I really liked this blog entry concerning the Esquire article on Friendster.

(Yes, it’s finals time.. that’s the level of thought going on in my head.)

So, i was a bit dazed after my exam today and i responded to my advisor’s query with a rambling spillage of the process my mind was going through in response to his question. I realized after i sent it that i had answered the question three times, differently, most undoubtably causing confusion.

He responded with this link “to help get me through a bad week.”

That made me giggle in that the world is bizarre kind of way. Sometimes, absurdity helps. Especially check out “Change.”

I love people who see the world as a bit peculiar and absurdist. Speaking of which, San Francisco election tomorrow. Y’know… i think it’s outright hysterical that the entire city is up in a tiff over a Democrat vs a Green. And what’s even better is that none of my friends would dare vote for anyone other than Gonzalez. I love San Francisco.

Ryan has been running statistics on his network on Friendster. (I’ve been meaning to do this, but he has far more patience than i.) “Friendsterwhore Institute of Statistical Trends (F.I.S.T.)” has run queries on musical taste, interests, sex, and a whole lot more. Based on 2,097,997 users, some of the simplest but still fascinating are:

• People who indicated that they were men: 862,398 (41%)
• People who indicated that they were women: 835,240 (40%) … which means that 9% weren’t really sure WHO they were…
• People who are “just here to help”: 327,533 (16%)
• People who are looking for activity partners: 932,953 (45%)
• People who are looking for friends: 1,339,616 (64%)

• People who are looking for a date with a woman: 394,641 (19%)
• People who are looking for a date with a man: 298,385 (14%)
• People who are looking for a serious relationship with a woman: 289,652 (14%)
• People who are looking for a serious relationship with a man: 216,602 (10%)
• People who are single: 1,067,620 (51%)
• People who are in an open marriage: 48,444 (2%)

• People whose name is “Kevin Bacon”: 33 (0.002%)
• People whose name is “George Bush”: 28 (0.001%)
• People whose name is “Jesus Christ”: 147 (0.007%)

Continue reading →

I’ve got my head buried in texts for finals and i realized how valuable one of my pieces would be for many technology creators, HCI folks and the like so i thought that i’d share it:

Grint, Keith & Woolgar, Steve. 1997. Configuring the user: inventing new technologies. In Grint & Woolgar, The machine at work: technology, work, and organization (pp. 65-94). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

This article addresses how technologists configure the user. In other words, what expectations do creators build into the technology and what are the implications when the users do not view the technology from the same perspective. It’s a great article, teasing out why you can’t expect users to do what you want them to, and why you shouldn’t.

Technologists should *listen* to what their users are doing, not try to educate them to do what they want them to do when they give them feedback. When users are having difficulty doing something, it’s not because they don’t get it, it’s because they read the technology in a different way than intended. Given feedback, the responsibility of a technologist is to try to see why this misperception occurred and try to fix the technology to shift behavior. Simply telling them that they’re wrong won’t do much good.

In response to my post on turtles, Joi posted about badgers. And then today, Xeni posted about bunnies, uncommon creatures, kittens, sheep, teddy bears, lemurs, and monkeys.

Dear me oh my… animals everywhere.

For all of you Ani DiFranco fans, “Swim” (a live version) is available at iTunes (as are many of her other songs).

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.

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.

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.

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.