#reading 2.0

[phoenix-rises-1623]

Playing LSITs Game

Just having a go at the game

Reading 2.0 - between ASIP and TBB and TBB

First - what a fun diversion thanks for this idea LSIT!  I'm not a usual blogger (older, more a viewer of fandom than a participant), but I thought I'd give this idea a try :)  Your encouragement about participation was really nice, as usually I feel like I'm better off just sitting back in my cozy corner.  Never mind that when there's a game afoot!

  So for now I'd like to focus on the transition from ASIP and TBB and the beginning of TBB...

I've always been a little confused... like they are getting along so well at the end of ASIP and then TBB starts out with a very grumpy John.  Your explanation is very amusing, I'm just not quite sure...

"Sherlock decides to torment John to see what it’ll take to make John burst. Sherlock doesn’t take any cases – who needs them when he’s finally got a shot at what he really wants? – and just swans about being as hot as possible. It’s fantastic, it’s working. John is freaking out."

  So I'm trying to unpack this idea without any judgment on whether I agree or not.

 1)  Sherlock doesn't take cases:  So are you getting this from his refusal of the Diamond case?  Ah and of course the blog!  There are no cases on the blog.

 2)  He swans about looking as hot as possible:  Haha, does this take any extra effort though?  Isn't this Sherlock's normal thing?  All I see is that he hides the fact he had a fight with "Diamond guy".  Am I missing something? 

 I don't see it quite as you do (yet).  Here's some thoughts:

 1)  What is the deal with "Diamond guy"?  Like if Sherlock didn't want the case why not just cancel the appointment?  And then, why is "Diamond guy"  fighting Sherlock?  Like how would that force Sherlock to take the case?  I really feel like we are missing something about that case (or maybe that's a red herring - I don't know).  But if it does mean something, can I tie it to John and Sherlock's relationship?  Let's see...

 Diamond guy is angry at Sherlock?  Maybe they've had a past where Sherlock did something (I don't know, had someone arrested that Diamond guy cares about or works for.)  So could it be that the "appointment" was a  ruse?  Diamond guy didn't want to hire Sherlock?  He wanted to kill him?  If that's the case, then Sherlock didn't turn down the case at all, because there was no case.

 All I know, is the fight doesn't make much sense if they wanted to hire Sherlock.  This of course doesn't change the idea that there were no cases for Sherlock in that month or so after ASIP (whether he turned them down or there just weren't any).  Sometimes I wonder if that scene is just showcasing Sherlock's fighting skills.  And also showing how he doesn't tell John anything.  (He doesn't tell John anything about the fight, hides the fact there even was a fight.)

 But does the fight with Diamond guy mirror anything?   Is Diamond guy John's sexuality?  Like that's what would happen if he let himself (metaphorically speaking) pounce on Sherlock?   He's even got a sword (phallic symbol).  Holy crap!  I'm a little stunned I came up with this, it feels like I'm on to something.

So unknowingly, Sherlock is causing this extreme internal reaction in John.  Who is about to burst into a raging samuari sword wielding attacker (jump his bones).  Sherlock would have to fight him off and subdue him (and shove his sword under the chair).  Because Sherlock is not ready for that hot action just yet.  Sherlock clearly has no idea what he's doing to John, not really. Ok this sounds crazy,  I'm not used to translating subtext in to intelligible writing.  But just then I just let it spill - brain dump to keyboard.  So I'll leave it as is. 

 So in short, the fight with Diamond guy is illustrating John's pent up sexual tension.  Sherlock realizes he needs to stop that tension and take a case.  And he decides to block John, especially after John down-grades him to "colleague".   So that's why he keeps leaving John out  (for example: when he goes into Van Coon's and into Soo Lin's apartments).  To be clear though, Sherlock doesn't realize what he did to John, he just thinks John is rejecting him since he's not responding to Sherlock in the "flattered by your interest" sort of way.  But the fight scene shows that it's a good thing John didn't respond, because Sherlock is totally not wanting it quite like that - not yet anyway.

 Oh god, what a ramble, I hope that makes some sense!  It was fun writing it!  I feel really good!

ETA:  I've thought of some more but don't have time to do it right now.  My brain won't quit, haha. (also realized I didn't follow up on 2 - too quickly dismissed it, more later)

[opensnowyvista]

Shelfari - Reading as social capital

Must have been on another planet or doing something really useful earlier this year as I missed the removal of Amazon Reading list from LinkedIn in one of the revamps early this year. This little LinkedIn app let you share on your profile what you were reading, have read and would like to have read. While I'm not pleased that Amazon and LinkedIn quietly withdrew this (and left a broken user journey on the way), a bit of judicious googling produced a link from Jonik on StackExchange leading me to Amazon's Shelfari which the online giant bought in 2008. One quick and painless import later and I now have my reading history visible and shareable on blog, web and social networks. What we're reading and what we've read gives us huge social capital in meatworld (that's real life to you and me). Shelfari takes a huge step towards enabling us to demonstrate this publicly - and nowhere is this more valuable than in the career-oriented LinkedIn. If the product team there has any sense, they'll enable a Shelfari widget in the same way that Slideshare can be seamlessly embedded. Meanwhile, now all I have to do is actually pick up and *read* the books I've bought and publicly committed to reading…

[readsocial-blog]

ReadSocial Powers Open Access Publishing with QScience

ReadSocial is excited to announce a new partner, QScience! QScience is working to make open access, peer reviewed content richer and more interactive, using ReadSocial as the basis for contextual discussion.  

QScience.com launched in September 2011 (so they've got some cutting edge ideas). It's technically a peer-reviewed online publishing platform that offers a collaborative research environment for scientists. The platform publishes a range of peer reviewed, high quality, open access journals, databases and repositories which adhere to international publishing standards.

As for ReadSocial, we now have paragraph-level commenting and groups working in a number of different environments (web, iPad, inside EPUBs). Since groups are created using hashtags, it's possible to create very specific, subject-based discussions on top of articles as well. QScience was looking for something that offered powerful discussion features and was easy to implement (and scale), and thus the partnership was born. 

With ReadSocial, QScience readers can add commentary to any paragraph of any research article on the site (much more valuable than adding it at the end, where the context of a comment is often lost).  This means that when other researchers come to the article they’ll see comments made by others adjacent to the relevant paragraph, and they can respond with a comment, link or image. QScience is the first academic publisher to deploy this technology.  

In the official announcement, Paul Coyne, Technical Systems Director at QScience, said, “ReadSocial fits perfectly into the QScience vision that research should be open, transparent, shareable and social. We are very excited about this new development and believe that it will demonstrate to our authors our commitment to making their works highly visible, read and cited.”  

See an example of it being used on QScience here.