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« March 2004 | Main | May 2004 » April 26, 2004offline for the weekAttending computer conferences with no working WiFi is painful (more precisely: limited DHCP). Staying at hotels without Internet (and no working Earthlink accounts) is painful. The combination means that i'm offline this week. Expect no response. Fucking CHI. Category: Posted by zephoria at 8:49 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1) April 21, 2004mouse embryo made without fatherMouse embryo made without father This research is going to be absolutely politically problematic. I love it. (The hypothesis that i've heard wrt to human research is that it's probably possible to create embryos with two mothers.) Note how often the researchers try to talk about all of the reasons why people shouldn't be worried about human research in this vain. This only further convinces me that there are political problems because people can't handle this possibility. Category: Posted by zephoria at 12:00 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) decrease your erdos numberOK, this ebay auction has me ROFL: Decrease Your Erdos Number! If you're a social networks geek, or a mathematician, physicist or computer scientist, you must check this out. Too funny. And there are even bids! Update: Now that i've learned a bit more about the history and state of this auction, i thought i'd inform the curious reader of Jonah Peretti's antics, normally called contagious media. Jonah set off a few memes of his own to see how they would spread - the Nike Sweatshop Email and the Rejection Hotline are my favorites. Category: academic Posted by zephoria at 11:11 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) April 20, 2004state farm: my new therapistApparently, the SUV contacted my insurance. As we had left it, i was going to contact theirs to file a complaint, if i wanted to. Exhausted and not wanting to deal, i had decided not to. Well, they contacted my insurance for me. This meant that i had to talk to State Farm all day to clear up what had happened, repeat my story like 15 times, etc. Of course, such conversations always make me flustered, frustrated and utterly upset. I had to deal with State Farm once before. My car was nearly totalled after getting crushed between an SUV and a cab due to an out of control SUV in the rain only 10 days after getting new insurance. State Farm consisted of angels, angels and more angels. This time, it was less clear as to whose fault it was. But once again, the nice people at State Farm came to my rescue being beyond helpful and clearing up my confusion and calming my frustration. The nice agent even told me not to worry about it - go to Europe, enjoy it, forget about the car and deal when i get back. "Europe is more important than your car." If i wasn't on the phone with the guy, i would've hugged him. He was so reassuring, so calming, so helpful. Of course, i was thinking about it... an insurance agent should be a good therapist. They should want to keep you calm, relaxed, unanxious. I'm a better driver when i'm not a ball of nerves. This is probably a good approach for them. State Farm should teach this to Blue Cross. I swear my medical insurance gives me additional ulcers and anxiety-related disorders every time i have to deal with them. This can't be good business for them. They don't want me to be ill; that costs them money. But they do a damn good job of creating stress-related disorders in me a few times a year. Example: today i got a bill from August 2003 from a doctor telling me that my insurance decided not to recoup all of the money (apparently, that's been in battle for the last n months). Of course, not only is this super annoying on my insurance's part, but it's after i filed taxes where i list how much i pay each year in medical. ::shaking head:: Sometimes, i think that they do this just to break me down. I mean, i'd rather pay the extra money then deal with my insurance company because i do believe that there's a decrease in health whenever i have to deal with them. Insurance is simple... they screw up and they charge you either in time or money - you choose. This is why i love State Farm. I pay them once a year; they take care of me and they give me free calming words whenever i call. Category: Posted by zephoria at 9:29 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) Linked Out: blogging, equality and the futureLinked Out: blogging, equality and the future is an article in Mindjack that addresses some of the issues around blogging: When did it become a phenomenon? (Blood's Law of Weblog History) Is it an equalizer? (danah and Clay disagree; Joi gets hopeful) Fun overview of some of the current discussions that i've been having, even it makes me cringe to be called an A-list blogger. Category: yasns Posted by zephoria at 9:13 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (3) community awardsThe Webby Awards were announced tonight and i know folks are currently in Linz trying to narrow down the Ars Electronica Prix. Both groups have an award for best community and i've found this to be exceptionally problematic for my own processing. - Is the nomination supposed to focus on the site, its design, its intention, etc. or the resultant community? Let me couch this in how i feel about the Webby Award nominees for community: - FictionAlley (a fan fiction site). The site is not particularly innovative, but the practice of fan fiction is and the community that has evolved through that practice and have become situated at that site is mindblowing. - Friendster. The technology is somewhat innovative, but what is impressive is how much everday communities transcended geography to make a community out of the site and how new communities (ahem, Fakesters) emerged even amidst their presence being despised. - LiveJournal. The structure of journaling with a community, for a community has been so powerful for different groups, so stunningly powerful. In many ways, this is a true community site - the result of design that is meant to support the community that already exists there and to help that community take things to the next level. - SuicideGirls. A community has formed amongst these girls that has transcended the site that supposedly brings them together. You see them on Friendster, on LJ, on other sites. There's a layered community - that of the girls and that of their audience. What's truly innovative about SG is not its porn component but how a noticeable community can make the site have so much additional sex appeal. - Wikipedia. Here's a site where most participants do not know one another at all. The tool is simple. But a ghost community with shared notions of activity and goal works to produce a masterpiece. The masterpiece only hints at the underlying invisible community and its power and motivation. Category: digitalness Posted by zephoria at 2:04 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (3) caricatures are lost in translation
