:Xerxes

So this past weekend is the traditional Deer Hunting Weekend for me. I will give a quick introduction for anyone that is not familiar with this. I am from Wisconsin, and every year the Saturday before Thanksgiving is the opening day of deer hunting season. This is a huge tradition not only in my family, but in Wisconsin in general. Now, for you who may think its inhumane: Deer Hunting occurs because of the overpopulation of deer in the absence of natural predators besides man. Would you rather hit a deer with your car or have then freeze to death because their food sources are exhausted due to over population? Anyway, it is supposed to be a beneficial culling of the herd so to speak.

The tradition consists of going “Up North” to the more secluded areas of the state to hunt deer in the woods. Basically, you either wait in what is called a ‘deer stand’ up in a tree for deer to walk by to shoot, or you walk through the woods and scare deer towards another guy or guys who then shoot the deer. When done right, it is relatively humane towards the deer, and both fun and character building for the hunters involved.

For the past entire weekend I was ‘Up North’ in Wisconsin and had no contact with the larger world, no cell phone, no internet, and no music of my own. Basically, I didn’t realize how much it bothered me until I got back Sunday night and was finally able to ‘connect’ with my e-mail, friends, and work through the computer and my beloved technology. It was nice to ‘be away from it all’ but doing this now makes me feel more anxious and paranoid than relaxed. I think it really is a control issue, as here, in my room, with my computer and all of the other IT, I have supreme control over what I do. Away from these mediating devices I am left with just my voice to communicate, something that is almost never the case anymore. This was just a very interesting practice for me, also because sitting up in a deer stand for a total of 8 hours on Saturday, 5 in the morning and 3 before/during dusk, put me into a completely uncommunicative state. I literally had no contact with people for this time, and it is always a little strange. You start to let your mind wander as you stare out into the woods looking for deer, and as I have mentioned to friends before, you kind of lose your own sense of self as there is no one else around to do a kind of ‘comparison’ with. We are so social and connected already that I think IT just furthers this almost natural instinct to be in contact with people. Also, hopefully Eszter will be more lenient on me for blogging late as I was literally incommunicado until late Sunday night.

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Paul Starr’s essay regarding the intriguing nature of Simulations in different situations brings up some very important points. Simulations are invaluable tools that can really help understand situations, and also help to predict future results. There is an inherent risk in simulations, as they are only as good as the rules by which they work. I am sure any one of us could tell a computer a few rules concerning taxes, then change policy and the computer would tell us basics about the outcomes. This would not even come close to being accurate, but it begs the question, at what point do simulations become adequate representations of reality? Starr likes to think that this line is non-existent, and that simulations should be taken as such. His discussion over the openness of the rules of a simulation brings up many important points. The main one being that simulations are much more valuable if we can see what has gone into the simulation process. Simulations can enlighten us to see effects we may have no predicted ourselves, but only through understanding the process that went into the simulation do we really understand what is going on. This is a crucial point as simulations are going to be used for such complex predictions as predicting what effects the detonation of nuclear devices have on the environment. In fact, many of the largest and most powerful computers on Earth are actually devoted to such large scale simulations. So I think my question rises again, at what point are simulations mirrors of reality? Can they even come close? My answer would be that they cannot, until computers could handle infinite inputs and outputs they are just an educated guess, just like everything else. Starr’s message is then a much more valuable one, that simulations can block us from a total understanding or give us a better overall understanding, depending on how much information we get about the simulation process.

I also would like to comment on the ‘Sims’ that Maxis has come out with over the years. I think that out of all video games I have ever played, which is a lot, games like Sim City 2000 were the most educational and fun to play. There is just so much there that is lacking in other games. Yes, they really are only as entertaining and exciting as your intellectual interaction with the game, but that is also why they are so good. If you get really wrapped up in creating the best ‘River City’ or ‘Industrial City’ you have to deal with so many different forces in different ways it really becomes and education. I really believe that these games should be changed and then instituted in schools, giving kids time to be creative and exploratory with technology, while still maintaining and nurturing an intellectual capacity and curiosity. I will definitely be giving these games to my kids in the future, that is, when I have kids.

