Cyberculture: January 2004 Archive Page

[L]et's face facts, she could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey - she won't lose any sleep over your plight. When I ask what her advice is for a beleaguered American programmer afraid of being pulled under by the global tide that she represents, Jairam takes the high road, neither dismissing the concern nor offering soothing happy talk. Instead, she recites a portion of the 2,000-year-old epic poem and Hindu holy book the Bhagavad Gita: "Do what you're supposed to do. And don't worry about the fruits. They'll come on their own." | This is a story about the global economy. It's about two countries and one profession - and how weirdly upside down the future has begun to look from opposite sides of the globe. It's about code and the people who write it. But it's also about free markets, new politics, and ancient wisdom - which means it's ultimately about faith. --Daniel H. Pink --The New Face of the Silicon Age (Wired Magazine)

Wired is the idealistic champion of Silicon Valley culture. While the quality of the writing is always top-notch, one rarely finds in the pages of Wired any serious criticism of technology -- and certainly none of the Slashdot "the government is taking control of your lives, datum by datum" variety. Pink writes himself into the story a bit more than I would prefer, but I do appreciate the way he paints himself as the devil's advocate on both sides. I feel a lot of pain for the very good CS majors who are now graduating into a world that is very different than it was in 1999 (or so) when they entered college with a career path in mind.

Still, something lurking in the darker parts of my English major soul remembers the sneers of the "toolies" who, even before they got their diploma, bragged of their $50,000 job offers.

The Africans and Irish and Poles and Italians and Norwegians and everyone else -- including the Indians -- who came to America in search of a better place took the less desirable jobs. This led to inevitable conflict with the working class Americans, but after a generation or two, the newcomers turned into what Archie Bunker might call "regular Americans" who were themselves threatened by the next wave of immigrants. This has been an ongoing part of American history. Just look at the names on America's olympic rosters or the faces of people wearing American military uniforms.

But now, the jobs in question are highly desirable positions, and -- more shocking to America's future -- people don't even have to leave their home country to do it!

I was surprised and pleased to see Wired publishing a lenthy, literary, and insightful examination of the American reaction to this particular side-effect of the new global economy. The U.S. auto industry lost business to Japan in the 80s, which caused a wave of "buy American" protectionism; and in return, Japan became a tremendous consumer of American culture. If I were truly interested in economics, I would of course have listened to the e-school toolies and ditched my English major; but upon reflection, Wired Magazine publishing an article with a sympathetic angle on global outsourcing shouldn't be any real surprise. Because, from the look of things, Wired Magazine has read the writing on the wall, and expects to sell a lot of subscriptions in India.

Trolling is like playing chess - there is a point to the game, and that point is to win. Unlike chess, though, there are various ways of winning for the internet troll. These might include:

• gaining credence for false and invidious ideas
• driving bona fide list members, and/or particular groups, out of the mailing list
• dominating the list with messages/posts that they have generated
• gaining recognition or an award for their trolling from fellow trollers
• getting reprimanded by individuals, list managers or internet authorities
• gaining the confidence, trust and support of bona fide list members
• distracting list members from their own bona fide discussions or objectives.

• gaining attention that they cannot get using their real personalities
  

Sometimes trolls operate alone, and sometimes they operate in groups,
but for all of them trolling is a game.
--Beware the Troll (Team Technology)

One of my first experiences with Usenet involved being baited by a troll. I had just written a paper on some subject that was being discussed on a group, and I posted a general inquiry asking whether it would be appropriate to post a paper of X length on the site. I was probably too timid about mentioning the length, because a troll replied with, "sure," and then promptly attacked me for posting "lengthy bullshit." I was very new to newsgroup culture, and it was years before I realized I had been trolled.

"I always say that while I can't vote, I can damn sure make a difference," he said. "It doesn't feel odd, it shouldn't feel odd, because all Americans should be doing this. We as a country need to be more involved, especially our youth." --Stephen Yellin --Teen Blogger Heads Online (Wired)

I'm being called away, but I wanted to blog this before I forget it. I immediately thought of Ender's Game, an Orson Scott Card novel that features two teenage supporting characters (siblings of the hero) who affect global politics by participating in online discussion groups.

