my triumphant return to Canada and Wireless Toronto. Returning to my field work, developing the Twitter application and speaking in more depth with participants.
• Being so close to officially having my first published, peer reviewed paper.
• I wanted to talk about how photography has been consuming all of my spare time.

Alas, I didn’t manage to find time to speak about all those things. The PhD is indeed getting lonelier, and deeper into the depths of darkness and past the point of no return. I’m sure everyone else has experienced these moments…but they sure are tough eh? Unlike my North American compatriots, I am floating, largely unguided, in the vast, terrify sea of junior academia (and library fines). Don’t get me wrong. I have a great bunch of friends I’ve made along the way. People I feel as though I can call upon when times are tough. People who’ve done it….who know how it feels.

Undoubtedly I’ve achieved something. In Melbourne last year I was able to present with confidence where I had initially intended to go…..and indeed, where I have ended up this far. I’ve delved into many literatures and spoken to people about their own personal experiences…..not to mention….immersed myself in the ‘field’ over the past 12 months. I suppose the challenge now is to bring all of these threads together in a logical way. I need the help of others – to some extent. To advise me which parts of my existing work to build upon…and which to forget and leave behind.

So, I’m sorry for the silence. It’s an odd feeling going months without feeling as though you’ve done anything at all. I feel guilty for all of the scholarship money that I’ve received during those times. As though I can’t justify having been given it. But I know, on the flipside, that I will have weeks where my progress is that of a typical year……the nature of the beast perhaps. Together, we can do this. Thanks for sticking with me. We’re almost in the final 12 months. It’s all or nothing now!

(re)Imagining the City

Back when I was a fresh and enthusiastic undergrad penned a blog ‘Imagining the City‘. There, I tried to churn some thoughts on the city and the spaces I was surrounded by on a daily basis. It aimed to be a blog about space. Space is definitely a central interest of mine. Anyways. Imagining the City kind of died and as I worked my way up the university ranks I began this blog as a way of taking my lonely PhD path beyond the dusty confines of the (shared) office walls.

I think it has been working. I’m sorry for the lack of posts lately. Often I feel as though I am quite the writer. However, for the last few months – not so much. I’m sure my motivation will come back. After all, there are so many exciting things happening around me. And it’s nice, two years in….to be able to look back and smile that I’ve actually achieved something.

To cut to the chase. Imagining the City is back. I love to take photos….and Flickr just wasn’t cutting it. I needed somewhere I could post my favorites. Somewhere they could sit in a relatively large size….away from cluttered text or sidebars or links or colors. I’ve stocked it up with a few posts to whet your appetite…but please add it to your reader. I’ll still be here, of course….but there is where you can really see who I am. Where I am. Who I wish I could be….and all that stuff.

Sure, here I imagine space in one sense….but there is where my imagination can be brought just slightly more to life.

imaginingthecity.blogspot.com

Christmas Photo Project

12 or so days ago, Amber, Lisa and I set out on a Christmas photo project. The task was simple. To each get ourselves a disposable camera and take two photographs per day for the twelve days of Christmas. Other than that, we didn’t really set out any other guidelines. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I have even used a disposable camera ever in my life before! I didn’t even know what to do when it came time to get it developed….take the film out!?…leave it in!?

But in the end, all worked out well. I may have cheated in the project a little, because I actually used two separate cameras…my little Fuji disposable….and my favourite ol’ timer the Olympus Trip 35. I just didn’t cart the disposable camera around with me at all times with discipline like a true photographer would. However, for some reason, I always have my Trip 35 slung over my shoulder.

So, without further ado, I present to you my 12 days of Christmas in 24 photos. Each day is represented by one shot from the disposable, and one shot from the Olympus Trip 35. If you really want, you can see all the other rejects from the disposable camera at the full set on my Flickr page. And gazillions of photos from my Trip 35 here at this set.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Feel free to let me know how I did!….Film is fun…but prohibitively expensive to develop!

Amber’s photos can be found at her website HERE.

I will post a link to Lisa’s ASAP.

