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« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 » September 30, 2004digital xenophobiaIn checking my email this morning, i was really disturbed by a message on a mailing list that i lurk. The question was simple: Is anyone worried about the del.icio.us community being diluted with non-geeky type people? My first reaction was one of insult. There's nothing like digital xenophobia to get my goat early in the morning. First, this is the problem of all online communities. What draws people to them is homophily - birds of a feather stick together. Folks are ecstatic when they walk into a community where everyone's like them. In theory, people want to espouse the liberal value of tolerance and love of diversity. In reality, most people are anything but that. Ask the anti-Brazilians on Orkut. We have the language to criticize the neo-Nazis on Friendster, but how different are the anti-nongeeks? We really only know how to talk about racism, sexism and homophobia. You can't really say "we don't want any girls here" and get away with it now (although you may think it). [Of course, one contemporary approach is to allow a handful of token women in, but maintain the male dominance...] Unlike the more politicized phobias, xenophobia and classism often go unchecked. It is even more culturally acceptable to want to maintain a community of others like the original community and to reminisce about when the community was closer, had more in common and when there were less problems. Of course there are more problems in a heterogeneous community. People don't speak the same (actual/conceptual) language. Diversity brings divergent opinions, values, ideas. Diversity requires us to broader our perspective, appreciate things where we are not superior and realize that not everyone comes about an issue from our perspective. With community tools popping up daily, everyone's talking about how this tool can be used by everyone in the world - won't it be great? Yet, as soon as multiple communities use the tool in different ways, everyone flips. No one actually knows how to manage diverse communities with different values. Why? It's a really hard SOCIAL problem that doesn't have a simple technological solution. [I've got lots more to say on this topic, but until next time...] Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 3:28 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (4) Billionaires for Bush
The there's Ladies Against Women. ::giggle:: (tx tbhisop) Category: politics
Posted by zephoria at 12:42 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (5) September 29, 2004on dating[warning: personal blog entry] I'm often whimpering to my poor roommate about my lack of dating. His response is typically a reminder that i don't have time. I'm usually stubborn to this response, arguing that i've dated plenty when i'm in more stressful times than this and ones where i've slept a lot less and done a lot more. He's always quite weary of this response. To spite him, i got this bright idea to start responding to online personals. But then his statement finally hit home. I don't actually have time to date people that i don't know. In truth, i've never actually "dated" anyone. I've had friends or colleagues that became partners through some odd set of circumstances or a foolish idea. I don't actually know how to meet people and i certainly don't have time to go through the rigamarole of dating - meeting people you don't know, seeing if things might work, trying out chemistry, etc. I don't actually have time to get to know new friend groups or scenes. And i'm not even sure i have interest. What i want is that magical miracle where someone just instantly fits into my life and i fit into their life and everything just works out. My roommate is definitely right in that i have impossible standards. Yet, i didn't really realize how unrealistic they were. ::sigh:: So impossible. Gah. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:17 PM | TrackBack (1) Flickr slideshowHave i told you how much i love Flickr? Well, it's true. And over and over again, they impress me with new features that are brilliant for both the voyeur and the everyday user. Today, i finally sat down and looked at slideshows. Slideshows let you take a tag and just slideshow through all images with that tag on it. Stewart loves the sleeping slideshow. I'm partial to the Burning Man slideshow... of course. [If you're a Burner, add your images to Flickr!] Category: social software
Posted by zephoria at 11:04 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) "Sentenced to Be Raped"In June 2002, the police say, members of a high-status tribe sexually abused one of Ms. Mukhtaran's brothers and then covered up their crime by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a high-status woman. The village's tribal council determined that the suitable punishment for the supposed affair was for high-status men to rape one of the boy's sisters, so the council sentenced Ms. Mukhtaran to be gang-raped. