Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Ph.D.

I study people, technology, and the worlds they make

Month: June 2004 (page 1 of 8)

The gift economy goes a little crazy

June 30, 2004 / / Comments Off on The gift economy goes a little crazy

Now, you expect graduate students to be inventive, but this sets a record:

Cyborg in exchange for free rent!

I am a biotechnology grad student in search of housing. A back guest house would be perfect. In exchange, I will build you a cyborg…. Since current science is still catching up on this technology, it may be a few years until your cyborg is built. It might help if you had a pet dog or cat that I could practice with.

Too bad we don’t have a back guest house, or live in L.A. I’d kind of like my own cyborg.

Me, trendsetter

June 30, 2004 / / Comments Off on Me, trendsetter

The latest Trendwatching newsletter has a long piece on what they call “life caching,” which they define as “collecting, storing and displaying one’s entire life, for private use, or for friends, family, even the entire world to peruse.” Two elements in particular caught my eye, because they’re things I’ve been doing:

One of the lifelines of LIFE CACHING: from Malaysia to Hong Kong, key cord memory sticks and mini-MP3 players are the new Asian fashion accessory: with sticks storing up to 1 GB of content, consumers can (and do!) wear their entire ‘digital life files’ around their neck, from music to movies to documents to photos to presentations. It’s LIFE CACHING going mobile: with sticks, MP3 players and camera phones boasting increased storage capacities, functionality, and quality, consumers will soon be able to show, play and share their entire LIFE with whomever, wherever.
And last but not least, let’s not forget Apple’s mega-popular iPod: a new version in the works may contain up to 50 Gigabyte of storage space, which means even the biggest music fanatics will be able to forever build, store and carry their entire life collection of music (and soon video and data?), in a device the size of a pack of cigarettes. Next? Europe, where Apple’s iTunes music store recently launched in the UK, France and Germany. Now what if the iPod would turn into a camera phone with some help from, let’s say, Sony? Further integration with iLife, Apple’s ever expanding software suite for GENERATION C, also makes sense.

[To the tune of Stone Temple Pilots, “Interstate Love Song,” from the album Thank You.]

Another interesting-looking journal

June 29, 2004 / / Comments Off on Another interesting-looking journal

Hmmm….

Journal of Privacy Technology

The Journal of Privacy Technology is a refereed online journal published by the Privacy Technology Center within the Institute for Software Research International, a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Journal is a forum for publication of current research in privacy technology. It will consider any material dealing primarily with the technological aspects of privacy or with the privacy aspects of technology, which may include analysis of the interaction between policy and technology or the technological implications of legal decisions.

[via Phil Agre’s RRE]

[To the tune of Ahn Trio, “This is Not America,” from the album Ahn-Plugged.]

Do you want fries with that?

June 29, 2004 / / Comments Off on Do you want fries with that?

A good list of resources on nonacademic careers, published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. And I’m not just saying it because they link to Journeyman.

[To the tune of Yoshinori Sunahara, “Summer,” from the album Take Off and Landing.]

Tasty art

June 29, 2004 / / 1 Comment

As the caption to this post says, “Here’s the reason why we are asked to NOT touch things in a museum.”

The good old “blink” tag

June 29, 2004 / / Comments Off on The good old “blink” tag

Alex Halavais has a new site design. All is explained:

Interviewer: Speaking of the design… A bit of a throwback to the 90s, no? Especially the textured background that makes it difficult to read.

Alex: Yes, the two themes I was working with were “1997” and “anti-usability.” An early draft included a blink [ed.: I changed this from the original version with the brackets because, well, it actually worked— the rest of the entry blinked!] tag as well, but it got cut by reviewers.

Anti-usability… I think Alex might be onto something here. The next big fad in IT: open hostility to the user. An example of the future of services.

[To the tune of Yoshinori Sunahara, “Life & Space,” from the album Take Off and Landing.]

I’ve got a copyright and I’m not afraid to use it!

June 29, 2004 / / Comments Off on I’ve got a copyright and I’m not afraid to use it!

