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« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 » July 31, 2005i came, i went...
Things got a little strange for me at the end. I was supposed to introduce the keynote speaker, Caterina Fake (Flickr). Caterina was supposed to speak about Yahoo! and what they're doing in the social media space. (Yahoo! was a featured sponsor of the conference and the keynote position was given to them; they nominated Caterina to speak.) Due to an unexpected family crisis, she wasn't able to come at the last minute. So, instead of introducing her, i ended up doing a brief ad-hoc explanation of why i am consulting for the Yahoo! Research Labs-Berkeley, briefly explaining Jeff Weiner's FUSE model - Find, Use, Share, Expand (see Supernova notes and Weiner interviews ). I do genuinely believe that Jeff gets it and i love his model so i was happy to represent his mission, but it felt a little strange to be speaking as an insider when i just got my contractor badge 3 days ago. So trippy. The point is... i was there.. it was fun... and i'm really really bad at writing up notes about what actually happened. Mostly, i had really good conversations and it was really invigorating to hear different perspectives and have conversations that i haven't had over and over again. (And now, i'm in a strange hotel in the middle of Michigan where i'm going to have to miraculously remember matrix algebra before tomorrow so as to not embarrass myself in front of a professor that i admire. ::gulp::) Technorati Tags: blogher Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 8:17 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) July 30, 2005@ Blogher
I have to admit that the beginning conversation really got to me. There's definitely a lot of frustration and anger here, frustration over the purported authority of the men in blogging, anger over the validation that the mass media gives them. So there was a lot of airing that negativity. That's hard to hear. Some of it, unfortunately, was lacking facts. One issue came up over the fact that women don't network. Well, that's bullshit. Actually, women are traditionally the maintainers of domestic social networks. They tend to network more than men. The gender difference concerns the style of networking. Men are more likely to gather many weak ties; women tend to work hard to maintain strong ties. Each have their value. But when it comes to technology like Technorati, there is a validation of weak ties over strong ties. Or more actually, there's an assumption that all ties are created equal, which inadvertently validates the weak ties over the strong ties. My argument here is that we need to pay attention to the network structures. If folks are angry about their position in some purported hierarchy, they need to understand how the hierarchy works. And then change it. I'm not interested in having separate networks; i'm interested in making certain that people understand the gender bias they build into the network and that it represents a diversity of perspectives, is flexible to deal with a diversity of social structures. Anyhow, it's a fascinating place to be. I'm not going to be good about blogging this conference so definitely watch the links on Blogher.
Technorati Tags: blogher Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 11:41 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (3) July 29, 2005what everyone should know about blog depression
To give you a sense, the first page asks what blog depression is. Some symptoms include:
Definitely take a look at it - i'm super curious what others think of this. Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 3:24 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) A Psychiatric Clinic for Abused Cuddly Toys ROFL - Check out The Asylum...Psychiatric Clinic for Abused Cuddly Toys. OMG - the introduction is hysterical. And then you get to act as the psychiatrist for the abused cuddly toys. (Tx Judd) Category: fun links
Posted by zephoria at 1:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2) July 28, 2005if a backchannel exists in the woods....I'm sitting in a cafe trying very hard to frame blogs in Ong's terms and ignore the conversation next to me but i can't. A woman is loudly talking, using her hands for emphasis; the man next to her is leaning in and nodding and uh-huhing, saying confirming statements every few minutes. They've been talking this way for a long time. She's analyzing another woman, critiquing her view of the world, her actions, her attitudes. She's looking for validation, offering stories to keep this guy paying attention. Finally, wrapped up in their conversation, i IM to Barb about it; she's sitting right next to me, pretending to blog but mostly chewing on her pen. I find myself analyzing her analyzing this other woman. Barb notes "you realize - we're the backchannel for their conversation." And we both laugh. My conception of backchannels is so biased by the primary discussion around it, whereby backchannels are a second front channel, a known presence of people with computers. Do they know that we are their backchannel, the meta on their meta? What does it mean that a perspective on their conversation is being recorded for posterity, only they will never know it. Or will they? What happens when strangers recognize digital records of their physical traces? Ah, secondary orality. I'm fascinated by