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 4:55 PM | TrackBack (0) Engaging the TV-mindedMy grandfather and i often speak about Christian morality in the context of politics. This has become increasingly noticeable this year and i was stunned when he told me that Bush was not a Christian (in his actions, not necessarily his purported religious association). That gave me hope. I decided to assemble a little pre-election package for my grandparents. I wanted to send them: Moral Politics, Don't think of an Elephant, Unprecedented, Outfoxed and Fahrenheit 9/11. Much to my dismay, Outfoxed was only available on DVD and F9/11 wasn't to be released for a few weeks so it cost a fortune. But still, i sent them the other three. This made me wonder. I get an AOL CD every few weeks. I realize that not everyone (like my grandparents) have DVDs. But DVDs are much cheaper to produce than VHS tapes. I'm getting all of this paper political propaganda, but most Americans don't get their propaganda on paper - they get it on TV. This is why organizations spend millions of dollars to place their ads on FoxNews. Of course, FoxNews is biased. What would it mean for MoveOn (or other organizations) to start manufacturing DVDs and shipping them off to potential voters? Imagine a hand-written note from a volunteer saying that this might be of interest to you (oh random stranger from a swing state). Imagine shipping out Outfoxed or Unprecedented or F9/11 rather than asking people to pay for it. The people who buy it are already converted. Imagine putting a little note saying "if you don't have a DVD player, return this card and we'll send you a VHS copy; give the DVD to a friend." I wonder what percentage of people would watch a movie that appeared on their doorstep. I'd bet a decent number. Certainly more than read paper propaganda. The TV is what makes most people in this country think. Why not work with the TV, even if you can't work with the TV stations? Category: politics
Posted by zephoria at 10:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) September 28, 2004Curious about LibertariansSome of my closest friends are libertarians. I love them to bits. Yet, their politics strike a chord in my heart that makes me shudder. Since i've been taking the Lakoff class, i've been faced with the dichotomy between conservatives and progressives. It always makes me wonder where the libertarians fit in. In Moral Politics, Lakoff argues that libertarians are fundamentally conservatives ++ (read this chapter if you're a libertarian!). Barlow concurred, telling me that's what he used to think that he was. He's always told me that the approach libertarians take boils down to "leave us the fuck alone." In thinking of the values of libertarians, the first that immediately comes to mind is meritocracy. Interestingly, most of my friends who espouse to be libertarians are some of the most privileged intelligent folks that i know. I'm not convinced that meritocracy gave them that privilege. From a meritocratic value system, everyone has equal opportunity to succeed. It is their responsibility to work hard; if they do, they will have access to the fruits of success. Another strain says some people are more intelligent and they simply should have the rewards of that.. this is the outright elitist strand. The work-ethic value comes straight out of conservative thinking. In either case, both go against my own progressive value system. I strongly believe that the world is inherently unequal and unfair. I believe that fairness is essential and that no one should suffer simply because of the position they were born into. I believe that we must work to make access open to everyone. I believe that a diverse community offers different perspectives, all of which are exceptionally valuable. This means diversity across all axes. A pure meritocratic system consistently excludes people from lower socio-economic classes and poorer countries. This bothers me. In theory, libertarians and i have the same views on a lot of policies. We're both pro-choice on lots of topics. We're both anti-military. Yet, our motivations behind these stances are fundamentally different. Take the military. Libertarians simply don't want to pay for it. I think that we need to be a part of an international community and that cannot be done by force. Libertarians would never be in favor of working with outside agencies for anything. Most of the libertarians i know are mostly of the civil liberties style. They don't want the government to curtail their liberties. I don't want the government to curtail equality or opportunity, which often boils down to not wanting the government to curtail liberties. While we have similar beliefs, no libertarian that i know is in favor of social programs of any sorts. Education. Housing for the poor. Affirmative action. Economic support for working mothers. Environmentalism. Yet, these are all policies that i'm adamantly in favor of. And my motivation comes down to my strong belief in equality, fairness and opportunity. The thing that i cannot resolve is why so many of my younger libertarian friends think that they're more aligned with progressives than conservatives when they don't believe in any of the underly motivations of progressive and their underlying motivations are more attuned to conservatives. What am i missing? What don't i understand about libertarians? Category: politics
Posted by zephoria at 8:35 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0) September 26, 2004classroom blogs/wikis?Are you a teacher or professor? Does your class have a blog or a wiki that is used for classroom purposes? If so, can you list it in the comments or send me an email with the URL to dmb .AT. sims .DOT. berkeley .DOT. edu Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 10:33 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) "The Media Sucks, And It's Your Fault"Ethan Zuckerman has some interesting data on the topical coverage of blogs. There is often a fantasy that blogs will cover more diverse topics than the mainstream media, that they will force the media to cover different topics. Ethan is bothered by the fact that neither mainstream media nor bloggers cover news from less developed regions of the world. So, a research question emerges: in what ways are bloggers expanding the scope of the mainstream media and in what ways are they duplicating it? Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:59 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (3) I love you [rev.eng]
