Yearly Archives: 2005

in defense of BoingBoing (or why i’m not a journalist)

Last week, i posted a link to a news article about a high school banning blogging which Cory reposted on BoingBoing. In turn, Phil Gyford critiqued BoingBoing’s journalism and Clay worried about about the way memes spread. The commentary on Gyford’s post is rich with anti-BoingBoing attitude (as well as some very interesting dialogues).

So many aspects of this collection of material bother me. Embedded in all of this is an assumption that what any of us bloggers do is journalism. I, for one, am not a journalist and have no desire to be one. In the case of the post in question, i put it up there for my own reference and because it references the ongoing paranoia that people have about kids and blogging, questions of its educational value, etc. I don’t care one ounce about the truth value of that article – i simply care about the fact that people are talking about this, journalists feel the need to report on things this way. I’m not trying to be a reporter so much as i’m trying to document things that are of interest to me.

Truth be told, i hate writing, yet i write for a living. That said, blogging is not what i consider to be my writing. My writing comes in very formal structures, goes through peer-review and takes forever to reach its intended audience. My blog is my little land of ponderings, ideas, links, rants, etc. Much of what i write there is inexact at best. But it’s my zone, my tool of procrastination and documentation. I even take Many-to-Many more seriously than my blog because at M2M, i feel like i’m producing text for an audience (and it’s why i blog there much less frequently). On my blog, i’m writing it for me and those who might get a kick out of it. I don’t want to be told that i have to live up to journalist’s rules simply because i have an audience. I’d rather the audience go away than be expected to have to do something with that blog. The blog is for me and if it became a responsibility, it would go because the last thing i need is more responsibilities. Besides, me trying to make meaning about my life is neither of journalistic or academic caliber.

This connects deeply with what i think Cory and Xeni are doing (i don’t know the other BB people as well). They are blogging the things that matter to them. “A directory of wonderful things” is not meant to be a universally agreed upon notion of wonderful. Cory and Xeni’s posts are clearly what’s most wonderful to them. Thus, it absolutely kills me to see people bitch and moan about BoingBoing, as though it’s written for them. What makes BB special is that many of the quirky things that those characters blog are also appreciated by others. But it’s not about the readers, it’s not about journalism, it’s about what matters to the writers. Y’know what – i’m not interested in everything that they have to say either. But it’s their blog and i just skim past the things that don’t matter to me. And of course they don’t have open comments – no one wants to manage self-important audiences who bitch constantly. Yuck. It’s not about not wanting criticism – goddess only knows that they get plenty of that all the time in every form imaginable. It’s about not wanting to have everything you write be attached to constant negativity intended to make you miserable.

Perhaps i’m in a funny position because i know and love Cory and Xeni. Sure, they’re quirky characters and that comes through in their blogging. And yes, they have passions that border on obsessions. Sadly, i realize that the way people are treating them looks a lot like how people treat celebrities in this culture. And, honestly, that’s pretty sick.

I guess what it comes down to is that i don’t really understand why readers of blogs expect so much from bloggers. I know that i struggle with this and i know that it makes some of my fellow bloggers utterly irate. Why do people expect blogs to be journalism? Why do readers expect bloggers to be attentive to them simply because they read? This causes me excessive amounts of guilt. I literally do not have the time in the day necessary to respond to all of my email or to talk to everyone who approaches me because of my blog. It makes me cringe to be called a bitch because i can’t do it and i get so frustrated because people expect something from me that i can’t offer. People think that having an audience of people you don’t know is a blessing, but it’s also a curse. And i don’t know how to resolve the good and the bad in an easy way. But when i see people say horrid things about Cory and Xeni, it makes me sad because i know how much that stings. What motivates people to say these things? I mean, sure, i could go meta on the psychology of humanity, but that’s not good enough. It’s the difference between knowing and _knowing_.

::sigh::

the scent of history

I breathe in deeply and the scent of bonfire fills my nostrils triggering my lips to curl up just slightly. A tear of memories rolls down my face and the chords of “Both Hands” pulse through my body.

After realizing midday yesterday that i was mentally exhausted, i decided to join friends up north at this place called Slide Ranch. After a beautiful drive on Rt 1, i landed at this magical place and it was like flashing back in time to the days of Watermyn. Music in the air, communal veggie food, very hippie style (in that good way). After dinner, folks sat around a bonfire which had a big metal tub on top of it – the hot tub. The ocean lapped up on the shore within sight. I laid on a hammock looking up at the stars and watching the planes approach SFO. With guitars out and collective vocals strong, Ani’s voice emerged and i thought back to the days when Erin would play Ani for me on the piano when i came home.

