Social Media Minute: Schneier MIA from TSA and More

Two items from today's topic slushpile:

• GovBlogging at the TSA: Saw in Wired's Threat Level this morning that the Transportation Security Agency now has a blog: Evolution of Security. (The story has since been picked up at BoingBoing.)
  
  Taking a quick look:
  
  - Platform: I was surprised to see that they're using Blogger (presumably, too many foreign ownership issues with LiveJournal). Since the blog is hosted on TSA servers, they won't have the full set of Blogger widgets and features (this is the problem I'm facing), though if it meets their needs, that's fine.
  
  - Comments: They're moderating comments (see their comment policy), though allowing anonymous comments. I don't see anonymous comments lasting too long (unless they're hoping to encourage participation from TSA whistleblowers -- shyeah), in which case the installed Blogger user base and Google account and OpenID support for commenters is nice.
  
  - Naming Names: I'm not thrilled by the lack of full names on their Meet Our Bloggers page (and they seem to be missing some folks) -- at the very least, there should be the editor's full name (presumable this Neil guy -- he seems most active).
  
  After the fake FEMA press conference debacle, this type of government transparency is kind of important.
  
  - Hey, Where'd Bruce Schneier Go? Well, this is new. I'm positive they had a link to security guru Bruce Schneier's blog in the sidebar (among others), but it's not there anymore. I was about to give them a brownie point for that -- I wonder when and why they removed it.
  
  As to the impact of the blog as a whole? Openness and dialog are great, but the true test of the matter is the ability to redress problems and affect change. Just as with a corporate blog, you can only apologize so many times without actually fixing things before it hollows out your message.
  
  
• Social Media in Ethnic Conflicts: Christian Science Monitor talks about the impact of cellphones and the Internet on the coverage of the ethnic conflict in Kenya.
  
  A lot of the unalloyed social media utopians only look at the positive benefits of social communication, and I think many still think that the Internet has a self-correcting bias towards objective truths.
  
  I think that's crap -- when all we had was word-of-mouth, there was plenty of room for rumor, hysteria, panic, and mob madness. Social media doesn't change that, and we shouldn't forget the ability of media, both citizen and old-school, to inflame passions, spread misinformation, disinformation and propaganda, and be manipulated by interested groups.
  
  Plus, any given online community normally faces issues with drama, trolls, and flamewars -- throw in factors like ethnic discord and a possibility (or even propensity) for violence, and you can see how online behaviors can influence offline behaviors (and vice versa).

Tags: tsa, evolution of security, tsa blog, commenting, bruce schneier, kenya

Trivially Intelligent at the Jimmy's Tavern JOTTeopardy Finals

Tuesday night, I played in the Championship Final (Q4 2007 edition) of JOTTeopardy (not JOTTpardy, as I'd been calling it), the Jimmy's Old Town Tavern not-Jeopardy! trivia game where crowd participation is encouraged:

Jimmy Cirrito, your host.

Here are all of the night's photos: JOTTeopardy Championships, 1/29/08.

As it turns out, I was probably a little bit further down on the overall winners list that I'd previously thought (hey, showing up is, like, 90% of the battle, right?), and then only two of us finalists showed up. So they had to draft my opponent's wife. That meant I was facing a husband-wife team, who had 8 or so previous championship wins between them. It was not looking good for me:

Anyway, the game was fun. I'm slightly concerned that people actually believed that I didn't know who was playing in Super Bowl (when asked during the intro who I was rooting for, I said "the Wizards"), and my performance in the Super Bowls category did nothing to dissuade them.

Other than screwing the pooch on the bowling category -- I forgot the number of strikes in a perfect game (12, not 13), and I kept mixing up Kingpin and The Big Lebowski (having seen neither); I did OK in the superheroes category (including stealing the max 50 point question, though there's probably still some controversy about the original members of the Justice League), and wasn't fast enough in the "Superb Owls" category.