The message appeared blank, with only the subject line (gotta love pine on Solaris boxes) and so i slowly crafted an email to Andy asking if he was OK and if there was anything i needed to do. His response email was a collection of foul words, only making me more concerned about his state of well-being. As i was crafting a response of confusion, i received four more "I love you" emails. I quickly figured out that a virus was on the loose and i rolled onto the floor laughing imagining everyone in Andy's addressbook receiving a message that was so-not-Andy. Executives at Microsoft, former students, heads of companies. Apparently, he was apologizing for that one months later. Still, it brought me great joy to get at least one emotional message from him, virus or not. Given all of this, it brings me great joy to hear of a new exhibit at my Alma Mater entitled I love you [rev.eng]. [Review] Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Inside the ivory towerCategory: academia
Posted by zephoria at 1:10 AM | TrackBack (0) September 25, 2004my HIV testI try to get an HIV test annually, but i realized it had been far longer than that and i felt guilty. I wasn't actually anxious or concerned as i haven't really been dating. Yet, ever since i started doing AIDS education in the 9th grade, i've felt that it is my sexual duty to get this test annually, just as it's my civic duty to vote. So, i phoned up the AIDS Health Project Service Center and scheduled an anonymous appointment. The last test that i had was an oral swab; this test was a finger prick. The results come back in 20 minutes so you spend the time in between talking about why you got tested. I tried to tell the guy that i wasn't worried and that i was only doing the test because i believed in doing the test. Annually. I told them that i believed in treating it like a ritual, something you did to protect you and those you love. I think i confused the poor guy. I realize that most of the people he deals with are not in that stage. So, instead, we talked about the role of meth in SF, the increase in STDs, etc. We talked about what it meant to be a part of a community where testing was ritual, while risk was (relatively) low. I found out that the finger prick test was because Glide kept having people come in anonymously, get tested and the test would turn up positive but they would never return to get their results. They hoped that this would help them help people be more informed. I was quite thankful for it because i hate having to go back. I wonder if younger people still have the philosophy that you should get tested annually. I'm very thankful that i grew up with that assumption. Besides, it brings relief to confirm that i'm still negative. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 8:08 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (2) September 24, 2004ifoundsomeofyourlifeThe story seems to go... "Jordan" finds a camera in a NY taxi full of images from the last year. He creates a blogspot blog where he puts photos with commentary. Blog spreads rapidly through blogosphere. Rumor has it that he was threatened with lawsuits, although not from the camera owner. Blog disappears. This is a fascinating situation because it's very reminiscent of Sophie Calle's project (documented in Double Game). She found a black book on the streets of Paris and she decided to interview all of the people in the book about the owner of the book. Every Sunday, she wrote up her interview in a Paris newspaper... until the owner of the book sued her. I'm curious if anyone knows anything more about Jordan's experiment... or who Jordan is and how he can be contacted. I'd love to hear the full story. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 8:01 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0) September 21, 2004participating in a digital focus groupI love participating as a subject in user studies, focus groups and interviews. This affords me the opportunity to witness social science from an entirely new perspective. Last nite, i had the opportunity to be in a focus group on blogging. The focus group consisted of 5 (technologically savvy) subjects plus the moderator and it took place over AIM. I've participated in interviews over AIM and found them incessantly irritating, so i was quite curious to see what would happen in a focus group. We were all assigned random logins. This meant that no one took the time to personalize them and thus, there were a lot of little AIM men talking. Because i was using iChat, i couldn't differentiate the AIM men and i found this consistently confusing. [Update: smarter people taught me how to switch to see names because of this post.] Nothing was known of the participants, although aspects of their interests and values emerged through conversation. Of course, the problem was that i couldn't differentiate the speakers so i'd learn something about one AIM man and not know how to connect it back to that AIM man when the s/he spoke again. Very confusing. Thus, i tried not to model gender or other attributes in my head and just stick to text, line by line. This made it feel very un-focus group-y. The questions came as fast as they did in the interview and so i found myself scrolling fast trying to keep up. I also found that i