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March 30, 2004

the problems with technology & justice

It seems that folks have been finding lots of information about technology & justice... i thought i'd share since they shared with me.

FRONTIER JUSTICE: On the Web, Vengeance Is Mine (and Mine)

iPod: This Season's Must-Have for Muggers

March 28, 2004
FRONTIER JUSTICE

On the Web, Vengeance Is Mine (and Mine)
By JOHN SCHWARTZ

OU can almost hear the spurs jingling.

Self-appointed sheriffs scan eBay and Yahoo auctions looking for fraud. When they find it - or at least when they think they've found it - they warn buyers or make outrageously high bids themselves in order to end the auction and prevent potential victims from falling into the trap. Elsewhere, private crusaders cruise Internet chat rooms for pedophiles and report their findings to law enforcement - or even expose them online. And hackers release programs into cyberspace that repair the damage done by malicious computer viruses.

In the movies, it always looks so good and pure: the lone gunman rides into town to clean up the lawlessness committed by bad men. From Shane to Bronson, the vigilante theme runs deep in American culture. So it should come as little surprise that the online world - for good or ill - is teeming with vigilantes who take matters into their own hands.

"Cyberspace has turned from a village in which visionaries held that self-government will work into an urban jungle," said Amitai Etzioni, a sociology professor at George Washington University. "Large parts of it are beyond the law."

Which is perhaps why certain kinds of people feel the need to jump in.

"People get tremendously frustrated" with fraud and scams, said Ina Steiner, the publisher of AuctionBytes.com, an online newsletter. "There's a sense of urgency that victims have, and it just doesn't synch-up with the time that it takes law enforcement to pursue these matters."

So the vigilantes strike. Some, like John McGowan, simply hand over information about questionable activity to the proper authorities. Mr. McGowan, an unemployed mathematician in New York, makes it his business to track down hackers who use viruses to commandeer personal computers to send unsolicited e-mail, or spam. He gets in touch with Internet authorities and fills them in. "I do my part," he said in an e-mail interview. "When it helps, it feels good."

Others go further. One of the self-appointed auction cops, who asked that his name not be used so that he would not lose his eBay privileges, sends e-mail to potentially fraudulent sellers asking them about their auctions. But he attaches surveillance software that reveals information about the seller, and he uses that information to track them down and report them to the Internet service provider. If the account has been hijacked from a legitimate eBay member - a common practice of fraudulent sellers - he calls the owner of the account as well. "My goal is to help other people," he said.

And others go further still. Perverted-Justice.com, a Web site that tries to expose online predators, teams up with local television stations like WDIV in Detroit for stings in which men are lured by chat room messages to a meeting with, they are led to believe, a 14-year-old girl. Instead, they are greeted by television cameras. Perverted Justice, which claims as its mission a desire to imbue potential predators with "an extra bit of paranoia," also posts pictures of alleged "wannabe pedophiles" on its site.

Part of this do-it-yourself approach to justice flows directly from the same quality of online life that makes bad behavior so easy to pull off: anonymity. That's something that Internet advocates on both sides of the law jealously guard from regulation. "Historically and currently, anonymity is part of how constitutional democracies are supposed to operate," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, "and it would be bizarre to say, 'Oops! Can't do that any more.' "

But even more broadly, the appeal of online vigilantism stems from the persistent sense that the Internet remains a very Wild West kind of place. One of the first groups formed to protect online civil liberties evokes that sense of prairie justice in its name: the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The name was the brainchild of John Perry Barlow, a co-founder of the group and a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Mitchell Kapor, the other co-founder and a high-tech entrepreneur, said the original idea was wrapped up in the "romantic myth of the frontier."

These days, however, he says he regrets that the organization's name suggests a subtle endorsement of " 'take the law into our own hands' behavior."

That's partly because, just as in the real world, cybervigilantism doesn't always work out for the best. Executives at eBay argue that vigilantes - well intentioned as they might be - can wrongly disrupt legitimate deals. Law enforcement officials aren't big fans of the stings, either. Ray Johnson, a deputy investigator with the Internet crime unit for the sheriff's department of Wayne County, which includes Detroit, said, "We thought it was nice that they were putting it out there, and let people know that there is a problem."

On the other hand, he said: "They embarrassed these people, but they didn't put them behind bars. When we do a case, we not only embarrass them, we also put them behind bars, or put them in treatment." The vigilante stings actually make prosecution more difficult, he said, since they put people on notice that the police might investigate them. Private crime fighters also don't follow the rules the police use to avoid issues of legal entrapment. If Mr. Johnson tried to use transcripts of the chat room come-ons in a criminal proceeding, he said, "they'd throw it right out in a heartbeat."

Still, at least some Internet do-gooders feel that law enforcement is too slow or too ignorant of the ways of the Web to handle the ever-shifting criminal element there.

Seth Pack is the director of the Counter Pedophilia Investigative Unit, a group made up of former hackers who search for online predators and turn over their names to law enforcement agencies. The problem, he said, is that "law enforcement is ill-equipped to handle these types of jobs, as far as tracking cybercrime, and particularly pedophilia."

Along those lines, the very presence of so much vigilantism on the Internet might well suggest that individuals are simply rising up where institutions fall short. Online auction sites, Mr. Kapor said, must clean their houses; Microsoft, he said, has to make its software secure against viruses and hackers. "Vigilantes are in many cases responses to real problems where you'd like to see a much stronger institutional response - where there has been an institutional failure," he said.