It's hard to parse what i'm being asked. Perhaps i'm being asked if i was just as lost and overwhelmed in Tokyo as Murray and Johansson are. Or perhaps i'm being asked if the caricatures of the Japanese are true. I tend to assume the former, but perhaps that's hopeful... Japan was a totally overwhelming experience for me. Not only was it (New York + London)^2 in terms of intensity, but the subtle differences were so fascinating that i spent my entire trip watching for details. Even in my own glazed-over viewpoint, there is no doubt that the Japanese characters in the film were caricatures. It's important to remember how caricatures operate. Ever watch a caricature artist? What they do is take the features that appear fundamentally different to their perceived norm and magnify them. Each caricature artist magnifies different features dependent on their own perspective (although, if you have a large nose, you're going to have a tremendous nose in the eyes of every caricature artist). Try as i might to see Tokyo on Tokyo's level, i was brutally aware of my own caricaturization of the city. Fashion played a prominent role in my own processing. My memory has somehow secured the rush of men in business suits in Shibuya and the absurd commonality of 1980s retro fashion. I know that this doesn't fit everyone, but it stood out because it was so different from what i normally see. My mind was holding on to magnificent differences only. The problem with creating caricatures is that it's only funny when you've chosen to expose yourself to that processing, when you want to see what stands out from another's perspective. We choose to subject ourselves to the caricature artist. It's not nearly as humorous when it is subjected on us. This is where i recognize the problem with Coppola's movie. I suspect that she meant well... she wanted to portray a sappy set of characters in what she perceived as the American caricaturization of Tokyo. That said, it shouldn't surprise anyone that this doesn't read well in Japan. It's far more insulting because the joke is not shared. This goes to the root of humor. When humor operates by making fun of a population, it is only funny to that population if they were the joke tellers. For example, when my ex-girlfriend used to roll her eyes and call something gay, it was funny; when a stranger does the same, it's homophobic. Context. Audience. Speaker. One of the key problems with LiT is that it is a caricaturization by gaijin. [Thoughts stemming from the CSM article (thanks Joi) and Mimi's old post] [For more on humor, read Jokes and Their Relation to the Unsconscious. References on caricature can be found in "The City and the Body" from Judith Donath's "Inhabiting the virtual city."] Update: I had a great talk with Joi about differentiating portrayals situated in hatred and those situated in stereotypes. The latter are not nearly as visible and can hurt just as much. This is a really good point and i conflated the two in this entry. Humor based on stereotypes doesn't feel as problematic because the intention is not based on hate. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. I also realized that a really good way to consider LiT is to juxtaposition it alongside Kill Bill. Kill Bill (both parts of the full movie) is not nearly as problematic because it is caricaturing every action genre out there, from Chinese martial arts to Japanese sword fighting to Westerns to stupid Americans and their guns. When you laugh, the laughter is only partially at the characters; it is predominantly at Tarantino for incorporating yet-another genre in an off-the-wall way. Additionally, in the Japanese section of Kill Bill, Tarantino goes out of his way to caricature Japanese sword-fighting while simultaneously empowering female fighters to be the most prestigeous. Certainly, everyone in that film dies except two and all of the wrongful deaths are righted, but it's important to remember that everyone proves their worth in fighting except the stupid dumbfuck American hick with his gun. Update: United Airlines is showing Lost in Translation for the month of May on two types of flights: to Tokyo/Narita, to Hong Kong / China / Korea. This gives me the distinct impression that people are linking the movie to certain cultures, not simply to the state of being lost in another country. Other movies during the month of May had no clear linkage between location and direction. LiT is not being shown to/from Europe, unlike almost every other movie. Category: Posted by zephoria at 12:13 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (1) April 18, 2004Tim O'Reilly on GmailFor those who are interested in the Gmail story, reading Tim O'Reilly's essay is a must. By and large, i agree with him on the privacy issue. The only place where we diverge is that i don't fully agree with: "No one is going to be forced to use gmail. If you don't like ads in your mail, don't use the service. Let the market decide." People will use Gmail because the incentives are high, but their participation in Gmail is not because the ads make them feel good or because they like ads in their mail. This goes back to my rants on the ickiness factor. Just because it's being used doesn't mean it's being loved or even the right move... Category: social software Posted by zephoria at 10:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) a book exerciseFrom Caterina: 1. Grab the nearest book. Just as we are afraid of ghosts and of the God of