My friend Amos just posted a great entry on his blog, examining issues the usage of the term ‘they’ and the rules of institutions, ‘high’ class and ‘objective’ science (complete with links to interesting articles on synesthesia and vocabulary). I love when my friends weave stories through utterly fascinating ideas.
I wonder if there’s a corrolation between Clay’s gut and the values of teenagers. I knew Usenet was dead when teens stopped knowing what it was. Same with IRC. Don’t get me wrong: all of us geeky social software folks still use both. (And Marc Smith still believes that we can make Usenet work.)
Teens are focused less and less on email. It no longer provides an identity marker in the way it used to. Even at universities, students are more likely to use their easily accessible hotmail account than the university account. This also means that they are forced to constantly fight the annoyances of spam.
The value of email is no longer there. Instead, youth rely heavily on IM (and SMS where available). Parents don’t get to read the records of these conversations and if spam is a problem, you can just block everyone but your friends. Plus, now that you can send IMs without having to be logged in (it’ll just get queued), why worry about synchronicity?
I’ve always been a big believer in paying attention to teens in order to understand the longterm viability of older technologies. But maybe Clay’s gut will be just as effective…
In one of my classes, we are working on a phone project. Basically, we are given photo phones and required to come up with an application that will rely on structuring good reusable metadata. I can’t help but get cranky at this, although i can’t tell if it’s because i actually don’t believe in metadata structures or if it’s just a good target to critique. All the same, Cory’s Metacrap rant makes me smile all too much.
Because blogging is inherently social and a good way to chew on ideas with friends and colleagues, i’m going to be participating in Many-to-Many as a guest blogger.
(Do be warned: at times, i will repost things from there here, as relevant)
First, Friendster became a common vocabulary word in certain subcultures. Now, it has become part of the chorus in a song: “I saw your new boyfriend on Friendster…”
In recent days, schools have been getting more and more outraged over ratemyteachers.com. The site allows you to anonymously rate your high school teachers and express discontent. Of course, no teacher deals well with anonymous feedback, particularly in the form of a public site. That said, we’ve all been through the hells of high school and there’s nothing more entertaining than voicing our aggrevation.
When i was writing my Master’s thesis, i listened to one album perpetually. I had just had most of my CD collection stolen when i went away to the woods to write. The CD player there didn’t play burnt CDs so i listened to Son Kite’s “Minilogues” for a week solid. And somehow, i continued listening to it for the rest of my thesis writing. A full summer of the same CD on repeat.
Thus, when i went to listen to them spin this weekend, i was totally taken aback by how quickly my mind reverted to thesis mode, simply by hearing them spin. In a matter of moments after they hit the stage, i was working through various problems in my thesis, trying to solve missing components. Very strange audio association…
Check out this image:
You know that it’s a viusal trick… but you still try to focus. Painful, eh?
I’m a bit cranky today. I’m usually very happy to look at new social networks services and share my thoughts with site creators, but i’m *really* tired of having the same automatic grumbling reaction concerning one issue: the ordering of sex identifiers during sign-up.
If you’re going to alphabetize everything else in your sign-up, alphabetize sex. Male / Female is only a clear reminder of who you value in your system. I can deal with the abuse of the term gender, but c’mon now.. give me one good reason for not alphabetizing sex terms other than cultural sexism?
So, if you’re a website creator (or know of one), (let them) know that this practice is really insulting.
Companies currently making me cranky:
Companies who get it:
[Note: “Prefer not to say” is very appreciated in sites not dedicated to dating… Because what’s the importance of sex other than reminding the user that you’re selling their data to advertisers?]
Update: The worst abuse is MySpace which not only assumes male/female but in asking you who you are looking for, it inverts it to say woman/man. Very male-centric.