What a long way the net has come. I suppose it necessary but gratuitous to add: ‘for better and for worse.’
There’s a moment in this interesting mash-up where the speaker implies the following: could we re-render human brain to think more like a machine? This follows from the difficulty of making a machine think like a human.
I had to look up the use of the term ontologies because I know little about information science, and, the its use in the video seemed to depart from the philosophical term. Here’s the treatment about ontologies at wikipedia.
There is nothing about the problems faced by the varieties of user. I’m a user and I know of the problems I encounter in searching for information, both on the internet, in libraries, and, on my own computer, in my own archive of documents.
I’ll mention three challenges. I’ll frame this by stating that I wish my computer-based archives and library archives were indexed by google.
(1) usually, (my) searches for information on google are satisfied. However, because the results are matched with the real-time indexing my cognition provides for, the end of a search on a given topic–usually in the social sciences–is arbitrarily terminated. In other words, I have conclusive idea that a given result is the optimum result. I’d also characterize my search methods using partly ad hoc heuristics.
(2) searches in my computer-based archive are brute force and leverage Spotlite’s ability to look into the text of every file, BUT, involve scanning through very long result lists, most of which are not positive. As a user, the labor intensive task of organizing files on my end is, ‘too much.’ And, fit to this is the ease with which information can be archived versus the labor involved in organizing it. Somewhat: the intuitive’s curse…
(3) The most difficult search of the web and internet resources are those that are very particular and very local. A good example would be somebody’s address. Searches oriented to topics do not fall into this category.
One other note–I would guess my own search capability falls into the highly capable slice of any Bell Curve. This guess is based in my understanding of how to use the specific editing features of google search. And, it’s based on observing how most other people use search. One of the challenges for the semantic web, given,
The Semantic Web is an evolving development of the World Wide Web in which the meaning (semantics) of information on the web is defined, making it possible for machines to process it.
is any useful, more powerful interface and facilitation, has to meet the different modes of differentiated users.
For example, I wouldn’t be skeptical of a machine’s ability to qualify results so that I could be confident I’ve reached the optimum set of results, but I’d like to know beforehand why I needn’t be skeptical. And, this would have to be presented to me at my level.
Following from my previous post about methods for learning more about people encountered on the internet, The New York Times today features an article The Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Off-line (Laura M. Holson; NYT 5-8:2010).
While participation in social networks is still strong, a survey released last month by the University of California, Berkeley, found that more than half the young adults questioned had become more concerned about privacy than they were five years ago — mirroring the number of people their parent’s age or older with that worry.
They are more diligent than older adults, however, in trying to protect themselves. In a new study to be released this month, the Pew Internet Project has found that people in their 20s exert more control over their digital reputations than older adults, more vigorously deleting unwanted posts and limiting information about themselves. “Social networking requires vigilance, not only in what you post, but what your friends post about you,” said Mary Madden, a senior research specialist who oversaw the study by Pew, which examines online behavior. “Now you are responsible for everything.”
One interesting question raised by the article–but not addressed–concerns how investigations into online ‘reputation,’ are framed by investigators.
The findings were more likely to get candidates rejected than hired: 35% of HR professionals said social networking content had caused them to eliminate a candidate, while only 18% reported deciding to employ someone based on a profile.
There’s a graphic presented to represent the negative reasons for rejecting a job candidate based in their online data.
Of more interest to me is the positive graphic because it begs the question of how positive data is framed.
Here are the top three categories:
50% Got a good feel for the candidate’s personality, could see a good fit within the company culture
39% Job candidate’s background information supported their professional qualifications for the job
39% Job candidate’s site conveyed a professional image
Item #2 is the only element subject to neutral verification. Whereas item #1 begs the question about framing and instrumental approach, and, item #3 does the same while pointing in the direction of normative practices. Also, item #3, with respect to Facebook, can only mean a professional image within the limitations set by Facebook. This includes all the data from friends which flows into the person’s Facebook home page.