There was something so calming about that world – a kind of peace that i had forgotten in my city rat lifestyle. Organic farming, permaculture, live music, natural fibers… things i believe in from the depths of my soul but have gotten lost in my material culture that is so heavily mediated. What does it mean that those roots are fading? ::sigh::

son kite (on finding heaven)

So, i’m supposed to exercise yet i’m always too exhausted to exercise (mostly cause exercising is boring). And i want to socialize but i have no time to socialize. I decided a few weeks ago to combine these two by making dancing rules. I can go dancing iff 1) i only leave the dancefloor for cigs, water, bathroom; 2) i maintain a constant sweat (which translates to staying in the psytrance room); 3) talking is done through body movement; 4) drinking is prohibited.

Last night was round 2 of this plan and it went brilliantly. I went to bed after work, woke up at midnight and went over to 1015. My *FAVORITE* DJ duo in the whole wide world was in town – Son Kite. I went straight to the front of the audience, parked myself in front of the stage and danced danced danced my ass off. Now, Son Kite is the music of my Master’s Thesis. When i was working on that darn thing, i only had one CD after having all of them stolen. So i played it on repeat for the bulk of the duration of my thesis writing. The music is brilliant – it’s what happens when you have classically trained musicians play psytrance with the goal of making genuinely beautiful sounds.

That said, the CD pales in comparison to Son Kite live. OMG. Not only did i get my dance on, but i got to find a meditative peace that i haven’t seen in a long time. I was totally on a different plane, relaxing into the beautiful sounds. The most amazing sounds come out of them when they start playing electric violin. Wow wow wow. For anyone who has any appreciation of electronic music, you must see them live if they come to town. I brought out DnB, breaks and goth kids last night and they lurved it – a rare thing.

I came home, physically exhausted and proceeded to work all day. Exercise truly is a good thing.

techno-ethics (what is “evil”?)

We can all come up with ways to justify even our worst behavior. This is why i’m always a bit wary of “don’t be evil”-esque mantras. Evil on what terms?

When i heard about WordPress’ questionable practices, i couldn’t help but sigh. I totally agree with Waxy’s request that we not engage in angry mob justice. That said, i’m very concerned that folks are justifying, defending or explaining Matt’s decision (ex: 1 2). He is a nice guy – i totally agree. And perhaps we should all be very defensive of nice guys who are friends or friend-of-friends. But he did fuck up. And he did use our collective social capital for his personal gains.

I don’t want to talk about should’ves but i want to talk about what ethics we are promoting and what happens when we drag companies/enemies through the coals for similar behavior.

There is a value in our community that transparency rules. Of course, few of us live up to that value either professionally or personally. We protect our own interests regularly. Yet, we yell and scream when others do the same… unless they are our friends. This has a name – it’s called “team face” (see Erving Goffman). Yet, when team face occurs, the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ get clearly defined. It’s not such an open community when we are engaging in team face. This is an ethic that we must consider.

We all want to make a living (and some of us want to get rich). A mouse-over Erving Goffman’s name makes it very clear that i will make some small amount of money if you purchase his book. Explicit advertisements on blogs lets you know that others are making money off of this practice. I consult and i don’t tell you (my blog readers) everything that i tell certain companies. Of course, we begrudge people for this. And we lynch companies for asking users to pay for currently free things (think of the Six Apart fiasco). There is selfishness and self-interest all-around. Yet, what’s the balance?

The problem that i have with Matt’s decision is that he used community resources (reputation) to engage in a practice that i find despicable for his own gain under the justification that it would be good for the community in the long run if WordPress grew. There’s no doubt that WordPress is a great product but it’s a product built on open source and that’s why the community likes it. They like it for its transparency, for its code of honor that flies in the face of big companies. What upsets me is not that he simply engaged in selfish behavior (because we all do) but that he used the community’s reputation to do so. We had no ability to say “not in my name.” This is the “benevolent” dictatorship problem.

What’s worse is that we all pay for it. Social technology works because of social norms to be honorable. Pagerank works because most people do their best to be honest. And those who don’t are considered spammers. What does our community have to gain from any effort to usurp pagerank? I would argue that we have much to lose. Folks may not like Google’s pagerank system but do you remember what search was like 5 years ago? Google changed most of our lives and perhaps a new iteration is necessary but it should not be done through foul play. That’s a terrible way to innovate.