moments when people don't realize the bridge between the digital and the physical. My techno world is far too always techno. You know anything can and will be blogged. But the rest of the world doesn't. As Barb notes, "it's no different from any other meta-gossip." So what does it mean to blog about it, to meta meta it, to meta it beyond any realization of gossip? There's a koan in here somewhere. Technorati Tags: backchannels Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 6:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) July 24, 2005fandango - never good to goFirst off, fuck Fandango for not working on my Sidekick. But given that failure, i figured i'd try 1-800-FANDANGO. It's all voice commands. So the first time, i screw up the voice system by answering the driver's question instead of Fandango's question and it got so confused that i hung up to start over. Second time, i told it i wanted to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" instead of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the IMAX Experience" and it wouldn't let me back out to correct it and it got very irritated with me for wanting times that weren't available for the regular theatre. Fine. On try three, after answering something like 14 questions through voice (or through my keypad when possible), i reached the "would you like to confirm?" part. I said yes. It told me it could not understand me. I told it yes more emphatically with as much enunciation as i could muster. It told me it did not understand me. I screamed yes into the phone and it told me it couldn't understand me and that i should try back later. AND THEN IT HUNG UP. First, yes is the answer to a binary question. Why can i not enter the answer into my keypad? Second, let's be honest, voice recognition software sucks ass. At least Sprint lets me scream agent before i make a voodoo doll out of Claire. And while not everyone is on the texting bandwagon, why not at least allow that option? I can bank money that i could SMS my request much more efficiently than articulate it to some broken Eliza. Or at least let me key my responses when you can't understand me. Nothing makes me want to use your service less than to have you hang up on me. Fandango drives me absolutely insane because it's one of those applications that should _just work_. Black box style. Especially if you're a monopoly on the Metreon. What i really want is to be able to attach my mobile number to my Fandango account, which has my credit card stored. I want to be able to send a text to request movie time information. And then i want to be able to order my movie tickets by SMS and receive a confirmation on my phone, charged to my account. Is that so hard? (PS: with tickets purchased by a friend, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the IMAX was utterly disturbing. In that "i kinda feel gross but i kinda like it" kinda way.) I just wish i could figure out who Willy Wonka reminds me of. Someone from my Media Lab days. Technorati Tags: fandango Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 11:38 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) July 23, 2005social networks and drug networksRule #1 for studying social culture: pay attention to the sex and drugs. When it was reported that Orkut is being used as a drug networking tool in Brazil, my immediate response was duh. I have interviewed subjects who distributed cocaine in Baltimore via Friendster. (To my knowledge, they were never caught which makes it different than the situation with Orkut.) Other subjects have told me ways to find drugs on Tribe.net and MySpace. Obviously, i am not willing to disclose how or who. But this is definitely not unique to Orkut nor to social networking in general. For example, in college, people used to buy drugs on eBay. Give people the ability to distribute information and they will distribute drugs. Tis just as obvious as if you give people access to attractive people, they will date. So, i find it very entertaining that people get up in arms about this. Category: yasns
Posted by zephoria at 11:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (4) issues in quotation and citationI know that i should love human subjects boards, but i have to admit that they are my least favorite aspect of doing research. My biggest complaint is that they do not understand the dynamics of doing research online. Thus, i've spent far too much time discussing what it means to be an ethical researcher of online material. One issue that always emerges concerns citations. As a researcher, you are required to respect the confidentiality of your subjects always. Yet, when you are quoting online material, you can easily throw the quote into Google and find the original source, revealing the person behind the quote (or at least their handle). While this topic is frequently discussed in conversations about ethical research, it is clearly not a lesson that everyone has learned. In The New Nanny Diaries Are Online, the author thinks that she is being discrete, referencing her nanny anonymously. By throwing the quotes into Google, you can find the nanny's blog. This is particularly interesting because it gives the nanny a chance to respond in her own words. This is an interesting dynamic and one that i'm curious about in the context of research. What would it mean if subjects of research could respond to the analysis of their practices? Historically, anthropologists did not make their analyses available to subjects because it was assumed that the subjects could not understand the analysis. Personally, i've always been of the mindset that publications should be explicitly made available to all subjects. Yet, i have taken the elitist position that i know more and while i should listen to disagreements, i should still publish what i wrote if i still believe it after the disagreements. What would it mean to bring the subject more actively into the conversation, letting them out themselves as they see fit? What if the subjects want to be referenced explicitly so that they _can_ refute my claims? (Based on Alex Halavais) Category: academia
