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Should the gubmint build a social network?

2008.07.31 @ 21:22

Hot off the presses, I ruminate on the idea of a government-erected social network. (Watch me experience SYNTAX ERROR at the six minute mark when I think for a moment that I may have forgotten to click “record”!)

Background reading:

A. Social norms go bye-bye

‘melting the solids’ left the whole complex network of social relations unstuck

– Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman in his 2000 Liquid Modernity

As quoted in my 7/21/2008 post: Has our composition of interactions shifted away from social norms towards market norms?

B. Peeps use thug calculus when making decisions

… teenage delinquents could really care less if stealing that old lady’s handbag is going to hurt their chances at getting into college. Applying to college is three years away; $20 and a crusty tube of lip balm is three seconds away: “I need to get some cash right now!” not “I need to maximize lifetime earning potential.” The timeframe over which mental calculus is conducted is significantly shorter for the teenage delinquent and their behaviors and actions crescendo accordingly.

From my 7/1/2008 post: Are middle managers like teenage delinquents?

C. Taxes = Club USA membership dues

Membership benefits include a stable financial system, air quality that’s better than Mexico City, and a buncha other stuff. But I’ve never looked at my taxes this way, and I’ve gotta say … man, that’s a lotta taxes.

From my 4/14/2006 post: Aren’t taxes simply membership benefits?

My line of thinking regarding the government erection of a social network is loosely organized as follows:

  1. We do not interact with our fellow citizens in the way we did 25 years ago, in part due to technology
  2. As a result, social capital gained from the walking neighborhood has plummeted, arguably resulting in increased demand for social services
  3. This drop in social capital has resulted in suboptimal decision making on an individual level which, in aggregate, negatively impacts society / increases my taxes
  4. Could the government launch a CLUB US and A social network to attempt to replenish the lost social capital, with the end goal being a more efficient use of public funds (by decreasing the need for social services and replacing top-down community policing with socially normative, flat community policing) ?

Curious to hear what y’all sink about siss.

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Tastes like …

2008.07.31 @ 16:12

Looks like delicious just released some new code with some interface tweaks. Me wonders: why?

Me also wonders: how does this business unit make money for Yahoo!?

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Yale Alumni Magazine > July / August 2008 Class Notes

2008.07.31 @ 15:46

(Click here to download a .pdf of the original column)

Don’t hate me because I’m pitiful, but I’ve been spending too much time at an office and haven’t had as much time as I’d like to turn this issue’s column into a glistening textual mangosteen.  That said, here goes.

“Mergers” [Note:  the Editor struck the quotation marks in the print edition, but my original column contained them in order to indicate my understanding that the term is problem-rife]:  Valerie Wolrich (CC) writes that she and Seth Gilbert (CC) “got married in January 2008 after …. 11 years of dating.”  (Eggs to Anittah:  don’t even think about it.)  “It was a wonderful small wedding in New York attended by our close family.  We are currently living in Switzerland where Seth is doing a postdoc at EPFL (a university in Lausanne)”. Valerie writes that she’s working at a law firm in Geneva, and adds, “Send us a note if any of you 99ers come through our neck of the woods.”  Feb Club Emeritus – Geneva, anyone?

Surry Schlabs tied some knots in August of 2006 with Emily Grosshuesch.  They live in New Haven, where Surry uses that School of Architecture ’03 degree and a high-end protractor set in his work at Gray Organschi architecture, a firm that specializes in “modern, finely-crafted objects and environments.”  Reports from Surry’s undergraduate roommates regarding his dorm room décor can be directed to my contact information listed above.

Breeders:  A couple of years ago, we heard that Amber (Carroll) Holm was married and graduated from HBS in 2005.  Now she’s repeating her genetic destiny; she writes:  “My husband Mark and I welcomed our fraternal twin boys on Weds, January 9, 2008. Gunnar Alexander Holm was born at 9:37am and weighed in at 8 lbs, 1oz and was 21″. Carson John Holm was born at 9:38am and weighed in at 7 lbs, 5oz and was 21″. I have a twin brother, but I always heard twins skip a generation, so we were surprised (but excited) when we found out there were two babies. In other news, I am still working in brand management at General Mills in Minneapolis. I am on maternity leave now, but plan to return to work in a few months.”  So Carson’s around 10% lighter than his big brother, eh?  If this keeps up, Gunnar’ll be on the Heavyweight crew and Carson is destined to a life of cottage cheese, yogurt, and pull-ups ad nauseum (literally).

Breadwinners:  I recently had lunch with Rob Schlaff, who is now a VP of strategy in the credit card division of Citi, based in Long Island City, Queens, New York.  He married Abigail Zucker in December of 2006.  They live on the Upper East Side.  Rob got his MBA at NYU Stern, remains interested in matters of cognition, and packs his lunch (PB&J, carrot sticks, and celery when he’s feeling daring) every day.