Hiring practices vary greatly. They can be very subjective and are subject to hidden cognitive biases. For example, the hunch is more a problem to be eliminated than a valuable instinct in this area.
Social media presents data about a person’s social network. This is not off limits to the hiring professional. Yet, this realm of data raises interesting questions.
When I meet a new participant, I immediately become interested in who they are; what they do; what are their interests; what are their publications; where are their internet tracks; what are their affiliations.
Often the forensics involved in uncovering this data is easy to accomplish. Given an email or wide use of a particular handle, a real name falls into place, and the traces and locations are quickly unfolded.
On the other hand, when neither email or handle lead to a real name, then the forensics often become formidable. There are give-aways, because the next step is use distinctive phrases and the brute text search capability of google.
This always works when the internet tracks are text-based and prolix. This doesn’t work when people don’t leave “text” tracks.
***
I prefer people do not compartmentalize their various aspects, when they’re willing to speak of the data but not say where it resides. Especially this is so when I find it “hidden” in plain sight.
This subject has come up at various times on the ND email list, in the back-channel, and even about this blog. This concern for how their own data is to be distributed, for me, is always in the context of my experience with rare people who are masters of concealment and most people who don’t understand what this mastery actually entails.
i’ve been doing some tutoring at the university of new south wales this semester, courtesy of P who now works there in the department of ‘english, media and the performing arts’ (empa! empa!). so many young people these days want to be media journalists or contributors to the media, but i ask, where are the jobs?
anyway, that is not the university’s look-out. if people want to undertake a course in media studies and journalism, then, given the room, they will accept all comers – and the more popular the course, the higher the marks they can demand for entry requirements. but then, exam marks mean little these days with the higher school certificate being pretty much understood by coaching companies everywhere, even some of the high schools themselves… so you do not get a necessarily brighter more engaged type of student, rather, you tend to get those who have been trained to achieve high marks in exams.
be that as it may, the cohort seems to be comprised pretty evenly of serious scholars of media journalism, and some young people who thought it might be a good thing to take at uni. notably, they all write pretty well too.
anyway, right now, it’s time for them to be putting the finishing touches to their first minor assignment, a “human interest story” complete with appropriate/complementary and self-taken photo. earlier this semester, they were asked to make a trial posting so that if they were unfamiliar with the technology of blogs, they could get some figuring-out done before this, their first assessed work, was due. by tomorrow night, all of the posts should have been made, and then we have the task of making some sort of feedback and grading of them all….
they are all aware that this stuff is on the open internet, and some of the issues surrounding their stories, photos and interviews concern privacy and identity – will their subjects want their faces on the internet, or want their names cited, especially if the story concerns somewhat intimate details of their lives? and, i wonder whether any of the stories will captivate my interest from the beginning – something i tried to stress to them: the photo and opening lead sentence has to grab the reader’s attention, has to make them want to read on to answer questions the lead and photo poses for them.
so, anyone is welcome to take a look at the “analysing media communication” blog – and if anything strikes you as needing comment, please feel free to do so! i’m sure some of them would appreciate some outside commentary on what they are trying to do.
On being asked to join the drift of voices irregularly heard through the auspices of this Netdynam2.0 web-log I was warned – ah, but the term I am wont to use would be threatened for its entailment of a notional accuracy (‘valeur’ as I believe some might say) in relation to the alternative; however, it became obvious as I toyed with its insertion that the grammar of the two terms is completely different and thus I was diverted down a path of contemplation regarding the very meaning of the term threaten as appropriate for what I was hoping to explain. It is a matter of projection it seems, which alerts us to the nuances of meanings here, rather than a mere casual glance at the lexicon, and the convention which allows us to threaten something (or someone, I admit), but not to warn something directly… which takes us into much too abstract a territory.