I think that this situation requires some deep reflection on all of our parts because i suspect that our defensive reactions make us look hypocritical as hell. What kind of community of technologists do we want to build? What ethics do we want to hold onto? Do we have collective values? How are we going to collectively encourage those ethics? How are we going to react when social contracts regarding our collective ethics are broken? I hope that we can get out of our defensiveness and really think about what this implies for all of our endeavors. We all fuck up and i’ll be the first to forgive Matt. That said, i think that we should all take this situation as a lesson and really think about and discuss what does it really mean to be ethical and socially responsible in a technological environment. Let’s learn from our mistakes and that of our peers.

Sixfoo! 660

Sixfoo! 660: “Finally, a way for social networks to stay connnected to other social networks, and meet interesting social networks like yourself.”

Look at their sample page; they mock many of the main social networks out there with fabulous photos and descriptions based on stereotypes (LJ=goths, Orkut=Brazilians, etc.). ::giggle::

Schiavo, Lakoff and my wishes

When i first learned of Schiavo’s case, my first instinct was to document my desires. For the record, i don’t want to be on life support. Period. If i’m in a lot of pain, i want enough morphine to kill me. I want to be cremated. Nothing horrifies me more than living by machine, being kept alive to meet someone’s whacked ass selfish values justified through abusive uses of religion. I want to face god when the time comes, not be kept alive just because it’s possible. There is beauty in life and beauty in death – they go hand in hand and i have no fear.

So, Schiavo died today which gives me great relief. It is her turn to meet god and she should’ve been given that opportunity 15 years ago. What horrifies me is how her life has been manipulated and used by the most conservative forces for some pretty selfish gains. Of course, everything about it is horribly conflicting. The same agendas who are against universal health care are for keeping people on machines infinitely rather than letting them die in peace. Once again, we’re back to Lakoff. Yeah, it makes sense on that level, but it sure as hell pisses me off. And i’m really cranky for how much the media has taken the conservative side.

A friend of mine, Sascha Becker does a really good job of reading the Schiavo case from Lakoff’s perspective. She highlights an aspect that has been forgotten lately: Schiavo’s eating disorder and how her battle with bulimia resulted in her severe brain damage. It makes the whole situation all the more ridiculous as we’re still incapable of talking about the issues at hand – control and domination. ::sigh::

liquidate: the end of 43 Norfolk

When i moved to San Francisco, i quickly got involved with False Profit because of friends from college. FP consists of a lot of overeducated, workaholic party kids. The community had a homebase, a warehouse at 43 Norfolk. After the death of the landlord, it was sold and the new people want to move in. Thus, we are losing our space in 2 days.

As can be expected, we threw our final party this weekend. Friends flew in from around the country. 850 people showed up before we locked the doors (probably another 300 came to try to get in but we were at capacity). It was a miracle that the cops did not shut us down – perhaps they knew it was our final party… or perhaps it was our security people. For me, the party started Friday when a bunch of us got together to prep the house and just hang out. Jeff Heer helped me put together a network exhibit using his Prefuse to visualize the Friendster-based social network of my crew and their friends. We started dancing at 10. By 8AM there were still 250 people on the dance floor. When the music ended around 11AMish, there were still 60+ people dancing their asses off. As it soaked in that it was the end of an era, we gathered in a circle… there were tears. And then there was hottubbing to ease the sore muscles.

I love that warehouse to bits and i’m really sad to see it go away. I’m still not sure what it will mean for our crew. Of course, many are splintering off to go back to school. And there is a new smaller live-only warehouse (no party space).

At least we went out with style… A full-on crazy liquidation.

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paying to get it, or why people charge $10K

A few years back, i got utterly irate with a friend when he came back from a cult-esque finding yourself seminar. He was convinced he understood the root of all his problems – he had acquired true insight in this program. “Oh really?” i asked, “tell me what you learned.” He then proceeded to tell me things that i had been telling him for years. I wanted to stomp up and down screaming. He hadn’t listened to a damn word i’d said for years but when he paid money to listen to some experts, he suddenly got it. This was the same story with all of my friends and their shrinks – they’d listen to the shrinks tell them exactly what their friends have been saying for years. Only they paid their shrinks (or their insurance did).

Now, a few years later, i have more appreciation for how he got it. Yes, it was about being in a situation where he could hear it, being open to being vulnerable. It was about having “experts” guide him through. But, still, i’ve never gotten over the fact that it took paying a self-help expert to finally hear things that he’d known and his friends had known for years. Why on earth is that revolutionary?