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For my five minutes away from IT, I used my own room as I have a single so no one would bother me. I turned off my music, cell phone, and computer then sat on the couch facing my window. I had set an alarm for 10 minutes just so I knew if I went over too much.
When I first sat down on the couch and started doing nothing, I noticed that it felt like many thoughts were rushing into my head at once. Every thought seemed to be vying for my attention. It is a weird feeling to be so alone with yourself after being in contact with so much else, through the computer, cell phone, or whatever. It took some time to be able to ‘think of nothing’ or just focus on breathing. Once I started doing this the assignment became much easier, and the time seemed to pass quickly, almost like if I was asleep. Then before I knew it, the alarm went off and it was over.
Looking back on this exercise of separating myself from IT, I think I will actually do this more and more. It really helps my ability to focus, because usually there is so much going on, you just can’t pay full attention to any one thing. Doing this kind of allows you to, I guess, be more of you without outside influences. A big part of any person is defined by their interactions with others, so taking other influences out of the equation allows you to focus only on what you yourself are thinking or want. So, this was a neat little thought experiment and was pretty interesting because I didn’t think it would really be all that thought provoking to sit and ‘not think’.

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In my efforts to find as much as possible about our guest speaker, Jason Gallo, I decided to start with the ubiquitous Google search. I simply searched for ‘Jason Gallo’ and plenty of relevant hits came up. I was quickly able to establish that “Jason Gallo is a Ph.D. student in the Media, Technology, and Society Program in the School of Communication at Northwestern University” and that he is interested in internet and communications issues surrounding surveillance and technological convergence. All of the first ten hits that came up on Google were completely relevant, all relating to the same Jason Gallo. Our assignment, posted on the course blog, was also presented as one of the hits, which I find to be pretty cool for some reason.
After finding out some more terms I could use to limit the search results, I decided to run another search with more specific information. I entered ‘Jason Gallo’ and the terms ‘Communication’ and ‘Surveillance’ to the mix. I got back a lot of the same results, but found out further information regarding the scope and subject matter of Mr. Gallo’s research. It would be easy to compile a completely exhaustive record of every single piece of research he has done. His collaborations and even the programs from some of the seminars he has taken place in where all quickly found.
Out of pure curiosity, I decided to click on a sponsored link that claimed ‘Find People Instantly’ ‘Free to search our database.’ I searched with just his name, and too many hits came back, so I refined the search with the area limitation of Chicago and Evanston to see if I could find out where exactly he lives, his telephone number, or pretty much anything else that people feel uncomfortable about. Then I realized I should probably know his middle name so I went back in my search to figure that out, and to find out what his possible hometown is. I then also realized I could ph him on Northwestern’s website, which would provide that information, hopefully.

So a large search is not that helpful except in narrowing it down, because you can search more and more specific, and if you had known that searches on NU’s website can give you personal info, you could find where he lives and show up on his doorstep. Since I feel leery about publishing anyone else’s personal info, some of it is changed, but I want to include it for the gravity of it.

name: Jason Anthony Gallo
alias: jgallo
e-mail: XXX@northwestern.edu
netid: jag491
mailbox: XXXX@casbah.it.northwestern.edu
student current address: XXXX Kenmore Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640
USA
student current phone: +1 773 275 XXXX

Who wants to show up on his doorstep tonight and say this was Eszter’s assignment?

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Kieran Healy’s article concerning the regulation of the internet presented many interesting concepts and ideas concerning what constitutive choices will bring about which outcomes. She cautions against making decisions regarding property rights, infrastructure, and regulation of the internet due to concerns about limiting future exponential benefits that we cannot yet take into account. Her reasoning and methodology is sound, and indeed we really do not know what we would be missing. It is very distressing to me to think of so many forces out there in the political economy of our country spending so much money in an effort to lobby and change laws so that someone can squeeze as many dollars out of their ‘intellectual property’ as possible, without even thinking of the large negative consequences this can have in an area we do not fully understand. She really has demonstrated the danger of defining a technology too early, because we could be shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to realizing further benefits that the internet could have brought us. These constitutive choices are very real, and I believe that they need to be opened up to public discourse more often, not left to the greedy record labels or high tech companies that are literally just out for the profit.
Darrell West’s article about federal and state online tax filing brought up some interesting concepts and thoughts. It is interesting that these services are being instituted, when a relatively large percentage of people still do not use computers connected to the internet on a daily basis. The cost saving advantage alone is justification enough, but it cannot even be fully experienced if a large enough percentage of people do not use the service. This article also makes me think about the adoption and use of the internet. Many times in the article it expressed the fact that use of the services was incrementally rising at best; not being fully adopted quickly but slowly over time. This is really interesting, because it indicates a very real barrier to full use of the internet if one has the capabilities but for some reason or another does not feel the need or want to use them. That brings in a whole dimension that usually is ignored, because we kind of take it for granted that people will use the computer to access the internet if they have access to the internet.