the panopticon insofar as they are imaginary non-entities - that is, because they do not exist - so, according to lacan, we love God precisely because he does not exist. I had to fudge it. The first two books i picked up didn't have 5 sentences on page 23. Leave it to Derrida and JL Austin to have rather long sentences that fill the page. Thus, i went with Bentham's "The Panopticon Writings" (which were out due to a recent debate with my roommate). Note: catching up on blog reading, but i thought that this exercise was fun! Category: Posted by zephoria at 6:43 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (6) thoughts on online datingFor one of my classes, we're discussing online dating. This is particularly timely since i'm about to head off to Vienna to discuss the same topic at CHI. Instead of taking it too seriously, i'm glad that my class decided to find the humor. So i thought i'd share. First, tales of horror from the online dating world. There are also various "how to translate personal ads" going around. Inside is one that i thought was funny. Update: Jonas has some great data on online dating. (thanks Ado!) MEN'S ADS: 40-ish.....................................52 and looking for 25-yr-old WOMEN'S ADS: 40-ish....................................49 Category: Posted by zephoria at 5:39 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) do you remember cathartic processing?I interviewed a person i know a few days ago about hir blog/journal. S/he talked about writing as a form of cathartic processing. S/he got to write down hir thoughts and share them with hir friends who would know when to comment and when to just let hir process. At one point, s/he looked at me and said: remember when you used to blog for that? Wow... i really did use to process unfinished thoughts, personal frustrations, frameworks i was trying to construct... all in my various web journals. I didn't have to defend myself to strangers; my friends were totally constructive in their critiques. I didn't need to remember to be formal; i was allowed to be half-baked. Now blogging is this psycho addiction. I'm aware of having an audience of unknowns, but trying to put on blinders just to write. I want the cathartic processing, but i want to share some of my findings/ideas with the world. They don't both fit into the same forum, even though i try. I write so that i don't lose track of thoughts. Yet, i am only able to deal with comments and people on occasion. I struggle to find the appropriate voice. Another friend told me that my blog tended to have a lot of content, personalized. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Then again, i was told that my thesis looked like a stream of consciousness writing. It was. As i interview people about their regrets, i start to wonder if i'll have my own. Will i regret blogging? I try not to live in regrets, or rather, i try to forget that which i might regret. Yet, is forgetting possible? Category: Posted by zephoria at 12:48 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) beware the steam vacI'd always seen the steam vacs at Safeway. Thus, when we decided to do a massive house cleaning yesterday, i decided to make certain that all of the carpets and rugs got a thorough cleaning. We have a no-shoe policy in our house so i figured it would just help get rid of Marble fur and random dust. I was so not prepared for the color of the water in a matter of moments. The amount of dirt that came out of those rugs was mindblowing. Where on earth did it come from? Is it from before my time? If you think that your house is clean and tidy, go do a steam vac on your rugs. Me oh my. Category: Posted by zephoria at 12:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Postal Service Mocks GmailThis evening, my roommate wrote a mock USPS launch announcement to highlight why Gmail might seem foreign to those who view their email as a metaphor for the real thing: The United States Postal Service has announced the launch of an automated service that ensures its customers receive advertising material directly related to their interests. No more junk mail! Category: Posted by zephoria at 12:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2) April 17, 2004masculine angerI pulled into the parking lot at BestBuy. It's a tight squeeze and i was pulling into a parking lot as the driver in Mercedes SUV threw his door open, into me; i put on the breaks but already the door has made impact. Given the SUV, the only damage is on my car. There's a couple in the Mercedes. The driver jumps out and starts yelling at me. I'm totally taken aback, shaking. The passenger gets out and pushes away the driver after i already yell back that i'm calling the cops. The passenger and i talk, i give over driver's license info and we exchange insurance info. I can't fully guarantee what happened. I remember seeing the door opening as i pulled in to the space, not as it being opened. But alas, all damage to me; none to Mercedes. I decide not to deal with it, given that the only reason that my car doesn't have any dents on it is because it has all new exterior panels from a multi-car collision a year ago (heavy raining + over-egotistical SUV going 75 down 101). But i was still all shaken up, not by the bullshit SUV, but because of the asshole SUV driver. As i was chewing on what really bothered me, i realized how ill-equipped i am to handle masculine anger in a state of nerves. I've managed to acquire a lot of masculine traits over the years, in part as a coping mechanism. But i've never been able to master masculinity when i'm torn to shreds emotionally. All of my deep-seated femininity comes to the surface. For some, it's so bloody natural - that masculine survival technique of absolute anger and dominance in the state of panic. I turn into a mushy ball of OMG what happened?!?!? Masculine anger allows all the blame to be externalized, while the feminine OMG internalizes everything. No doubt the driver spent the rest of the day damning me for being in the way, even though the SUV suffered no harm. I'm often reminded that my femininity gets me a lot of attention, even in the working world. I'm not going to dispute this, but i do know that my lack of complete masculine coping