Posted by zephoria at 1:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) some transparencyIn an effort to be transparent, i feel the need to note that i resigned from Google today. I very much love Google and Blogger but i reached the point where my talents and their needs no longer aligned in productive ways. I can't say i won't be back, but for now, it doesn't make sense. That said, i will really miss everyone there. I have also decided to accept a temporary consulting gig with the Yahoo Research Labs Berkeley to work alongside my friend and co-teacher Marc Davis. Before anyone gets all conspiracy on me, this decision is not in spite of Google. I still love Google, but i feel as though i am better off consulting for a research lab right now and the direction of Yahoo's is 100% in line with my interests (and hell, most of my department is there). It also makes more sense for me to take project-based consulting gigs than to broadly advise within a company. For better or worse, i've never been good at loving a company and hating its competitors. I strongly believe that there are strengths and weaknesses to both companies and that their products make sense for different populations. I prefer the meta-structural perspective to the cult perspective. So i can't say that i suddenly hate Google and love Yahoo - i respect them both and i see them as very different. So, even though i'm sad to be leaving Google, i am excited to work on entirely new problems and think about entirely different populations' needs. I am also excited to see a tech company that makes sociable products create a research division meant to understand social issues. For good reason, more and more companies are hiring anthropologists and sociologists. Because there is very little known about social/tech, these internal social scientists can help address problems specific to the company; when it comes to social technologies, developing an innovative algorithm means nothing if you don't get the social issues right. I wish more tech companies would realize that they need social research more than technology research these days. Anyhow, as always, i won't discuss internal affairs on this blog, but i believe in reflexivity and i believe that it is responsible to be transparent about who puts food on my table so that my biases are known. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 1:12 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) July 21, 2005Privacy is a PrivilegeHey, all of you privacy fanatics, take a look around. Ever stop to wonder why most of you are straight, white and male? It's kinda obvious if you stop to think about it. Repeat after me: privacy is a privilege. Not a right. Look at the first four letters of those two words: "priv-". Duh. They come from the same root. When i saw this comment on one of my posts, i wanted to scream: "Everyone has an absolute right to privacy and marketers have an absolute right to (attempt to) generate revenue with those who step out of their privacy and into the public domain." Historically, private space came about with the onset of public space. There is no right to privacy historically or now. Private space is also not guaranteed to be a safe space. Look at issues around domestic abuse. There's a reason that the law got involved in domestic issues - a woman is not a man's property in either public or private space and society has a duty to protect her regardless. Guess what? Just as we have a duty in society to protect people in private space, we have a duty to protect them in public space. We don't allow people to violate each other when they walk out into the street simply because they chose to step out there. Why should we let institutions do so? What gives marketers some special privilege to determine how people can be psychologically manipulated in society? The topic at hand has to do with youth. What youth have private space? Sure, your children might have their own bedroom with a lockable door and their own computer. How common do you really think this is? Youth are traditionally a population devoid of any privacy freedoms whatsoever. They have no private space. They move into the public arena to be relieved from the ways in which their parents or school authorities can dictate their mobility and communication. This is not an invitation to manipulation by marketers. I'm tired of engaging in arguments about privacy with anyone who has not read Habermas' Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Please read it and after finishing, read Warner's Publics and Counterpublics. Dammit, if privacy is important to you, read these and then let's talk. But don't tell me about the right to privacy until you understand the historical trajectory of privacy and think about how marginalized populations. It's not so utopian cut and dry; privacy is a privilege that many people in this world would die to have. Technorati Tags: privacy Category: privacy
