March 2008
31 posts
“Describing a character over 300 pages is one thing—reducing yourself to three...”
– A Writer by Any Other Name by Giles Turnbull - The Morning News
“But your blog doesn’t tell me what you can do or have done. All it does is tell...”
– Comment #22 on Yahoo recruiter wants my resume « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger
“This is controversial, but here goes: I think if you’re remarkable,...”
– Seth’s Blog: Why bother having a resume?
On Being Written
I am at a loss. Here I sit, listening to pianoized Leonard Cohen, Trying to wax romantic about my daily life. Alright then: this is what it’s like. “Wired,” I type a transcript of my thoughts into a glaring screen. Writing words I think I might have said Given the chance - But there’s always something off. Always fibbing, Stretching just outside the bounds of my Genuine...
Definitions
Identity-based social networks I am who I say: person comes first Context-specific (e.g. work, school) Network is made up of relationships between people Connections are active and human Interest-based social networks I am what I do or like or own: stuff comes first Can be subject-specific (e.g. music, design) or media-specific (e.g. photos, video) Network is made up of relationships...
Umberto Eco and His Travels in Hyperreality →
In searching for “hyperreality,” or the world of “the Absolute Fake,” in which imitations don’t merely reproduce reality, but try improve on it, Umberto Eco discovered places which were based on, but better than reality. Question: Could we say that the way people present themselves in identity-driven social networks is a form of “hyperreal” expression?
“Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level...”
– disambiguity - » Ambient Intimacy
The personal infocloud
We used to talk to each other. We used to communicate directly: “hello x, here’s what I think about y, here’s what I’ve been doing” and so on. Increasingly, social media and profile data allows us to throw infobits into the externalised datacloud which swirls around each of us online. People we used to communicate with now don’t need to engage us directly in...
Question
Which is more accurate: a profile actively constructed by a user (e.g. LinkedIn), or a profile passively constructed by software based on a user’s activity (e.g. Last.fm)? Which is more “real”?
Kaycee Nicole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
Nicole was presented as a high school or college student suffering from frequent and severe health problems, and had an online diary with a large Internet following. After it was “reported” that she had died of leukemia, triggering an outpouring of condolences and grief from her readers, some wondered whether she was in fact a real person. A grassroots investigation — much of it...
“…part of SL for me is the fantasy aspect. Yesterday I looked like a rock...”
– Second Life, First Person: Kit and the “real” shape
Question
Why does everyone in SL look like a pornstar?
Contested Bodies - Ruth Holliday, John Hassard... →
“Transexual and transgendered people have always spent large parts of their lives managing a ‘virtual identity’…[spending] large amounts of the time they are involved in a social intercourse pretending/pastiching a person whom everyone else assumes or demands ‘in effect’….…Daily they are involved in portraying a holographic version of the self which...
“…a sense of holographic reality, where identity is defined by the...”
– From Cut and Paste: Artists in Cyberia, CHAPTER 13 - The Evolution of a Cyborg by Douglas Rushkoff
“Sometimes a person’s on-line persona becomes so finely developed that it...”
– Allucquère Rosanne Stone: Will The Real Body Please Stand Up?
meish dot org » Confessions of a lifelong badger →
When I look at the collections of Facebook groups which people collect on their profiles, I can’t help but think about badges, again. The same is true of Lunarstorm’s “clubs”. People don’t join Facebook groups to talk, necessarily: they join them to belong, and because being a member means being able to display the title - the badge - on your page. What can you tell about me from the fact that I...
“When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take...”
– Extracts from Erving Goffman
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life -... →
“What does meish mean? This site is a digital approximation of self. It’s a lot...”
– meish dot org » About
meish dot org » About →
Some background information about Meg