mechanisms means that i'm never prepared to handle the privilege that i'm afforded. That said, i'm not sure that i want to even acquire all of the masculine coping tools. I don't know.. it feels so confusing. [Note: i'm addressing traits in a masculine/feminine form based on the gender performance with which they're associated. One of the big misnomers about gender performance is that it is linked to sex. Masculine anger may be embodied by a male individual, but it may also be embodied by a female individual. Culturally, we are taught to follow male/masculine and female/feminine sex/gender role models. But this is not universally built into us, nor something that all of us can comfortably learn to do.] Category: gender & sexuality Posted by zephoria at 11:13 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1) April 16, 2004The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in Human Rights Abuses.Many people have heard me tell an anecdote that i learned while living in Holland: At the turn of the century, the Dutch government collected mass amounts of data about its citizens with good intentions. In order to give people proper burials, they included religion. In 1939, the Nazis invaded and captured that data in less than 3 days. A larger percentage of Dutch Jews died than any other Jews because of this system. Well, i'd been searching for a citation for a while. Tonight, i remembered to ask Google Answers and in less than an hour, had a perfect citation: The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in Human Rights Abuses. Social Research, Summer, 2001, by William Seltzer, Margo Anderson The essay is even better than my anecdote and i truly believe that anyone in the business of doing data capture should be required to read this. Category: Posted by zephoria at 2:27 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack (3) April 14, 2004why privacy issues matter... to mewhy privacy issues matter... to me Bloody Gmail (and the scarier A9) has me back to thinking about my love/hate relationship with privacy issues and my deep need to unpack the term and insert the issues of vulnerability into the discussion. Privacy is a loaded term. I've heard way too many people talk past one another thinking that they're both talking about privacy issues. It's a slippery discussion and i leave it to Dourish to fully flesh out why. But i do think that there are important issues that must be teased out in order to have a conversation about privacy, vulnerability or any of our data woes. Key privacy-related questions Given XYZ situation, i ask myself two key privacy-related questions: [Note: these are my questions for myself and thus i define rational, a notably arbitrary definition that falls under the "i know it when i see it" category. The key anecdote that i keep in my head is that at the turn of the century, Holland (and other countries) collected religion as part of their census data. In 1939, that data was horribly horribly abused. This may not have appeared to be a rational situation in the 1920s, but it is in my scope of the possible now.] Reasons for the ickiness factor First, i address the ickiness factor. I immediately disregard any groups that involve the paranoid from my list of ickiness contenders that must be addressed. I do not exclude the marginalized. Often, the 'why' answer for this group has to do with heightened walls around what is normative and what is not. Given that i'm politically all-in-favor of challenging normative values, i recognize their plight and pay special attention to it, albeit reflexively so. Of the groups who fall into the ickiness reaction zone, i've identified a few reasons why there's usually a reaction to XYZ:
Vulnerability embedded in ickiness This ickiness feeling in relation to 'privacy' is what i called vulnerability. Something that XYZ has done has made people feel vulnerable to potentially abusive strangers, cultures and cultural norms, known others, and institutions with power. I am particularly interested in rational constructions of vulnerability, particularly amongst those who have felt the fire. We already live in a culture of fear - i'm not interested in magnifying it. Outside of those who live in a fear for fear's sake mentality, there's a pretty consistent set of patterns regarding vulnerability: Point two is where the concerns slumber and why civil rights activists are essential. People's innate vulnerability concerns definitely subside over time. Incentives definitely work, particularly when the consequences are not high. While you may not give any demographic information just because, you will probably give it for the chance of winning a Porsche. For most people, this isn't an issue of high vulnerability and there are low consequences so they don't need a strong incentive. Take it to the next level. What will it cost to have a bot track your web surfing? Many people will do it... but the necessary incentive is usually more than dreadful odds at winning a Porsche. Take it to the next level. What will it take for you to be willing to turn your personal web surfing data over to your boss, lover or parents? Surfed any porn lately? The incentive (or, more likely, extreme guilt/requirement) must be high because the consequences of having to face your actions are much higher, particularly if you weren't prepared to turn over your data to those with power over you. Note that for many people, fear of turning over this information to known undesired audience is far more threatening than having to turn this over to institutions; this is not the case in certain countries where vulnerability to dreadful governments runs much deeper than vulnerability to known individuals. A lot has to do with power and ability to execute enforcement over undesired behavior. Why we need civil rights activists, legal changes and architects Let me dig out of this hole and return to the civil rights activists. As people's concerns lower, they're willing to tolerate much more invasive access to data because they only see the incentives and they don't see the consequences. This is rational. We tend to operate on local, not meta levels in everyday life. The role of the civil rights activist is to go meta and deal with first point #2 - can any rational abuse of data be expected? Their role is to look at the larger picture and protect people from engaging in localized decisions that might harm the larger picture. There are usually two approaches that said activists take: Education is nice and it works locally through social networks, but i genuinely do not believe that privacy education (which usually works by inserting fears) will overcome the incentives. Furthermore, the incentives will be increased and living in a culture of fear sucks; even Americans have started to ignore the bloody terrorist warning color markers. Of course, a moment of super-fear and then its slow decline to disregard always puts people on greater guard than originally. But i wouldn't want the education camp to educate by creating situations that instigated super-fear. Leave that to governments. I should clarify... i'm not entirely opposed to education; i just don't believe that it's the solution. Let's keep it in mind as the social norms part of Lessig's 4 point regulation scheme - valuable as a contributor, but not effective as the sole approach. Then there's the systemic changes. Going with Lessig, there are three types of systemic changes that can be made - the market, the law and the architecture. Personally, i think that the market is the reason that things are being moved in this direction and thus, i think that they're a bit impossible to swing, so i believe that more effective approaches can be made on the law and the architecture side. Architecture is a bit more obvious, except that it is inherently tied into the market (or government). That kinda leaves law. And law continued to become more fubared. One excuse is that it is in bed with the market. Another excuse is that it's fending off the paranoids. The reality, i believe, ties into how law negotiates social norms. I wish i remember the details, but i remember learning once that social practices are often enough to affirm laws. In other words, if a law and the social practices are primarily in cahoots, it is unlikely that the law will change. It is only when there are significant differences that change is likely to occur. In other words, if people are tolerant of invasive practices, why regulate against them? This is where i start to believe in the education branch of the civil rights movement. The key shouldn't be to make people see the world differently, but stall them enough that they don't assimilate to problematic breaches of privacy so that laws can be changed. Of course, i don't know how to do this and thus, i suspect that it will take extreme conditions of masses feeling vulnerable to upset the law structure. (It is for this reason that Europe is much slower about opening up privacy... they remember WWII.) The opportunity for designers and why i'm involved Bring this back to me. From my perspective, a lot of the architectural decisions that induce vulnerability emerge from naivety, not poor intention. I genuinely believe that many creators really meant to do the right thing. The problem is that their construction of how to do the right thing is about privacy, not vulnerability. They only imagine how to address the data, not how to address people's relationship with the data. The approaches are fundamentally about creating control or transparency. I've never found anyone who really thought through the implications of having all of the data in the first place. And most designers don't realize the cultural norms that they insert into a system. Also, control is really really hard when people are trying to manage an external representation of their information. These systems insert new architectures: persistence, searchability, lurkers, etc. Control doesn't work when people don't know how to operate the controls. As for transparency, i am horrified by most people's reading of Brin. Universal transparency will only heighten vulnerability, particularly that on a local level. It is not a solution for most of the situations that i'm concerned with. So, as i see it, i have two roles as an activist on this issue:
Category: Posted by zephoria at 8:47 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (24) April 13, 2004GMail - the good, the bad and the uglyFirst, i can't help but laugh every time i hear the name G-Mail. It's really the g dash that gets me. I spent years working on a site called the V-Spot. It was explicitly supposed to be directed down there. Well, G- to me automatically signifies the G-Spot. So every time i login, i giggle. People truly have their panties in a bunch over G-Mail and this *kills* me. My favorite, as noted by master Heer, is that a California Senator is drafting legislation to stop Google. My roommate and i, who met when we were running a workshop on privacy, had a grand ole conversation about G-Mail today. Here's where i stand. On a technical level, Google is not doing anything more than any other free-mail site. They are searching through your email for keywords using automated robots only; spam filters on Hotmail and Yahoo do the same thing. The difference is what they do with that information. While spam filters just move your messages to a different directory, Google calculates a metric in which to automatically present you with ads. (For those who haven't seen the ads, unlike banner ads, they're uber small and so not invasive; in fact, i couldn't find them at first.) By default, the ads are given to you and assuming you ignore them, the client knows nothing about you. If you click, it's your prerogative and i still haven't figured out what all ends up being sent. But Master Heer is correct - the cookies shit that Hotmail/Yahoo leave behind are *far* more invasive and you can't get out of them simply by not clicking. So, on a technical level, i don't think that poorly of G-Mail. Then, there is the social level. Once again, Google has made me smack my hand to my forehead and scream up, praying to the goddesses to send them a few socially-minded people. The hysteria should be a first good clue. It doesn't matter that it's less technologically invasive - it's a fucking sociological terror. It makes you *FEEL* invaded, used, vulnerable. At least with banner ads, you can't make any connections between the ad and your messages. You