I failed to include an update that came in from Kevin Irwin (SY) last September.  He wrote, “My wife, Karen Go (SY), and I have just returned to London after spending the last 10 and a half months traveling the world.  We visited great places like China (including Tibet), Nepal, India, Thailand, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Easter Island, Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, and over half the countries in South America.  We got to celebrate New Year’s in Sydney and Carnival in Rio.  We ran into a few Yalies at the Great Wall of China and at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.  We also had the pleasure of traveling around the US for 2 months this summer meeting up with various Yalies.  We saw Uday Gorrepati (SY) in Chicago, Victoria Cosgrove (’98) in Boulder, Colorado, Jeremy Rissi (SY) and his wife Erika (Johnson) (’98) (and their baby Anna) in Alexandria, VA, Eric Peterson (SY) and Matt Matros (SY) in Brooklyn and Jon Dizney (’98) and his new wife Jennifer in Trumbull, Connecticut.  Now that we’re back from our around the world experience, the real adventure begins: finding new jobs.”

Yes, I know, I’m sorry.  Barely seven hundred words.  But if I don’t send this off now we’ll be following in Lori Bettinger ‘00’s footsteps and be granted a rotund goose egg, not to be confused with a Rotunda comma Woolsey.

Keep it coming, team, and keep it real.

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Back-to-school gifts for wifey

2008.07.31 @ 14:38

Marketers know that one way to push product is to wrap it around something temporal, like (oft-times invented) holidays. This orients the product in a consumer’s mind in a way that increases its relevance: it’s now been wrapped in a limited! time! only! bow. In a way, it’s kind of like engineering a situation such that your target audience uses thug calculus and chooses the optimization of now over the optimization of lifespan.

Right now, as the days get shorter and those bugs hum into the twilight, my brain thinks of shrink-wrapped packs of 200 sheet loose-leaf paper and sharpened No. 2 pencils. Hot diggety! Likewise, the clever folks algorithms at Amazon have designed a marketing campaign just in time for the linear algebra class I’m taking in a couple of weeks:



(If you wish the ‘Learn more’ button glistened a little bit, raise your hand.)

Me want:

  • The Apple MacBook Air (Does anyone know the value of a solid-state drive v. a hard drive? What is a solid-state drive?)
  • Ken Wilber’s ‘A Theory Of Everything‘ which sounds like one sexy big-arse equation if ya ask me
  • OMG!!!! Cutest file folders ever! If you are someone’s hubby and you want your lady to squeal with ‘OMG how did he know?!?’ delight, get the Wallpaper, Emma, Sophie, and/or Helena. CLICK NOW and thank me later (or forever be buried in a chaos of receipts).

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links for 2008-07-31

2008.07.31 @ 06:30
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How to help your friend Anittah score 8,000 points on the GRE, part II

2008.07.30 @ 17:34

I want to thank those of you who have already taken part in putting the wisdom of clowns to work by surrounding me in a dense fog of chunky vocabulary per my request. For those of you who have not yet had a chance, fear not! There’s still time to help me elevate my game.

For starters, any corrections to my stabs at using these words in a sentence is very much appreciated. Amemba: I wuz raised by a woman from the Thai jungle.

Here we go:

1. effrontery: shameless boldness; insolence

There’s still a nagging suspicion in the back of my head that daring to ask for a more flexible work schedule is considered an act of effrontery.

2. chary: hesitant about dangers and risks

While I thought my father would be chary regarding my decision to pursue a doctorate, in fact he’s been nothing but a champion. Chary, not! Instead, chariot.

3. virulence: venomousness; rancor

You’re able to minimize the virulence of any given pathogen if you shift to a produce-rich diet that creates an alkaline environment in your bloodstream.

4. mephitic: foul-smelling

I am sure that most people think sweat-soaked tee shirts are mephitic.

5. discomfit: thwart; disconcert

A discomfited Mr. Roe left the Academy to allegedly fold shirts for GAP in Chicago.

If you don't help me study, I'll end up like this guy

Help me study so I can avoid a lifetime of the above.

And by “avoid” I mean “sedulously engage in”.

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links for 2008-07-30

2008.07.30 @ 06:30
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How not to invite ANP to a party

2008.07.29 @ 13:32

Please do not send me a text message the day of the party you’ve invited me to reading:

Hi! If possible can you bring a six pack tonight ? We will have sangria and caipirihas of course too ! Thanks !

This kind of text perturbs me because:

  • If I drink anything at your school night party, it will not be alcoholic
  • When I throw a party, I throw a party, even if it means spending hundreds of bucks on grub
  • Do you really think I’m the kind of bozo that shows up to a party empty-handed?

So, really, even though I understand that your text message is all about you and your interior narrative, I think it’s important that you understand how sending it to me will trigger my interior narrative. And even the faintest suggestion that I don’t know how to show up to a party or that I need to be told what to do activates the grumpy switch.

The spread

That said, maybe I don’t know how to show up for a party. So, call for crowd-sourcing:

  • What do you expect of your guests when you throw a party?
  • How do you like to show up to a party?
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links for 2008-07-29

2008.07.29 @ 06:30
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Pretty, floaty data balloons

2008.07.28 @ 18:13

I am so sad that I missed this exhibit at MoMA; I’d wanted to see it. Presentations of self in a technology mediated context! Delta between what we claim we want versus what we actually select when given a choice! Variance in desires of demo a, b, c versus 1, 2, 3! Yowza!

Here’s a project by the peeps who brought project We Feel Fine to the universe:

Note that the following picture of yours truly will appear in the upcoming We Feel Fine book. I feel kinda neat-o about that.

mtvU awards after party

I also feel kinda neat-o about the open source of the We Feel Fine data. Statistics class, anyone?

ANITTAH : DATA :: PIG : ____

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