--'She's a Flight Risk' Resumes

Isabella v has started posting again, after a long hiatus (which I noted in December).

I only learned about it after getting an e-mail from "isagirl@hushmail.com" responding to a blog entry I wrote last year.

In this assignment you will be required to read/play and answer questions about a book from the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series of ?gamebooks.? The series was published 1979-1998. Many people assume that electronic literature (interactive fiction, hypertext, what-have-you) is simply a souped up version of CYOA. The purpose of this assignment is to take a closer look at that assumption based on what you know about the history and theory of cybertext. --Matt Kirschenbaum

--Choose Your Own Adventure Assignment (MGK)

Wow. Not only do I love the assignment, I'm in awe of the web environment in which it is presented.

I recently posted a rant against bloated commercial courseware that locks curricular content in a proprietary database; and about seven hours ago I recently posted a comment prompted by a thread I found via Liz Lawley's website, but I didn't know that Lawley is a MoveableType courseware genius.

"Not only are we going to New Hampshire ..., we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House, Yeeeeeaaaaaah!" --Dean Goes Nuts: Howard Dean's 2004 Iowa Caucus Concession Speech Remixes

Howard Dean's supporters mobilized on the Internet, and so have those who find pleasure in mocking the exuberant cry he uttered while rallying his troops during his Iowa concession speech.

Because I don't watch TV news, and I only listen to the radio during my 15-minute commute, I didn't hear the speech. While I had come across opinions that Dean's concession speech was a bit wild, I didn't take them seriously. My opinion has changed.

This website includes dozens of audio remixes. Fortunately there's not much activity on my floor on Fridays, but I closed the door anyway. I'm listening to "Dean's Going to Kokomo" right now, and I can hardy type from laughing so hard. Next up on my playlist is "Magical Dean Space Out."

A few questions spring out from this. It is generally accepted that giving credit for creation is important; is it the same for ?link discovery credit?? Will (should) the practice of linking to sources of links come to be taken very seriously by bloggers, out of a shared concern to keep things fair and transparent, in a similar manner to standards of citation in academia? Should one link to the immediate source or make an effort to trace links back to the original source? (Is it always clear which is ?the? original source?) --Sebastian Paquet --Link Propagation and 'Discovery Credit' (Many-To-Many)

I don't credit metasites like Google News or Blogdex when I find stories there.

If journalist A publishes a quote from a source, journalist B can try to contact the source directly and get him or her to repeat the statement; if the source cooperates, journalist B doesn't have to cite journalist A as the source.

Obsessing too much about link discovery is something like wanting to give credit to the taxi driver who took you to the library where you found the source you were looking for.

Still, as Jill Walker notes, "The economy of links is not product oriented. It is service oriented, and the service is the link." (Seb's article links to Jill's "Links and Power," a wonderful theoretical piece that was well worth a revisit.)

There are times when I first see link A on site X, but I'm not motivated to blog anything about A until I see commentary on site Y. In that case, site Y is being more than a taxi driver -- blogger Y deserves the credit on my blog, even if blogger X had the link first. Or link A might point to a website where articles soon disappear behind a paid subscription wall; in those cases, I'll often Google up a different link on the same subject.

I will say that a link to the original article/document being discussed is vital... it's not sufficient simply to link to the blog that quotes some off-site document. That blog may go offline one day, or the quote may turn out to be inaccurate or taken out of context.

(Suggested in a comment posted by Susan, who credits J-walk.)

Stealthy? 1995? Please. 100% of teenagers play games today (those who don't are a rounding error)--but I doubt the percentage in, say, 1990, during the SNES/Genesis era, was all that different. And the game industry first made the claim that it was bigger than the movies in 1980 or 81, if I remember correctly--albeit revenues then were largely from the arcade cash-drop, not software sales. The point being that games have been hugely important to our culture--particularly youth culture--for two decades or more. If you want to find the point at which sea-change began, you sure don't start with 1995. You can make an argument for 1972 (when both Bushnell's Pong and Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey appeared); 1962 (Steve Rusell's Space War); 1958 (Willy Higginbotham's Tennis for Two, and also Charles Roberts's Tactics); 1913 (H.G. Wells's Little Wars); 1861 (Milton Bradley's The Checkered Game of Life); or 1780 (The King's Game, by Helwig, Master of Pages to the Duke of Brunswick). 1972 is the traditional date, although I'd argue that you can't understand the digital games revolution without understanding the wargaming, miniature, and kriegspiel traditions that predate it--not to mention classic arcade amusements, of course. --Grek Costikyan --The Times on Games (Games * Design * Art * Culture)