These two articles really remind me that in general, independent users and operators of the internet have very limited abilities when it comes to shaping the entirety of the medium. Regulators in government and politics have much more say, and virtually no hard knowledge, something that has always scared me. Why should stupid politicians who can’t understand the technical issues or the finer points of concepts about the internet be able to dictate its use and development? I think anyone with half a brain could tell you that is a flawed approach, and that those most fully informed are the ones who would make the best decisions regarding it.

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Chris Anderson’s article about “The Long Tail” discussed the implications that distribution through the internet actually present. He stresses that we must think of distribution in a whole new way, not concentrating on the most ‘economic’ ‘hits’ but rather focus on the niche market. His notion that everyone is part of ‘the long tail’ of off-beat and specific content I find really compelling. Many times when I am on the internet looking for specific stuff with only my taste to guide me, I find some really good stuff. His cases of Amazon and Netflix are great, because each is so good at having everything that practically exists in books and movies respectively. I love Netflix, the whole idea and selection they have is really driven by letting people do what people want to do, and they do not just want the mainstream blockbuster hits. The long tail concept is what I believe to be a new kind of internet economic principle, that the accumulation of all the ‘small’ content can be much larger than all of the hits. This being due to the fact that every individual has their own individual taste. Letting people get exactly what they want has always been good business practice, but the internet gives entirely new meaning to this traditional phrase.

The Resnick and Zechhauser article concerning Ebay’s online reputation system and its corresponding auction business activities is a pretty interesting article. They discuss the implications of the feedback given to both parties, the buyer and seller, after an auction has been closed and an exchange takes place. They cite that 50% of transactions do not receive feedback, and of those responses of negative or neutral feedback are surprisingly small, somewhere around 5-6% of the time. The bulk of the article discusses possible reasons for this discrepancy of feedback. Is it truly the case that so many transactions occur, and everyone is pleased with their outcomes? How is it that the possibility to exploit the system is not used more often, or is it, and it just is not reported consistently? Interesting questions, and their stance that it may be some kind of illusion of online ‘good-feelings’ so everyone believes it works so it does. I personally think it is most likely a mix of all of this. Of course there will be those that will illicitly partake to the detriment of the group, but I also think that such communities are actually reinforcing, and that there is real motivation to not take advantage. Also, I think that the pure nature of Ebay, as an online auction site with some of the most random yet interestingly valuable items that makes it semi-insulated to those who would take advantage of the system. You really have to do it, online auction bidding or running, on a large scale if you ever really want to make any money. Big ticket items are not treated the same, and ripping off high-payoff auctions is going to be definitely harder than doing so for a small-deal one. You can rip people off easily as they both state, but lets face it, the nature of Ebay and the feedback really do insulate those in it from systematic crime. If it was the case that everyone was getting ripped off, I think it would be a large issue, because of the popularity and pervasive nature of the auctions. Not to mention they are so addicting and fun, and it always just feels like you are getting such a good deal I don’t think stealing enters into too many peoples’ minds. Maybe that’s just naïve.

Just as a side note, the Greenstein reading about ‘viral marketing’ and “The Virulent World of Mouse” is really interesting too. Just the fact that using what works can inhibit the use of others is very interesting. We are social animals, and we definitely imitate quickly if we find something that works for others, but it is interesting to see that the dynamics of this little value or force on the internet favors the small risk taker guy, and even allows him to cash out early. So anyone want to have a really good idea with me, do some viral marketing and cash out by age 25? We could be on the cover of Forbes, or Fortune, I guess whichever. Hmm, yeah right.

Until next week.

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Spam has always been something I have known about, while at the same time was completely oblivious to why it happened. The Center for Democracy and Technology’s paper on Spam was very informative, and I was shocked to learn that I probably get more Spam because of NU listing my e-mail online than from any other source. I always would have thought it was all of the registration information I filled out when surfing the web. I always made sure to opt out of the newsletters and offer information, but had been told numerous times by many people that such sites can sell your e-mail legally or illegally with little threat of consequences to anyone willing to buy it to send more Spam messages. It was comforting to find out that this was not the case, and my opt outs were more than likely heeded and my e-mail removed. Spam has always frustrated me, and was the reason why I had to abandon my first e-mail address at Yahoo. I will definitely follow the tactics that were recommended, as a good and constant e-mail address has much more value than people realize.