The lingering worry in all of this, says Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, is that if neither institutions nor individuals can adequately police the Net, the government will be forced to step in even more than it already has. The online world, Professor Zittrain says, is in the process of asking Abraham Lincoln's core question in the Gettysburg Address, which he paraphrases as "are we capable of governing ourselves?"

The jury is still out on that question, but Professor Zittrain said, "It's clear that the status quo is not working."

Category: politics

Posted by zephoria at 4:47 PM | TrackBack (0)

Blogged: I think my ex's online rantings are hurting my chances with other women.

Blogged: I think my ex's online rantings are hurting my chances with other women. OMG... more humor.

Category: social software

Posted by zephoria at 4:42 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Jonathan Abrams to be replaced at Friendster?

According to David Galbraith's blog, Jonathan Abrams is going to be replaced by Tim Koogle (former CEO of Yahoo). If this is true, this will be *fascinating* absolutely *fascinating.*

I'd love to see what a new CEO could do. ::bounce::

Category: yasns

Posted by zephoria at 2:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

March 29, 2004

clarifying the Viegas survey

I've heard people quote Viegas' survey pretty regularly and i find the tendency to generalize quite dangerous. As she notes, this cannot be done because of the snowball methodology. Please note what she states in her caveats:

Respondents to this survey were not selected on a random basis. Announcements for the online survey were posted to mailing lists within MIT as well as on a few high-traffic blogs published by people known to the author of this survey. The viral nature of blogs meant that the links to the survey page quickly spread to many other blogs. Nevertheless, this does not qualify as a random sample of the blogger population and, as such, the results from this survey cannot be generalized to the entire blogging community; instead, these results are representative of the state of affairs in certain portions of the blogging world.

This pilot study is a great first pass at these questions... I really hope folks follow up on them rather than generalizing from them.

Category: social software

Posted by zephoria at 4:34 PM | TrackBack (0)

the best Friendster advert ever

At the Microsoft Symposium, Ze Frank gave a video presentation.... it's the BEST Friendster advert ever. It's hysterical and if you're a reader of this blog, you will *love* it. Sarcastic, New York style... Glorious!

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 3:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (5)

"Orkut thinks danah is a school bus."

This is Clay's conclusion about Orkut at the MSR Symposium. ::BLUSH:: (More later...)

Category: yasns

Posted by zephoria at 12:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

March 27, 2004

an aversion to mail

When i read an aversion to mail on Foe's blog, it made me smile. And then i found myself repeating the story in diverse social settings all week. So it must be blogged cause i know this is something i'm going to want to re-read a few years from now.

"When he died, piles of letters, packages, and manuscripts sent by admirers were found, none of which he had opened. In fact, the only letters he did open were letters from publishers, and then only very cautiously: he would make a tiny slit in the envelope and then shake it to see if a check appeared. If it didn't, then the letter would simply join all those other things that can wait forever."

From an account of Faulkner in The Threepenny Review.

Like Foe, i despise the phone. With a passion. But i can't say that i like mail that much more. In fact, i just got an email from a dear friend asking if i was going to attend her wedding. And i felt super uber guilty because i could bank money that her invitation was probably sitting in the pile of mail that i haven't checked since November. It was. I rely on changing addresses so regularly that mail doesn't follow. I read all of my bills online (i won't sign up with anything that doesn't have an online account system). I've also opened mail so late that the checks have expired. Then i feel stupid. Of course, that's what direct deposit is for.

As i get older, i learn to despise all forms of mediated communication. The problem is that context is lost. When i look focused, my roommates know not to interrupt. With mediation, i can usually cue people that i can't IM. But then there are the spammers. They've invaded. Every. Aspect. Of. Mediated. Communication. We've got the telemarketers and the junk mail. Email is crawling with them. I turned off SMS because of them. Hell, i have to do blog cleansing more often than car flyer cleansing these days.

Category: social software

Posted by zephoria at 1:20 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

March 26, 2004

Intimate communities: social/emotional support, technology and the gender divide

[Cross-posted to: Misbehaving.net.]

With social networks all the rage in places like Silicon Valley and the DoD, most of the focus has been on how social networks can help you access information, find jobs, track terrorists and, all to often, abuse your connections for personal gain. I just reread Claude Fischer's "To Dwell Among Friends" and various other social network papers.

Historically and broadly speaking, men and women have different types of social networks and use them for different purposes. For example, most men don't have any trusted emotional confidante other than their wife. Men use their social networks to address functional needs; women are more likely to use their networks for social/emotional needs. Women were classically the group who maintained a family's community social ties.

While tools may not being built to explicitly help people people manage their social/emotional support networks, they are obviously being used that way. From soc.support Usenet groups to LiveJournal to mailing lists and IM/SMS, people are often using technology to reach out for social/emotional support. There's nothing more calming than logging into AIM and seeing your buddies all displayed. Often, that peripheral display provides enough social support to not necessitate certain kinds of communication. This is shared context, an opportunity for intimacy.

When we talk about production of information, we're often focused on the kinds of content that can be assigned metadata and useful to everyone. Yet, much of the content that we share in everyday life is about maintaining intimacy. We check in with one another. We share {{hugs}}.