Lately, i’ve been watching this happen again, only in the work sphere. People come back from this obscenely expensive conferences with revelations. My eyebrows get all furrowed and i’m like, yes, i’ve been telling you this for a while now. And i’ve even been writing it down. Publicly. Still, there’s nothing like going to an event where you’re expected to learn and learning, simply by being open. But why on earth can’t people be more open to all forms of knowledge that come to them, not just the ones that they pay dearly for to hear the “experts”?

Part of why this bugs me is that i think that the “experts” (self-included) are overrated. Even when i take on that foolish role, i’m usually exaggerating to make a point, to be heard. And how does one get declared an expert anyhow? I know plenty of people more knowledgeable about a lot of topics than the purported or wheeled around experts. Ah, social networks.

My mentors are always telling me that i need to charge a ridiculous dayrate to be seen as an expert, to be listened to. As much as i would like to make more than student wages, i find this absolutely absurd. I used to make $4.85 an hour and i lived on that – the idea of making $100 an hour seems absurd, yet my friends tell me this is far too low to charge. I almost choked when i found out that one of my mentors charges $10K a day. What on earth can we say that’s worth $10K??

But i think that my frustration is the answer… it’s worth $10K because that’s enough to make the business people wake up and listen, to make them actually pay attention. And that’s why certain conferences cost $5K – people take them seriously at that rate – they actually want to make something out of it. (What does that say about conferences that i go to where people throw a hissy fit when the cost raises from $60 to $75? Ah, academics, how i do love thee.)

Still, as much as i can recognize that this is how the system works, it feels so ludicrous. Sometimes, i’m convinced that i truly do lack the balls to play this game. How on earth do i overcome that if i want to be heard? How do i actually transmit knowledge without having to be an expert ::cough:: pundit? Or is this a system that i really want to support and encourage? What does it mean to walk away from it?

initial impression of Yahoo 360

Today, Yahoo invited a handful of “influencers” to have early access to their new product 360 degrees. Apparently, i’m one of them so i got to sit around a table at Yahoo, learn about the product and speak my mind. I have to say that i’m impressed that Yahoo folks wanted to hear all of our crankiness head-on rather than waiting for it to appear in our random ramblings online. Even better: they didn’t make us sign any NDAs so we can blog all we want. I lurve that.

So, the tool comes out in like a week. I don’t know how final the version that we saw today is, but i thought i’d offer some impressions based on what i saw since i know folks out there are curious.

360 will be invite-only but they are not seeding through employees, rather, they are seeding through active Yahoo users. This is actually very important because frankly, 360 isn’t meant for people like me (or like you). It’s meant for your average not-technically inclined individual who is scared of blogging but wants to share their thoughts, photos, and recommendations with their friends. Thus, before we all get into a blogizzy, it’s important to remember the target.

The feature set that i saw included integrated YIM, a blogging tool, a recommendations engine (linked to local), photos (linked to Y photos, not Flickr) and a social network. It’s all very integrated and emphasizes Yahoo products (although they were talking about connecting it with other products and they are doing some RSS stuff). Throughout all of this are heavy controls for privacy/publication, although it is all strict categorization schemes where you can make things available to groups (think: LJ).

Of course, it has all of the social problems of bi-directional, articulated social networks (nothing solved there). And the controls are really overwhelming. In fact, a lot of the product is overwhelming for the not-technically-savvy and i think that this will be their major problem unless they figure out how to slowly expose things (one of our strongest recommendations). For the techgeek, it will feel like they didn’t go far enough, didn’t have enough features, etc. That’s actually a lot easier to solve than the overwhelming problem and i expect they’ll build new features soon so i think that the techgeeks should wait. But i’m really worried about the novice user because it has many of the problems of blogging, privacy and social networks rolled into one big problem. Plus, you really need to be heavily integrated into the Yahoo network for it to really make sense.

Frankly, i think that they should take the word “blog” out of the picture entirely. While the service allows you to share your materials with layered groups of friends, the term ‘blog’ is intimidating to the mainstream who see it as publishing or otherwise uber-public. Since Yahoo isn’t requiring uber-public, i think that they should get rid of the term. We’ll see what happens.

I also think that it makes much much more sense connected with photosharing and i really wish that they would wait on this product until Flickr is connected with them – there’s going to be so much overlap and confusion 🙁 Plus, while there are huge problems with Flickr’s system of privacy management, there’s a lot that they have going for them interface wise. For example, you don’t have to click stupid edit buttons – you can edit while consuming. This is soooo cool. I wish more folks would have fun with javascript.

Anyhow, my general impression is that i’m wary, but i don’t think that this is for me and i think it will be nice for the heavily integrated Yahoo user.