DIMINISHED THOUGHT

Blogging couldn’t save Howard Dean. Wired magazine extolled Howard Dean’s use of the internet to connect with his constituency three months before the Iowa caucus. Dean, in interviews to author, explains how he gains feedback from blogs and was able to effectively use social networking tools already available on the internet to give his campaign a grassroots boost. In the article Dean seems to have a particularly rosy outlook concerning the internets potential in politics. Dean says “A lot of the people on the net have given up on traditional politics precisely because it was about television and the ballot box, and they had no way to shout back” (Wolf, 2004). The Dean campaign understood a lot. They understood that a single webpage could not generate the web traffic that they desired so they encouraged social networking that would link websites and build said traffic. A minority of blogs and webpages account for a majority of readers online. They understood the blogging provided interactivity with the public that provided valuable feedback on campaign issues while developing feelings of inclusion and community. Unfortunately despite this innovative and seemingly prescient use of technology in politics, Dean fell victim to a much older medium: television.


During a speech to enthusiastic followers he shouted and screamed into a microphone, possibly to speak over a noisy crowd, which was subsequently broadcast repeatedly on television. As Clay Shirky points out in his blog a small number of major media corporations have a majority of the ratings on the television dial. Furthermore, we are living in a society that is saturated with the images produced for television. More TVs are now present in homes than people who live their. Shirky points out that at the height of network television Gunsmoke was able to reach 45 percent of the audience. Although the rise of cable television has led to a more segmented audience it seems unlikely that a weblog or even a network of weblogs would be able to compete with the media exposure of multiple major television networks. Although Dean did an excellent job of creating a political presence on the net, he was unable to spin the national television news coverage, which was seen by a much larger audience, to his favor.

So I'm trying something new. Let me know if anyone thinks my new banner is creepy and I'll try to come up with something else. I honestly spent way too much time coming up with it...

Yesterday A. and I decided to try to cook Indian so we went off to global groceries and tried to round up all the essential ingredients.



It wasn't as bad as I thought...we were only missing one thing (methi leaves). Anyway what follows is the documentation of our experiment as well as some notes on how things went. The recipe we used was Chicken Madras from the Curry House website. For the exact recipe for the links, I'm just going to comment on the pictures and the general process.



First we start out making the basic curry sauce. We started out by cooking up onion, gingers, and chiles in ghee (which I think is some weird type of butter). The recipe called for three tablespoons. We used two and probably could have gotten away with one (the stuff is really bad for you!).


After about 15 minutes of slow cooking we add corriander, tumeric, and cumin which makes the entire mess turn yellow. We continued to cook it for a bit longer.


Then we took the whole mess off fire and put it in a blender with some water and a bit of pureed tomatoes. When we ended up pouring it back into the pot it looked like this.


Starting on the Chicken Madras: We cut the chicken up into fairly large cubes and then stir fried it in a skillet while continuing to let the sauce cook down.


We took the chicken off the fire and then stir fried some dried chiles in oil and over low heat slowly added a tablespoon of the curry sauce along with cumin, coriander, cayenne, and paprika continually stirring so that it did not burn. You dump the whole thing into the curry sauce pot.



We let the whole thing simmer and ten minutes before the end added the garam masala and methi powder (we ended up substituting a 1/4 of a teaspoon of methi powder for a teaspoon of methi leaves). During this period we ended up having to add water to mixture to keep it at the right consistency but this didn't seem to affect the taste. We also added a significant amount of cayenne. It ended up changing color to a much darker orange brown before finish.


Finally, we served it with nann (indian flatbread), rice, and white wine. MMMMM!

At least the social sciences seem to be the most honest of the lot...

Business grad students most likely to cheat: study | US News | Reuters.com

Don't you hate it when the science fiction writers turn out to be right? In the book Pattern Recognition by William Gibson we follow a young woman, Cayce Pollard, who has been hired to track down the orgin of mysterious video clips coming out on the net that had become a phenomenom. Three years later enter Lonelygirl15, a video blog centering around a socially isolated cute, young girl who makes cryptic references to being invovled with a satanic cult.

Followers have put an increasing amount of effort into confirming the veracity of her video blog, especially in light of inconsistancies that suggested that the footage might be staged. Well while I was out for the weekend it appears that she made an appearance on the Tonight Show . We've all talked about internet fame but what will be really interesting is whether she can make the cross over into traditional media, becoming the first genuine internet star to begin an offline career in entertainment...we'll see. I don't think she's that great of an actress but she's certainly cute enough.

