The Amoeba Project

I will write my entire publication in LaTex because it's handy, straight forward and it doesn't crash all the time like MS Windows.

There is a good description on how to get LaTeX to run on Mac OS X including a graphical interface called "TexShop".

Instructions on how to install php5 on mac os x can be found here.

Since my project will involve a lot of XML parsing and processing, I have decided to go for PHP5 as the php version of choice. It has much more sophisticated implementations of the technology I need, and I am happy to take the risk that this version may still be buggy.

"transitivity - the tendency of one's friends' friends to be one's friends as well. In SWT I asserted that transitivity could be expected of strong ties, but not especially of weak ones, since the rationale for transitivity-if A chooses B and B chooses C, it is inconsistent for A not to choose C-is irrelevant for weak ties: A may not even know C, and if he does he will not find it inconsistent not to be interacting with his acquaintance's acquaintance" (Granovetter, see below, p. 218)

Mark Granovetter described in his publication (1973) "The Strength of Weak Ties" how social constructs can be distinguished in two strong (family, friends) and weak (acquitances) ties. Those ties play a significant role when it comes to helping each other out, e.g. finding a job.

Social Theory, Volume 1 (1983) chapter 7 reviews the above mentioned paper and adds empirical information: PDF

"Weak ties provide people with access to information and resources beyond those available in their own social circle; but strong ties have greater motivation to be of
assistance and are typically more easily available. I believe that these two facts do much to explain when strong ties play their unique role." (P. 209)