So, i have to ask... what kinds of social/emotional support does technology provide you? How? Is this about supporting everyday interactions or providing access to a whole new world of support?

[This entry is based loosely on Joi Ito's discussion of "Full-Time Intimate Computing."]

Category: gender & sexuality

Posted by zephoria at 7:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (4)

monkey, ninja, pirate, robot?

Monkey!
You are a cheeky Monkey.
We find you funny.


Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot?
brought to you by Quizilla

How on earth am i a monkey? Robot robot robot.

Category: fun links

Posted by zephoria at 6:38 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (2)

through kitsch and beyond

Moose pointed me to Michelle's personal path through kitsch and beyond in her art. There's something really compelling about it for me... embedded in the description of her path through art is a discussion about growing up. Of course, it really helps that it starts out with an analysis of Ween because i really do adore those guys.

I know that i'm growing up. It's a weird feeling to know that, with each breath, there's a bit more change occurring (and a few more creases in the boyd). I mean, there has to be because all i can see is the big differences... i have to imagine that it's a smoothed out interpolation. All the same, i find myself getting lamer. I don't just stay out to stay out and i prefer sleep to caffeine. I no longer feel the compulsion to fit in with the freaks by actively following the social norms and i've stopped trying to make small talk with anyone whose initial discussion points involve drugs, sex or the music. Perhaps it's just another shift, but it's funny to taste the changes, to start accepting that i don't have to be a caricature of myself. Ah, the new form of identity crisis... getting stuck in the identity that you constructed for yourself.

Of course, i still love kitsch and i still love Ween.

Category: fun links

Posted by zephoria at 4:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 23, 2004

RELATIONSHIP: Context, Culture, Power

The brilliant Master Shirky offers a stunning critique on the limitations of RELATIONSHIP (with clarifications).

Key Shirky views:
- "a formal and explicit ontology for human relations is unworkable"
- "most human relations cannot be made explicit without changing the nature of the relationship"
- terms for classifying relationships are unbounded (and hell, people can't do do it anyway)
- FOAF developers can't develop their own ontology because of their insider role

Not only do i agree his views on the matter, i think that they need to be affirmed. I'm also SUPER psyched that he referenced that AI debates because this historical precedent is crucial for understanding why so many of the discussions around social software are flawed.

I would also like to add a few additional points to why this problem is unsolvable:

Relationships are situated within a CONTEXT.

Think about the times when you've introduced somebody differently to different people. Here's an example. Said to boss: "Alex is my friend." Said to best friend: "Alex is this girl i'm fucking." Said to mom: "Alex is this nice girl i'm dating." Which is it? All? None? Context!

Another context: time. Your relationship with someone changes over time. Duh. But guess what? It also changes over local periods of time. For example, i can label the person in my kitchen right now as my ex. I can also label him as tonite's chef. When i'm done with this entry, i'll probably label him my confidante. His role is not consistent.

Relationships are defined by CULTURE; their types are SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS.

The term "friend" means different things in different cultures. Hell, even the term cousin differs. In fact, if you want to have a field day, check out anthropology kinship research. For some cultures, what we might call "uncle" another culture would call "father" (an individual would have multiple fathers). To define a universal relationship structure is to project our cultural norms onto other peoples. Yet, without a universal structure, there's no common language.

On a more personal level, how many of you have ever called your step-mum mum? Are you lying? How would you categorize her here? What about your adoptive mum? What are the implications for you, for her, for others? People label their step-mums and adoptive mums as mum as a social construct to indicate the value of the relationship, not simply a reflection of the biological term. Likewise, there's nothing worse than telling someone "you're just my step-mum" or "you're not my real mother; you just adopted me." What are the implications for using those terms in an ontology?

Relationships do not exist without POWER.

No relationship exists without power (see Foucault's "History of Sexuality v1"). Power can be shared via turn-taking, but there is no such thing as pure equality in a relationship. There are times when one person has power over another; sometimes, the reverse is true. Relationships are a negotiated process.

While labeling some relationships, the power dynamic is unveiled. For example, i cannot be the mother of the person who is the mother of me. Inherently, there's a mother/daughter relationship, marked explicitly by its power. Some such relationships are only 1-way: fan/stranger. The obsessed doesn't know the obsessor.

Then there are the relationships that we're determined to define equally. Friend-Friend. Do both people get the same thing out of the relationship? Does "Friend" mean the same thing to each person? Hell, think of all of your friends. Do you really mean the same thing when you label dozens of different people with that term? (If you do, please seek therapy.) We throw that word around because often the process of making explicit the power dynamic is neither socially acceptable nor something we want to own up to.

Relationships are often built on an undiscussed meeting of each other's needs. "She's my friend because she always gives me a ride home. In return, i listen to her bitching about her job." Both people are getting something out of the relationship that they each need/want. It's valuable to each of them, but neither really wants to make that explicit.

The best debate on this inevitably surrounds sex. Sex workers have the negotiation down. Money for sex. People may scoff at this explicit negotiation, but many of us have had sex for far less honorable reasons. Ever had sex with your lover so that s/he'll go to sleep? Ever had sex to spite someone? To get what you want? Sexual relationships emerge from power dynamics. Rarely do people engage in sex for the exact same reason. To get off? To feel loved? To feel validated? The BDSM community recognizes this power dynamic and makes it explicit; most of us do not.