Somehow, I made it into Final JOTTeopardy with 210 points, only 10 under my opponents, who each had 220 points (making it 440 to 210 in my book).

The category was Actors, so I was feeling pretty confident. Overconfident, as it turned out -- the question was which '80s TV detective had been the original choice to play Indiana Jones, and I could only think of Stacy Keach (of the much-shorter-lived Mike Hammer), instead of the correct answer, Tom Selleck (Mr. Magnum himself).

As it turns out, I'd employed sound strategy (I'd wagered 205 points, leaving 5), but was in a no-win situation, as both my opponents had bet it all and gotten it right. So they got to split the first and second place prizes:

JOTTeopardy Finalists post-game with Jimmy.

Third place was good for $25 bucks and a certificate (slightly corrected), so it all worked out:

Note the Sharpied correction.

Some of my support team pose with certificate.

We hung out for a while longer -- there was the trading of caps and glasses:

Me wearing Eric's Redskins cap (sideways, like he does); DeAnna leans on Eric wearing my glasses.

You can see the rest of the night's photos here.

Tags: jotteapardy, jimmy's, herndon, trivia

Dumb People on Planes on Conveyor Belts: A Question of Psychology, Not Physics

Mythbusters finally aired their "Plane on a Conveyor Belt" (a.k.a. Plane on a Treadmill) episode.

Here is the result -- it's not a spoiler, because anyone who truly understands the basic physics involved, will not be surprised to hear that the goddamn plane takes off.

However, I've since come to the conclusion that Plane on a Treadmill looks like a physics question, but it's actually a psychology question.

If you're one of those people who thought the plane in the Mythbusters setup wouldn't take off, the answer is simple:

• Your understanding of physics isn't quite as strong as you thought
• You can't wrap your head around the fact that people and cars behave differently from planes
• You should probably pay more attention to the nice demo and animation they did
  

On the other hand, if you believe that the Mythbusters experiment itself had to be flawed, because the plane shouldn't take off, you've shown that:

• You're being stubborn (or deliberately obtuse), because you're sticking to an interpretation of the problem that doesn't make sense and that requires magic
  
• You're probably never going to change your mind, because the Mythbusters folks basically demonstrated it as good as you can get, and by sticking to your opinion in the face of proof, you're taking it out of the realm of fact and science and officially joining the realm of the 9/11 Truthers and Moon landing hoax conspiracy theorists and Creationists.

Looking at the relevant Mythbusters message board, there seem to be a lot of both types of people, as well as folks who generally just don't get it.

The main, physics part of the problem is that people hear "treadmill," and they think back to their experience running on a treadmill or driving on a dynamometer, and try to apply that to an airplane on a treadmill, which is superficially similar but actually completely different.

The other, psychological part of the problem is that the wording of the original question that most people saw isn't very good. In fact, the original wording stinks on ice.

This is because it allows an interpretation of the question that is self-negating -- the "speed" bit can be read as stating right off the bat that the plane can't move forward (relative to a fixed point to the ground), no matter what. Which means it won't take off. Period.

(I held this interpretation for about 5 minutes -- I originally thought the plane wouldn't take off. I came around shortly after.)

The problem with the "doesn't move forward, no matter what" interpretation of the question is twofold:

1. It's not a question anymore. It's pointless -- you've taken a moderately interesting thought experiment and turned it into a reading comprehension exercise.
   
2. It requires a magical treadmill.
   

Obviously, if you can keep the plane from moving forward (relative to a fixed point on the ground, and leaving wind out of it), you won't get any airflow over the wings and the plane won't take off. You can do this by using a rope to tether the plane a fixed point off the treadmill, like a pole or a wall. Which would be silly -- if you're going to tie the plane down, why bother with a treadmill at all?

However, if skip the rope and rely solely on the treadmill -- you can keep a person or a car from moving forward, but you can't do it with a plane (or a rocket car, or a rollerblader with a Wile E. Coyote jetpack), unless the treadmill itself is magical.

