Culture: April 2004 Archive Page

Discuss William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. In-class activity: find a partner. Inspect what he or she is wearing or carrying, and write down every brand name you can spot. We will collate the results and vote on what is, or isn't "cool."

Brand Name	Cool rating?
VICTORIA SECRET	14+
Advil	14
Hanes	13
Adidas	12
Smackers	12
Eclipse	11
Twix	11
Blistex	11
Bath & Body	11
nike	10
Old Navy	10
Wal Mart	10
Bic	9
Listerine	9
Nickelodian	9
Orbits	9
SHU	9
Visa	9
Skechers	9
Big Red	8
Express	8
Giant Eagle Ad Car	8
Jansport	8
Juicy Fruit	8
Maybelline	8
Panasonic	8
roxy	8
Steve Madden	8
Verizon	8
Kohls	8
American Eagle	7
CoverGirl	7
Dino's	7
ETNIES	7
Extra	7
FOSSIL	7
MUDD	7
Nine West	7
Aquafina	6
Lerner	6
Ralph Lauren	6
Relic	6
Trident	6
Wrigleys	6
Extra	6
Altoids	5
Emily the strange	5
No Boundaries	5
BASIC	4
Paper Mate	4
PB	4
TIMBERLAND	4
Kay Jewelers	4
Aeropostale	3
Fashion Bug	3
George	3
Hillfiger	3
HURLEY	3
Jerzee	3
National City	3
Nokia	3
Tachikara	3
Tilt	3
Vaseline	3
Bad cat	2
clairs	2
J. JILL	2
Jeffrey Bean	2
Nextel	2
ROSE ART	2
Kyocera	2
Legend	2
K-mart	2
EB TEK	1
License	1
Micron	1
Northwest Territory	1
OPI	1
Pilot	1
Swerve	1
ULTRA BLEND	1
Unisoly	1
Virgin mobile	1
Athletic Works	0
Atlantic	0
Jerz	0
C.E. George	0
Canyon River Blues	0
East Port	0
Ed White Basics	0
Jostens	0
Modern Book	0
Motorola	0
Shop n Save	0
Uniball	0
wccc	0
Maxell	0
Cartier	-1

Cool Hunting at Seton Hill UniversityJerz's Literacy Weblog)

In the final weeks of term, it's not surprising that a headache pain reliever rates so highly. I was surprised at how highly various brands of gum and other oral products rated. Victoria's Secret actually got cheers, with some people, both men and women, putting up both hands. Hanes seems, by contrast, very boring to me, but hey, it's underwear, so I guess that was good enough for this class.

A Tree-Mail 'Thank You'Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Sometimes, even for a cyber-guy like me, an old-fashioned, hand-crafted "Thank You" note just makes it all worthwhile. From my former student Kirsten Schubert, who really knows how to make a fellow feel appreciated.

You're very welcome, Kirsten!

This admission is privately echoed by top players at magazines owned by major publishers, who sometimes cite more lax ad/edit divisions at European magazines as a catalyst. But a jacket showing up in a fashion layout doesn't equal, say, a series of paid-for Cadillac references showing up in a short story that doesn't have the words "special advertising section" topping it, nor a long account of a mountaineering expedition studded with mentions and visuals of the adventurers chowing down on Power Bars. --Jon Fine --Marketers Press for Product Placement in Magazine Text (Ad Age)

I blogged this as yet another example (see also "Faking It: Sex, Lies, and Women's Magazines") to show my students for why they should be extremely critical of anything that they read.

While humans are still going to be biased and imperfect no matter the venue, academic articles are supposed to be free from this kind of manipulation, thanks to the peer review process.

Via M. L. O'Brien.

He cried when she showed him photos she had taken of giraffes. Then, in one of his unexplained flashes of clarity, he told Debbie: "I don't want to have Alzheimer's." -- A frank, gripping article by Marsha King --A journey through dementia: Family surrenders to reality  (Seattle Times)

Knowledge is different from capital, and from material goods, in that there is no inherent scarcity to knowledge. A piece of knowledge, once produced, may be replicated almost for free, distributed around the world in the blink of an electron, fed almost as easily to one person as to one billion people. Oh sure, there are some pragmatic issues: knowledge can be expensive to create, and as those of us involved in distance and online learning will attest, distribution is not free. However for the greater good, people in a society - and across societies, in a global society - pool their resources, funding public universities for the production of knowledge, and a public education system for the distribution of knowledge. --Stephen Downes

--Unrest in the Ivory Tower: Privatization of the University (USDLA Journal)

A good article from 2001, which argues that the more loudly traditionalists argue for preserving the quirkiness (and inefficiency) of university culture -- particularly in the humanities -- against the streamlined marketing philosophy of the marketplace, the sooner the marketplace will win.

It turns out, in the wider world, that people do not want to spend their time and money (a) meeting someone else's needs, (b) paying for work that doesn't need to be done, (c) not knowing the results, (d) not knowing what is being produced, and (e) more than they can afford. If this is the picture of academia that the traditionalists are defending, then it is doomed, and if by falling it must fall into corporate hands, then their own logic has as its inevitable consequence the privatization of education.