Given that most of us aren't really able to address our power issues, how are we supposed to label them?

Update: Ideas Bazaar discusses this in terms of kinship terminology, anthro style. The focus is on lack of quality terminology. [via Foe]

Category: social software

Posted by zephoria at 10:02 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (16)

why my robbery matters :: essential questions about blogging and social networks

Identity theft is supposedly the #1 crime in America right now, according to all of my creditors. Thousands (?millions?) of people have their identity (and associated materials) stolen every year. Yet, it is really hard to track down these criminals and most law enforcement has to focus on violent crimes. I mean, who really has time to go after petty criminals who used someone's credit card to buy burgers?

Yet, this situation interests me beyond my personal investment. Don't get me wrong.. on a personal level, i'm pretty pissed that these guys had the gaul to come to my party and steal my shit. But on a meta-level, there are some interesting questions.

If the United States really is a small world, the people that i know should know people [iterate to on average 5.5] that know these guys, right? If blogs can extend beyond the echo-chamber, shouldn't we be able to use blogs to reach the people who know these guys?

We're living in a society that is quickly becoming camera-phone enabled. We're worried about privacy when these pictures are broadcast, understandably. But can we use the breaks in privacy to demand legal justice? We often talk about how the Interweb is affecting the regulation of social norms... Can the connected community around the Interweb also enforce law?

Already, through this situation, i've seen the power of care. I've seen amazing people who i barely know act up to say this isn't cool and do what they can to acquire information, spread the word, repost those pictures, etc. I've heard from people who've gone through similar situations. I'm in awe of the strangers who are being supportive, of the number of people who have experienced similar crap, with no justice.

Can we go beyond support? Can the Interweb/blogosphere actually demand justice on a personal level? And if i can demand justice for me, can it demand justice for others in a similar predicament? Can citizens take control over the thieves?

Having your identity materials stolen is very disempowering. Having to wait for cops to maybe consider trying to solve this problem is depressing. I don't know if anything will come out of my broadcasting this situation, but it sure is empowering to try. And it really makes me wonder just how powerful the Interweb can be.

Useful links:
- Pictures of the thieves
- Craigslist missed connections post

Feel free to spread the word and help me identify these people, particularly if you have contacts in Austin.

Update: I forgot to note that i feel badly for misusing the term robbery here. I hadn't realized that robbery and theft were not synonymous until the discussion emerged from this post. More precisely, i didn't realize that robbery had to involve force, which this incident did not.

Category: politics

Posted by zephoria at 3:53 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (2)

March 22, 2004

pictures of my robbers

Last week, six guys came into a party that i was cohosting and stole my stuff. The six came together and left together. Tonight, a dear friend found a picture of one of the guys online:

One party attender stated the this guy asked for the bathroom (where my purse was ripped apart for valuable items).

I contacted the photographer and he sent me the rest of the pictures where you can see more of the guys (time stamps: 1:24AM-1:39AM).

Another party attender accidentally walked in the bathroom when the actual robber was going through my bag. He didn't realize what was going on at the time, but he was able to ID the actual robber from this picture:

"He's in this picture, but his face isn't visible. He's the one standing closest to the orange door with the short hair and the green t-shirt. He was the tallest, least hip, and most drunk of the group. I wish you had something more identifying. That is definitely him."

Because these guys racked up my credit cards (and used the web from my phone), it's now a felony fraud investigation as well as a robbery. Thanks everyone for helping me track down more information. If anyone has any clues, do let me know. Needless to say, the bloggers are going faster than the detectives. Thank you thank you thank you to those3 who are looking out for me!

Update 3/23: Detective Jewett (the detective on this case) said that i could post his email if anyone has additional information and wants to send it directly to him. (Be nice! Don't send anything not related to the case, cause he's being open and helpful.)

Detective Jewett: jason [dot] jewett [at] ci [dot] austin [dot] tx [dot] us
Austin Police Report Number: 2004-501-1946

More pictures:

Category: politics

Posted by zephoria at 9:04 PM | Comments (105) | TrackBack (32)

how to solve problems with social networks

According to David, Eric Schmidt from Google said: "Social networks will get better as we figure out what problem they're intended to solve." In an attempt to learn from last week, i will try really hard to not take that literally and imagine that he meant to say that "social networking TOOLS will get better..."

But even still, there's a bit of backwards logic here. Why are we asking: what can social networking tools solve? Why aren't we asking: what problem do we have that social networks give us insight to? I remember when i first got involved in technology creation, there was always a technology-first, problem-second approach. A technology was created and then everyone was rushing around trying to put it to use. I find it very entertaining that social networks (which weren't invented, but modeled) are being put to the same process.

The thing is that social network representations require nuance. We can either try to solve the nuances universally (not going to happen) or try to figure out what problems we're trying to employ social networks in and figure out how to negotiate them there IN A CONTEXT. The latter is going to be far more successful. Haven't we already learned that each YASNS models a different social network anyhow (and no, FOAF is not the answer here because the different models are often because people are segmenting their networks differently in order to represent different facets).

I don't believe that social network tools will get better as we find our problems. I think that social networks will get embedded into tools simply because they help us solve specific problems. The focus won't be on the network, but on the problem solving.