Posted by zephoria at 5:54 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack (1) why podcasts need DJs (kudos to Fake Science)When i went to see War of the Worlds, i spent most of the film trying to crawl into my mothers' lap because i *hate* scary movies. As i tried to calm myself in the theatre, my conscious mind told my reactive mind that it's just the music and if it weren't for the scary music, you'd just think that watching Tom Cruise was as fun as watching fratboys. Try watching the opening scene of Apocalypse Now without the audio - it's an entirely different movie. Music matters and movie folks know it. Film is not the only place where music is put to use to help tell a story. For example, NPR uses sound for many of its pieces. As much as the music between the segments on NPR can annoy me (because they have dreadful taste), they also help the transition and place the listener into the mood to hear the story. There's an art to putting together an audio production and it's not the same as just talking talking talking. When i realized that a DJ friend of mine put together a podcast, i was curious enough to actually revisit my ban on podcasts. I was floored. Fake Science's The Lab Report weaves interviews and music. They pay attention to the entire sound of the podcast, focusing on transition and creating breaks in the speaking by reviewing different music. !Plus! they have brilliant music taste so each transition includes some heavenly dub, downtempo or ambient music. In listening to their podcast, i realized that podcasts really need DJs, or at least people who really understand the flow of sound. There is an art to sound design. While we all learn how to write in school (and some of us enjoy it more than others), we're dreadfully ill-equipped to produce persistent, asynchronous audio without conversational feedback. Far fewer of us know how to turn audio (or video) into an art that really communicates what we're trying to convey. And listening to someone's awkward speech is worse than reading someone's arbitrarily vomited words. While Fake Science definitely is focused on the topic of music, i would strongly encouraged everyone interested in podcasting to really think about how they're transitioning their thoughts. Talk to a DJ or sound designer, add some sound bits in an intelligent manner. I don't really care about the music industry but i can listen to an hour of Fake Science, unlike most podcasts. And the reason is simple - they make the transitions palatable, they pay attention to how the entire podcast sounds. Technorati Tags: podcasting Category: audio
Posted by zephoria at 2:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) AIM FightOne of my favorite articles is Cobot in LambdaMOO: A Social Statistics Agent. After people complained that the robot was learning about the community but not giving back, it was programmed to answer questions about the statistics it gathered. Things spun out of control because people found out that they were less cool than their friends. Competition ensued. It's a classic case of why statistical information about social hierarchy is not always so good for community or relationships.
(Tx Joe) Technorati Tags: AIM Category: instant messaging
Posted by zephoria at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2) July 19, 2005"as much fun as a party full of bloggers"
(Thanks Cas) Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 2:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1) "There are seven words you can't say in kindergarten..." "Nat Torkington, noted children's auteur, creates an updated list of the words you can't say in school. It's beautiful, salient, and screamingly funny." -- Quinn Category: youth culture
Posted by zephoria at 2:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) July 18, 2005MySpace -> News Corp.I've been waiting for a mega-media company to buy MySpace and sure enough, it happened. News Corp bought Intermix Media (the half-parent of MySpace). Unlike the other YASNS, the value of MySpace comes from the data on media trends that is the core of what people share on that service. You have millions of American youth identifying with media and expressing their cultural values on the site. Marketers who want to understand the constantly shifting youth trends are often looking for a perch from which to be the ideal voyeur. And with MySpace, they found it. Here, youth are sharing media left right and center and forgetting that they are doing so under the watchful eye of Big Media who are certain to use this to manipulate them. Because youth believe that MySpace is a social tool for them, they are not conscious of how much data they're giving to marketers about their habits. Really, it's a brilliant move for News Corp. (assuming they can stay out of the courts and that the RIAA is nice to them). I'm just not so certain how good it is for youth culture. Technorati Tags: myspace, yasns Category: myspace