This weekend I took a little excursion into Chicago with some people. It was really nice. The first thing we did was go over to Millenium Park and watch the little kids playing in the fountain. P. and A. took off their shoes and wandered on into the fountain and I ended up peeling off my sneakers and following them in. The fountain was basically these big monolithic towers on either end of a plaza with glass bricks. Images could be projected onto the bricks and a persons face always placidly wathed the crowds passing. It was suprisingly warm the past few days probably topping out in the mid to lower 80's.



The water was fine. All these little kids would run back and forth sometimes splashing water on us. Occaisionally a thick, heavey stream of water would shoot forth from the lips of one of the faces dousing some of the running children. After the park we went to the Art Institute of Chicago browsed through the impressionist works and a few contemporary/ modern artists. Mostly modern. Until a few years ago I didn't really have a taste for modern art. It's been slowly growing on me. That evening we ended up going out to dinner at a tapas bar (more on that later).

We ended up staying at a really nice friend of A.'s who lived in Lincoln park in a tiny but cute apartment that seemed to be a renovated hotel room. I slept on the floor and woke up really early this morning. I couldn't sleep so A. and I quietly snuck out and went up the eighth floor where they have a deck with sunchairs that alternately overlooks the park and Lake Michigan or the skyline of the city depending on which way you're facing and we hung out for a couple hours watching the sun come on up.

After being introduced to the Original Pancake House (I had the Hawaiin pancakes) we wandered around a street market consisting mainly of jewelry and art. After a thorough tour of the Lincoln Park Zoo we walked down to the shore of Lake Michigan and hung out of the beach for a bit before I began my trek home. I had to take a bus, then walk a mile, take a train, then walk a mile, and then drive two hours to get back home. Not so bad over all. I met a drunk black man on the train from Memphis who as a fellow southerner decided to impart the following advice on me through a barely intelligible accent slurred through the consumption of a can of Camo in a paper bag.

1. Finish my education. Stay in school as long as I could. Make some money.

2. Never trust a woman. He had two wives and both had left.

3. Women like money. Be careful. (See point 1)

4. Jesus owns my ass.

6. Respect women. One brought you into your world. (I told him I thought my Dad might have had something to do with it but he set me straight. Read points two and three and revel in the irony.)

7. B.B. King is one of the greatest musicians to ever live.

8. Money doesn't mean anything, Jesus can call you at any point in time. (See points 4 and 1).

9. Repeating and contradicting yourself makes you seem more intelligent to your fellow passengers. If more credibility is required consume large quantities of bum liquor in their prescence, engage in profuse handshaking, and talk loudly.

Don't get me wrong. He wasn't a bad guy. Just a bit ...intoxicated?


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So my trip to the tapas restaurant inspired me to try to make Tortilla Espanola (this is the recipe I followed). I used to eat this stuff almost every day while I was in Spain for my afternoon snack. I mean I'd be coming through the door of the neighborhood cerveceria and th bartender would start cutting me a slice and pulling me una caña (small draft beer). The Spanairds I knew always told me it was really easy to make so I tried my hand tonight for dinner tonight. If you look to your right that is the result. That's not exactly what's supposed to happen but it was at least reminescent of tortilla. I'll try again and see if it works better another time. I was actually suprised at how little egg actually went into it...

Those dastardly IT folks here at Purdue!!! This year they've placed printing limits on how much you can print and if you exceed that you'll be charged for it. This is a direct result of the stupid and wasteful undergraduate culture that heavily relies on flyers to advertise upcoming events. They'll take these flyers and tape them to the ground with one about every five feet...literally. As a result they waste a tremendous amount of paper. So as a graduate student I've been limited to 1000 copies black and white...

But wait! I've found a loop hole. If you go to the library and use one of about eight public access stations that don't require a login you won't be charged for printing. Take that! I'm fighting the system by going at odd hours to print. If you think I'm giving my secrets away and that now I'll have to compete for a workstation because I'm blogging this you're fooling yourself. Nobody at Purdue reads my blog and even if they do this article will be pushed down the page before too much longer.....

According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivals Communitas is “the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persona who experience liminality as a group (pg. 97)” and is commonly found during times of great crisis. During the liminal period people are deindividuated, the existing social hierarchy somewhat unravels, and roles shift and change. The American public experienced liminality as it was caught up the shock and grief of 9-11. Muslims in America, an already marginalized group, were further marginalized. Following September 11th there was a resurge of patriotism. Social distinctions seemed to lessen and people idientified themselves as Americans. Some people dealt in a small part with the horrors of that day through online communities and blogs. The ability to reach out and communicate with others and to be able to express themselves, even for just a little bit, was essential.