The only forces holding the plane back are the friction of the wheels against the treadmill; inertia; and friction in the bearings and with the air: All of which are real, but vastly overwhelmed by the forward thrust of the engine.

If you insist on sticking with this "things don't move forward, for anything (even planes)" treadmill, it has to move fast enough so that the relatively tiny, tiny friction forces are magnified enough to overcome the thrust of the engines. Almost infinitely fast, in fact. Which is fine: You've now got an impossible, magical treadmill.

What you don't have is a real world physics problem anymore, the kind they test on Mythbusters. At best, it becomes a metaphysics question, like "Can God microwave a burrito so hot He can't eat it?"

So here's the psychology question -- pick the statement which best describes you:

1. I would do anything to be right, even if it means picking an arcane interpretation of a self-defeating question that requires magic and keeps things completely in the realm of theory, precluding any possibility of doing something cool
2. I would rather have something you can actually build, like a big-ass treadmill, scaled-up to handle a plane and match the speed of the wheels (which is just an engineering problem -- merely impractical, not impossible)
   
3. Shut up, I don't like physics, engineering, psychology, or you.
   

A loaded question, I know. For me, the real-world scenario is the most interesting one, and this is what the Mythbusters folks did. And as they showed, for any treadmill that we can actually build:

• The plane will move forward (relative to a fixed point on the ground).
• The plane will take off.
• People will keep complaining and keep arguing.
  

Tags: mythbusters, discovery, plane on a conveyor belt, plane on a treadmill

Book Review: Empire -- Orson Scott Cardboard Cutout Coup

I woke up at about 5:30am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to read. I'd just started Fast Food Nation yesterday, but was in the mood for some fiction, so I picked up Orson Scott Card's Empire, fresh from the library.

It's about a new American Civil War, set along the Red State/Blue State ideological divide. I just finished it. It's really bad; so much so that I had to make a determined effort to finish it (I have no problem not starting books, but I didn't want to abandon yet another one.)

The Real World = Walking Robot Tanks

---

Empire is basically set in the here and now, which is why it's particularly jarring when the 14-foot-tall bipedal tank mechs take over New York. Not to mention the later chase scene in Great Falls Park (Maryland side), featuring a PT Cruiser and rebels on rocket-armed hoverbikes.

[Since Empire stems from a video game treatment, it is perhaps not his fault, but it's still pretty wacky.]

Of course, this is only after the al Qaeda suicide scuba commandos swim up the Potomac, into the Tidal Basin and launch a rocket attack on the White House, killing the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Oh, and al Qaeda is only a pawn, used by leftist elements in the U.S. Army (?!) as a pretext for a coup by the Progressive Restoration, which is masterminded and funded by billionaire Aldo Verus (a very, very thinly-disguised George Soros), who has his own secret underground lair beneath a mountain lake -- complete with robot army.

Card: Fair and Balanced

---

Now, in his afterword, Card says he's a moderate, decrying extremism on both sides (he probably believes this), and at points in the book, his characters say the rebellion could just as easily been started by the Right.

But it's fairly obvious where Card stands in his fair-mindedness: All the bad guys are lefties, and all the good guys are right-wingers who watch Fox News (in fact, an appearance on the O'Reilly Factor becomes a key element), save for a few tame, pet progressives.

There's also a lot of Mary Sue-ism in the book, particularly in the early chapters, where there's a lot of unsubtle breast-beating about liberals in the media and academia, as well as throwaway cheap shots at the left and reverence for Bush from the mouths of his protagonists.

You can also see some Mary Sue-ish wish-fulfillment towards the end, where (spoiler alert) a quintessential moderate, who may or may not be pulling all the strings (including those of the Soros-arch-villain, reducing him to the ultimate useful idiot), using only the power of his ideas, becomes president by acclamation after being nominated by both the Republicans and Democrats.