Time to get my AARP card, apparently. I'm 22, and I have officially been "ma'am'ed" for the first time. --Donna Hibbs --Ma'amed for Life (Nothing Left to Do but Rant)

While pondering the language politics of the situation Donna describes, I was surprised when I realized that I would feel comfortable referring to a polite adolescent boy as "young man," but for some reason I wouldn't call a polite adolescent girl "young lady" -- the latter term seems to carry with it a scolding tone.

Obviously, the two terms should be perfectly balanced...

As a sign of friendliness to a young boy, I might call him "son," but a young girl I would call "sweetheart". Why wouldn't I call her "daughter"?

If I were annoyed with a female stranger who accosted me on the street, I might say, "Look lady, I'm just trying to buy a paper, " but I wouldn't say to a male stranger, "Look, gentleman..." I think that "Look, sir," could come across as patient and respectful, or insolent and aggressive, depending on how I pronounced "sir," but for some reason "Look, lady" is only something I would only use if I had passed a certain level of annoyance -- maybe becuase I worry that I'll sound like Jerry Lewis: "Laady! Hey, laaaady!"

Okay... the offspring-impaired among you may wish to skip to the next paragraph to avoid the upcoming parental sappiness... My son objects when I accidentally call him "sweetheart" becuase he knows I'm doing the "harried parent can't spit out the right name for the kid" thing.... My wife can still call my son "Sweetheart," but he knows my nickname for him is "Mister Boy" (it used to be "Mister Baby"). On the other hand, my wife is more likely to call our 2-year-old daughter "Miss Baby," while I call her "Sweetheart" or "Honey Bunny". I make it a point to try to compliment my daughter on her accomplishments, not just on being "sweet" or "pretty" (though she's undeniably both, to my parental eye).

I wouldn't refer to an annoying female stranger as a "pal" or "buddy," but when the tension level starts rising between me and another male I might find myself reaching for those words (and I'm thinking of a hypothetical "A stranger's umbrella has stabbed me in the back three times in the last thirty seconds while his coffe cup is dripping on my suitcase and he's invading my space and pushing me off balance" kind of thing -- something that would prompt an immediate outburst, not an intellectual disagreement I have with a colleague, or a student who takes a cell phone call in class). These friend-labels form a kind of rough alliance with my rhetorical opponent, as if I am acknowledging that we are both getting annoyed with each other, but that I see value in continuing the conversation. Maybe men have more of a cultural need to remind each other (and ourselves) that we are presently attempting to engage each other in conversation; the lack of continued conversational cues signalling our goodwill may signal that the aggression level will soon rise to the point that insults or fists will be next. But because male/female disagreements operate on a different power structure, the subtleties of that interaction aren't fully represented in the language of blunt confrontation (which probably serves the needs of men, since women can have epic fights with each other just by glaring, snubbing, fake-smiling, etc).

While I like to think I understand the value of gender-neutral language, I can see that I have nevertheless internalized quite a few linguistically encoded cultural message message about gender roles.

A lot of designers think that a work is part of a person, that it has come from some mysterious place inside. How it will sell depends on who we are as individuals. But an interesting thing for me is that I think we ourselves change from time to time. I may be Tung Chiang, but I can also be somebody else in order to see things differently.--Tung Chiang
--Uni Chair (Metropolis Mag)

Via join-the-dots: "The Uni Chair, created by Tung Chiang for Philadelphia-based Bozart, is amazing—twenty-four arms radiating out of a central sphere to form a forty-eight-inch diameter inflatable seat."

This looks like something a hectopus would use.

The administrative assistant and her two desk neighbors once sat near Alex, a colleague who chewed loudly and dripped his day-old jelly doughnuts. Their pleas to the manager to put a curtain around his desk were unsuccessful.

That meant they were forced to watch the day that his mess jammed nearly every key on his keyboard. Upon seeing it, the tech-support guy snapped on a pair of latex gloves like a seasoned proctologist and slammed the keyboard hard against the floor. --Jared Sandberg --Desktop dining: good, bad and getting ugly (Baltimore Sun)

That's why I try to keep a supply of Powerbars in the office. They don't make crumbs. File this under technology.

Random Acts of Music

Just now, a student crept up behind me and slipped a pair of headphones over my head. I don't know her. She doesn't introduce herself. Small voices, like backwards chimpmunks, say something inaudible to a hip-hop beat.

"I randomly subject people to whatever I'm listenting to," says the student. I thank her "for the subjection" and she moves on.

I suppose it's a good thing students at Seton Hill find me so approachable. But I'm definitely filing this one under "weirdness."