At this point, much more appropriate should I return to the example provided by the invitation I received to offer observations through the medium of this web-log - in addition to my other internet presences I hasten to add. To wit, in tandem with my invitation to contribute, I was warned that I should announce my connections at the outset. As you can no doubt see, although I felt that my interlocutor’s intent was more to threaten me not to fail to reveal my connections with her on pain of later upheaval and accusatory rumblings, I could not express this apperception on my part as “I was threatened that I should divulge my interests at the outset”. No – although I felt that her manner of description and explanation were in the way of a threat, the rider here can only be rendered as I was warned that I should divulge my relationship to one of the administrators at the outset lest dire consequences should ensue. As a matter of fact (to be precise it would be better to say, as a matter of conjecture) I am not sure as to the exact nature of these consequences and to whom they might apply. Nonetheless, I am bound by the code of guest-ship, and hence I needs must reveal at this juncture and before indulging in any further contributions in the forum that I have known eldon for some several years past.
It is a matter of record that she earlier invited me to subscribe to this web-log, to which I acquiesced in my usual fashion. Indeed it seems (I cannot remember) that I made an earlier appearance on the virtual stage of the previous incarnation of this discussion space when it was purveyed in electronic discussion list form, at the time we both lived in Japan (I was about to say “inhabited” Japan, but even I was never so large). My peripatetic lifestyle means that I can occasionally still cross paths with eldon, if we manage to time it correctly, and in this instance it is to my own good fortune that eldon now inhabits (along with two cats and a large P) a terrace with 4 bedrooms in Sydney, to which location I regularly return (Sydney that is, not the terrace, since this is the first time i have been in Sydney while eldon has also lived here) to recharge my batteries as the quaint expression goes, and to make sure the country hasn’t gone to the dogs in my absence. And also to make sure they will continue to let me in for the foreseeable future – successive Australian governments evincing populist paranoia making it sometimes extremely difficult for refugees to enter its hallowed grounds having once being invaded by Europeans, this too after being inhabited for hundreds of thousands of years by the now disinherited original owners. I just wrote owners but in fact that is not the best term to use – unfortunately a more apt term like belongers is not part of the English language lexicon.
In any case, the issue attending my regular visits rests on my having been raised in Australian climes, but not having been born here. I have triple citizenship in fact, with the sub-continent being my favourite, perhaps due to its also having been the place of my bursting forth into the light so to speak. During this particular visit to Australian soil I intend to perform some research-induced agenda, and it may even eventuate, attendant on its success or no, that my own permanent removal from the land of infinite pleasure relating to anthropological curiosities may occur as a result.
I am reliably informed by eldon, then, that this web-log needs the services – or at least the contributions – of an anthropologist. In point of actual fact, I like to see myself as an anthro-apologist, but this is a minor aberration which I hope readers will either ignore or celebrate depending on their point of view. As far as the necessity for my services goes, she vouchsafes that the four administrators have occupied several disciplinary niches that should auger well for balance of both opinion and duties, but has observed to me that often-times instead, disciplinary boundaries tend to arise between members and their negotiations over the nature of reality. While I am not in the business of defining reality for anyone else, I am drawn to inspecting and relating in new lights the various representations that different groups attempt to define for themselves in delineating what sections of the cosmos and its knowledge-making facilities they themselves call into being. My own concerns then are outside myself so to speak, and located in groups rather than individuals. Indubitably this definition of my trajectory is simplistic, and yet it will do for the moment as a line along which to align my big toe as I relate (in other words) what eldon wants me to observe, and which in fact I have been desultorily observing since my subscriberhood began.
She (the L-person) has told me that each of the gang of four attached to this particular web-log occupies role and perspective niches in their outlooks, and their approaches to the world, and that they bring this to the discussion after applying their own filters to interpretative ends. My informant has always taken a participant-observer status with respect to the groups she studies, and I respect this stance on her part, and even applaud the work she has done with it, but I am more inclined to stand apart from the cultural practices on which I am interested to comment – not completely, but in the manner of having one foot fully outside the practices of that group whilst I am in any way ‘studying’ it, and at the same time, I endeavour to maintain another foot (or even feet) within that group, under its superstructure, in the bedrock of the community perhaps. In Japan, this has only been achieved by not studying the Japanese themselves, but rather the antics of expats living there. But this is another story.