don't feel icky. Of course, everyone felt icky when Amazon.com started announcing "Hello, danah" on their front doorstep. There's a slight similarity here... Both Amazon and Google are making the fact that they have your data transparent to you, reminding you that you're being watched. Both are using your data to sell you something. The difference is that you go to Amazon to shop... you go to Google to personally communicate. And you don't want to feel invaded in that process. No one wants the feeling of Big Brother sitting around. And it doesn't matter if that's not true. If people _feel_ that way, it sucks. This is the point of a Panopticon. (If you don't get this, read Bentham's "The Panopticon Writings"... or, since that's out of print, try "Discipline and Punish" by Foucault - a must read.) A friend of mine at the EFF gave me a perfect example of why this makes people feel gross. Imagine that you're talking about a sensitive topic with a loved one... Imagine that you're talking about abortion or adoption. Can you imagine the ads that would come up and how you would feel? ::cringe:: My frustration is that people are talking about G-Mail as a privacy issue. This word is super super loaded (right Paul?). This isn't a privacy issue. This is a vulnerability issue. This is an issue of how people _feel_ not what is actually going on and how it differs from other services. The fact that this feels more invasive is all that matters. If Google thinks that they can educate users, they're probably in for a big surprise. Note: That said, i truly believe that lots of people will sign up for G-Mail anyhow. Google appears far more trustworthy than Yahoo or MS. 1 Gig is a super incentive. And i'd bet that everyone screaming foul has their own domain, doesn't use freemail and doesn't get that most of the world will give up all of their data for the chance of winning a Porsche. That doesn't make it right... and i truly hope that Google considers what it's doing to its brand by this move. While it won't impact the sign-up rates, i believe that the grossness will affect later inventions and diminish the "do no evil" tagline at Google. Note 2: I'm definitely with Kevin that there are still too many outstanding questions. (Some of his have been answered here.) Category: social software Posted by zephoria at 11:42 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack (6) driving votes: affecting swing states in 2004
[And if you want to laugh (since absurdity is another valid route to the current state of affairs), listen to Dick is a Killer] Category: Posted by zephoria at 9:57 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1) April 12, 2004NY vs. SFI've always been a bit obsessed about the differences between New York and San Francisco. As such, i really enjoyed reading Auren's reflections on the difference (even if he's a Republican - ::wink::). Category: Posted by zephoria at 8:31 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) April 11, 2004happy easter
Category: Posted by zephoria at 2:12 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) April 8, 2004karaoke and constant sorrowROFL. Last night, a gang of us went karaoke singing. We didn't stop singing after we left the room and by the time we hit Shibuya we had moved on to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" songs. I'm just now going through a few blogs in my RSS and i almost died when i saw that Cory posted an electronic version of Constant Sorrow. (Caterina and John did a fantastic (drunken) rendition of this song in front of Hachiko.) Category: Posted by zephoria at 8:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) opting out of Plaxo...I would love to opt out of Plaxo, but i can't. People send me Plaxo requests to *so* many email addresses. And i have zero desire to go through and do each one. Unlike Joi, my complaint is not about the amount of work i'm asked to do. Hell, every few months, i send a spam to my friends saying that i lost/broke some technology and need numbers again. (I actually have most people's numbers, but this way i get updates, birthdays and catch people who don't send me info in previous times.) My complaint with Plaxo is multi-faceted. One branch of it comes down to a complete lack of trust. It's not that i don't think that the organization isn't trying to be privacy-centric. It's that i think that any mass collection of information is inherently vulnerable. Shall we talk subpoenas? But, frankly, the main branch of my complaint comes down to the lack of intimacy. Almost everyone who has ever sent me a Plaxo request is someone that i barely know. They have my email address and they want everything else. Channeling a friend, i can't help but scream in a British accent with an obscene gesture, "well, fuck off." If i don't recognize someone's name, why should i give them stalker material? There are different emails for different purposes. For example, the word melopy is an anagram for employ. That's the address for recruiters. If you only have that address, you have no right to more information. Finally, there's a respect issue. I *hate* mass emails, ad-hoc mailing lists (even when i guiltily create one once a year). Turn that behavior over to a company and i hate it ten times more. There's nothing personal. And i have too much email as it is. I find it lacking all respect. I find it to be disrespectful of my time, my privacy, my attention and me as a person. Anyone who sends me a Plaxo request falls deep into my pit of disrespect because they're not being considerate of me. Of course, i've come up with my own solution for this. When i get a Plaxo request, i always go and update my information. I remove as much as possible. And i change my address to a personalized address that goes directly to /dev/null. If the person is particularly unfamiliar (i.e. the melopy people), i will give them something fun like webmaster@plaxo.com. This has dramatically reduced the number of Plaxo messages. Category: social software Posted by zephoria at 8:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) demanding normative digital behaviorOn Craigslist, an angry seller declares his dos and don'ts. The post was marked best-of. This is a fascinating little piece to