(::cringe:: I'm almost approaching activity theory here. Must stop.)

Clarification based on good question:

Q: What's the diff? Either way you're holding a hammer and looking for a nail, no?

A: The difference is key. When you are focused on building social networks just to build them, you make very different design decisions than when you are trying to design a tool the utilizes social networks as a concept employed to solve a task problem.

The difference has a lot to do with the amorphous discussion of what social network TOOLs are and what social networks are. They aren't the same thing. RIght now, there's no hammer. Just the shadow of a hammer, which doesn't solve the same problems.

Furthermore, when you have a hammer, you try to find nails. You turn things that shouldn't be nails into nails. This is a really really really bad thing when you're dealing with people and their relationships. Instead of accidentally breaking the wooden post cause you thought it was a nail, you break people, their relationships, their trust and their willingness to participate.

Category:

Posted by zephoria at 1:08 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (7)

thinking through a linked in request

First, i admit: i don't get the business world. Thus, the social norms there are very lost on me. Recently i was faced with a Linked In request that brought this issue to the forefront.

I'm linked to two people that i barely know because of social politeness - Person B & D. Person B had a "friend" (A) that wanted to get person E ("friend" of D's) to do something for him. I've never heard of A or E and only have vague name/product recognition of B&D. Person B passes me this note from A with an attached note saying that he doesn't know him but it sounds reasonable.

So, as i saw it, i could have:
1) Passed it on, acknowledging that i barely know B to the barely known D and let it be his problem
2) Stopped it, saying that i don't feel comfortable passing this on not knowing any of the parties
3) Pretended like i'm a ostrich and make it go away by sticking my head in the ground, fingers in ears, eyes closed screaming "i don't see you"

Now, if you know me, you know that i chose 3. I *HATE* being stuck in the middle of socially awkward situations. All this made me wanna do is run very far away from Linked In. This in turn made me feel supremely guilty because i want Linked In to work for people.

The thing about helping people out in this context is that it's supposed to make you feel empowered, like you did a good deed. But when you're stuck in the middle of a chain of unknowns, you're faced with the explicit feeling that your reputation is being forced through the ringer for people you don't know. There are a lot of *friends* that i won't vouch for on a professional level... why should i vouch for people that i don't know?

I realized that the only way that i'm willing to help out a friend-of-a-friend is when i really care for the well-being of my friend and trust their relationship with that person. And that takes a lot more than a recognizable professional relationship. So, i had a little idea...

Orkut relieves my guilt by letting me mark that i don't know a person who has be-friended me. I don't have to say no - i can simply say i don't know this person. They don't know it and i don't have to feel guilty. Although Orkut's only purpose of this is guilt reduction, Linked In could actually use this approach to their advantage.

For example, why can't i list all of the people that i know and rather than say how important they are to me, say what kind of requests i'm willing to receive from that end. For example:
1) Willing to take any requests that come down the chain from this person, no matter how many links
2) Willing to take requests from this person and their friends (or perhaps willing to take requests only from the friends who are of this level of value to them...)
3) Willing to take requests from this person only
4) Not willing to receive requests from this person no matter what (a.k.a. supreme guilt reduction based on having to accept them as a friend)

Of course, this would really screw with the graphs and who one could see. But i wonder if it would help people like me who want to run away because of the discomfort.

Category: yasns

Posted by zephoria at 12:07 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

social networks for collegiate heritage admissions + affirmative action

I remember sitting in a dorm at Brown listening to people complain about why rich kids seemed to get into Ivy League schools regardless of their intelligence, scores or any other metric with which we were familiar judged; the complaint centered around heritage admissions and famous people's kids. One of my friends reminded the group that it was clearly a valuable element and should be promoted not critiqued.

If you look at many well-known American universities, the primary value for undergraduates concerns the social network. Frankly, internationally renowned researchers can't teach. But you don't pay $30K a year to get the best *formal* education. You pay $30K a year to get tapped into a collection of like-minded driven people who will be a key aspect of your social network for life. The late-night dorm session conversations are so much more informative than the lecture halls. But the connections you make from shared alumni extend widely.

If you assume that the social network is the most valuable asset, it is clearly important to have as diverse a population as possible. You want to introduce the poor brilliant students to the rich ones because they will have a better chance. One of the most obvious impacts of higher education is that you jump socio-economic class. While i didn't grow up as such, i recognize that i'm now a part of the privileged class. It is not due to my income (which is non-existent), but due to my potential and connections. Those connections are intimately tied into the network that i built as an undergraduate. Basically, college brings together people from diverse backgrounds and with unique access to knowledge or connections. This is then utilized to help groups of students branch out. College is the ideal time to meet new people who can/will introduce you to a wide variety of things.

Thus, from an admissions perspective, it is desirable to bring in rich kids who will not only help offset the costs for poor kids, but help introduce them to a network of possibility. This is why Harvard and Princeton's decision to give all grants to the poorest students is a great idea. One of the biggest class dividers on a campus like that is who works in food service and who doesn't because they don't need to. By letting the groups mingle and not trying to reinforce class in these environments, there's a great potential for connecting diverse people.

[I'd love to hear a critique of this perspective.]

Category: yasns

Posted by zephoria at 10:55 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

new Technorati beta launches

The latest version of Technorati just launched. It's quite fun to see what information i can find out about my blog this way. Check it out! (And make sure to email comments/suggestions because they'all actually take them seriously.) Yay Dave!

