Author Archives: zephoria

Fahrenheit 9/11

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is to appear in theaters next Friday. Say what you want about Moore (i certainly have issues with his work), but get out there and support the film. His battle to get it to theaters has been rife with censorship and unnecessary drama due to the radical anti-Bush content contained in the film. Supporting a film on opening weekend is a political statement; it says to distributers and the public that this movie matters so much that we are willing to put our dollars where our mouths are. For that reason, i believe that everyone should get out there next weekend, see it and make up their own minds. Do not let censorship reign.

anyone here from Singapore?

I’m utterly fascinated with the CaPiTaLiZaTiOn that i see coming out of teen Friendster profiles and blogs in Singapore. But i so desperately want to know more. Does anyone know?

1) How does this work? Do people use the shift key to get that or is it somehow built in?
2) Why is it used? What does it mean?
3) Who all uses it? Age, location, etc.

Stanley Milgram’s biography

There are two researchers who i think absolutely everyone doing social anything should know: Stanley Milgram and Erving Goffman. Thus, i was overjoyed when i learned that there’s a biography on Milgram (tx David). Many folks know Milgram for his work on small worlds (later called “6 degrees” by others). Milgram also developed a set of psychological experiments (written up in Obedience to Authority) that helped show how people will always follow any orders they are given and that those in power are so removed from the situation that they can demand horrifying tasks that will then be executed (think Nazis… or maybe a prison scandal). In some of his lesser known work, Milgram wrote about ideas like familiar strangers where people who recognize each other build up a very interesting social bond. Some of his short essays are collected in The Individual In A Social World

iPod fixed: why physicality matters

In the last episode, our heroine tried every idea presented by her kind audience, trying desperately to unlock her beloved iPod. To no avail. The telephone people said it would be $70 to answer a question. Our heroine was left in despair (well, not really, since a kind one from Apple volunteered to take a look at it if i could get to Cupertino).

On a lurch, our heroine wandered into the Apple Store, lured by the promise of an Airport Express (which won’t be in stores until July… foiled). She mozied up to the Genius Bar, drawn in by the big screens with interesting facts. After waiting as a poor man never managed to get his guitar to talk to his GarageBand on his particular machine, our heroine told the genius of her woes. He asked if she’d done this; she said yes and noted that she had done that and that and that. He was startled. He attached the iPod to his machine. No avail. It was closing time. He handed her a refurbished one and told her to be good to it. She was ecstatic.

To be noted: our heroine was also smiling because she overheard the best nugget ever from a random Apple employee:

… I had a different device from … oh, wait… err, i can’t mention them here.

::giggle:: I guess you can’t talk about competitors as an employee at the Apple Store.

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.