contxt free, yet contxt sensitive (!) [p20]

That quote comes from a critique of ethnomethodology in Kaptelinin V and Nardi B A (2006) Acting with technology: Activity Theory and interaction design. Cambridge Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Human action is "situated", or ad hoc, she argued, responding opportunistically and flexibly to those resources. People are improvisatory. Computer programs may follow algorithms, but people do not. p16

Sadly, 'all observation is a view from somewhere' p18

I'm enjoying this book - seems to be leading in exactly the direction my thoughts have been going regarding philosophy and research - surely a mighty co-incidence. I observe that Nardi uses a lot of stuff from HCI without knowing this stuff you miss out on some of the richness - (e.g. p28 mentions Fitts law - I looked this up on wikipedia and it's simple enough but you do need to be able to quickly check these terms out. I dont see much in here unless you're into HCI - i.e. not sure how much BJET readers will be fussed on this book.