Oh, yay – Ethan Watters connected Urban Tribes and Friendster in a Nerve interview. Now, if only we could show the tribes….
connecting urban tribes and friendster
ubicomp, privacy and vulnerability
I wrote an entry for misbehaving on ubicomp, privacy and vulnerability, but forgot to link it here.
social construction of technology
I just posted an entry about gender, technology and social construction at misbehaving.net, a great little blog that i’m playing at these days.
gargoyle & friends
OK… my friends who are addicted to the little psychological tests so need to stop telling me about them, because they are the *perfect* procrastination tool.
You are Form 4, Gargoyle: The Fallen
“And The Gargoyle mended his wings from the blood of the fallen so he could rise up from imprisonment. With great speed and resourcefulness, Gargoyle made the world his for the taking.”
Some examples of the Gargoyle Form are Daedalus (Greek) and Mary Magdalene (Christian). The Gargoyle is associated with the concept of success, the number 4, and the element of wood. His sign is the new mooon.
As a member of Form 4, you are a creative and resourceful individual. You are always thinking of possible solutions to problems you face and you generally choose one that is right. Much of your success comes from your ability to look at things a little differently than everyone else. Gargoyles are the best friends to have because they don’t always take things for face value.
Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
playing with girls
I was out to dinner with my roommate and we were reflecting on Ubicomp. Apparently, there was quite a discussion amongst “the boys” about the presence of some very strong women at the conference. My roommate laughed as he recalled the discussion. At some point, he reminded these boys that this is what strong women looked like. For so long, strong women tried to fit into the boys’ world, tried to be like men. (I was there, i remember.) But now, there’s a whole new flavor of strong women. These women are not really feminine, not really masculine, but themselves. Their presence in the tech world is small, but powerful and they are fundamentally themselves.
As he described this, i smiled, thinking to the women that i know who can be described by this. It’s so refreshing to see powerful women be themselves in the tech industry, but it’s also terrifying. When we were following men’s example, our direction was laid out for us. Now, we are trying to make up our own mechanisms for survival, for getting validated, for having our voices heard. Without an example, we tend to flail a bit. We’re accused of playing too nice, of being too mean. Men’s world has defined the balance; we have yet to find ours. It’s this struggle, this confusion that still cripples so many of the women that i know.
There is no easy answer, no set philosophy. Yet, it is with this mindset that i’ve joined in on the team of women blogging at misbehaving.net, a blogspace where we can reflect on women & tech.
good links, for reference
GeekBox wrote twogood pieces on the social software space that i forgot to blog on.
Tribe Tips is an analysis of Tribe behavior, identity performance and discussion topics
Blogger = DJ questions whether or not a blogger is like a DJ, linking just as one would spin records
He also references Six Degrees Away where snarkout talks about Erdos numbers and the mathematics of connections
Are friends the key to privacy?
I’m With Stupid: How Having Friends Might Be the Key to Both Privacy and Identity is a great article by Robert X. Cringely. In it, he addresses what the key questions are when we talk about privacy and identity. He teases apart the difference between “is this accurate data” and “are you who you say you are.” He addresses both extremists. And finally, he suggests how spam and other privacy issues might be addressed through a friends of friend network. A good read!
Amazon was sent from the heavens
Older friends of mine gasp at the realization that i’ve never done research without the web. Yet, despite the web, i’ve always had one problem that has haunted me. Sure, i can read many computer-related journals and articles, look up any book and read anyone’s college essay on most topics, but there are so many books that i just stare at and scream grep.
Grep.
I just want grep to work on my books. Well, gosh darn, Amazon went and invented it. They were sent from the heavens i tell you. This will revolutionize the next generation of college students.
lakoff on voting with your identity
In “The Frame Around Arnold,” Lakoff (re)suggests that people vote their identity:
In ‘Moral Politics,’ I suggested that voters vote their identity they vote on the basis of who they are, what values they have, and who and what they admire. A certain number of voters identify themselves with their self-interest and vote accordingly. But that is the exception rather than the rule. There are other forms of personal identification with one’s ethnicity, with one’s values, with cultural stereotypes, and with culture heroes. The most powerful forms of identification so far as elections are concerned are with values and corresponding cultural stereotypes.
I don’t think that i agree. I think that they *use* their identity to vote, but they don’t vote their identity. For example, i used my identity to vote *against* a candidate in the recall and SF mayoral elections, not particularly *for* any candidate. In fact, i don’t identify with any of the candidates i’ve ever seen… i choose the lesser of evils. Most candidates represent a very small percentage of people. Certainly, some of the represent what people would like to one day be (and if your ideal is to be the Terminator, goddess help you). In the States, they vote Protestant Ethic style. But seriously, who in California really represents the Mexican community? Who represents the disenfranchised migrant workers (oh, wait, they can’t vote…)? And who on earth does Ahr-nold really represent? I’m sorry… but i don’t buy that he represents the strict father morality to most people.
That said, i really appreciate a lot of Lakoff’s arguments, particularly his deconstruction of the framing of the election.
Techsploitation
Annalee Newitz’s latest “Techsploitation” addresses reality RPG (role-playing-games) with a funny address to Tribe.net:
Yet another kind of reality RPG is Tribe.net, an uncensored online community that resembles Friendster in almost every way except for the fact that there is no autocratic dictator named Jonathan Abrams running the thing and deleting the accounts of people who freak him out. At Tribe.net you log in and create an identity for yourself, complete with as much or as little real information as you like. You can be an entirely fictional creation, complete with fake photos, or you can document your every little personality quirk, from a love of data mining to a predilection for farting quietly in movie theaters. The game of Tribe, such as it is, is to accumulate as many friends and tribal affiliations as you can. The more often you log in and post messages to tribe discussion boards, the more friends you’ll get and the more satisfied you’ll be. It’s like creating a group of Sims characters. “You” watch “yourself” moving around in a social space, and “you” interact with a bunch of other “people” in “rooms.”
Who are all these people on Tribe anyway? As if I were some wide-eyed social critic from the late 1980s, I find myself discovering once again that people are different online than they are in person. Shy people are eloquent. Sexy people are boring. I have two busy friends, whose presence I often miss in real life, whom I now get to see nearly everyday on Tribe.
“Wow, Jason and Liz are so cool!” I think as I read their Tribe posts. “I wish they existed in real life!” And then I realize they do exist; I saw them last year at a party, and they are indeed as funny and smart as their “selves” on Tribe.
Am I confused or just happy to see them? Am I going to the store or is this just a game? I’ll have to decide.
(Bolding for the sentence that humored me the most)