Posted by zephoria at 1:48 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1) July 16, 2005Which evil nation state are you? (similes for Microsoft, Yahoo and Google)OK, i can no longer resist posting this even though it's not so very nice. In a moment of snarkiness, i was thinking about how to frame the perceived attitude of the three big search companies: MYG (Microsoft, Yahoo, Google). By thinking on a global landscape and thinking about empires, i decided that you could draw similes between each company and powerful nation-states in the 20th century. Yes, it's a crude and rude model drawing off of stereotypes to build caricatures. But it is kinda funny. I was trying to resist posting this because it feels so inappropriate, but why should that stop me?  Microsoft is Germany. They did some pretty evil things a while back but you don't remember the details, you just know that you really hate them. Even though they're really no worse than any other large corporpation/country, you can't help but distrust them permanently because, well, you always have. Yahoo is Japan. It had an economic crisis that almost destroyed it and it plays too nice with all of the other evil empires, supporting the most evil endeavors. It hasn't really innovated for a while, but it tries to improve on known products to support average people. It's currently trying to sell culture in the form of animated cutesy iconic images which you kinda like and kinda despise. Google is the United States. It has never seen trouble on home turf. It is arrogant and loved by the elite. You know you're supposed to respect them for being better than everyone else, because they think they are, but you actually kinda resent them for being so rich and powerful. Yet, you really like their cool toys. Note: This post is meant to be humorous in that way when you make fun of things which are intimately a part of your life. I have much respect for all three companies and while parallels are drawn that sting, it is meant in jest, to poke at the issues of how attitudes by each company are perceived. I also know that this post can be read as xenophobic because i draw on stereotypes of different powerful nation-states. With both the companies and the countries, i am not saying anything about the employees/residents - this has to do with corporate and historical brands, not with the actualities or individuals. I tried to draw parallels that were equally dismissive and offensive of each company, so don't think that i'm aiming for one company in particular. I do respect all three companies and countries, even when they (as institutions) make a fool of themselves. In fact, i work for Google because i respect Google. But in any case, i figured you'd enjoy these caricatures and tear them to pieces (or at least critique the hell out of them). (And thanks to Barb for the image!) Update: The comments are *fantastic* - make sure to read them and play along! Technorati Tags: humor, microsoft, google, yahoo Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 1:12 PM | Comments (39) | TrackBack (12) Jared Diamond on Collapse
The talk was fantastic - he discussed how societies collapsed in the past, using a set of case studies to analyze different factors. The emphasis of the talk was on how societies who use up all of their resources fail. He spoke of Easter Island (which deforested itself to cannibalism and eventually extinction) and the natural experiment of Haiti vs. Dominican Republic. Amidst all of the stories of failed societies, he discussed how Japan saved itself from deforestation and extinction. Throughout it, he kept making jabs at our current political state and how we are (globally) headed to a very very bad place. At one point, he rattled off a set of possible statements that the Easter Islanders might have said when they cut down the last tree. I can't recap them perfectly, but they were hysterical... something like "well, there might be tree elsewhere that we don't know about yet" and "science will find an alternate to trees shortly" and "God gave us these trees for our own use" and "this is my property, i have the right to do what i want with my own trees." We all giggled nervously. One bit of data really got to me. He said that there is a dreadful drought going on in Australia right now and Sydney is rapidly using up its water reserves. He argued that Australia has 12-20 months to figure out its water solution or things are going to get really bad. I don't know how true this is, but it really hit home. And why do Southern Californians water their lawns? Anyhow, the lecture was really stimulating and it was sooo fantastic to see so many familiar faces out even though most of my friends were turned away. Unfortunately, while Diamond identifies as a cautious optimist, suggesting that we can learn from this situation and right it, i don't have that faith in systems of power. I think that we are more likely to self-destruct than to wake up and rid ourselves of our blind faith that everything will be fixed. But then again, i always did believe that man is basically evil, much to the chagrin of my 9th grade English teacher. Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 1:03 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) July 15, 2005politics of breathing
All of this made me absolutely fascinated with Kelly McGonigal's The Politics of Breathing: Still Liberating Women, After All These Years? I wonder if the computer is my contemporary corset.... Category: academic
