Nov. 08 2009

Three Paradoxes of the Internet Age

In the circles that I travel the Internet is often breathlessly embraced as the herald of all things good; the bringer of increased choice, personal empowerment, social harmony…and the list goes on. And yet, as with any powerful technology, the truth of its consequences eludes such a singular and happy narrative.

for example (which is why i’m an advocate of a bit more conscious participation - the technology we’re swimming in is great but only if you understand the big picture, the advantages and the disadvantages):

Three: The myth of personal empowerment takes root amidst a massive loss of personal control.

Social technologies are cloaked in a rhetoric of liberation (customers are in control, the internet fosters democracy, social technologies propagate truth etc.) that tend to obscure the fact that never before have we handed so much personal information over in exchange for so little in return. As we move from the “web of information” to the “web of people” (aka the Social Web) the output of all of this social participation is massive dossiers on individual behavior (your social network profiles, photos, location, status updates, searches etc.) and social activity. This loss of control over personal information is on a collision course with the law of unintended consequences: MIT’s Project Gaydar can spot your sexual preference by your social ties, Facebook checks are occurring customs and every quiz you take on Facebook delivers a shocking amount of personally identifiable information to third parties. Amidst this barrage of good news for how much power we wield in the transaction of commerce one has to wonder if we are giving away something quite precious in the bargain.
Against the backdrop of the evolution of media and its powerful gathering of news material and data, all of the world’s happenings are trimmed like a lawn by a mower, with fragments of information flying about from place to place through the media as grass flies through the air. These broken pieces of information adhere to our tofu-like brain like spices sprinkled so thickly that they obscure the entire surface. For a moment, this makes us think we’re quite knowledgeable, but information tacked on the surface of the brain doesn’t amount to much when you add it all together.

Kenya Hara, Art Director for MUJI, on information dissemination in Designing Design. [Thanks for book and wine tip Dave. Book review with above quote here.]

It is interesting to relate this sentiment to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of a low-information diet, reserving your brain for higher order functions than storing what amounts to rubbish by and large (according to him, you’ll learn whatever news is important by speaking with people at parties via verbal gossip).  However, from the perspective of the digital information professional, the apparent chaos surrounding information dissemination is not random, much like looking at beehive or a crowded intersection in New York or Shanghai, over time, there is an order, a flow, a rhythm and a harmony.  Information isn’t broken, it is imperfect by design.  There is a simplicity in the abstraction that captures the nuanced way information goes from atomic to ubiquitous, from valuable to valueless, from sticky to externalized, from profane to mundane.  Information has nature, a food chain, a cycle of death and rebirth, beautiful disasters, seismic shifts, and yet has a stillness when observed as a landscape obscuring us from the dynamic details.  The goal is to become one with this nature.

(via gbattle) (via evangotlib) (via mikehudack)

Nov. 06 2009

biz card of the future. (via jratlee)

as i mentioned, these were printed up as a joke after he retired.

Radical Presentism

syntheticpubes:

When he’s not jacking off to steampunk bullshit, Cory Doctorow can write some pretty compelling sentences. This particular essay neatly lays out the reasons I value Science Fiction. (Please no wedgies.)

Mary Shelley wasn’t worried about reanimated corpses stalking Europe, but by casting a technological innovation in the starring role of Frankenstein, she was able to tap into present-day fears about technology overpowering its masters and the hubris of the inventor. Orwell didn’t worry about a future dominated by the view-screens from 1984, he worried about a present in which technology was changing the balance of power, creating opportunities for the state to enforce its power over individuals at ever-more-granular levels.

[Since that site has a layout best described as buttshit, I recommend you use Readability.]

i wrote my college application essay to nyu about frankenstein.  i can’t remember what i wrote but i’m sure if i had written about something similar, i might’ve actually gotten in.  or maybe i did and 10 years ago my writing wasn’t good enough to articulate a pretty intense point inside of 500 words.

…

there is a correlation between technology, elegance and power.  it’s an arms race.  no, not a virtual one - a real one, as mr. doctorow points out.  i suppose this point is pretty veiled but pretty obvious at the same time.  consumer technology vs. national security.  satisfying needs.  preventing.  prohibiting.  providing.  protracting.

also, using it to communicate directly.  here i am using a top-of-the-line computer and publishing platform; trying to show and tell you about something that is interesting to me.

how different is sharing from trying to be persuasive?