did not like the text i was producing. Instead of trying to flesh out nuance, i answered every question as briefly as possible, with lots of information left to interpolation. Still, we were producing so much data that it was hard to keep up. Yet, what was that data worth? I don't think that i answered any question well or properly contextualized anything. Still, i rambled on with stories and little anecdotes, hoping those would help. To a certain degree, we bounced things off each other, but group gestures of affirmation and confusion were completely missing. Most everyone was focused on getting their text out as fast as possible. The result was pretty frustrating. Of course, i think that my experience on that AIM chat mimics one of my subject's descriptions of blogging better than blogging itself: "You're basically standing on a soapbox and reading something out loud only with a blog it feels like there's a big community square and everyone's got a soapbox and they're about the same height and everyone's reading at the same time." Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2) fair use restraints dampen my love affair with audible.comI have 741 books in my room. Paper. Almost all used from the beginning. I have obsessively documented them in Excel (although i twitch with excitement over the possibilities every time Marc Smith appears with his little barcode reader/Aura). I love lending my books to people, provided that they follow my neurotic rules (particularly: no removing of any object found inserted into book and please insert some sort of tender love and attention... strawberry jam is fine). When i started listening to Audible.com, i professed my love and convinced all of my friends that this was the best thing since sliced bread. I rave about a book that i read or tell a friend that they must read it. Then, the inevitable horror comes. They ask, simply and politely, may i borrow it? I turn bright red, lower my eyes and mumble apologies, stammering out that i can't... that the technology forbids me... that fair use is dead... digital first sale requires that i sell the whole book collection, not just the one... aa files can't be transferred... It sucks, really. What the hell is the use of a book that you can't lend? I'm completely devastated. My role of friendly hub librarian is being destroyed by technology. The joy i give people by lending my books is being replaced by embarrassment. I find myself stifling any speech about the books i read on Audible, not wanting to face the inevitable interaction. Will all the lenders in the world find their positions in the social stratosphere usurped by capitalists? Why can't i just have the digital equivalent to my little Excel file that says "lent to XX"? Why can't i just be forced to re-acquire the book before lending it out again? I do this all the time (or i'm forced to buy a new copy myself... i'm on copy #17 of Stone Butch Blues). I want a lending solution for digital technology damnit! I find it hard to tell you Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:01 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (1) September 19, 2004for kids and the sleep deprived
Sometimes, finding absurdity is the only way to cope when life gets peculiar. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 10:34 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) September 17, 2004AI for Social Networks; Social Networks for AICALL FOR PAPERS FLAIRS-05, Clearwater Beach, Florida, USA You will find at http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/~brezil/FLAIRS-05 the presentation of the special track entitled "AI for Social Networks, Social Networks in AI" at the conference of the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society. The goal of the Special Track on "AI for Social Networks, Social Networks in AI" is to attempt to fill a gap between AI and Social Networks. We are seeking submissions of papers that describe original results addressing issues such as (but not limited to) the following: * Where can AI tools bring a new dimension in social networks? Please note that the deadline for submission is October 22, 2004. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:48 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) phd weblogsI just revisited phd weblogs which is a collection of PhD students blogging. There are only 170 of us on there and i know that there are a whole lot more. So, if you're an academic blogger and you're reading this, add yourself there. And tell your friends. It's really fun to surf and find out what other folks are researching. Oh, and it's a great way of procrastinating when you've read PhD comics so many time that you have half of them memorized. Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 12:08 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (4) September 15, 2004Jimmy Carter at GoogleFormer President Jimmy Carter spoke at Google today. He came to speak about The Carter Center, a non-governmental agency that does amazing work around the world to help the poor and suffering.He spoke about human rights: the human right to be free, the human right to live in a good environment, the human right to be healthy, the human right to be alleviated from unnecessary suffering, the human right to live in peace. Human rights were the cornerstone of his presidency and he proudly boasted that during his four years, he focused on promoting peace - no guns were fired, no bombs were launched, no missiles were dropped. We saw a film of the great things that the Carter Center has done and he spoke of his work at Habitat for Humanity. He answered