The media, as well as bloggers and other online sources, always bring up the ‘digital divide’ as being an issue of availability of hardware, not one of education or skills. I think that is why Mossberger, Tolbert, and Stansbury’s article concerning the divide in terms of skills needed in order to benefit from the Internet was so enlightening. It is obvious that you cannot use the Internet if you cannot read, but less obvious to many that if you lack comprehension skills and other ‘data mining’ skills the Internet is good for little else than basic entertainment and news. The nature of the Internet as it is today makes such skills vital to any worthwhile surfing of the Internet. It is distressing to see that, as is true with so much else, these skills mirror the traditional inequality presented in our society. Those non-minorities and educated people using the Internet benefit highly from it, and further pull away from other groups in terms of information fluency.
It was nice to see that measures like education and public access through libraries could actually make a difference, when judging by people’s intention. Such programs should be a cornerstone of government education as it falls to the government to educate and inform the citizenry enough so that they may participate in a worthwhile fashion in our democracy. Such things are startling because they highlight how technology can exacerbate pre-existing inequality in a possibly exponential way. There is hope, in that once such skills can be disseminated to all, real improvements in education and knowledge can take place anywhere, and by anyone.

Ta ta for now.

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As the DiMaggio & Celeste and Pippa readings point out, digital accessibility and usage are complex issues that must be understood if the internet’s benefits are to be realized equally by all people. Pippa demonstrates that even among post-industrial nations, internet usage is not ubiquitous. DiMaggio & Celeste point to such factors as education, socioeconomic status, and age as the largest influences on whether or not a person is connected. These macro and micro analyses of connectivity highlight major issues surrounding the reality of the internet being a democratic force.

The DiMaggio & Celeste reading on digital inequality outlines the real and imagined ‘digital divide’. They point out the still present socioeconomic factors that limit connectivity even as usage increases. This is a very interesting finding in that it shows that there is a real concern that the internet will mirror already existing inequalities in our society. With technology increasing at an exponential rate, I wonder if universal connectivity to it’s benefits will always lag behind. If you consider the radio and television, it becomes harder and harder to argue otherwise. These seemingly basic technologies still have not disseminated to universal standing.
The concept of a ‘digital career’ brought up in the paper is a concept I think should be used more often. It is a great way to understand the usage patterns of people. Of course richer, more affluent people will use the internet more than others to conduct financial transactions and accounting. It’s also useful in understanding what kind of use new adopters put the internet to, usually entertainment. I find that my own usage ebbs and flows with the start of school, breaks, and other events that dictate more or less time spent online. I think if connectivity were understood more in this way, it would provide a better understanding for how to shape the adoption of newer technologies.

Pippa’s article on worldwide connectivity highlights many interesting trends in connectivity that are yet to be understood. The widely varying connectivity among like groups, such as post-industrial democracies, or third world countries, points to the fact that simple factors such as affluence, age, or ideology do not go far enough in explaining the conditions in which people connect to the internet. I was also struck by the fact that New York has as many hosts as all of Sub-Saharan Africa does. Comparisons like this make me think that further inequality will take place when technology takes its next big step. If people do not even have television now, so long after its invention, how long will it take them to connect to something much more complex like the internet? I would argue that as we give praise to blogs and the like, we are missing the real challenges and opportunities presented by such a possibly pervasive technology. If even 30 or 40% of the entire world was connected, we would experience many more benefits to this linkage. Networks are only as good as the number of people that can be reached through them, and not reaching the possible realizable number limits the benefits we can get from such a network.

The digital divide is a very interesting topic to me, as it represents the fact that we can never get completely ‘digital’, or never get away from the inequality already present in the system we live with. The technology may indeed be ‘democratic’ in that anyone can use and utilize the basic system, but if you cannot even get on the system, and that system leaves out more than it brings in, how can it be democratic?

That’s it for now.

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Paul Starr’s article, The Creation of the Media – Political Origins of Modern Communications, and Daniel Drezner and Henrey Farrell’s article Web of Influence both bring up interesting concepts and consequences regarding the use of the internet.

