Monthly Archives: June 2004

library software and bibliographic tools

In the post-finals reconstruction of my life, i acquired a new bookshelf and reorganized all of my books into genre-specific clusters that make sense to me. I updated my excel spreadsheet of all books (and where they were lent). I mentioned this to a friend who suggested that i check out Library and now i’m frustrated.

There are so many things that i want a library tool to do for me, but keeping tabs on the purchase price and condition aren’t amongst them. In fact, these categories make me twitch. I’m a hoarder and my conditions are very personal and sentimental (“strawberry stains from best friend’s trip to France” are amongst them). There’s something psychologically tormenting about knowing that a tool could be made to suit my needs, but that it’s not worth the effort of converting from Excel because the actual tool for my purported use provides no advantages (and simultaneously reminds me that i don’t collect games or care about design-driven normative values about books like worth… although i did declare all of my rare books for my renter’s insurance). The secondary frustration is knowing that i could build such a tool for myself, but am too lazy and justify it by telling myself that it’s not a good use of my time or hands.

So, instead i’ll whimper and note my top two feature desires in case i get around to it later or in case anyone else is planning on building such a tool or in case i’m just clueless and don’t know of something else out there.

– Auto-fill from author name and/or title, not ISBN. How many people search Amazon based on ISBN? If i had that information, i would already have done the Amazon search. Make a good guess. And make multiple suggestions. And if you’re wrong, i’m probably just learning about a book that i needed to know about anyhow.

– Let me construct a bibliographic reference from it. The amount of time i spend manually creating bibliographies is horrid. And i never get them right anyhow.

falling out of love with RSS

I had an love affair with RSS. When we found each other, it was as if we were meant to be together forever. Our passion was strong and intense. But as our relationship settled, new truths emerged. Our critical tendencies got the best of both of us and we found the faults in each other and pushed them until they hurt. We found each other wrapped in a difficult, abusively addictive relationship. At the peak of our insanity, we were spending 6 hours a day together. It was not healthy and thus we decided to part ways.

In the separation, much was lost in the process of regaining self-control and stability. We had many friends in common; they are much harder to reach now. Just as in any breakup, there is a sense of losing one’s mind. I’ve lost touch with certain information flows, certain cultures. But i feel so much relief in finding that i am a person, to let down my addiction and to work on being whole again.

When we were together, i didn’t realize how one-sided my perspective on people was. Together, we only saw a limited segment of the world. After our separation, i have been able to return to my roots, to step back and find grounding.

I am certain that i will always long for the beauty of our relationship, but i will never miss the feelings of guilt for not engaging, the feelings of intensity overload the cruel pain of being a true information junkie.

[Note: just saw Doc’s post that RSS is opt-in authenticated email. I wonder if my RSS burnout has anything to do with my email burnout?]

The privilege to not fight

[I posted this entry on Misbehaving and i would love to have folks comment over there.]

Pete, the author of the blog entry that i previously critiqued apologized in the thread. I was going to address him in that thread, but i decided that it belonged as a general discussion for all readers here.

In a sexist society, men and women do not have equal voices. Men acquires a level of auto-privilege; they don’t have to fight to be heard. Women, on the other hand, are often fighting to be heard or must play into the cultural norms dictated by men in order to have a voice.

Pete argued that he was just trying to express his exasperation. I believe that exasperation must be deconstructed. What does it mean for a privileged individual to express exasperation over issues of marginalization? I mean, we’ve all thought “wouldn’t it be great if inequality just went away?” Goddess knows i’ve felt more than enough exasperation in my lifetime, including the exasperation over constantly fighting to have a voice and still not being heard or being misunderstood as my voice is translated by normative culture into something unrecognizable.

With privilege comes responsibility. It is my belief that a feminist man has a responsibility to refrain from expressing exasperation over this topic because that expression is a dismissal, that expression is an execution of privilege with continues the power differential. I believe that a feminist man has a responsibility to be hyper-conscious about how he throws his voice around, knowing that his voice has undue power. In other words, i think that a feminist man needs to also take on the burden of fighting that women have inherently.

Disagree. Discuss. I want to hear what people think.

email bankruptcy

Oh, do i understand Lessig’s circumstance. I made a decision that having a life is more important to me than getting to all of my email and blogs. It’s summer. I want to go outside. I want to have interesting conversations. I can’t do my work without having a life and i can’t have a life if i’m only working. I must strike a balance. I always think it’s a bit odd when people purport to be social scientists who never leave their office or cultural theorists who never watch mainstream media.

summer conferences/talks

I will (most likely) be speaking at four different events this summer, some of which may be relevant to folks:

Supernova – June 24-25, Santa Clara (CA, USA)

CMU Alumni Panel: “The New Phenomenon of Social Networks: Social, Commercial, and Political/Civic Implications” – July 22, Mountain View (CA, USA)

BlogOn: The Business of Social Media – July 23, Berkeley (CA, USA)

American Sociological Association – August 14-17, San Francisco (CA, USA)

[Note that staying in California thing!]