To return to the matter at hand via this rather circumlocutionary route, eldon claims that her mien is in the way of a sociologist when approaching phenomenon of human behaviour, while hoon takes the role of psychologist. In the case of mike, he is the scientist, while frank occupies a tech-engineer-like persona. All four administrators, eldon believes, are also imbued with artist, and thus there are emotional outbursts (so to speak) and squabbles over aesthetic matters, even when the surface discussion is ostensibly otherwise. The aesthetic, as it will be remembered and no doubt agreed, is not altogether the province of the visual or even the plastic arts, but includes notions regarding beauty and truth (however conceived) relating to sound and music, words and their sequencing, and the sequencing of other elements of experience apart from the usual words, sounds, smells, tastes and graphics – sensations. Although simplification is not my forte, I am willing to extend my head or expose further my neck by saying that aesthetics can be boiled down to (hoping here that no anti-essentialists are reading along to curse me and follow me spitefully on twitter) relationships. Beauty, via this definition, is a not a part of the single act or object, or even a static composition of objects or elements but is imminent in the intricacies of the relationships that obtain between acts and objects, or elements thereof, extending as well to sequences in human interaction and the parts out of which they are composed. Readers jumping ahead will connect this with my anthropological leanings and intuit that they rest on a basis of examining what specific sequences and juxtapositionings constitute a group’s favoured practices, mores and so on, repeated instances, and legitimised, allowed, ratified and lauded sequences of acts or apperceptions of them which in turn realise that group’s “culture”..with, she apologises and accentuates at the same time, scare quotes.
Herein has lain my self introduction. May it please your honours to accept my humble postings from this day forward – although I cannot promise their regularity or appropriate content.
People call me Penelope, Penny for short, in case someone enjoys that sort of information.
the pogues didn’t make a video clip that youtube will play – but anyway, this is the best version of a pretty dolorous anti-war song written by scottish immigrant to australia, eric bogle. it’s pretty much a ‘country music’ song, and those that sing it usually are country singers. there’s even a version by joan baez, but i really can’t stand her voice.
today, here in australia, and over there in NZ too, it’s anzac day, a national holiday which is meant to honour the veterans of war. when i was a kid a lot of WWII vets would be marching all morning down the main street of sydney. i remember watching it on TV with my grandparents who were really into the anzac day march. they were also scottish immigrants just by the by. i guess you could say they lived through the war, with my father’s sister marrying an american soldier who was on R&R in sydney from the pacific theatre. one of my cousins was born in the same suburb as i was born… after the war, they all went back to the US and settled in pontiac, detroit. we are no longer in contact with our five cousins and their families. which i spose is a pity.
today is sunday, but in compensation, tomorrow will be a national public holiday…
after the marches – which now include vets from vietnam, afghanistan, and iraq as well – most of the guys (and gals now i guess) will go and do some drinking. in the past, they’d play two-up, a gambling game that was banned in the old days, but very easy to set up with just a flat stick and two pennies. it was already old hat by the time i was a kid, and i never actually saw it played. but it was a type of anzac day ritual for the survivors of the 2 world wars it seems.
the song clipped here plays around the popularity of what many people think is our real national anthem, “waltzing matilda”, strains of which can be heard at most patriotic celebrations. well, traditionally, australians of my generation are not ‘patriotic’, the word rhyming as it does with ‘idiotic’. we have a national day, called funnily enough ‘australia day’, but in my youth it was just another holiday, and a good time to go out and do what one would normally want to do on a summer day – go to the beach, or have a picnic, or visit friends. certainly no need to fly damn flags. nowadays, after 11 years of jingoistic government encouragement of pap and empty ceremony, we also indulge in so much flag waving and burning of highly-priced multi-coloured gunpowders with the best of them on ‘australia day’…
but anzac day is the other ‘australia day’, it seems to me – building as it does on the legend of mateship and courage in the face of terrible odds, etc, etc.