Day One: Crowds & Ships in the Storm

Day Two: Two different bikes

Day Three: Sunsets and Pizza

Day Four: Picnicking in the park and Seabirds

Day Five: Native Trees and Architecture

Day Six: We took these at the exact same instant (ok, we did two takes…that’s why our cameras are at different angles – and I cropped too, whatcha gonna do!?)

Day Seven: Puppies and Rooftops

Day Eight: Bird’s Eye Lunch and Domestic Goddess Mom

Day Nine: Fisherman and Ducklings

Day Ten: Santa and Nephew Isaiah

Day Eleven: City by both sea and land

Day Twelve: Beach and home again…

The city most worthy of attention is the city that you happen to find yourself in right now…

I was recently given the task of writing just 200 words. That is not very much at all. 200 words is restricting. Yet, 200 words is also refreshing. Below is what happened to come out:

 

There’s building site just off Ponsonby Rd that I like to ride by whenever I get the chance. Lately there are never any workers there though. Construction must have halted due to a ‘recession’ or something like that. It’s for the best though because no-one really wants a Titanic shopping mall complex just behind their favourite café strip, right? The giant hole in the ground is fascinating; at the bottom of the hole someone has painted the phrase, “I wish this was a swimming pool”. Don’t you wish that was true? I love it when street art is right – when it speaks what you were already thinking anyway.

As I peered deep into the hole and imagined what it was asking me to, I snapped a photo. I was on my own, but the act reminded me that everything about my city was encouraging me to get out and be in it. To wander freely the streets and take in what was going on. Cities never sleep, Auckland is no exception – you just have to look a little harder. It’s a performance, just without the stage. I rode my bicycle much further that night and my city played with me.

as always. more photos can be found at my Flickr.

A little maintenance here and there

Hello my dear readers. It’s been a busy past few weeks, but I won’t complain – I know we are all struggling to keep our heads above water in some way or another. I’m just thankful you’ve taken a few seconds to check on what I’m up to.

All I wanted to say is that I have bigger plans for this blog. I want to post more frequently, and more broadly. I want to post photographs and things that inspire me in research and just in everyday life.

Needless to say….my theme sucked. But with that said…I’m not willing to take the plunge to a self-hosted WordPress blog.

So, over the next few days I’m just going to be updating a few dusty corners of this site. Brightening it up. Making it a little more readable, and as a result, perhaps breathing into it a little more life.

I hope you stick with me. And you can expect to be hearing from me soon.

I leave you with a photo I took last week at a wrecking yard on the way home from Ohakune where we were lucky enough to catch the last day snowboarding of the season. It was good!

What one does after a week without Twitter

Thankfully, my Twitter account has been unsuspended. Hooray!

After being suspended I promptly contested the suspension through Twitter’s support page. To tell you the truth, I kind of had high expectations of Twitters support team. I told myself someone would fire back a message rather instantaneously and I would be back in business. However, this was not the case.

After a day of my request sitting there with the status informing it was yet to be assigned to a support person I decided I best submit another. This time I used the ‘support’ email address. Almost another day passed until I heard anything from them. I rejoiced at the new message from Twitter in my inbox, but opening it revealed all they were telling me is that they were deleting my ‘duplicate’ request so that my initial request may be ‘processed’ faster. The message told me the suspension could be a minimum of 30 days. Wtf? Would someone just please respond. Acknowledge you’ve got my request, even.

On day three I began commenting on my initial message. Each day my comments would become increasingly urgent.

It was around day four that I forgot what they had told me about submitting multiple requests. I submitted a bunch more…with words like HELP, and I’ve been WRONGLY SUSPENDED in large capitals. I even started a temporary account called @HelpImSuspended. I used this to message BiZ Stone himself, message @spam to tell them I’m NOT spam and to plea to anyone at all that I’d been wrongly suspended!

Anyways. One of these methods must have worked, because a lovely Twitter employee named ‘Ginger’ messaged me back on the seventh day of my famine to let me know she had unsuspended my account – Hallelujah!

