first reflections on SIGGRAPH

SIGGRAPH is usually an opportunity for me to bounce around with a group of my friends and colleagues, learn interesting new things and get into deep creative conversations. Unfortunately, i’m finding that i’m beyond exhausted from my overcomittments this summer and only spending time with my closest friends. In addition to this lack of danah-bounciness, i’m a bit disappointed with SIGGRAPH.

SIGGRAPH is a combination of art, animation, graphics techniques and technical savvy (plus a lot of folks trying to sell wares). I realized that i’ve never actually gone to a Papers session because i can read the papers and there are usually really interesting Panel sessions held simultaneously. I’ve always loved Panels as an opportunity to look at graphics at a more meta level. Unfortunately, there are none this year. Additionally, the Papers talks have an uber emphasis on techniques (mostly 3D techniques, of course). This is sad because, well, i still don’t find much use out of 3D in my work.

One good thing that was apparently added last year was this Fast Forward papers review. Basically, you go and each of the 81 Paper presenters has 52 seconds to describe what they’re going to talk about. This is *perfect* for people with the amount of attention span that i have.

The other good thing is that i had a great conversation with a member of the conference committee on the purpose of Sketches (which actually made me very proud to be a Sketch at SIGGRAPH). The purpose is to provide graphics researchers with a sense of what people are doing to extend graphics beyond the research domain and to provide a groundwork for new research.

Of course, the Electronic Theatre was wonderful and there are a handful of good pieces in the Emerging Technologies (a fun spotlight, a neat interactive dance piece, a well down thermal human detector, etc.). There is also a really bizarre submission at ETech – it involves haptics, condoms and chewing… food simulation, of course. Not sure how i feel about this.

Tonight is the Brown Reunion dinner, which is my complete favorite and tomorrow is my talk (::gulp::). Oh and San Diego continues to confuse me, but at least i get to play around with my best friend as she learns to drive stick (only motivating me further to never drive stick… ever.)

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harassing messages

I would like to highlight one of the comments posted in reference to Friendster censoring images. Mer quite succinctly reflects the problem with Friendster’s decision to censor – namely the arbitrary nature of it. In her post, she raises concern that Friendster is willing to censor images arbitrarily, but does not censor messages that could be construed as hate or harassment (or their senders). It will be interesting to see what the implications of their haphazard use of censorship will be.

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LiveJournal behaviors

Recently, i’ve been engaged in conversations about behaviors that occur on LiveJournal in relation to the articulated “Friends” element that occurs in many social network systems.

one i call crossfriending. it happens when people meet across mailing lists or other forums. they add each other and their friends list slowly converge after people talk to each other on the fringe overlaps.

the other i call social friending. it used to be that you went to a convention and met people. if you liked them, you would trade addresses (and probably lose them), phone numbers or even cities of origin. then came email addresses. but now you have a livejournal account and all that has to be remembered is a short line of text. the rest – location, domain, identity – is encoded in the address.

what’s interesting to watch is when people meet at local events and add each other afterwards. the jump in connections may take up to a week, but it’s actually visible and measurable.

This type of behavior on LJ could easily be describe Friendster connections as well.

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creating explicit connectors

On Friendster, one often sees fake characters that operate as connectors due to a shared interest in a given topic. Simpsons fans might all link to Bart. Likewise, you see “urban tribe” connectors (members of Infinite Kaos connect with the character o the similar name). I’ve also seen alumni characters (Brown University is the one fake character i link to). What made me happy this morning is how explicit people are getting about the purpose of these connecctors.

Black is a character on Friendster whose “about me” profile reads:

Hey ladies, Black is a connector node on the network, not a real person. The sole purpose of this profile page is to create a place where black women seeking women can find each other easily on the Friendster network. If someone suggested a match for you and Black, and you’re interested in adding your profile to the list of fine-ass sistas in Black’s friend list, then add Black Women (first name Black, last name Women) right now! We want to meet you! You can also use blackgirlfriendster@yahoo.com to add Black Women.

Of course, this presents a very interesting situation re: Friendster’s dating model. Black is purposely there to help the dating process, but it also collapses the network. Good? Bad? Appropriate only because the number of people identifying with Black will be small?

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more Friendster anxiety

Another message is going around on Friendster message boards:

A friend of a friend, who works at the NSA, said that the homeland security department has subpoenaed friendster’s database to weasel out ‘suspected terrorists’. are any of your “friends” on THE LIST???

of course friendster runs on 56k modems… read the front page of the privacy policy. and, horrors if anyone monetizes anything we actually like or use

::sigh::

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