Posted by zephoria at 5:02 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) July 14, 2005my queer dyke cuntI officially feel like an angry dyke because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has deemed my identity "vulgar." In denying "Dykes on Bikes" a trademark, the attorney decided that 'dyke' is offensive, scandalous and vulgar. I love how people in power are allowed to regulate the self-identification of marginalized populations. Don't they realize that we've spent generations trying to take back the terms that they have used to oppress us? These are *their* terms and we've reclaimed them. Now they're ours. And since they are now ours, they can oppress by regulating them. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Update: i'm an idiot and forgot to thank Jason Schultz for keeping me abreast of all this. And bless him for being willing to go to bat for us crazy dykes. Technorati Tags: queer Category: gender & sexuality
Posted by zephoria at 9:50 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack (2) July 13, 2005you live, you learnAlanis Morissette performed in Oakland tonite, revisiting Jagged Little Pill on it's 10 year anniversary. Aaron managed to snag front row center seats, allowing me to view her every facial expression, every emotion while i vividly flashed back. In 1995, my cousin handed me a copy of Jagged Little Pill, telling me that i would like it. It hadn't been released yet; he had a review copy. I put it in the tape player and it got stuck, where i left it on repeat play for over six months. So many things were connected with that album. The beauty pageant. My neck. The party. But more than anything, there was Clark. Tears rolled down my face as Alanis sang "Perfect" and i flashed back to learning of his death, running out the house in hysteria and jumping in my car, speeding down Oregon Pike until i spun out in the ice, crying Alanis lyrics intermittently combined with screaming, car in the middle of the intersection. I saw him there, remembered his voice and our last conversation, remembered the night when he hid in the dark waiting form me to come home from work, grabbed my hand to place a sleeping River in my palm. We all had our reasons to be there It's amazing to realize that we carry our pasts with us always and the little triggers quickly collapse all temporal distance. Within the sadness, i felt so much joy listening to her, realizing that i too am ten years older and her words were in the past for both of us. You live you learn Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 12:21 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) July 12, 2005yo chicas! (and allies)BlogHer is almost sold out. The folks who have organized it have done an *AMAZING* job bringing together diverse interests and approaches to blogging, all with a woman's flare. I'm really stoked to gather all of my friends to think about blogging from a different perspective. I really hope you'll join us! (And for those who don't know, male allies are more than welcome.) Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 5:08 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) you gotta fight... for your right.... to bloggggg(y)!
I will be a panelist at the EFF's BayFF on Bloggers' Rights on July 19 from 7-9:30PM at 111 Minna with some other cool cats. I have no idea what on earth we'll be addressing (well, blogs and law and whatnot, duh) but i'm sure it will be fun so come out and play! (Oh, and someone *soo* needs to (re)mix the Beastie Boys for the EFF folks. ::giggle::) Category: blogging
Posted by zephoria at 4:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) July 11, 2005manuscript submissionIn case you're bored, check out the McSweeney's post on a Hardy Boys Submission. It includes great editorial comments like: Page 60: We encourage including Nancy Drew in the adventure as it represents great cross-marketing with our other adventure series. We would think it goes without saying, however, that she would not have, nor even contemplate, surgical enhancement. Please delete all references to her "killer rack." (This is all ab's fault for helping me procrastinate.) Category: procrastination
Posted by zephoria at 4:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) "bloggers need not apply": maintaining status quo in academiaIn the questions, Ehud asked about the state of social software in the academy. It can probably be summed up as paranoia vs. panacea. Of course, this applies to social software with or without the academy involved. Research into how social software is being used is very raw, very new. It's hard to give meaningful reports because, mostly, people are just experimenting, not researching. That said, it's great to see the personal experimentation because it's the first step to research. All the same, social software paranoia is definitely hitting the press. The Chronicle of Higher Education published an essay entitled Bloggers Need Not Apply. Anonymously, a humanities professor from the Midwest discusses how blogs were received during the hiring process. I agree with him in parts, but i think that his argument fails. The reason that your blog matters is because it is part of your "brand" and you get an online identity by writing to mailing lists, writing blogs, commenting on things, etc. And yes, it's disturbing that we're moving to a culture of individual brands but that's always been true in academia. In academia, your brand is this aggregate of your eccentricities and expertise. I do think that you can soil your brand in any public or semi-public environment. This is