Author Archives: zephoria

presence in IM

I’ve seen this kind of post before.

E said that her instant messaging program lets her know when J’s computer has been idle more than a certain number of minutes, this being information she uses in her speculations about whether J is talking to, emailing, or having sex with the other woman.

I suggested the obvious: Delete him from the program.

She responded with the obvious: This is her only remaining connection to him.

But even the second time around, it’s really important to think about this relationship between two people and a technology. Presence changes behavior, allows new ways of interacting with people. Yet, what are the psychological and sociological consequences of this? Fascinating.

# of friends & popularity issues

Originally, Friendster listed who the most popular people were in your network. Quickly, Fakesters such as Burning Man and Ali G rose to the top and the community worked to push them there.

Due to the tribes component, Tribe.net has not had the dramatic number of “Fakesters.” Recently, they implemented a new feature that, at first past, seems to imply the same popularity contest. They indicate under every user’s post the number of Friends that s/he has.

A brilliant discussion by the users has emerged over this topic, revealing why this is not identical to the Friendster phenomenon.

Some Tribe users clearly note that they find it sketchy for a user to have either too many or too few friends. The former makes them look like they need to collect friends for some personal reason and the latter makes them look like they are too much of a lurker with no friends. Of course, the numbers are read in line with how long someone has been on the site and the reasons for which s/he is here.

It’s also utterly fascinating because it’s a conversation about users challenging how they are perceived, how they perceive, how they are configured, how they present their identity. It’s all done without the moderation or guidance of anyone – emergent reflexivity. Yummy – that’s the best.

NOT a sociologist, NOT a geek

I was telling my roommate about the various feedback i’ve gotten from folks in my different fields concerning the NYTimes article. I’ve heard sociologists say that i’m not a sociologist and geeks tell me that i’m not a geek. This isn’t news… i’ve been hearing it for a while. He reminded me of the quote that got me feeling like an imposter: “A sociologist among geeks and a geek among sociologists.”

::laugh:: It is true. The geeks see me as a social scientist and the social scientists see me as a geek. And of course this is the space i inhabit since i’ve never known how to stand solidly in an identity continuum, if only to prove that it is a continuum and that i can stand in the middle. Of course, i always feel like i’m ducking punches in the middle.

Life is quite odd sometimes… it’s amazing what pushes folks’ buttons. I think that i’m moving towards an absurdist view of life faster than i should.

drugs, drugs and more drugs

I don’t know what my friends were thinking today, but every article they sent me was somehow related to drugs. [Hmm.. is that a hint?]

Research Ecstasy is Clouded by Errors – they were testing methamphetamine, not MDMA

Snortable Spirits – snorting Vodka without the liquid creates a quick high… this very much cclouds the bridge between “alcohol” and “drugs”

Search Engines Limit Ads for Drugs but Ease Rules on Sex

So, basically, three articles… one about the politics of drugs vs. sex, one about the blurring of the boundary between alcohol and hard drugs and one about the illegitimacy of scientific studies on drugs. Glad to know that everyone’s boundaries are getting toyed with.

Continue reading →

what’s in a name…

Today’s worthless word of the day is “codswallop: nonsense, drivel; rubbish.” This made me look up wallop (the name of the MS project) and learn that it means “to hit with force; to thrash soundly; to beat by a wide margin; to move with reckless or disorganized haste.”

Sometimes, words just humor me… if you wallop with a cod, you get reckless rubbish that hits with a force. Hmmm…

Of course, i still like the fact that YAFRO stands for Yet Another Friendster Rip Off. Not nearly as eyebrow raising, and utterly to the point.

panic just set in

I’ve been in school all of my life. School has *always* had finals right before the holiday of the big fat white man in red adorned by the green guys in tights. The shrinking of the days is always aimed at finals. And as much as i pretend to prepare for that period of the year, i’m never prepared. And thus panic sets in. Panic hit today. The next 10 days will be hell.

graphic design is harmless, right?

Liz has a great article today on why graphic design is *not* essentially harmless.

All too often, technological/graphical designers have come to believe that they are working towards the *best* interface, as though there is a universal good. They fail to remember that design is culturally and politically situated. [If this is a foreign idea to you, check out some of the materials from Nancy Van House’s course – social construction of technology, configuring the user, bias…]

Love to Adbusters.

turtles all the way down

Today, i was reminded of a parable that means so much to me. I remember the roots as being Hindu, but Google seems to have a million versions of it, so i’m not sure of the details. (What on earth do you do when Google is internally inconsistent? ::giggle::)

“The world rests on the shoulders of an elephant.” “What does the elephant stand upon?” “The elephant stands upon the back of a turtle.” “And what does the turtle stand upon?” “Oh, after that, it is turtles all the way down.”

Infinite recursion, closed nonorientable surfaces. Everything is interpreted… interpretations built on interpretations. No beginning, no end. No eternal truth, only process. The perfect mantra for all of my techno-“soci/anthrop”ology discussions lately. Chew on turtles for a day and the world looks much more whimsical.