School is back in full-swing and my classes and professional interactions are colliding in fantastic ways. I’m taking a group study on sociological social networks, a class on search (mostly guest lectures from key figures in the big search companies), a reading group on participatory media (with Xiao Qiang and visitor Howard Rheingold), and a reading group on identity and storytelling (with visitor Quentin Hardy). Outside of classes, i’ve already gotten into fascinating conversations about everything from the nature of the public to Web2.0 and academia (notes coming soon). The Macarthur project on digital youth is underway and we’re negotiating everything from ethics of human subjects to how to get good data from teens.

In professional land, i’m having a blast at Yahoo! as the socio-technical research gets underway. Plus, Yahoo! hired a friend of mine from the Media Lab – Cameron Marlow. I had totally missed the east coast way of debating everything to smithereens so it’s nice to have someone around who thinks i’m full of shit 99% of the time. Other people that i’ve read and respect also keep popping up at Yahoo! making meetings utterly fascinating.

On a more personal front, i’ve decided to try living alone (well, with feline) for the first time in my life; this is going to be a fascinating experiment. I’m not sure that Marbellio is prepared for this plan and she knows that something is up and feels the need to continuously meow at me – i think she’s more social than i am.

Honestly, life is good and i feel completely spoiled. My biggest challenge is that writing is still brutally brutally painful and i feel like i’m swimming in molasses as i try to finish book chapters and a book proposal.

Of course, because life is good, my workaholic-ness has soared to a new level. I’ve decided to force myself into one social activity per week. This week, i will be going to see Ray Kurzweil at the Long Now talk series. Long Now rocks for bringing in fun speakers and i had a blast at the Jared Diamond talk. I’m quite fascinated by Kurzweil and The Singularity is Near is on the stack of must-read books for this fall, if for no other reason than i always find his ideas push me to think (usually in the process of disagreeing). I will reserve my critiques until i read the book but i figure that the lecture will be a good soft introduction. Hopefully, i’ll see some folks there!

In 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.

Alanis 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
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

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
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

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.

Last night, i went to the Mad Scientist’s Club at Squid Labs. It was mostly a collection of MIT geeks showing off new things they had built or talking about ideas for things to build.

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.

My favorite story of the evening came when Saul and gang were discussing rope that they made for Sound and Rope. Apparently, a man from Thailand approached them. He made CDs of music that elephants made. He wanted them to build him a rope structure that would be a harp for elephants.

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.

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.

It’s 4AM and i just took the N to Wonderland after my last night in New York before heading out to a week with my family. I can’t even begin to exclaim the glory of taking a vacation, the preciousness of laughter and late-night conversations. I feel so thankful for my life and genuinely refreshed. Of course, i’m really wary of diving back into the life inside the machine.

There’s no good way to sum up my trip so perhaps a photo will do:

::giggle:: Really, Thailand was about daily Thai massages, my first acupuncture, private yoga, meditation, temples, one evil jellyfish, fasting and a hell of a lot of beach. I stayed at a place called The Sanctuary on Koh Phangan which is utterly glorious for anyone looking to chill out in Thailand at a non-pretentious resort.

New York has also been filled with chilling goodness too, ranging from goofy nights in the Ye Olde Carlton Arms Hotel (“a riot of visual cacophony”) to a day spent with mermaids and Clay’s little boy to getting kicked out of Washington Square Park in “the city that never sleeps” (ha! things do close!). All amongst amazing company, seeing old friends everywhere and finally getting to meet a fellow troublemaker. Oh and pizza and bagels and Belgian frites. I love New York sooo much.

The weird thing is that i don’t really miss my computer life. I don’t miss the OCD hypertension, the time spent zoning out with human contact coming in bubble form locked in my room. Roaming the streets, human synchronicity, adhoc exploration, walking my ass off, doing yoga… it has been so lovely to interact with people constantly that my computer feels so cold and blogging feels so remote. I love being back to intellectual engagement with friends but i do not miss email one bit. I wonder if it’s possible to just give up on email entirely, to just turn it off. Hmmm….

Anyhow, i still felt the need to blog re-entrance even if i’m still not responding to anything sent my way. ::wave::

I will be gone from May 29-July 3. I’m off to Thailand and then in New York with my family (with a conference in there). Email has been shut off. My normal email addresses send a bounce message before proceeding to /dev/null; the ones for mailing lists, blogs, random mail, etc. go straight to /dev/null. I have no intention of blogging and i’m not taking a camera. It’s time for yoga, meditation and beach. I intend to relax to the best of my ability.

Have a great June!!