Starr’s thesis of technology and communication bending from societal pressures is one that is not heard too often anymore. We usually hear commentators and reporters write and talk about technology like it has a mind of its own and that nothing we can do will be able to shape or direct its energy. There certainly are many things about the internet that are currently being decided upon that people believe are given. He sets out three ways in which society drives the development and application of new technologies. We are able to form the law around communication, as well as conceptually and physically control its physical existence. We indeed are able to make or break amazing technologies with how we handle them as a society. Starr’s concepts are founded in a deep understanding of how technology came to be, not an anecdotal account of how amazing technology is and about how it seems to come from nowhere.
Drezner and Farrell’s article concerning the emerging importance of blogs in political life is an interesting take on the new form of communication. They believe that blogs have become a new type of watchdog, capable of challenging all independently and giving everything a kind of ‘trial by fire’ in which every fact is studiously checked. There is also discussion about how ‘elite’ blogs somehow become the meta-blogs for the entire ‘blogosphere’. There are many intriguing claims made by this article, none of which seem to be completely outside of debate. The idea that a gigantic community of individuals with no common aim set any type of agenda is a pretty simplistic view. Blogs do not set the agenda so much as they are the agenda. Personal blogs set the agenda because quite precisely, people are the agenda. Aggregates are great, but saying there is agenda setting abilities gives bloggers the same maligned characteristic that ‘The Media’ are given today. Drezner and Farrell’s claim stating that elite bloggers are representative of those ‘beneath’ them further seems to short-change the unique nature of this community, if it can be called that. This is a unique community that is not homogenous, and stating that a dozen or few blogs are representative of the 40+ million out there is a sloppy comment to make.

Both articles considered are thought provoking, one concerned with direction and control of technologies that shape our lives, and the other concerning the use of the technology that will somehow shape our lives. It is interesting to consider the melding of the two and consider open blogging discussion regarding the direction that the internet should take. Sure, this kind of discussion takes place every day, but with no true aim in mind. These things do not seem to be out of our control, indeed inherently in our hands, and letting such things develop by chance seems reckless and dangerous.

I think that’s it for now.

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Out of all the various readings, the Wellman and Gulia article on Virtual Communities and the Shirky article on Power Laws and Blogging caught my interest the most.

Shirky’s article intrigues me because it brings up interesting developing issues surrounding the increased usage of blogs. It is very interesting to consider that it is only getting more and more difficult to set up a high traffic blog, something that for the past year or so people firmly believed was tied to the overall content of their blogged items. The Power Law distribution of blog site hits is interesting because it points to an ‘Undemocratic’ force at hand on-line, something that I don’t think has come up nearly as often as it should. There are definitely limits to the internet, as well as a fairly hierarchical, and a steep one at that, system that governs the best software, sites, and communities on it. The most knowledgeable and ‘connected’ individuals now will most likely become large influencing forces later on down the road. This just seems to be an important implication for those who do have veritable ‘control’ over large numbers of people who regularly visit their sites. I hate to put it out there, because I hate rhetorical questions, but this article made me think of one: can there be ‘elites’ as we understand them on the internet? My answer would be no, due to the nature of connecting to others material, it only gets accessed if others accessed it, and bad content just doesn’t pass muster with today’s digital class of people.
The Virtual Communities reading also made me think of the wider social aspects occurring on the internet that occur invisibly to anyone that is not directly involved. It is interesting to consider so many wide ranging questions, but none seem to be that well answerable yet. They are definitely on the right track when they discuss the burgeoning world that is now the internet, and how it changes the communication world in another unforseable but amazing way. In many respects it levels social interaction to what is desired, and allows people to limit all other interaction that has the possibility of harm. The disconnected and connected nature of the internet is interesting, and this article gets to the exact heart of how people that are vastly physically disconnected can still be connected in a meaningful and genuine way. The discussions on different types of relationships seems to be superfluous, because observing such situations beyond the anecdotal level has to be nearly impossible, as the setting is virtual, and no one wants a sociologist eavesdropping in cyberspace. But, they do provide qualitative discussion about how we interact, and about how meaningful relationships can be fostered in a variety of ways through the internet. The proliferation of less intimate relationships for singular purposes, or ‘boutique connections’ as the article put them, is very interesting. They really allow people to interact based simply on their needs, rather than on a reciprocity that is needed in personal relationships.
The Virtual Community is undoubtedly set up by the Power Law distribution, which makes the implications even more interesting. There are ‘hubs’ of this activity, and it would naturally move outward based on a series of connections or links numbering in the millions. The Shirky article does not take up issues of community in a social sense, but when seen in this context, it is no wonder there still is not a lot of evidence for the intimate relations. They just wouldn’t be seen, and those who saw them would be part of the interaction. It’s just interesting to think of how the nature of connections on the internet influences the type of relationships one has over the internet. I would bet that those who interact with more people have, de facto, more and more intimate relationships over the internet. Just a thought, but I had better end this, its getting long.

That’s it for now.

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