2008/07/31
2008/06/07
Difficult Brews
Case in point:
Texpatriate: I Brewed (You're Doing It Wrong)
Hence the motto: Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew (and if you're out of homebrew, some commercial craft beers can do).
2008/04/11
JP's Java and its Clover Coffee Machines
2008/03/23
2008/03/20
Data Visualization: Health, Wealth, Weight
2008/03/19
Data Visualization and Energy
Wow. Just... Just Wow.
I don't tend to be quantitative-oriented but this is just too convincing, too telling not to flabbergast me.
Apparently, there's a Google Spreadsheet tool which can help in making something similar. I'll definitely have to look into it. Would be the ultimate teaching tool, for those situations where statistics make some sense.
Wow.
2008/03/12
Self-Aware Journalists
Relatively recent case in point:
Open Source - Blog Archive - London: The News about the News
I guess I know some answers to that question. I just shouldn't be surprised. But with journalists becoming increasingly self-aware (and, in a very literal sense, "self-centered"), I wish there could be more cluefulness in journalism now than there has been in the early 1990s when online communications (Usenet, email, Web) should have woken journalists up.
For the record: I don't have anything against journalists. I just wish journalism itself would change. "For good."
2008/03/10
Learning Interviews
As an ethnographer, I care a fair bit about interviewing techniques and styles. Not that interviews are the only method we use. We do participant-observation, preliminary research, quantitative analysis, genealogy... But skills at conducting open-ended interviews come in handy in ethnographic disciplines.
It then follows that I enjoy finding examples of effective and ineffective interviewing. Typically, interviews in mainstream media (MSM) contain useful material on what not to do in an interview.
This is exactly what I consider yesterday's Lacy-Zuckerberg "keynote" to be: an example of what should be avoided at all costs while doing an insightful interview. Not so bad if all you want to do is dig dirt. But abysmal in terms of insight.
Apparently, jscholars and media experts agree about the value of the Lacy-Zuck fiasco for learning moments:
- BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Zuckerberg interview: What went wrong
- Sarah Lacy was not as bad as Miss Teen South Carolina: Reflections from observing a train wreck
Even though I'm local to SXSW, I wasn't at the keynote (I don't have a SXSWi badge). I mostly looked at live reactions after they had been posted and briefly discussed the session with someone who did attend. I'm still trying to make sense of what happened which is a bit difficult in the fickleness of media ("geek" or mainstream).
Some of the most impactful live reactions were posted on Twitter, with Robert Scoble as a central figure. Some of those reactions were rather harsh, even insulting. Given my cynicism toward MSM, I assumed that part of those reactions were exacerbated by the situation. And while I now think that the interview was even more inappropriate than I thought it had been, I still think part of the groaning was self-generated. After all, it's not like MSM weren't already filled with I-Show self-congratulatory interviews.
To be honest (and I can certainly be wrong): my guess is that what started as relatively mild disappointment at the way the interview was going transformed into audible/visible reactions as well as "tweets" (text updates on Twitter), which then caused a sort of feedback loop. Those who weren't twittering at the point might still have reacted audibly and/or visibly. Since, as human beings, we're quite clueful in terms of people's paralanguage ("body language"), this scenario doesn't sound as absurd as some attendees might assume.
In fact, people keep mentioning Sarah Lacy's paralanguage (including proxemics and kinesics), which makes me suspect that the communication break may have spilled over from non-linguistic clues.
I sure hope the Language Log gang will pick this story up as it can make for a very interesting discussion among language scientists. Should probably send something to the Linguistic Anthropology blog.
The paralinguistic dimension reminds me of the history of televised debates, especially the Nixon-Kennedy case. Haven't seen the Zuckerberg-Lacy transcript yet but it does sound like the verbal component of the interview was less problematic than the aural and visual dimensions. Maybe I'm too much of a fan of orality, but I'm looking forward to reading the complete transcript. And watching the complete video.
Interestingly, Lacy herself seems to focus on the "written" content, in response to the controversy. Quite clear in this video, even more so in her twittered reply. Both the video and the tweet are already (in)famous. Hopefully they can help people take a step back and look at the situation as a whole. The authority/legitimacy/jschool-cred angles are easy to follow. And the "in my book" comment is too funny in context to pass up (Lacy kept promoting her hardcopy book). The "high profile" comment is very intriguing. Maybe Lacy expected something more out of "South-by" than a chance to "moderate a keynote" in front of highly-involved participants.