why you put on a particular face during conferences, at dinner with like minds, etc. Certain institutions have more tolerance for eccentricities than others. My guess is that the Midwest humanities department has virtually none. But find me a prof at MIT that is not quirky as hell. In fact, i think that "normals" would be upsetting there. Academia does not have one consistent personality trait and potential faculty have to find an institution where they match, not just in terms of research, but in terms of personality and passions. In turn, quirky students seek out quirky places and quirky research happens at quirky places. There is no doubt that all faculty searches include a Google search. Hell, i searched all applicants during mine, not just the narrowed candidates. One of the things i hear most frequently about our new hire is how disturbing it is that he doesn't have a web presence. Something must be wrong, right? Everything that we could find about him online was accidental, not controlled. Abstracts from conferences, posts to academic Yahoo Groups, etc. You worry about people like this, particularly in the more technical realms. I feel badly for the students at the authors' university. Any institution that expects people to stifle their quirks is oppressive in many ways. Of course, it's probably good that faculty find out that they could not get along with a person before they are brought on campus - saves both groups the headache. But i worry about institutions that point blank exclude anyone who doesn't spend their lives trying to suppress quirks - institutional identities should emerge as the aggregate of the quirks, not the suppression of them. Homogeneity is not what students need and certainly not what knowledge production needs. I do wonder how my blog will be received when i apply for faculty positions. Or how my tendency to dress up in bright colors, dread my hair and talk with my hands will be seen. But seriously, if i start wearing suits, remove all piercings and pretend not to know what Burning Man is, i might make it past a faculty hire, but would i ever make it past tenure? Of course a "fuck you, like me for who i am attitude" is not necessarily the most attractive thing either. And besides, i'm definitely past my most rebellious anti-establishment days. What it comes down to is that i have to believe that some of the meritocracy of academia is partially there, even if not entirely. I have to believe that if i do good work, my eccentricities will be less problematic, just as the stupid things that i said on Usenet in the early 90s are less visible in my digital performance thanks to my verbose tendencies. But seriously, what's the point of telling a bunch of potential academics that they need to be homogenous, unquirky and unlikely to rock the boat? I'd bet that "Ivan Tribble" is trying to protect current PhDs, but he's also supporting the status quo. Herein lies the greatest tension to the future of academia - be proud of the quirks and fight or go for status quo to be tolerated. Update: Some amazing folks have commented on this article and others need to read what they've said:
Definitely read other academics who think this is utter bullshit and are cranky with the Chronicle for printing such foolish paranoia. Category: academia
Posted by zephoria at 11:39 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (6) July 10, 2005happy birthday dear officer...Last night, i attended a renegade party buried in San Francisco. We could see the road from our location, but the road could not see us. When we saw cop car after cop car drive by, we knew it was over. But still, as they stopped, we crouched down, climbed trees, hid behind bushes. The officer climbed the hill with his flashlight, shining it on people. He got to the top where he realized there were at least 150 people there. "Oh. My. God." was the only thing he could mutter. And he kept repeating it. In response, someone jumped up and yelled "Surprise!" at which point everyone jumped into singing "Happy Birthday" to the officer. His eyes were wide with shock, jaw still slack. He was too stunned to be forceful, but he made it clear that we needed to get off this land. So as we filtered out, we eached passed by the different officers, all of whom were muttering in shock at how this many people could possibly get past security onto this land. As i walked by, i apologized for the inconvenience. He just looked at me with shock. Here was a large crowd of certifiable (primarily) sober adults, with no teens in sight throwing a ?rave?! ::gasp:: He mumbled "no problem" in response. Poor guy probably had no idea just how this could possibly happen. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 11:17 AM | Comments (36) | TrackBack (3) July 8, 2005instantaneous informationHow did you first hear of yesterday's tragedy in London? Where did you search for more information? I asked random friends these questions yesterday, techies and non-techies. Given timezone differences, many of my friends woke up to the radio telling them about it. Others heard because they peruse mainstream news sites with their coffee. Over and over again, i heard people express frustration when they tried to search in Google/Yahoo for more information. There was none; it was too new. Even the BBC barely updated. I remember this feeling from 9/11. Knowing that somewhere on blogs, there was information. Knowing that people took photos. Knowing that names of survivors and victims had to be listed somewhere. And having no place to look. When the tsunami hit, a blogspot blog became a central focus for people trying to get information. But that blog still took a couple of days. Then again, it was a different kind of horror. What amazed me was how my technical, blogging and tech-comfortable friends converged on three sites: Technorati, Flickr and Wikipedia. (The non-technical stuck to the mainstream news and called folks.) The front page of Wikipedia linked to the article that people collectively used to provide information. On Flickr, many photos were collected into community pools, TV images were photographed, and there were press folks asking permission to use different photos. On Technorati, the front page clearly showed that everyone was searching for information on London. Technorati saw traffic spike to 45% over regular levels. Historically (::cough::), we turned to the TV for up-to-the-minute news of major events. Yet, today, we are finding that this is not enough. We don't simply want the packaged reports of terror on auto-repeat. We want to know the functional details and have the ability to track down loved ones, narrow in on particular aspects of the situation, and hear from people on the ground. We want real voices, not TV-ified ones. The web allows people to be present across geographical location, to communicate directly rather than through the media, to actually access each others' experiences instanteously. Now, if only the search process was simpler... Category: social software
Posted by zephoria at 3:45 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack (0) making harps for elephants
One idea that i really liked concerned the breaks of bicycles. As you slow down to stop at a stop sign, the bike would store up energy in a rubber band so that when you were allowed to go again, you would zoom off, allowing you to stop without losing too much momentum.
Mostly though, i enjoyed the social part. I was surprised to find that i knew folks there from three different facets of my life and it was such fun to be back in MIT creativity zone. It's been a long time since i built anything. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 3:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) July 6, 2005"Zits" on mobile phone culture
Category: social software
Posted by zephoria at 2:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1) July 5, 2005ready... aim... fire! (answer to Ross)In the questions entry, Ross jokingly asked for me to summarize the period in which i was gone. I actually think that everything about humanity can be summed up in the first event that i heard about upon returning. On July 4th, a NASA projectile successfully intersected with a comet - a "smashing" success. A Russian astrologer became hysterical. Can't you just see it? A bunch of NASA boys sitting around stoned off the gourd imagining what they could do for fun. "Dude, i know! Let's shoot the moon." "No, dude. That's too easy. We need to shoot something moving." "Dude! I know dude! A comet! Let's shoot a comet!" "Dude!!!" The result? Probes and projectiles engaged in "deep impact" conveniently placed in the newspaper next to the latest news on "deep throat." And really, probe or no probe, it's basically an aiming mission, the million dollar version of the bulls-eye target practice in boys' bathrooms. As my friend at NASA pointed out, the impact is equivalent to throwing a penny at a 16-wheeler. And can't you just see the NASA dudes' faces when a Russian woman started screaming about the deformation of her horoscope? "But can't you seeeeeee? Nature is defenseless against your masculine ejaculations!" Some things never change but they do continue to amuse. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 10:08 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0) answersIn case you were curious, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is still 42. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 9:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) July 1, 2005do you have questions for me?So, I return to work on Tuesday. I haven't read many blogs in two months but when I last did, I remember there being concerns that all of us were getting boring. Talking to Clay in New York, I think there is some truth to that. We repeat ourselves over and over again. I, for one, have zero desire to be a broken record - I do that enough as is. So let me ask you - what questions would you be excited to see me address? What is burning in your mind? I haven't read a lot lately (well, lots of trash fiction) so feel free to point me to different topics and ask me to respond. I figure this might be a good way to get caught up. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 4:07 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0) |
I thought of Cobot when i saw 
Last night, the 
I first noticed my bad breathing habits when i went scuba diving. When everyone was ready to emerge, having depleted their tank of air, i still had half a tank left. I also notice that my reaction to someone disrupting me working on my computer is to take a deep breath. Do i breathe when i'm virtual? I certainly don't remember to eat, pee or blink so i kinda doubt it. 
Last night, i went to the 
My favorite story of the evening came when Saul and gang were discussing rope that they made for 