the song ‘waltzing matilda’ deserves an exigesis in itself… a set of words in a story which no longer applies to any of us at all, but pointing to both history and a type of cultural psyche that compels us (i believe) to travel far afield searching for good ole freedom of some sort, coupled with a healthy, extreme sense of distaste for and antipathy towards any sort of authority, and not minding the underdog putting it to the man in a good cause: the hero of the song, a thief, a vagabond needing food, preferring to die rather than be taken prisoner for his ‘crime’… written when? there are arguments about its origins, and its tune. some say henry lawson wrote the popular version we hear these days.
and so, eric bogle, another vagabond of sorts, arrives in australia and writes this song many years ago now, a story of the empty glory of war, through the eyes of one veteran of WWI and the gallipoli ‘legend’. it’s possible, being scottich, bogle had his own anti-english axe to grind, but certainly the history of gallipoli causes teeth-grinding against the poms on the part of australians when the full story is learnt.
here, anyway, is bogle’s song sung by an irish folk-punk band from the 80s. it’s longish, but the lyrics never fail to do their job….
When I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray’s green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said: Son,
It’s time to stop rambling, there’s work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When the ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli
It well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, he’d blown us all to hell
Then he blew us back home to Australia
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again
Oh those that were living did their best to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for seven long weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, Christ I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dying
And no more I’ll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me
They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind and insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away
Now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Renewing their dreams of past glories
I see the old men all tired, stiff and worn
The forgotten heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask me “What are they marching for?”
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, their numbers get fewer
Someday, no one will march there at all
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
Suppose that internet users were differentiated using a descriptive vector consisting of, on one side, the trail of specific information they volunteer, on another side, their various utilization modes, and, on a third side, their estimation about what their attitude is toward the dissemination of their own data.
For example, in our email discussion group we discovered some users thought their personal musings brought into the mode of a text-only dialog were basically private because it was believed it was unlikely any user with a pernicious intent would invest their time in seeking out and data mining and re-deploying the data of the dialog.
So, this vector, once the data was triangulated, could report out the often contradictory attitudes upon which the internet thrives, as a useful source of (and for,) so-called user-data.
Posed against these differentiations are the various threats and deployments, about which many users are unaware. There could be illusions extant on this other side too.
***
Meanwhile…the bust of google buzz happened so quickly that it barely has had time to pass into internet legend. How quickly?
Google Inc., owner of the most-used Internet search engine, was sued over allegations its Buzz social-networking service violated the privacy rights of users of the company’s Gmail service.
Buzz, introduced by Mountain View, California-based Google in February, automatically displayed to other users the customer’s contacts pulled from Google Gmail accounts. Google has said it modified the e-mail service after customers complained.
The complaint, filed April 5 in federal court in San Jose, California, follows a letter sent to federal antitrust authorities last month by 10 members of Congress. The lawmakers urged an investigation into whether Buzz compromised users’ privacy.
“Google has publicly admitted that its Buzz program presents privacy concerns, and Google has made several waves of modifications to the program,” according to the lawsuit. The changes “do not go far enough,” and the error “already caused damage because the Buzz program disclosed private user information the moment Google launched the service.” Google Sued Over Claims Buzz Violated Privacy Rights
Hmmm, this tickles my sense of irony.
2. Their is NO VALUE with Google Buzz as I mentioned earlier. Who wants something that has already been done before? As I said, it’s FriendFeed, but worse to every degree! I feel when using the platform that it offers a very messy experience. I don’t enjoy it. There’s so much going on that I don’t want to even bother checking it. Social Tech Zone: Google Buzz At This Point Is Google Bust
It is not simple to both protect privacy and promote the development of a healthy network. Facebook was the first to prove that privacy controls can foster the growth of social networks, but as the Beacon episode and Facebook’s recent privacy changes both demonstrated, even the most experienced social media companies can go sideways when it comes to privacy. When rolling out any kind of new social media platform or application, companies should always engage in extensive, privacy-centered user testing before releasing any social networking products to the public. Leslie Harris-Buzz or Bust?