I really believe that Twitter has been a useful tool for my project. It has allowed me access to participants I would have never otherwise had the chance to be in touch with. More importantly though, like many others, I have become quite reliant on Twitter as a stream of information and communication with particular friends, colleagues and scholars. A week without Twitter was not a minor deal in my life. Many of my friends joked about its insignificance. Rather, I was unable to consume information in the ways that I have become so accustomed.

But you know what the worst part about it all was!? After Twitter unsuspended my account….I thought that all the stuff I’d missed would just become visible in my homepage stream. This was not the case! Any tweets posted while I was suspended were not delivered. What’s more…any tweets directed at me (@alexdefreitas) during that time, were rejected! This was a big bummer. Especially because the day before I was suspended I had just sent a bunch of messages to potential new participants in my study.

So the answer to what one does when they are back after a week suspended from Twitter? Well, I manually went through all of the (important) profiles I follow and scrolled through catching up on what had been said. While time consuming, at least I could rest knowing that links shared….reports linked to…scholarly banter had not gone on without me.

Don’t underestimate the power of Twitter as a research tool. There are even conference workshops approaching that address microblogging like Twitter. I chose to use my personal account for my research as that is the way I would approach someone physically and ask them to take part in my study. I am not some far off researcher….just a person…another WiFi user. But I’m learning from the experience. My requests for people to participate started as a copy and pasted message. As it turns out…this is considered abuse of the @reply feature in Twitter’s terms and conditions. Now? well, I will have to make more of an effort to address people personally. This is fine, but it means the amount of people I can reach will drastically lower.

Needless to say. It’s been a fun experience this past year. Learning Twitter. Learning new cities. Learning ethnography. Justifying Twitter’s significance in the public realm and exploring the unseen ways we are going about our daily lives on mobiles and laptops. The more I think about it…the more I’m beginning to see first hand the ways in which the city is not a built, fixed, material thing….rather, a process, an experience…a performance.

Day two of life without Twitter

I’m well into my second day without Twitter. The thing about being cut off by Twitter, is not that I can’t tweet, or message my friends. I can get over that. It’s that I can’t keep up to date with the daily stream of information the people I follow provide me with. These links to blogs and new people of interest are indispensable, and can’t be replicated in an RSS feed etc.

What shall I do when I finally get my feed back? Do I spend days reading back on all that I’ve missed!? Do I just forget it and move on?

I have sent multiple requests to Twitter advising them of my dilemma. I’ve done this through multiple avenues…contact pages…support email addresses etc. So far, no luck at all. Haven’t heard a peep. In a desperate attempt this morning, I started a new temporary twitter account and messaged Biz Stone. Like he will ever hear me though. He receives like 1000 @reply’s per minute.

The problem here is that I was not using a separate account to message potential participants. Instead, in line with my research, studying the technologies and practices that are so finely engrained into our daily lives, I used my personal Twitter account. An account that has been active for my own personal communications since early 2007!  Hopefully I hear from Twitter soon. My page is on lockdown!

My Twitter account just got suspended!

I wake up this morning to my worst nightmare. My Twitter account has been suspended! WTF?

The long story is that I have been collecting relevant tweets on my RSS reader. When there are a few sitting there, I reply to them and invite the tweeps to participate in my study by chatting to me a bit. Well, after all the travel and chaos over the last few months I didn’t have 30 or 40 tweets to reply to….I had 200+.

There’s two things that could have happened here. One is that Twitter might have automatically suspended my account for too much activity in one day. That would be fair enough. I never send more than a few tweets on any given day (apart from yesterday!). The other is that someone I approached reported me, or marked my tweet as spam. If that’s the case, it’s pretty stink of them…because I’ve been super friendly and made a bunch of friends and followers through my research in these digital worlds.

Anyway. I would have normally tweeted about something like this….but I’ve been cut off! It’s an odd feeling. Look at the numbers of my followers and following. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until it was gone

I’ve sent the obligatory request to Twitter explaining to them that I think it was in error and I want my account back please, Mr. It’s only midday in LA right now….fingers crossed they can sort me out by this afternoon. Aarg.

This is where all the traditional ethnographers I know with their tape recorders and transcripts are smiling and quietly saying “I told you so”