Shortly after I found the great blog outside the (toy) box, its author decided that she couldn’t maintain it, not right now anyway. I completely understand her decision, but it’s still a bummer. There’s some great writing there about parenting, gender issues, and consumerism, and her voice will be missed.
So here’s a post along similar lines inspired by my stroll down 5th Avenue in Manhattan yesterday. One could probably write a whole book about the experience on that one street Christmas Eve, but I’ll just restrict myself to the NBA store. I’m more of a college basketball fan than an NBA fan, but I like basketball enough in general to have been intrigued by the store and so I went inside. (Yeah, clearly this isn’t a generic anti-consumerist post.) There’s tons of merchandise likely about any NBA team of interest. Naively one might think that most sports and fan gear could be gender neutral. But no, there is a separate “NBA for her” pink section, because how could a girl or a woman possibly appreciate a green or orange jersey, right? In addition to that pink section, I was really annoyed by the gendering of some playful items. I thought it would be cute to buy a little plush basketball as a gift for a child. Then I thought: hey, let’s support women’s basketball so I’ll buy the one that says WNBA instead of NBA. But the WNBA balls all had a bow! Why can’t a little plush basketball with two eyes, two hands and two feet not have a bow even if it is supposed to be female? Uhm, and why does something that supports WNBA have to be female anyway? Or would somebody like to critique me for assuming that the bow and big eyelashes are supposed to represent a girl?
I find this all so stupid and frustrating. Needless to say I walked out of the store not having spent a penny.
It’s that time of year when I think about chocolate even more than usual. Along those lines, I’m hosting a chocolate birthday party tonight (I can’t believe it’s taken me this many years to think to do it!) and am not sure yet how to handle the logistics of the blind taste test. I guess it doesn’t have to be that complicated, but if anyone has any experiences and lessons learned, please share. I’m supplying about ten types of chocolate (from high-end to not exactly) and guests will bring their own contributions. I’ll remove the wrappers and place the chocolate on plates. I figured I would number these and hand out sheets where people can rank order. But perhaps they should just comment and rate. I’m not sure. Any thoughts? Part of the point is to see who decides that their absolute favorite is the cheapest relatively generic brand vs the super special imported variety.
I’m also looking for any additional ideas for such a party. I’ve gotten some nice chocolate Q&A cards that I’ll spread out across the place. I’m making some large printouts of chocolate photos (using this nifty tool). And I’ll likely have a couple of fondue pots going thanks to gifts from previous birthdays. Of course, I’ll have plenty of other food (and not just sweets!) and drinks (spiced wine anyone?) to allow people to cleanse their palettes between morsels. Anything regarding the chocolate theme that I should add?
Giving credit where its due: the chocolate party blind taste test idea comes from my friend Diane who hosted a very successful version back in grad school so it is a tested concept. I just don’t remember the logistical details.
Henry points us to a new Google initiative and was wondering what I might think about it. I started writing a comment, but thinking that a comment shouldn’t be three times as long as the original post (and because I can), I decided to post my response as a separate entry.
First, I think Kieran is right, knol is way too close to troll, I would’ve picked a different name. (That said, most people out there probably have no idea what a troll is so in that sense it’s just as well although I still don’t like the name.)
I address three issues concerning this new service of trying to create something Wikipedialike within Google’s domain: First, will it gain popularity? Second, what might we expect in terms of quality? Third, what’s in it for Google beyond the potential to showcase more ads? [click to continue…]
I realize that some of the references in this video require a fairly intimate knowledge of the Silicon Valley scene, but not all so perhaps this will add a bit of amusement to your day regardless of your geek quotient.
I was in Trier, Germany last week, famous for.. among other things, being the birth place of Marx.
I found the store filled with Marx merchandise amusing:
The “opium of the people” quote was only available on a magnet in German, not in English (other quotes were available in English), I’m assuming a conscious choice based on potential interest.
I couldn’t resist getting a copy of the poster that has the entire Communist Manifesto written on it with an image of Marx and Engels coming through from the text thanks to manipulation of the formatting.