Category: tagging

Posted by zephoria at 12:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 21, 2004

politics gone awry

A year ago, i broke my hatred for protesting and took to the streets to publicly state my disagreement with my government. My support for their decisions has not grown. I still don't understand what we're doing in Iraq and i'm tired of the propaganda. But, unlike last year, i didn't go to the streets. I find protests a bit frustrating because i don't feel as though i'm actually helping any cause and the supposed community goodness part of it tends to turn me against my fellow dissenters.

That said, it makes me sick to my stomach to hear of police violence against protestors. Worse, i'm absolutely horrified to read about how the government operates to outlaw dissent in this country [a *scary* must read article - use the day pass - it's worth it].

To cheer me up, a friend sent along a list of the marriage status of some of the biggest defenders of the sanctity of marriage (from The Daily Show):

Ronald Reagan -- divorced the mother of two of his children to marry Nancy Reagan who bore him a daughter 7 months after the marriage.

Bob Dole -- divorced the mother of his child, who had nursed him through the long recovery from his war wounds.

Newt Gingrich -- divorced his wife who was dying of cancer.

Dick Armey, House Majority Leader -- divorced.

Senator Phil Gramm of Texas -- divorced.

Governor John Engler of Michigan -- divorced.

Governor Pete Wilson of California -- divorced.

George Will -- divorced.

Senator Lauch Faircloth -- divorced.

Rush Limbaugh -- and his current wife, Marta, have six marriages and four divorces between them.

Senator Bob Barr of Georgia -- not yet 50 years old, has been married three times. He had the audacity to author and push the "Defense of Marriage Act." The current joke making the rounds on Capitol Hill is "Bob Barr -- WHICH marriage are you defending?!?)

Senator Alf onse D'Amato of New York -- divorced.

Senator John Warner of Virginia -- once married to Liz Taylor.

Governor George Allen of Virginia -- divorced.

Representative Helen Chenoweth of Idaho -- divorced.

Senator John McCain of Arizona -- divorced.

Representative John Kasich of Ohio -- divorced.

Representative Susan Molinari of New York (Republican National Convention Keynote Speaker) -- divorced.

The bottom line -- "Don't let gays destroy marriage -- that's the job of the Republicans!"

"If you really want to protect the institution of marraige, how about a constitutional amendment against adultery?"  - Jon Stewart

Category: politics

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the bright river: a mass-transit tour of the afterlife

It has been way too long since i went to an underground performance art event. If you live in the Bay Area, you need to go see the bright river: a mass-transit tour of the afterlife next weekend. It was absolutely stunning.

Imagine Shalom Alecheim and Raymond Chandler got together and decided to rewrite Dante's Inferno, and you have the basic premise for The Bright River. A dizzying journey through a world spinning helplessly out of control, the show sends audiences on a mass-transit tour of the afterlife. Guided by a fixer named Quick, and moving through an urban landscape that is at once both intensely real and fantastic, the show is a cinema verite look at life and death in America.

Trained as a traditional Jewish storyteller and oral historian, Tim Barsky has been getting increasing attention for his unique style of performance, which blends hip-hop, physical theatre and folklore. Tim is also the world's first beatbox flutist, an aural prestidigitator capable of producing up to 8 rhythms and melodies at the same time. He is joined by the members of Everyday Theatre, a group of musicians drawn from the underground hip-hop and klezmer communities. Bassist and drummer Shree Shyam, cellist Jess Ivry, and beatboxer/ vocal percussionist Andrew Chaikin bring a diverse set of skills and traditions to bear. And physical theatre maestro Jeff Raz brings a wealth of tradition to the production in his role as directorial consultant.

Fantastic storytelling and the best beatbox artist i've seen. Go out and support fantastic local art!

Update: This show has had extreme success and will be re-opening in the Bay Area from December 1, 2004-January 16, 2005. Click here for more information. (Brought to you by too much Google juice.)

Category: fun links

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name morphing via the web

I'm really glad that David noted how his name gets morphed by the Internet. I have a similar situation. My name does not have capital letters in it, but when people see me lower-casing things on the web, they assume i'm just being lazy or artistic or something. Folks think that they should be more proper when they address me. Yet, when i publish papers, people realize that i went through effort to get my name lower-cased and they recognize this is how my name is spelled. (That's why there's an h - it's all balance.) So, yes, my lower-casing is not an accident.

[Of course, one friend loves to send me emails full of capital letters, to make certain that i have enough for when the apocolypse comes. He sends me D's and B's just in case i needed a few extra.]

Category:

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March 20, 2004

the freaks of san francisco

An old friend came to visit me this weekend. ::bounce::bounce:: She's one of those people who i see as exceptionally similar to me. Overeducated, always thinking about issues of privilege, activist, queer, etc. We both came from the hippie-esque world of the coops.

Anyhow, we spent a few hours wandering around the Mission and it was such an eye-opener. She was so viscerally aware of the elements of CITY and of San Francisco in particular. She's living in a town that looks like something Disney would create. She's not blonde, not rich, not a prep, not a surfer; she's an outright freak there. But she's there because she's kicking ass on the international activist scene and that's where she needs to be right now. But talking to her made me really reflect on how much i value San Francisco.