The very premise of an online game is that it is uncontrollable - indeed, even the banned players have found ways to sneak back in various disguises. | That, in turn, presents a thorny set of philosophical problems. How do you seek to curb the baser instincts of a community of autonomous players? Is repression the answer? Or do you have to give people incentives to behave better all by themselves? --Andrew Gumbel --Blood on the Virtual Carpet (Independent)

I filed this under "Journalism" because it features a virtual newspaper reporting on the unsavory activities of the virtual residents of a in The Sims.

Approximately twenty-five years have passed since the production of the first widely-distributed computer games; but the medium still appears malleable and novel, and its criticism remains a new and open field. Much work remains to be done, and many questions have not been asked. What vocabulary will be necessary for a literate engagement with the media of interactive entertainment? What, if any, are the distinctive formal and cultural characteristics of games as distinct from other media? What are, and will be, the standards for critical judgment and interpretation of games? --Form, Culture, and Video Game Criticism | Princeton, March 6, 2004KairosNews/UPenn CFP)

Assuming the SHU powers that be grant my funding request, I'll be attending this conference to present a paper on the history of Will Crowther's original version of what became known as "Colossal Cave Adventure." Crowther's version is presumed to be lost, but I've collected what I can about the version of the game that was found, modified, and re-released by Don Woods.

The paper is part of an article commissioned for the history section of the IF Theorybook, as editor-in-chief Emily Short nicknames it in her e-mails. Maybe Interactive Fiction: History, Craft, and Theory would be a more accurate title. But that would involve a horrid academic colon.

The conference organizes say they don't have a web presence, so I'm just blogging the announcement in KairosNews that prompted me to send in my proposal. The conference is being held by the English Department at Princeton.

[T]he typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user, it says. And, television viewing is down among some Internet users by as much as five hours per week compared with Net abstainers... --New study shatters Internet 'geek' image (CNN)

Too bad that the folks who conducted the research, UCLA's Center for Communication Policy, only published their findings in a MS-Word document and a PowerPoint file. The same page also includes PDF archives. These are all very unfriendly formats for online readers with slow connections. (Okay, I have a good connection at the office, but not at home, where I am now.)

"If they are allowed to experiment and do things on the computers that the teachers have not specifically given them permission to do, we would never get any computer education accomplished." Beverly Sweeney, middle school teacher involved in the suspension of a student who used a DOS command to send the word "Hey!" to 80 computer stations. --Hey! Where's the problem? (Star-Telegram)

Because, as we all know, proper computer use, and education in general, does not require curiosity, trial-and-error, or innovation.

Having said that, I'd like to look more closely at something Dave Lieber wrote.

But more troubling is the notion that Sweeney does not believe that the rest of us have any right to question the decisions made by public educators.

Ok, fair enough. Lieber continues:

Remember, we pay the salaries of the teachers and staff. We buy the computers.

He's right on both counts, but think about it -- the school has 80 computers that still run DOS? if that's the case, then "we" aren't doing a very good job -- either in supplying funds to purchase good equipment or (apparently) in coming up with salaries that will attract skilled teachers.

The fact that Sweeney's web site includes an animated picture of a caveman smashing a computer with a club, as well as a Java applet that features globes and lights whirling around a distorted portrait, lead one of the MetaFilter posters to ask, in all honesty, whether her page had been hacked.

Would it make sense to create a group blog devoted to teaching English language and literature, one where ideas could be exchanged, resources shared, pointers to already existing sites posted, websites collaboratively created?

Consider these questions:

• What have you created that you'd like to share with others?
• What have you found on the web that has been most useful in your teaching?
• What have you not found that you wish were out there? What's on your wish list?