questions from the audience. My favorite was when a Googler asked how he dealt with problematic or hostile governments - he responded with "their governments or ours? ... it's a lot easier to deal with their governments." ROFL. (For Joe.) One Googler asked him how to assure a democratic election this year. He spoke of how in Venezuela, they use digital election ballots but everyone got a paper ballot printed out that they then submitted in a paper system. Thus, people were assured that their vote was identical to the digital system and there was a backup to be counted in case of trouble. ::sigh:: It's going to be an interesting election. He spoke about how essential understanding other people were and encouraged Googlers to get involved in the poorer regions of their communities, to understand the people that provided services to them. All and all, it was a bit odd. I got to shake his hand, i got to listen to amazing Democrat rhetoric with well constructed progressive framing. And yet, we all knew that he was there because Google(rs) have just made a lot of money and the Carter Center wants Google(rs) to donate. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 4:20 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) Digital Street GameThe baby of Michele Chang and Elizabeth Goodman, formally known as fiasco has finally been fully born. Please welcome Digital Street Game into this world! Digital Street Game is a hybrid game of misadventure set on the streets of New York. It's a battle for turf, a contest of wills - in short - an excuse to explore the city. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:49 PM | TrackBack (0) Don't Think of an Elephant: Blogging Lakoff's classFirst, Lakoff's new book Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives was just released today on Amazon. It's co-authored with Howard Dean and Don Hazen. Second, since so many people have been curious about Lakoff's class, i decided to create a blog that would document the class. I've added the class notes that Mary and i have written as well as the additional documents that we've read for the class. This should be a great way for folks to follow along in the class, or at least partially. Category: politics
Posted by zephoria at 9:44 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (2) September 14, 2004be a poll workerThe 2000 Presidential election woke many people up to the inequalities of elections - will your vote be counted? This year, there are thousands of lawyers on both sides ready to donate their time to making certain that everyone's right to vote is protected (just as there were thousands of lawyers in NYC during the RNC). The freedom to vote and the freedom of speech and the right to protest should not be abridged. I expect everyone to vote. But i would also strongly encourage you to get involved in the politics of the election. Register to be a poll worker (SF click here). Polls usually have a hard time getting people to staff them and this is where some of the worst limits on the right to vote happen. The average poll worker is 72; they are usually not technologically savvy (even though most poll machines are now electronic). Even if you aren't working, go to the polls and observe the practices that are occurring; report anything fishy (1-866-OUR-VOTE). And of course, if you can, consider traveling to places where voting is more likely to be abridged. Category: politics
Posted by zephoria at 2:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) milgram's subway experimentThe NYTimes has a revisiting of Milgram's subway experiment. This is a classic experiment where grad students were told to go onto NY subways and ask passengers to give up their seats. A surprising number of them agreed to do so, but what was shocking was just how traumatic it was on the students to even ask this question, to break the social contract. Category: fun links
Posted by zephoria at 1:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) September 12, 2004Joel on the Social InterfaceWhile i was off galavanting in the desert, Joel on Software wrote a stunning article called It's Not Just Usability. In a nutshell: When you're writing software that mediates between people, after you get the usability right, you have to get the social interface right. And the social interface is more important. The best UI in the world won't save software with an awkward social interface. Of course, i may be completely biased on this topic since i've spent the last n years focused on the importance of the social interface in computer-mediated-communication (broadly speaking). Anyhow, read the article - he's dead-on. Category: social software
Posted by zephoria at 11:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (6) September 9, 2004e-admitFor those of you who were addicted to Group Hug, you've gotta check out e-admit. Users submit some sort of admission, often with a poll following it. Readers can then vote on their admissions. [Sorry Scott for a new addiction.] Category:
Posted by zephoria at 1:29 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) diarying bad for your health?"Keeping a diary is bad for your health, say UK psychologists. They found that regular diarists were more likely than non-diarists to suffer from headaches, sleeplessness, digestive problems and social awkwardness. I wonder if blogging/online journaling differs from diarying in this fashion, given that writers have an audience. Do they still get caught in the cycle? Category:
Posted by zephoria at 7:02 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (3) September 8, 2004vote or notJim and James have a sweepstakes going to get people to promise to vote. Check out Vote or Not And dammit, if you're eligible, make sure you get out and register to vote. There's no excuse to not participate. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 1:35 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0) burntWhat a goofy weekend. Last year, i went to Burning Man and left on Friday evening, emotionally destroyed and needing to get off the playa. I decided to finish out my week on the playa. On Wednesday, two of my dearest girlfriends came over and dreaded my hair. On Thursday, i dropped my car off at the shop and picked up a rental, determined not to playafy my car and deal with more breakdowns in Sparks. Ironically, they were out of compacts, economies, standards, intermediates, etc. so they gave me a luxury sedan that looked like a Jaguar. I felt like a pimp. On Friday, i went to the Exploratorium for a great meeting on education and then picked up a bunch of coax cable for friends on the playa and headed east. I arrived on the playa, dropped off the coax and other supplies that people were craving and wandered into the night. I saw friends, i danced, i checked out cool art projects. More importantly, i saw the best temple i've ever seen. Last year's temple was a joke to me - it felt anything but spiritual. But this year, oh this year. I danced through the night of the Burn, finding new muscles and loving every moment of it. I found peace from last year staring at the burn of the temple. And then there was clean-up. I spent all day Sunday and all morning Monday cleaning up the camp - pulling rebar, lifting boxes, tearing down the shade structure. I spent an hour searching for a member of our camp who failed to show up after the temple burn. And then the drive home. Gotta love when Denny's is full of playa. It's hard to share what Burning Man meant to me this year, but it was very personal and i'm so glad that i went. Of course, i had forgotten that my flight to the east coast was on Tuesday so i was quite startled when Orbitz called to remind me. And now i'm off on the east coast with some friends in an interesting intellectual conversation. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) September 1, 2004from having an outlet to being a whoreIn the discussions on the Friendster firing, someone noted that i do not blog about my work. I found my nose crinkling and i thought i should explore that. In the last 7 years, i have never signed an agreement with any company or organization that forbids me to blog. Or at least, i do not believe that i have. That said, i have often opted not to blog about the work that i do for companies. I take contracting gigs in part for the money but in part for the intellectual exercise. I usually respect the companies that i work for and realize that they are working in a competitive market and have hired me to solve a set number of problems, not simply broadcast their strengths and weaknesses to the public. There are two types of blog posts i typically make about products: rants and theoretical considerations. I still post the theoretical considerations because it's often possible to generalize them beyond a particular product. The ranting is usually what i stop doing. Rants provide two roles for me. First, they let me vent my frustration. Second, they give me the false hope that i might affect the product somehow remotely. (Note: Friendster paid absolutely no attention to my critiques, thereby dashing this hope.) When i work at a company, they give me mechanisms to rant and additional insider knowledge to rant with. Why should i bother to rant to a public unknown audience when i can go straight to the creator's cube and chew their ear off? The advantage of the public option is to see if others (dis)agree. But seriously, the cube method is far more effective. I think it's great that people seem to find value from my blog/rants, but the most noticeable impact to me has always been 1-1 anyone. Once i've gotten out a rant, i feel no desire to actually re-articulate it for the public. Note: this is why my publication rate has dropped dramatically as my blogging rate has increased... warning for the other academics out there. Pay me to speak and i'll happily craft a theoretical and critical analysis of whatever. But when it comes to blogging, i have no desire to be expected to comment on my work or whatever the latest trend is out there. Nor am i ever remotely amused when people write me emails asking me to comment on their product on my blog or provide free consulting about how to fix some theoretical snaffoo. I hate being expected to do things because i've done them before. Expectations kill the passion. This blog has been the product of passion for 7 years. I can be convinced to operate without passion when other needs are met (like rent money), but it's not really my preferred way of living. I almost stopped blogging a few months back because i was tired of the expectations. Seriously, if i could give any feedback to readers, it would be lay off, chill the fuck out and don't expect/demand things from the writers you're reading. For me (and many of my friends), blogging is an exercise of love, not an effort to meet an audience's needs. Having to face expectations every time i go to my blog makes me feel absolutely disgusting, like i've become some sort of blogging whore. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:07 AM | Comments (24) | TrackBack (3) |
Incessant repetition is infinitely entertaining for children and sleep-deprived, hallucinating workaholic adults. Thus, it gave me much joy to re-introduce 