So much for the evolutionary advantage of love. As to the proximate, immediate cause of love, scientists have found that the mother-offspring bond in humans and other animals is mediated by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

What researchers at University College London have now found is that romantic and maternal love activate many of the same regions of the brain. The implication is that maternal love is the evolutionary basis, the foundation, for romantic love. --Rowan Hooper --What's love gotta do with it? (Japan Times)

A Greensburg woman who celebrated her 21st birthday at a Hempfield Township bar and later broke seven teeth after falling from a vehicle in a drunken stupor filed a lawsuit Monday against the bar. --Woman sues bar (Tribune-Review)

According to her lawyer, "At one point, she asked for water, and they gave her another (alcoholic) drink. I think that's terrible."

There's something else that's terrible, here... can you spot it?

Voice recognition systems have come a long way in the last decade and are used in places like call centres, home PCs and even mobile phones.

Dashboards are becoming the hub of the car But over the next 10 years, we could even be holding virtual conversations with the car dashboard. --Richard Taylor --Talking to your car becoming natural (BBC)

--Airline Meals (AirlineMeals.net)

It's been so long since I've actually been served a meal on an airplane... Golly, I wish there were a website that had a retrospective of airlime meals from the 70s, 80s and 90s, an index of movies in which in-flight meals were featured, and an archve of thousands of photos of airline meals. Well, what do you know...
Thanks, Rosemary.

--Playmobil Security Checkpoint (Playmobil||Metafilter)

I'm not sure what I think of this. It's far better than plastic grenades to strap around your waist.

By the way, the site designers make it extremely hard to link to an internal page... I guess they don't want much inbound traffic. Link goes to MetaFilter's page on the subject.

If you hope to accomplish anything, you will inevitably need all of the people you hated in high school. I once attended a very prestigious design school where the idea was ?If you are here, you are so important, the rest of the world doesn't count.? Not a single person from that school that I know of has ever been really successful outside of school. In fact, most are the kind of mid-level management drones and hacks they so despised as students. A suit does not make you a genius. No matter how good your design is, somebody has to construct or manufacture it. Somebody has to insure it. Somebody has to buy it. Respect those people. You need them. Big time. --Michael Beirut --Michael McDonough'sTop Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School (Design Observer)

Looking back I am amazed that Mary and I have made it this far, both of us laboring as freelance writers, and nothing but. There is the constant danger of work running out, and from time to time it has. Once due to the harassment of the aforementioned child support authorities. However, we've always found more. In time. Sometimes barely, like the winter when the check arrived a week before the propane ran out. We've suffered from other small business dangers too. A (former) associate robbed us of a large amount of money and absconded into bankruptcy.

Still, it has been ten years now and I think I can safely say, no matter what happens, good or bad, I will never punch a clock again. This in itself makes all the hassle worthwhile. Corporations, in my experience, are sick and dysfunctional places where a few useless power seekers are allowed to make life miserable for employees, who by any human or moral measure are their superiors.

More than that, working for ourselves has allowed Mary and I to arrange our time so that we can write fiction. We work hellish hours, but we set the hours. I believe that we would not be working on our sixth novel now, or even our first, if we were forced to cater to the incessant demands of a regular employer.

--Eric Mayer --An Anniversary (Eric Mayer)

Congratulations on making it in a very challenging field, Eric!

The only way to get the industry to take risks on games that explore the missing themes of human experience -- heartbreak, betrayal, anticipation, jealousy, despair, eternal hope, grief, and so many others -- is to nurture students who are inspired and who are capable of inspiring others with their vision.... If academics can help instill inspiration, then the industry will find itself compelled by its undeniable humanity to take risks on unpredictably useful projects. And I'll bet many of those projects will also become massive commercial successes.

So what's the downside? This is a long-term project. I cannot commit to a return-on-investment proposition for inspiration, for talent, for art. This isn't just about reaping convenient rewards from university-funded experimental projects, getting cheap labor through internships, or plucking brilliant designers out of short-term certificate programs. --Ian Bogost --The Muse of the Video Game (IGDA)

Gelotology-(root word, gelos (gr) meaning "laughter") is the psychological study of laughter. More and more, scientists are beginning to realize the value of laughter on a physiological level. For instance, laughter reduces levels of certain stress hormones and contributes to overall strengthening of the immune system. As the field of gelotology grows, practicing "laughter clubs" have grown around the world. Hearts lighten, souls lift, the laughter multiplies, but what is a laugh and why I am relating it to The Secret Life of Bees? --Anthony Gigliotti --Laughter, Freedom and Humor (Allow Me to Explain)

My EL 267 class really enjoyed Tony's oral presentation on Thursday. The next evening, I ate in the cafeteria with three students from the class; they were quite punchy (it being Friday night) and making a lot of noise. When one apologized, I noted that, with my wife and kids in Texas visiting grandparents, my house has been so quiet that I found myself naturally drawn to the loudest table in the cafeteria. An they credited their laughter to Anthony's presentation -- as well as a midnight encounter with a Mariachi guitar player... well... I guess you had to be there.

At any rate, a great post -- one that I wouldn't have been able to share with you if it had been a PowerPoint presentation.