Nov. 04 2009

herosquad:

foursquare announced insights data for local businesses will be added soon.  The venue will be able to gather check-in data and learn more about the patterns of their customers.

what’s important here is the kind of data businesses get about a certain kind of customer.  sure, there are other ways to measure this type of stuff.  look at sales trends, inventory data, etc. but that puts all your customers on the same plane and shows growth opportunity on a singular plane as well.

how can a business appeal and adjust for the portion of their audience who is highly-engaged (this is a generalization because i mean more than just “online”)?  data, systems and tools like this are a start.

WM-DD100 “Boodo Khan”

Another unusual feature of the WM-DD100 was that it was supplied with a pair of oversize headphones. This was of course a development in the opposite direction to the general trend in portable audio, but it did make the WM-DD100 package full toned, and most importantly, loud. The WM-DD100 is known in some circles as “the loudest personal stereo” but in truth this is all down to the headphones, the machine itself had only a moderate output similar to that of the WM-2 or WM-DD2. Models such as the WM-D6C, with its greater battery power, could produce far more level if necessary.

my dad was into high-end japanese audio.  he gave me this after he used it.  we had a denon home system that still sounds great and i probably had one of the first minidisc players in the states after he picked me up an aiwa from japan on business.

i’m in search of new headphones and in my head, i keep wishing i still had these.  i have vivid memories of flying by myself to toronto to visit him (before we moved).  i was 14 and blasting the beautiful people.  air canada was thrilled.

coming soon - a photo of my great grandfather’s business card after he retired.  he was mayor of wayne and all you 2.3 hour a week, work-hating freaks will love it.

kratlee:

Dear Registered Voter:

The New Jersey Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Reporting Act (N.J.S.A. 19:44A-37) provides that a statement, not exceeding 500 word, from each candidate for election to the office of Governor, who wishes a statement mailed on his or her behalf, shall be mailed with the sample ballots for the 2009 general election to each registered voter in this State to assist the voters in making their determination among the candidates. Attached herewith are statements from the candidates for Governor in the 2009 general election who chose to submit such statements.

New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission

———

this is what i was reading on the bus ride home tonight, trying to be an educated voter. i’m pretty sure it was copied and pasted directly from creed’s blog.

my favorite part is the end: “Steinforgovernor.com for details. Political sites stink. Why go? See my favorite, ‘music and variety’ on you-tube links. Is my taste impeccable; vote? 5 months ago I had no idea this was on the internet, maybe you didn’t? One’s amazing; Al Greens. ‘Average folks’ like us contributed these….you’ll see.”

so introspective.

Nov. 03 2009

Crowd Sourcing A Tagging Essay

I have an idea for an essay that connects new services Twitter Lists and Gawker Forums. In one sense, these are merely extensions of tagging and folksonomies popularized by Flickr and Delicious. But there’s something else going on here: tagging not just as taxonomy but as content generation.

But I don’t have time to write this essay, so someone please do it for me.

well, rex, you might be in luck.  i’ve been thinking about this since about 2003 - which you can tell was about when i wrote it as well, haha.  notes sat in various draft sections of publishing software for a while (i.e. wordpress & newsvine), then transitioned to my backpack and now, google docs (where they’ve been since ‘07).

do i open this up and actually “crowd source” or just get my ass in gear and finish something i started way before most people were probably thinking about it?

Nov. 02 2009

http://putthison.com/

(via goldenfiddle)

men.  please begin reading this blog.

Oct. 29 2009

no “walking through doors at port authority to go home” fashion blog? oh yeah, it’s creepy.

Twitter / john ratcliffe-lee: thghts while waiting - sid …

so, now that i’m commuting full-time in and out of manhattan each day, sometimes i’ll meet up with katie.  i had this gem while doing just that today and it sorta touches on a few different things.

  1. while fleetingly cool, the idea of such a blog got creepy in execution.  intently watching people - frazzled and rushed, plow through a vaguely symbolic threshold.  capturing who they are and what they’re wearing at that very moment.  part satorialist, part StoryCorp.

  2. i’m not sure why i focus so much on “moments” like this.  why i find it interesting or even useful.  maybe because they’re many different things?  a summation, a slice, an expectation or an indication.  capturing them with proper or unique perspective might tell us or show us things that weren’t there before.  or it couldn’t.

  3. there is a bit of an existential challenge here - are big blogs about sweeping verticals successful because they’re easy to digest?  or does everything start with a focused interest?  challenging our minds to extrapolate sometimes leads a bit more than showing and asking to separate.