I'm not a freak here. No matter what i wear, i will run into someone with a crazier outfit. And it doesn't matter anyhow. My sexuality is also not a big deal. It is so strange to be in an environment where the straight folks are more tolerant of queerness than the gay folks. But again, no big deal. Whenever i want to meet new interesting people, it's possible. In fact, there are so many intriguing people that i want to get to know, but just haven't because of time restrictions on my part. I can see art events whenever i want; i can go dancing whenever i want. There are cool bookstores and clothing shops and street life.

I just received a note from a 15 year old somewhere in "WASP suburbia." She wrote to tell me about how she's tormented by kids at school, about how the administration does nothing to help, about how valuable the Internet was for finding people like her. I totally get where she's at. When i was living elsewhere, i always felt so out of place and relied on technology to meet people more like me. But the funny thing about San Francisco is that i'm finally in a place where there are more intellectual freaks/geeks in everyday life than i ever found online.

I just had two different friends leave SF because they *hated* it. I still haven't been able to squelch my immediate visceral response: how do i like you??? is there something about you that i don't know about yet? ::laugh:: But seeing my beloved city through a friend's eyes was so refreshing. I am so thankful for living here. For having 85 degree days in March. For having so many freaks, geeks, and queers that i can just be me and stop trying to exacerbate or repress my identity for others.

It's funny because people have pointed out that i rarely write about personal identity struggles anymore. I used to write long rants about them. At first, i thought maybe it's because my blog went a bit off the professional deep end. But then i realized that it's because i'm actually doing AOK with who i am these days. Seeing my friend and hearing from a youth in suburbia is a clear reminder of how lucky i am. And for that i am very thankful on this Spring Solstice Eve.

Category: gender & sexuality

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privacy and accountability in blogs

The results from Fernanda's survey were released. Thanks so much to everyone who helped her out!!

Category: privacy

Posted by zephoria at 4:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2)

March 19, 2004

trying out ecto

Trying to post from Ecto to my blog. I love the idea of being able to blog offline and just upload.

Although i have a feeling that this might also encourage me to revert to writing more semi-personal entries... It reminds me so much of my LJ days. Hmm... Is that a good thing?

Category: techno doom

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visual representations of SXSW

OK. That is a fanstatically entertaining representation of the echo chamber. ::giggle::

Of course, someone pointed out to me that in both of my panels, the phrase "So, i have to disagree with X" was quite common. Still, i totally love this.

Category:

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Why do people give up weblogs?

Giles Turnbull asked various people why they gave up blogs.

The various responses are fascinating... My favorite: "General sense of despair with: a) myself, b) the internet population in general."

Category:

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Abrams at SXSW: the MP3

I now have an MP3 of Abrams' talk at SXSW. (Thanks Tom Chi!!)

It was actually really really good to listen to it again. Since i was so frustrated by the first time, my expectations were really low this time (as opposed to my high hopes before). This meant that i listened and ignored all of the places where i disagreed with him and focused on the fun anecdotes. There are many fun anecdotes embedded into the talk and that was good to listen for. If i had time, i'd go through and challenge different parts of the talk. That said, most of my disagreements are philosophical. For example, i don't believe that the social awkwardness in Friendster is parallel to social awkwardness in everyday life. There are new issues and those must be addressed.

But anyhow, i wanted to pull out the section that really got my goat the other day.

"We're all sick of the social networking thing"

Ryze: "It was a business networking site..." When he thought of Friendster, it wasn't about dating. "I wanted to build a mainstream service. I thought... this isn't business networking... this is *social* networking. Friends, dating, anything to do with that kinda of stuff. So that's how i thought of the term social networking."

Other people thought of businessy things... "And now there's this whole kind of thing where people are talking about social networking. And they're referring to any service or site that has these similar concepts." Like Spoke.... "This is salesforce enterprise software deal - really quite different." "And now they're calling this a space."

So, the problems are two-fold. First is the visceral response that i got when Abrams so casually described how he found the term social networking in his creative efforts. He then goes on to assumed a shared understanding of the term he's adopted and is upset because everyone else is talking about social networks. He suggests that they are doing something very different to what Friendster is doing and that they should not be considered social networks.

When Spoke talks about social networks, they are actually using the term *far* more accurately to its definition than Friendster. People use their social networks to do business; social networks are about people and relationships, not simply networks that are used for social events. What makes Spoke far closer to the target is the fact that they are deriving behavior-based social networks instead of relying on people articulating them. Thus, they are actually representing social networks, not performance.

As i think about this, the reason that this got my goat was because it is a repurposing of a term that has lots of history and value because Abrams thought that he was the first to come up with it and capitalize on it. The most insulting part is that Abrams critiques sites using social networks to complete other tasks because they aren't doing exactly what he did. These sites are not simply social networks by self-definition only; those of us on the outside saw them as such too. Take Ryze. Ryze isn't business networking... it's social networking for a business context. This section makes Abrams come across as ignorant. And that's quite disappointing.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 11:47 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (1)

(de)wiring question

I have a little Mac and a really nice stereo with speakers. I keep meaning to buy long wires to connect the two so that i can spit out iTunes. But, is there any way to do this remotely in some fun configuration that i know nothing about? Like little Bluetooth devices that would make my stereo a wee bit smarter? Or?