analyze. It's an attempt to demand normative digital behavior. - The writer is trying to demarcate his audience in a digital environment. What he is selling is meant for those in his region, but he cannot be sure that only those in his region get access to it, like he would if he posted it in a store. He's upset because the broader readership wants him to expand his distance of distribution simply because they can read it. - The writer assumes that there are commonly shared norms about the buying/selling process. He can only imagine that the reason people don't get his norms is because they are foreign (revealing his xenophobia). This reminds me of road behavior. I have a socially constructed set of rules about how people should behave on the road and everyone else should've come to the same conclusions, even though they are not the same as the legal road rules. - The writer attacks "cryptic messages" like: "i liek it plz can u do $5 lolz k." He critiques this behavior using an anti-mentally handicapped slur. This is going to be a fascinating generational divide because SMS/IM-speak like this is just going to get more and more common. - The writer attacks "girls" for using overly formatted emails. Here's a cultural and generational divide. I'm still amazed at the messages i get from friends in Mexico. Flair, color and bouncing things are in. - I don't even know to begin to address "I hope your dick falls off. If you're female, I hope you grow a big, beautiful black cock and it falls off and gets eaten by wolves before you have a chance to enjoy it." The whole thing boils down to "that is NOT HOW WE DO BUSINESS." I find it utterly fascinating that this guy extends his practices out to everyone with such an irrate tone. Of course, it resonates with enough people to make it a best-of. What business practices are universal? What can we take for granted as we move into a worldwide commerce environment? Category: social software Posted by zephoria at 7:41 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) April 7, 2004bridging diverse groups: meta-mumblings from recent gatheringsIn the last two weeks, i've attended two different gathering of minds that involved a distributed group of academics of all types, designers, pundits, technology creators, businesspeople, etc. I don't have time for larger reviews on the discussions, but i wanted to record a few meta-notes for my own memory and for the readers' entertainment. Personal. I feel like the intellectual bastard child of loopy parents who never saw eye-to-eye. Maybe they got along before i was born, but i kind of doubt it. I can't tell if my responsibility is to be the good kid who tries to help them make sense of each other or be the bad child who pits them against one another. In any case, i'm glad to have all of my parents in a room with one another, even when they're not playing nice. Backchanneling. I finally realized why selective backchanneling irks me. One thing that i bank on at conferences is that the attendees create a cohesive view of being annoyed with the conference. This happens because no one attends a conference for the content; they attend to talk to people. Thus, people love to find new ways to bitch about how the speakers are boring/irrelevant/valueless, the establishment is being disrespectful to the attendees (i.e. no power/WiFi), the planning is poor, things are running too long, there's not enough food, etc. You name it, people always find a way to bitch at a gathering. And this serves a super valuable role at these meetings. It creates a point of shared context in which people can get to know one another well. The thing about the IRC backchannel is that it's *obvious* that there is a second-place to the conference. Thus, those not participating create another target of dislike in addition to the conference. One can despise the conference as well as the IRC channel. In most events, people don't hate either the actual organizers of the conference or the participants of the IRC channel (since they're friends anyhow); they simply despise the organization. With only a fraction of people participating, the IRC channel doesn't become a communication tool; it becomes a second place. And since people are in both the IRC channel and the conference simultaneously, it means that you can't just disregard that population - they are weaved too tightly. (You can disregard the conference attendees that just sit in the bar the whole time.) When i bring this up to people, everyone loves to tell me that anyone could get on the channel so get over it. This *horrifies* me because it rings of "any person of color can get on the Internet so the race divide is their fault." There are many reasons why people don't feel comfortable on the IRC channel. It's not their home domain; they don't use laptops during conferences or they don't have the skills to install the backchannel; they don't execute well with continuous partial attention; speed typing is not comfortable.... You name it. It's an environment that privileges those comfortable in it already. That said, i was quite impressed with the number of people that i saw engage for the first time at each event. Both non-participant groups said that they weren't a fan of that behavior, but they were glad to be able to read it and contribute occasionally. Anyhow, i have to chew more on why this bugs me, but it still does. (In connection with Liz and Clay.) Translation. I realize that there's a lot of translation when you have diverse groups gather. That translation is not simply terminology, but culture and values. That said, it will never work when one group is required to defend themselves to the other, to prove their worth. I've learned that an event will be problematic if any group has to go on the defensive. Yet, at almost all events i've been to lately, there has been one marginalized group that felt that they had to prove themselves, that they had to stand up for their worth. This screws with everything. This makes me realize how crucial the privilege conversation is. We all have situations where we are privileged, either because we're in the majority or otherwise a part of the normative values. We usually talk about privilege in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. And