Ah, well...
My motto remains: "Don't get angry. Get a Clue!"
Hadn't realized until just now that Sarah Lacy was the same journalist who wrote about her sour grapes over the TED conference. That one was another story I found interesting, especially in terms of the geek niche. Lacy, and others, seem to worry about "geek fame." Reactions to her "Zuck" interview seem to imply she's easily star-struck.
Which brings us to gender. Many people, including or even especially women, are referring to Lacy as a ditz. Many talk about her Valley Girl speech (part paralanguage, of course). Not to mention that her BusinessWeek column is called Valley Girl. Plus, the apparently-flirtatious behavior is clearly gendered. Not that her gender was the root cause of the fiasco. But the fiasco has an obvious gender dimension. A man acting the same way would probably not have fared much better but the reactions would have been quite different. Not kinder, just different.
The "mob mentality" and "flashmob" aspects can also lead to insight into geek culture. In simple terms, this is what anybody would call a "tough crowd." "Lions in the arena" sounds like a fitting analogy. Was Lacy an amazone? Clearly, there are parallels to make with Michelle Madigan at DefCon. In that situation, a self-assured MSM journalist was shunned from a hacker conference for failing to play by the rules set by the audience. Sarah Lacy is being burnt partly because she failed to play to her audience.
The larger lesson is: context is key.
Sarah Lacy's Attempt at Recovering, and Reactions
2008/02/26
Voice's Human
And probably out of nostalgia, I really like the Swingle Singers.
My favorite works of theirs are probably their versions of Bach pieces. Those are part of my life's soundtrack, especially when I feel good.
Yet, a cappella music isn't just about the 1960s. It's actually a very broad category in music which spans many genres, from barbershop quartets and boy bands to doo-wop and religious choirs.
Chaperonnette à pois
La couronne du lion
Monsieur Muscle
J'avais déjà blogué là-dessus sur mon blogue principal, il y a deux ans, mais l'extrait original n'est plus disponible.
Les vidéos ici semblent complets. Veoh permet même de télécharger les vidéos. Pour installer l'application, il faut faire une petite manipulation (effacer le fichier «Veoh Player.pkg/Contents/Resources/InstallationCheck»). Mais ça semble fonctionner correctement.
2008/02/24
Frozen Montreal
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2008/02/23
L'efficacité de Maurane
2008/02/22
Game, Drama, Fashion Show, Media Event?
Austin, my current hometown, was host last night to the kind of event which gets national coverage. This time, 43,436 people tried to attend the event but only a hundred of them got selected. There were also 400 tickets for around 18,000 UT students who had entered the lottery.
Contrary to what one might guess, the event was not about Longhorn Football. Although, one of the protagonists in last night's event, a basketball player, did visit UT's famous team.
The "post-game analysis" makes it sound like a match between two sports teams.
Interestingly enough, it's a mixed sport, making it easy for journalists to use pronouns to distinguish players in the two teams. One source described the night's event as possible end game for the team led by a woman:
After losing a string of contests to [him] over the last several weeks, she is running neck-and-neck with him in Texas, according to some polls, a state in which she previously had a commanding lead.
One might think it was a fashion show:
the gold piping on her raised black collar and pockets gave her a martial, commander-in-chief look (the very model of a modern major general)
But I also get the impression that it was a theater premiere, with one source describing one actor's "classic 'I-feel-your-pain' finale" meant to go to watchers' "heads and hearts."
In the end, the event was mostly "media event." By the media, for the media, of the media.
Most likely, it won't change the dynamic of this race, though the true effect of it will be determined by the media coverage around it: Should it get replayed over and over on television, it just may have an impact on this race and could stand out as the debate's most striking moment.
So, I'm a bit puzzled by the whole thing.
2008/02/21
2008/02/05
Network Ninja to the Rescue
To make a long story short I used the campus wireless network to track down the exact location of my jacket and iPod. I had [the campus wireless network] send SMS messages to my cell phone, updating me on its current position. Police officers made an arrest last night and first thing this AM I got my cheese back. Don’t mess with a network ninja.
Wow. Guess positioning systems really are essential for the ultimate handheld device!