Category:

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Friendster usability analysis

Wow. This is quite old, but it is *fantastic*. Apparently, a whole class at MIT analyzed for their midterm and were asked to "... identify three usability problems with Friendster and write instructions to their programmers on how to fix them." Needless to say, they have a lot of thoughts on the matter.

How fascinating is it that people all over the world, in classes and personally, are putting thought into solving Friendster's problems?

[Thanks Jason]

Category: yasns

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March 18, 2004

vaginamabutt

OK... the Vaginamabutt is really really funny. Thank you BoingBoing.

Category:

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March 17, 2004

my talks at SXSW

I did actually talk at SXSW. I'm so bad about posting recaps of what i talk about. But here's a short overview.

Panel 1: Blogging Next: Where Personal Publishing Goes From Here [w/ Justin Hall and Anil Dash]

The only thing i remember talking about was the importance of storytelling in blogs. People want a way to share their stories with their friends and their future. They want to do so in a way where they can control the vulnerabilities that they're faced with. We can tell people to get over the public/private concern until we're blue in the face and it's never going to work. People don't get that public means persistent/searchable and they don't get how they're going to feel about this data in the future. It's like asking Derrida to imagine IM when he talks about the differences between writing and speaking in the 70s. Never gonna happen. People don't conceptualize this future, especially not when they're 15 and trying to figure out their identity by screaming to the world "look at me!!" We all regret that. Luckily most of us don't have it on record.

Jason Calcanis: Entry 1 -- Entry 2

Fast Company (transcript)

Panel 2: The Aesthetics of Social Networks (with Jon Lebkowsky, Molly Steenson, Honoria Starbuck)

I brought up the Kant/Nietzsche approach that the only aesthetically pleasing thing is that which represents ourselves. I showed pretty pictures of Visual Who, Social Network Fragments and BuddyZoo. I talked about how people wanted to see themselves represented in relation to those that they knew. Articulated vs. behavior driven networks. Social networks stemming from anthropology and kinship networks. YASNS and the tendency to represent ourselves in context of friends... our representation being affected by our friends (including Clay turning me into a porn queen).

Fast Company (transcript)

I'm sure i babbled more; send me links if you blogged it.

Category:

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death to communication; "man" is basically evil

OK. It's a lost cause. I'm thousands of email behind, without cell phone or the Sidekick that keeps me sorta on top of email sometimes (or at least lets people bug me on AIM). Plus, my server crashed so i lost a bunch of email. Furthermore, i lost everyone's phone numbers (again....). I don't know how to be gracious about this so please accept my ungracious apologies for truly turning into a California flake about communication.

I used to send out emails to my friends in bulk telling them that i suck for being a bad communicator and promising to be better about it. At one point, i wrote out to everyone and said that there's a low likelihood of me ever catching up or getting better abou communication and groveling. A friend immediately wrote me to congratulate me on learning to be honest with myself. Hrmfpt. He knew me all too well.

Alas...

Oh, and riddle me this. You are a robber. You have two phones in your hand. One is a Sidekick with a pretty little image that says "Web." The other is a Sanyo operating Sprint with its slow backasswards Vision interface. Which one do you use to make web purchases? The Sprint of course! [In fact, as far as i can tell, you never figured out how to use the toy.] But don't worry. You're an equal opportunity credit card abuser even if you refuse the cool toy for the broken one. Of course, maybe this says something about interfaces for the masses that i just don't get...

This incident once again affirmed my feelings on the "man" is basically good/evil discussion that got me into bigtime trouble in the 9th grade. We were stuck reading Lord of the Flies and apparently supposed to argue that it could never happen because "man" is basically good. I disagreed. I fundamentally believe that "man" is basically greedy (which converts to evil in a binary world). Those in power do whatever it takes to maintain power; those without it do whatever it takes to live the lifestyle they want to live. We live in a society that doesn't see most forms of greed (a.k.a. capitalist success) as bad and we encourage everyone to strive for it. Ah, Protestant ethic. But lots of people never get out of the gates and thus are never going to win the race so they might as well cheat. I remember talking to a friend who worked in a retail store. 25% of the merchandise went out the door unaccounted for. Most theft was employees. Everyone paid for it.

So, here i am sitting in my overly privileged life griping about someone stealing shit from me that will probably cost me about 80 hours of hassle and a little over 1 month's rent. I can cope. I can get a job. I have opportunities. I have job interviews.

I try really hard to think that maybe they stole that shit from me and helped out their kids or paid their rent. But the little doubter in me can't help but wonder if my Sidekick and wallet went up their nose/arms. And the cultural pessimist in me wonders how much everyone's experience with this little incident (since so many people apologied for letting them in) increased homophily in some way... increased intolerance and lack of openness for people different than us. ::sigh::

But i do indeed understand why people get more intolerant as they get older... the burns start to hurt more and more. This is my fourth time dealing with pain-in-the-ass theft in 2 years. It was always due to my naive trust. Let go of my purse at a friend's loft (2 years ago). Let a AAA guy into my car. Left my car in mid-town NY. Let go of my purse at a friend's loft (this week).

I hate not being able to resolve the "why" question... why do people do this? If you read this blog and you've ever stolen someone's wallet, can you explain why (anonymously)? I really want to know...

Category:

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March 16, 2004