we normally fail to ever convince anyone to make sense out of what it means to acknowledge privilege and try to put it down. I realize that this is a task that more people need to take up actively. We may not learn to give up privilege based on the qualities written on our bodies or otherwise part of our life-long identity, but maybe we can learn to give up privilege based on more localized, ephemeral situations. What does it mean to be in a room where there are two groups and you're part of the dominant group? In this case, the number one responsibility of the dominant group is to do their darndest to open up and listen to the other group. Truly listen. Truly encourage. Not simply challenge to prove themselves, but figure out how to empower that group. I can visualize what this means in a spiritual level. To use your power to blow air into the disempowered group, to lift them up through encouragement. One of the weird things about two events that i attended is that i got to watch as the power between two groups swapped. And both group failed to relinquish their privilege to fully listen because they were too overjoyed to be in the dominant group. Lesson learned... even those of us who talk about privilege fail to check our own on a constant basis. Anyhow, that's enough meta mumbling for a bit. Category: academia Posted by zephoria at 8:21 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (11) why Weinberger hates FriendsterWhy Weinberger hates Friendster Category: friendster Posted by zephoria at 3:26 PM | TrackBack (0) dodgeball.comMust check out when i'm back in the States: dodgeball.com Category: social software Posted by zephoria at 8:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) notes on TokyoI'm avoiding the computer in Tokyo. But i have a few random notes... small things that have made me scratch my head. Most tall buildings have little red triangles on certain windows. This bugged me until i learned that it was to indicate to firemen which windows were fire exits and ladders should be sent to them. Most shops demarcate their entrance by a small step. Nothing in Tokyo is wheelchair accessible. Yet, every crossing is marked by bumps in the sidewalk to inform blind people of where to go. Tampons are still in the back of the store. If you think that the 80s fashion has returned in the States, you're wrong. Tokyo kids know how to do retro-chique in a beyond-disturbing-as-all-hell way. I'm cringing even more than i ever cringed in LA. I laughed when people told me that Tokyo would be expensive. Within 2 hours of landing, i took a $250 taxi. Dear god. And after spending $42 on a cover for a generic club, i will never bitch about a $10 cover ever again. It is possible to engage in a full conversation where one party speaks one language and the other speaks a different language and neither of you understand the other's words but information transmission happens. Especially when it involves a shopkeeper and me with the clear intention of purchasing something. Baraka doesn't even begin to capture Shibuya crossing. It is such a beautiful dance of chaos. All of my city navigation skills are broken. The smells are foreign (there's no urine). There are no straight lines or circles... especially in the roads. Along many streets, there's a street level for cars, a catwalk for people and another highway above you. Every train station in Tokyo is modeled after a different station around the world. There was some utterly traumatic about walking out of all day meetings and getting a flashback to Amsterdam because Tokyo Station is a near-replica of Central Station. Advertising built on kleenexes somehow seems far more practical and valuable than fliers. I love the phone chatchkas. I love the heated toilets. I love that caffeine drinks come with vitamins. Getting beer out of a vending machine is quite peculiar. Particularly when you can only see cows and the neon of the vending machine. It's utterly eerie to see people wearing sars-masks post-sars-crises. Some tell me it's because people have colds. But my ex says that it just became habit for some people. I love the transit system. The little holes in your ticket. The way people line up properly in waiting and then cram into each other as hard as possible once boarding the train. I even had some residents tell me how to scam the system and tried it out of curiousity. Sure enough, scamming option is confirmed. Buying clothes of the "opposite" sex is near impossible. The shopkeepers steer you into the proper gender performance. While (fe)male bodies are far closer to one another in Japan as compared to Europe/America, the gender performance is far more divisive. What an adventure. Category: reflections & rants Posted by zephoria at 8:52 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) April 1, 2004stealth mode: responsiveness will approach zeroThere's this amazing trend that happens. At the beginning of every semester, i come out from hiding, participate in public life, conferences, etc. I meet people. But i'm on a different cycle than other people because as soon as i meet people, finals come around again and stealth mode is on and all of those new ties fade away unless they make sense post-stealth mode. For those who don't realize, i made the foolishly naive mistake of thinking that i could balance 6 weeks of travel, 3 hardcore grad classes, TAing, help organize two different intellectual gatherings, etc. Social life does not exist. And much of digital life will be on pause for a bit. From now until June, please realize that my response rate will be arbitrary at best. In fact, there's a high probability that i won't touch most of my email until June. I'm already too far behind to catch up. I am traveling for all of April and will be finals-ing in May (feeling the pain for my stupidity). I will not be attending social events or group gatherings, except for ASSA. My apologies. I don't know how to better handle this situation right now. Category: reflections & rants Posted by zephoria at 2:17 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) |
Ever since i came back from Japan, the first question out of everyone's mouth is: "Is it like Lost in Translation!?!?" I always respond "Well...."