This looks interesting:

Welcome to Knowledge Held Hostage Conference Site

Scholars of all types are facing tighter controls over the copyrighted text, images, and video they use for research and teaching purposes. This action-oriented meeting will bring together academics, librarians, legal thinkers, and activists from around the country in a cross-disciplinary discussion of the unique problems that scholars and their institutions face in the growing field of digital rights management.

[Via LaDiDa]

[To the tune of Yoshinori Sunahara, “Journey Beyond the Stars,” from the album Take Off and Landing.]

Sunihara-san, meet M. Caillebotte

June 29, 2004 / / Comments Off on Sunihara-san, meet M. Caillebotte

I recently bought Yoshinori Sunahara’s Take Off and Landing. Amazon reviewers say that there are a couple other albums of his that are even better, but as far as I’m concerend, this is a remarkable piece of work: an ironic electronic lounge evocation of an age when jet travel was still fresh, luxurious and sexy, when the hump on the 747 was unaccountably erotic, when we imagined a future of curvy white plastic walls, avocado egg chairs, and freeze-dried martinis. When NASA was heroic, and Pan Am was hip.

(Remember Pan Am, the airline that had shuttle service to the Moon (in 2001: A Space Odyssey)? Remember how amazing Gropius’ decision to break the rectilinearity of the New York grid with his placement of the Pan Am building seemed so audacious?)

What’s made it really great is that I’ve been on planes most of the day, and so I’ve been listening to the album that has bits of ambient sound from airports- chipper information voices, flight announcements, instructional video voice-overs- in O’Hare and SFO. What’s really weird is that it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly which bits are the music, and which are actual live noises.

It may be my first experience in augmentation- the overlay of a soundtrack from an alternate present on top of my immediate reality.

Or maybe the better comparison is with looking at Gustave Caillebotte’s Rue de Paris, temps de pluie, which is one of the crowning glories of the Art Institute of Chicago. (One of the things I loved best about working at Britannica was being able go across the street during lunch, and just spend 20 minutes there looking at, say Impressionist crowd scenes. Not only was the AIC across the street, but it’s so big, you can choose something weird- Impressionist crowds, theatrical paintings, Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass- and have enough to keep you busy for a while.) One thing I never realized about it is that the thing is huge- it’s like 8 feet tall.

One day I was standing in the room where it’s on display, and a couple stood between me and it. The couple looked like they were part of the painting. The thing is as big as it is, and is hung the way it is, to mash up the distinction between the painting and the gallery crowd.

[To the tune of Yoshinori Sunahara, “Cross Wind Take Off,” from the album Take Off and Landing.]

On liberation

June 28, 2004 / / Comments Off on On liberation

A couple choice lines about the early transfer:

We’re like the Domino’s Pizza of liberation! (Get Your War On)

Please, don’t get us wrong, we totally heart sovereignty…. But as a gag gift, it’s sort of overwhelming. (Gawker)

[To the tune of Afterlife, “Sunrise [DJ Thunda & K20 Allstars Mix],” from the album Buddha-Bar, Vol. VI Disc 2.]

What’s in a thinktank?

June 28, 2004 / / Comments Off on What’s in a thinktank?

Since I work for one, I was amused by this Guardian Unlimited op-ed piece on the personalities and names of thinktanks (though understandably focused on British thinktanks, and mainly of the political policy kind):

There’s a book by Roger Hargreaves, of Mr Men fame, called Are you a roundy or a squary?. Roundies were extroverts of the kind who jump in puddles. Squaries were more earnest - they didn’t like getting their feet wet. Thinktanks can be categorised in a similar way. The Institute of Fiscal Studies, with its work on pensions policy, child poverty and the UK productivity gap, is a definite squary, relying on fact and vigorous academic research. More of a roundy is Demos, with its publications on softer subjects, such as what queens and kings are for and the rise of women’s networks in the workplace….

If I were to form my own thinktank, in a bid to influence policy to, oh, have more bank holidays or join the race to put a human on Mars (you may laugh but these are recent ideas from established thinktanks) I would call it “Gravitas”. This would lend an air of sophistication to even the most tongue-in-cheek ideas. Its seriousness could be lightened with a cheeky strapline - “mining the ideas quarry”, perhaps.

[To the tune of Steven Tyler, “I Love Trash,” from the album Songs From The Street: 35 Years Of Music.]

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