I also got a postcard with a cartoon of Marx and the following quote: “Tut mir leid Jungs! War halt nur so ‘ne Idee for mir…”, which Babelfish completely butchers in its translation so I’ll try, but feel free to correct me: “Sorry kids! ‘Twas just an idea I had.”
Boarding a plane to Budapest later in the day added a twist to all this for me. While I can see friends and colleagues in the U.S. understanding why I would’ve picked up those items, I don’t think too many people in the town where I grew up would get why I’d want anything with Marx on my walls.
My most recent research article looks at predictors of social network site (SNS) usage among a group of first-year college students. First, I look at whether respondents use any social network sites and then examine predictors by specific site usage (focusing on Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster based on popularity). Before asking about usage, I asked about having heard of these sites and all but one person reported knowledge of at least one SNS so lack of familiarity of these services does not explain non-adoption. The analyses are based on a representative sample of 1,060 first-year students at the University of Illinois, Chicago surveyed earlier this year. This is an especially diverse campus concerning ethnic diversity. (See the paper for more details about the data and methods.)
Methodologically speaking, I find that it is worth disaggregating the general concept of social network site usage, because analyses looking at usage on the aggregate mask predictors of specific site use.
Of particular interest seem to be Facebook and MySpace since they are the most popular with this group. About three quarters of students use the former and over half use the latter in the sample.
I find statistically significant differences by race, ethnicity, parental education (a proxy for socioeconomic status) and living situation (whether a student lives with his or her parents or not) concerning the adoption of Facebook and MySpace. [click to continue…]
Slate has a helpful article by legal scholar Tim Wu (among other things, an expert on Internet-related policy issues) about what’s at stake concerning Google’s recent announcement about the development of Android, a “truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices”.
A few weeks ago the Berkman Center for Internet and Society posted an interesting contest: create a short informative video about Web cookies and have the chance to win up to $5,000 and a trip to DC where the video would then be shown at the FTC’s Town Hall workshop on “Ehavioral Advertising“.
I’m afraid we’re past the deadline for submissions and I apologize for posting about this so late (life intervened and I got behind on a bunch of things). I wanted to post about it nonetheless, because I think it’s an interesting initiative and the resulting videos are available for viewing.
I was very intrigued by this contest given my interest in improving people’s Internet user skills. What would be a good way to communicate the concept of a Web cookie to folks who have little technical background? I haven’t looked at all of the submissions, but the ones I’ve seen I find are still too technical and are likely only comprehensible to those who already know at least a few things about Internet cookies. Alternatively, the clips are too vague and so likely have limited utility for that reason. I was a bit surprised and disappointed that people didn’t do more with the cookie analogy. Some of the videos have related cute/amusing components, but not incorporated in a particularly effective way. However, note that I have not watched all of the submitted videos so I may have missed some gems. Feel free to post links to ones you think are especially informative. I think the timeline for submissions was a bit short (I know there were particular logistical reasons for this), which may have prevented more people from getting involved and may have limited the amount of effort that could go into creation of the entries.
An interesting aside about how YouTube posts videos (assuming I understand this correctly, but I haven’t explored this aspect in depth so feel free to correct me): it seems that the creator of the video has little say over what becomes the thumbnail image for the clip. As far as I can tell, the frame is taken from the middle of the video, which is not always ideal as it’s not necessarily the most informative segment.
One year ago today I started a project: take at least one photo each day and post it online. Yesterday, I took the 365th photo in the project and today I compiled a video of the set:
I have found this to be an amazing experience and I’m going to continue with it. Setting aside a few moments each day to look around and find something worthy of a photo adds a very interesting and nice component to everyday life. Like Chris, I’ve started noticing things I never saw before. Looking back at the full set is also a great reminder of all that I’ve been up to over the last 12 months.
I highly recommend a hobby of this sort. I have two pieces of advice. First, it’s helpful to have a small enough digital camera that you can take it with you everywhere. You never know when a great photo opportunity will present itself. Second, don’t expect to maintain a separate blog or even blog section for this (as I naively did), it’s hard to find the time for that. Rather, post the photos to a community photo-sharing site like Flickr that makes posting and organization easy and can connect you to a group of people engaging in a similar project.
I want to send a shoutout to folks on Flickr who’ve been participating in this concurrently. A great community has built up around the project, which has been another great aspect of all this.