Most American’s can tell you where they were on the morning of September 11th, 2001. People were in bed, waking up in dorm rooms, were on there way to work or finishing the late shift. Within an hour most of the nation was glued to their television. And not just the TV. The internet received such heavy usage that “on the day the U.S. actually was attacked – September 11, 2001 – the Internet was clogged and unresponsive to many of us beyond and utility (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2001). So many users tried to get information about the terrorist attacks and to see the multimedia views of the World Trade Center that the Internet system built to withstand attack turned out to be a victim of its own success.” (pg. 646)

The blog Micro persuasion discusses the role of blogging during the World Trade Center attacks. On September 11th some of the most personal entries came from the blogging community as individuals wrote about ongoing events. When the phone lines were down it was a way for individuals on the scene to produce massive amount of information. Part of a nation engaging in collective mourning consisted of soft, irregular clicking as people typed up their experiences. Even today people have spent time reminiscing over their feelings concerning the attack.

And while blogs have gotten a lion’s share of the attention for what was going on in cyberspace on September 11th, I remember something else, something I had actually forgotten I’d done until today. That Tuesday afternoon I logged on to a Muslim discussion board from my dormitory. At that point no one knew if the attackers had been associated with Islam but there was a speculation and I was interested as to how the Muslim community was reacting. What I found was both predictable and surprising.

First, there were the typical hate messages scrawled across the boards. Idiots screaming about towel heads and camel jockeys. Second, there were the Muslims who had circled their wagons and were defending Islam by informing curious individuals that Islam did not promote the taking of life. Finally, there was a suprising (at least unexpected from my perspective) outpouring of support to the Muslim community by non-Muslims who were decrying the hateful statements of others. However, almost everyone expressed shock, pain, and grief.

Walther, J. B., Gay, G., & Hancock J. T. (2005). How do communication and technology researchers study the internet?. Journal of Communication,632-657.

Facebook update:

The facebook team has issued an apology for the new feature and is working on code that will allow individuals more control over how their information is displayed. Logging in individuals are issued an apology on their homepages...Good job.

What I find so ironic about this situation is that individuals are complaining about having information about themselves broadcast when they freely put it out on the net for others to see. I understand that facebook "Stalker Edition" is a bit disturbing but I think that individuals need to consider what sort of information they put online in the first place...

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Random Thoughts....

I miss home where it's ninty one degrees right now...

Advocado on sandwiches makes them slide apart.

I learned what an Ogive is and its not as sexy as it sounds.

The online social networking site Facebook has finally gone too far. While many people enjoy the voyeuristic elements of facebook, where one is able to find information about what friends and acquaintances, a recent feature that uses technology akin to an RSS (really simple syndication)feed common with blogs is being used to transmit information to individuals friends and contacts home page upon login. Additionally, a minifeed feature tracks and highlights all changes made to the profile and appears on the wall of the profile page.

Several protest groups have popped up on facebook to protest the new feature. Many feel that it provides too much information and lays the ground work for cyber-stalking. One group entitled Students against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook) has had an ever increasing membership. It's actually phenomenal to watch. I've honestly never witnessed anything like this . It's one o'clock in the eastern time zone and I hit the reload button every twenty seconds and watch the member count soar. 503,712 ... 503,774 .... 503,822.... 503,900... I didn't even know half a million people used facebook. They've created a petition.... at this time they have over 73,000 signatures.

Here are some articles covering the reaction to this feature:

Times

Washington Post

P.S. If anyone cares this is officially my 100th post to this blog.

Oh this is just so beautiful... Charlton Heston before his gun days.

Ah, my first post of September. You know what I realized tonight? That it's been a long time since I had a beer in the shower. I know, I know. It's a strange ritual but one that I find intensely gratifiying. Consider this: A beer is satisfying, and a hot shower is as well. When you combine them they are sublime. My parents get a kick out of the idea, although I refrain from doing it at home. Mostly just at my place.

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Last week was kind of rough. Alot of stuff went down that was going to have to be hashed out one way or the other. Anybody that knows me knows that I don't get too up close and personal on my blog so that's all you'll be getting. Suffice to say that I'm not sure that I know myself any better now than previously. That and I'm sorry the way things turned out.

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On the other hand last Thursday I had an interesting experience in my Online Social Interaction class. Our teacher, Sorin Matei, was running a bit late. He commutes from Indy and I think there was some sort of car accident that was holding him up. After waiting around for about a half hour we decided to get the class under way by calling him up on a Palm Treo and putting him on speaker phone. It was harder than if he had been there in person but was adequate. I got a kick out of it....