--George H. Williams --Sharing Teaching Resources (George H. Williams)

It was December 1968. An obscure scientist from Stanford Research Institute stood before a hushed San Francisco crowd and blew every mind in the room. His 90-minute demo rolled out virtually all that would come to define modern computing: videoconferencing, hyperlinks, networked collaboration, digital text editing, and something called a "mouse." --The Click Heard Round The World (Wired)

Interesting tidbits:

• Engelbart credits Vannevar Bush with inventing the concept of links: "I'd read that article 17 years before I wrote about links using computers and honestly do not remember if I took the idea from Bush deliberately or only went back to his article later."
• "We also did a lot of experiments to see how many buttons the mouse should have. We tried as many as five. We settled on three. That's all we could fit. Now the three-button mouse has become standard, except for the Mac. Steve Jobs insisted on only one button. We haven't spoken much since then."
• What we call the cursor, Engelbart originally called the "bug". If that term had stuck, the etymology of the word would be even more... uh... buggy.

This paper addresses the evolution of metaphors for the Internet and shows how they have constrained and determined the development of cyberlaw. | Within the law, metaphors mold the framework of discourse, determining the scope of appropriate questions about and answers to various social and legal problems. Courts and commentators employ metaphors as heuristics to generate hypotheses about the application of law to novel, unexplored domains. Metaphors structure the way lawyers conceptualize legal events, as they infiltrate, consciously and unconsciously, legal discourse.... Three metaphors in particular will be examined: the information superhighway, cyberspace, and the Internet as "real" space. --Cohen and Blavin --Gore, Gibson, and Goldsmith: The Evolution of Internet Metaphors in Law and Commentary  (Harvard Journal of Law and Technology)

Looks like a good find, via Clancy on Kairosnews. The actual article is, unfortunately, a PDF document, so I'm blogging it until I can get to the office in a few days.

Instead of being dollars or euros or kroner, links seem a lot more like the major prison currency, cigarettes, in the hands of a heavy smoker who cares more about smoking than about any other prison commodity. First of all, you can do something with them; as an afterthought, you also use them to get more PageRank if you like. --Nick Montfort --Linky Lucre (Grand Text Auto)

Nick's reading of Jill Walker's paper Links and Power comes up with some interesting observations. I've often thought of blogroll-hunting as a kind of game (one which I keep telling myself I shouldn't play so often). My goal is not so much to encourage people to link to my blog, but rather to find -- as soon as possible -- the links that other people post. For instance, Eric Mayer was poking through lists of weblogs and recognized my name from the interactive fiction community; I found his blog entry a few hours after he posted it. This kind of link-hunting keeps my online research muscles limbered up, and it's something I can do in a twenty-minute time window (while waiting for the kids to go to sleep or when a student doesn't show up for an office visit).

While my link-collecting activity is, from one perspective, no more meaningful than manipuliting blobs of light in the shape of spaceships or warriors on a video screen, or passively watching blobs of light reproducing the motions of professional atheletes thousands of miles away, my particular collection of links represents my memory (how many times have you blogged something just so you'd remember it?), and the aggregation proceeds according to a set of criteria that I may not always articulate (Mike Arnzen has noted a recent explosion of blogs relating to games, but that seemed perfectly natural to me since I've just bumped a few game-related projects higher in my priority list). I'm not sure whether eating dots in a maze or watching professional athletes creates anything of even the slightest value to others; but, as Nick points out, "Google likes blogs - but people like blogs, too! Google likes blogs for all the right reasons."

I remember a short story about a future society in which people are screened for intelligence in a sort of maze where they live their whole lives and try to attach meaning to the events that occur within the maze. One such event involves the collection of metal discs that occasionally appear on the walls. People pry these disks off, making their fingernails bloody (though one wonders why they wouldn't just use one of their discs to pry off the other disks...). These discs serve no purpose other than being collected; I forget what the other meaningless activities are, but robot caretakers encourage the humans in all their activities but one. There is one room that humans are told to avoid; the protagonist, whose name I rember is Jon, ignores the warnings and enters the room, which I think contains nothing more than a big question mark. (I wish I could find that story again. I must have read it in the 80s.)

Anyway, the collection of links on a web page is not as meaningless as the collection of ornamental metal discs, since I use other people's links to find information, people who share my interests, and, yes I admit it, sources of good links.