I doubt you have to be a Sex and The City fan to appreciate this clip from The Daily Show called “Is American Ready for a Woman President?”, but if you are a SATC fan you are absolutely guaranteed to LOL.
I’ve long enjoyed cropping images into abstract sections. I like discovering sections of things I don’t necessarily notice otherwise. It’s related to the project Chris and I are undertaking this year, taking a photo every day. That also helps discover things in one’s surroundings that otherwise may go unnoticed.
Since it’s a slow Sunday and I just happened upon a crop in my photostream that I like, I thought I’d post it here:
Here’s another find from my time in Switzerland, this time the Zürich Airport.
Approximate translation: “Pirating and counterfeiting is a bad sport: no rules, many fouls, only losers.”
This may actually sound better in English. Does “loser” have that extra connotation in German as it does in English? I didn’t think it did.
In any case, is an airport such a helpful place to put this, especially right near the business lounge in a relatively secluded area? Is any place a helpful place to put this? (I know there is a huge literature on the effectiveness of ad campaigns in various areas. I don’t know if there is any in this particular one.)
I saw this ad somewhere else, too, but I forget where. Have you seen ads of this sort elsewhere?
Hundreds of blogs are being updated every half hour right now as part of Blogathon 2007. I recommend checking out these sites, their authors are working hard not only to bring you interesting content, but also to raise money for various important charities. There is a list of participating blogs here. The topics vary with some blogs focusing on a theme while others blogging in a more freestyle manner. There’s a blog looking at names from children’s literature and collecting donations for First Book, which disseminates books to children from underprivileged backgrounds. (Another participating blog collecting for this charity is Potterthon, perhaps of interest to some here.) This Book is For You is collecting donations for the American Library Association Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund and looking at related topics throughout the 24 hour period. A la cuisine is posting some very intriguing recipes (with pics) and collecting funds for the National Kidney Foundation in honor of the author’s good friend who just received a kidney transplant three days ago. Some people are running contests such as this man in Texas blogging from atop a forklift. His charity is Midland Fair Havens, which offers support to women with pre-teen children who are homeless or who are in danger of becoming homeless. The contests at hello, Yoshi! have readers/listeners guessing movie quotes (with the possibility of winning prizes). The choice of charity there is Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I could go on and on, there are lots of dedicated folks participating in this today.
I took part in Blogathon four years ago and it was a fun unique experience. If I wasn’t in the midst of moving and travelling right now I would have posted a note earlier about all this to encourage more people to participate. When I did it in 2003, I decided to do it in the grad student computer cluster in the Princeton Soc Dept so people could stop by easily and say hi. Over a dozen friends kept me company (and brought me food!) throughout the event. And I got to raise some money for Planned Parenthood from forty generous contributors.
It’s not that easy to stay up for 24 hours straight and blog in a coherent manner. Putting up a post every half hour means constant work. So show some of these folks some appreciation by reading their blogs and if inspired, consider donating to some of these very worthy charities.
So here’s a post along similar lines inspired by my stroll down 5th Avenue in Manhattan yesterday. One could probably write a whole book about the experience on that one street Christmas Eve, but I’ll just restrict myself to the NBA store. I’m more of a college basketball fan than an NBA fan, but I like basketball enough in general to have been intrigued by the store and so I went inside. (Yeah, clearly this isn’t a generic anti-consumerist post.) There’s tons of merchandise likely about any NBA team of interest. Naively one might think that most sports and fan gear could be gender neutral. But no, there is a separate “NBA for her” pink section, because how could a girl or a woman possibly appreciate a green or orange jersey, right? In addition to that pink section, I was really annoyed by the gendering of some playful items. I thought it would be cute to buy a little plush basketball as a gift for a child. Then I thought: hey, let’s support women’s basketball so I’ll buy the one that says WNBA instead of NBA. 
But the WNBA balls all had a bow! Why can’t a little plush basketball with two eyes, two hands and two feet not have a bow even if it is supposed to be female? Uhm, and why does something that supports WNBA have to be female anyway? Or would somebody like to critique me for assuming that the bow and big eyelashes are supposed to represent a girl? 