If you do the business thang and want to hear me discuss what’s relevant, Supernova is probably best. If you want to hear the academic side, ASA. If you want to hear me discuss with other thinkers, BlogOn. If you want to hear me discuss with business folks, CMU Alumni Event. If i drive you nuts, why are you still reading?

The Corporation – a must-see

I just got back from seeing The Corporation. It should be opening in a theatre-near-you this summer and you *must* see it. OMG. It’s a complete unpacking of the current corporation culture in which we reside. Coupled with getting to hear Lakoff speak again today, i’m in land of deep thought about the corporate/political regime.

The opening segment of the movie explains how a corporation is treated as a person in legal statute. Yet, by applying the DSM-IV to the corporate individual, a clear diagnosis emerges: psychopath. Consider these symptoms of a psychopath:
– Glibness/superficial charm
– Grandiose sense of self-worth
– Need for stimulation, with a proneness to boredom
– Pathological lying
– Conning and manipulating behaviors
– No sense of remorse or guilt
– A very shallow emotional affect – they display emotions they don’t really feel
– A lack of empathy for others
– They are parasitic – they live off of others
– They are impulsive, and show poor control over their behaviors
– They tend to be promiscuous
– Their behavior problems start early in life
– They cannot form long-term plans that are realistic
– They are impulsive, and irresponsible
– They do not accept responsibility for their actions – another caused it
– Marital relationships are short, and many
– They display juvenile delinquency
– They violate probation often
– Their criminality is diverse

friends with benefits

Damn, the NYTimes has been really compelling lately. And their apology about their coverage of the Iraq war makes me think i should re-acquire my subscription (i cancelled it because i was peeved with their coverage after 9/11).

Anyhow, over the weekend, the NYTimes ran an article on friends with benefits. It’s a fascinating article about teenage relationships and i really want to know how common the described practices are. I mean, if girls are really calling the shots about sex, what are the long-term implications? Damn that’s rad. If girls are calling the shots, will it help combat HIV? (Historically, male pressure to not use condoms has put women at great risk in hetero relationships.) And if a matter-of-fact attitude about sex is emerging, can we begin to be more serious about realizing that marriage is just a contract, not some hormone-driven fantasy about love? If this is actually true, what all falls out?

And is FaceTheJury facing the jury because of aiding and ebedding teens under the guise of an 18+ site?

I will speak until the death of gender inequality

My hair curled over a blog entry entitled Again with the “women and blogging” meme (in response to two entries). The tone is insulting, arguing that the topic of women and blogging has been done to death. It is precisely this kind of post that reminds me of how the blogosphere solidifies misogyny and prejudice rather than acknowledging that people are trying to process. Dismissing discussions about gender inequality permits the marginalized subjects to be dismissed.

There is no doubt that blogs can be clustered by gender, class, race and age simply by clustering based on subject or style. Guess what? Most knitting blogs are written by women and women make up the majority of personal blogs are written by women. Recognizing that style and topics are dividing factors, i’d still argue that the difference has more to do with audience relationships. How are people constructing expression for their audience? How are they seeking to attract/manage an audience?

Move away from the blogosphere. How many women do you know that seek to be heard concerning their political opinion ever anyhow? Proportionally fewer. Why? That’s a damn fine question. Men do not dominate the political arena; they dominate a certain aspect of the political sphere, and that’s often the most vocal. Go to Capitol Hill and you will see many fine women engaging in change. I remember asking my mother why she didn’t run for office; she told me that she wouldn’t want to put us through the ringer, having our past dredged up.

Marginalized populations have different issues at risk when they voice their opinion. And damn do you have to be strong when you have an audience who feels the need to berate you just because. That’s hard for anyone, but imagine how it feels when you look around and feel like you’re one of few, when you feel marginalized from the get-go.

Are women more protective of their stories than men? More protective of their voice? Do they have good reason to be? Cause damn it feels shitty to be told that your concerns are written to death.

[Also on Misbehaving]

voice recording device?

Does anyone have an MP3 voice recording device that they like? I was hoping to record into an iPod, but aside from my current pissyness with the iPod, i don’t think it can record using a standard microphone (which is essential for good quality interviews).

My needs are simple:
– good sound recording with microphone
– records at least 2.5 hours at a time, preferably much more
– straight to MP3 and easy to download onto Mac OSX
– compact and decent interface preferred

Anyone have something that they love and want to recommend?