Influences: You, Sir, Are No Jack Bauer

---

There are many shades of Card's previous works -- particularly the post-Ender's Game Shadow books (including: geniuses, evil and not, orchestrating events; family discussions that turn into graduate-level policy roundtables; a Hegemon-like President relying on a small team ["jeesh"] of hypercompetent Special Forces; portraying those soldiers with fanboy reverence; etc.)

Because it's set in the "real" world, this unmasks some of the shortcomings we'd be more inclined to forgive in the futuristic, military supergenius-soaked setting of the 100-years-from-now Shadow books -- particularly the cardboard-cutout characters and their dialog, which at times devolves to action movie buddy-banter that rings completely false.

Card, in the afterword, also credits watching 24 to help set the action-thriller "rhythms and energy," which may explain the origins of a finger-cutting scene and why they have to break both arms of a prisoner instead of, say, binding and gagging him. Though it doesn't explain why the climactic infiltration of the villain's secret underground lair is so tedious.

He also acknowledges Google Maps for the turn-by-turn descriptions of the chase scenes, which likewise end up being pretty tedious. Though we do see some references to local flavor like Hain's Point, the Borders in Tyson's Corner, and even the Rio Grande in Reston Town Center.

Moderate: You Keep Using That Word

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Regarding the politics of the book -- I wouldn't mind so much if it were just a straight-out conservative rant (his characters are definitely two-dimensional enough for it -- "Orson Scott Cardboard" is admittedly juvenile name-calling, but it seems to fit here).

What I don't like is that Card keeps going on and on about how reasonable and fair-minded he is, and that he's a moderate railing against extremism on both sides, whereas it's pretty obvious that he's a right-wing conservative in denial; just because he doesn't buy into the entire traditional conservative package, or that he takes extremist positions from both sides, doesn't make him a moderate -- it just makes him a MINO: Moderate in Name Only.

Tags: orson scott card, empire, moderate in name only

The Tactical Ninja Takes on the Drive-Through ATM

In retrospect, briefly mentioning going to deposit my final, ginormous severance check was probably not the most tactically sound decision I'd ever made.

Fortunately, I survived my trip to the bank without getting jacked, which would have been especially ludicrous, because, as it turned out, my severance had already been direct-deposited to my account -- what I'd put in the slot was actually the deposit notification (though, in my defense, it looked exactly like a check, had a neat temperature-sensitive watermark on the back and, to my recollection, did not have "NOT A CHECK -- DO NOT DEPOSIT, DUMBASS" printed on it.

Sadly, depositing the not-check was probably still the most productive thing I'd done yesterday.

The Tactical Ninja, Revisited

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This brings up a topic I've been meaning to take on for a while: How the tactical ninja protects himself at the drive-thru ATM.

As you might recall, the tactical ninja is all about figuring out how to defend himself, in everything from outlandish fantasy scenarios (Katrina-squared hordes gone wild, illegal alien zoot-suit riots, Invasion U.S.A. 2: al Qaeda Boogaloo, etc.), to more mundane situations like tactical bathroom use and what to do when a black person looks at you.

It's when an otherwise rational, personally responsible, self-defense-aware person goes off the rails and starts taking "Be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet" waaaay too seriously.

Enter the Drive-Through ATM

---

People are generally (and rightfully) pretty wary at ATMs, even without pages-long warning notices).

At the drive-through ATM (or any drive-through), you're already behind the wheel of a weapon, but you're probably hemmed in by curbs and cars. And even though you're mostly enclosed, window glass isn't much of a barrier to the hypothetical gun-wielding attacker.

So what does the tactical ninja counsel at the drive-through? Be continually and fully aware of your surroundings (which is good advice in any circumstance), and leave the car in gear (drive) with your foot on the brake.

The scenario they're picturing? That scene from Ronin, where two bad guys are doing a deal inside a Jeep Cherokee, and the passenger pulls a gun on the driver (Gregor) to rip him off. The driver is able to turn the tables by stepping on the gas and making the car lurch forward, which he can do because he left it in gear (although he didn't -- it's actually a movie goof).

