Dear AIR'ers - I wish I had time to write a proper 'postcard' but the OII iCS Symposium is going brilliantly! Last night we had our informal dinner in the Balliol Junior Commons Room which is a proper Harry Potter kind of chamber. Especially after our alloted two glasses of red (or white), we agreed on one thing: We all felt much smarter. Quite brilliant international reputations were on show with extremely erudite commentary provided on the significant topics of the day (even without drool) and later at the Pub the conversation continued as you might expect, at the highest level of committed and insightful academic debate. I proved to have quite a packet of opions about classical taxomic systems during a session, and in an ill-advised attempt to control me, Prof. Barry Wellman stole my passport and is broadcasting my DOB to the list which should be patently ignored as a misinformed interpretation of details. Leslie Shade, Leigh Keeble, Denise Carter, Chris May, Joanna Robson (goddess of e-shopping) and people that I am not even smart enough to mention in the same breath with the rest of 'us' pub-crawlers were all in evidence at one point or another of the evening. I close with that I have never felt closer to my academic colleagues when, (at the point of the e-knife) we were all good citizens and participated heartily in the meaningful discussion of e-democracy under the most capable hand of Prof. Stephen Colemen before they allowed us into the undergraduate bar at Balliol to take off our thinking caps before dinner. I for one am most happy that this was a IRL not a virtual event. Kudos to Prof's William Dutton and Steve Woolgar, and not to mention the brilliant OII staff that have faciliated in this exercise of sulliement of a great Oxford college and fine Internet institution. This is the highest accolade the Academy can offer to each other (ie. we're having a blast over here.) Via cyber cafe, see ya in Toronto! Denise ===== "The distance between here and there is growing; and getting even larger as we speak" (S. S. Hall) Denise N. Rall, PhD student, School of EnvironSciMgmt, Southern Cross Uni, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com