You are who you know is a great article on the current state of social software, framed by Marc Canter’s collecting of friends. Of course, apparently, i’m a ubiquitous pundit. Not sure how i feel about that.
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.
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.
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?]
[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.
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.
On Friday, NewFangle will be doing its big opening with some fantastic artwork from some great folks (including my friend Spot Draves).
Also on Friday, my friend Ben Chun will be spinning at to help support TrueDemocracy.US and JustVote.org
And on next Tuesday, there will be a benefit for Kerry at Sno-Drift (1830 3rd Street).
It’s time to get political.
I will (most likely) be speaking at four different events this summer, some of which may be relevant to folks:
Supernova – June 24-25, Santa Clara (CA, USA)
CMU Alumni Panel: “The New Phenomenon of Social Networks: Social, Commercial, and Political/Civic Implications” – July 22, Mountain View (CA, USA)
BlogOn: The Business of Social Media – July 23, Berkeley (CA, USA)
American Sociological Association – August 14-17, San Francisco (CA, USA)
[Note that staying in California thing!]
If you do the business thang and want to hear me discuss what’s relevant, Supernova is probably best. If you want to hear the academic side, ASA. If you want to hear me discuss with other thinkers, BlogOn. If you want to hear me discuss with business folks, CMU Alumni Event. If i drive you nuts, why are you still reading?
I just got back from seeing The Corporation. It should be opening in a theatre-near-you this summer and you *must* see it. OMG. It’s a complete unpacking of the current corporation culture in which we reside. Coupled with getting to hear Lakoff speak again today, i’m in land of deep thought about the corporate/political regime.
The opening segment of the movie explains how a corporation is treated as a person in legal statute. Yet, by applying the DSM-IV to the corporate individual, a clear diagnosis emerges: psychopath. Consider these symptoms of a psychopath:
– Glibness/superficial charm
– Grandiose sense of self-worth
– Need for stimulation, with a proneness to boredom
– Pathological lying
– Conning and manipulating behaviors
– No sense of remorse or guilt
– A very shallow emotional affect – they display emotions they don’t really feel
– A lack of empathy for others
– They are parasitic – they live off of others
– They are impulsive, and show poor control over their behaviors
– They tend to be promiscuous
– Their behavior problems start early in life
– They cannot form long-term plans that are realistic
– They are impulsive, and irresponsible
– They do not accept responsibility for their actions – another caused it
– Marital relationships are short, and many
– They display juvenile delinquency
– They violate probation often
– Their criminality is diverse
Damn, the NYTimes has been really compelling lately. And their apology about their coverage of the Iraq war makes me think i should re-acquire my subscription (i cancelled it because i was peeved with their coverage after 9/11).
Anyhow, over the weekend, the NYTimes ran an article on friends with benefits. It’s a fascinating article about teenage relationships and i really want to know how common the described practices are. I mean, if girls are really calling the shots about sex, what are the long-term implications? Damn that’s rad. If girls are calling the shots, will it help combat HIV? (Historically, male pressure to not use condoms has put women at great risk in hetero relationships.) And if a matter-of-fact attitude about sex is emerging, can we begin to be more serious about realizing that marriage is just a contract, not some hormone-driven fantasy about love? If this is actually true, what all falls out?
And is FaceTheJury facing the jury because of aiding and ebedding teens under the guise of an 18+ site?