Since the tactical ninja empathizes with the former-KGB assassin with the lightning reflexes and tricked-out Glock, he leaves the car in drive, instead of putting it in park.

Herein lies the judgment -- which is more likely?

• An ATM carjacking, where you'll be severely disadvantaged by not having the car in drive, or
  
• An accident, where your foot slips off the gas and the car moves forward (which can also have fatal consequences, as demonstrated at this apartment complex card reader and car wash keypad.)
  

(Incidentally, both of those fatal accidents happened to women, who, like us short guys, sometimes have to unbuckle and open the car door, or otherwise stretch and lean way over to reach. Something for short tactical ninjas to consider.)

This is the problem I have with the tactical ninja mindset overall: It overemphasizes the more fantastical, scarier, sensationalized crime scenarios over more mundane, much more common risks (falls, accidents, heart attacks, etc.).

People as a whole are not good judges of risk, and the tactical ninjas tend to focus on violent crime -- especially crime scenarios where violent self-defense is the only viable solution (can't get away, can't acquiesce, must fight back).

Tags: ronin, drive-through

Meet the Black Giant With Valiant Temperament

I don't normally make fun of Engrish because it's too easy. (Well, there was that one time, but it wasn't Engrish, just a translation open to immature interpretation.)

Plus no matter how egregious the error, their English is still better than my Chinese (or Japanese, etc.).

So, I'll just take a higher road and riff on the All Things Considered story from the Detroit Auto Show a few weeks ago) and say that the product listing for their SUV, the Liebao CFA2030C/D(Black Giant) with the valiant temperament, shows how far Chinese automakers, and Chang Feng Motors in particular, need to go before they can crack the U.S. market. [link via a redlit TotalFark submission]

Besides some standard English conventions that are annoying in their absence (spaces after commas, that sort of thing), it's clear that they need a native or otherwise fluent English copy editor:

"...The automobile appearance is more mighty and more intrepid ! With the powerful engine,the design of environmental protection and energy-conservation.All these present to your perfect driving and experience,seem more majestic-looking even more!"

Among the listed features, we have:

• ABS anti-explode device
• Anticollision pole
• Axes: 2
• Imposing manner
• Double safe gasbag
• Genuine leather sofa
  
• Pillow
• Semiconductor refrigerator

And much more.

Now, this is far from the worst Engrish you'll ever see, since you can pretty much see where the translations took a left turn.

Though I'm not sure about the semiconductor refrigerator.

Tags: engrish, chang feng, black giant, liebao

You, With the Blog: You Are Irrelevant. Also, Mahalo Multiprofiles and More

Surefire way to get buckets of virtual ink -- tell bloggers that they aren't worth the bother, just like Target did, following that silly little dust-up about the ad photo with the broad's crotch in the bulls-eye. (Oh, noes! The center of a splayed human figure is the naval/crotchal area! Why didn't someone tell us this before?! )

Of course, this is not to say that Target isn't being stupid and shortsighted here in its broad-brushed dismissal (almost typed "dismal," heh) of blogs. They are, and I sense a upcoming press release with a new social engagement strategy. But I always get amused at the self-interested, self-important, navel-gazing, breast-beating of the PR-o-sphere when someone does not chug the entire tub of social media kool aid. (Note: Other than a quick peek at TechMeme, I am just making assumptions based on past behaviors. Actual breast-beating content may vary.)

Can we fast-forward to social media as a mature technology already, so people can focus on doing stuff, instead of hearing people talk about it?

Actually, most people are already focusing on doing stuff, even if it's just adding annoying blinky sparkly things to their MySpace pages, so I wonder just who it is that the influencers are influencing.

Mahalo Social Multiprofiles: Possibly Un-useless?

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Spiritually related to my previous post seeking a social profile status aggregator (at Greggie's suggestion, I'm trying TwitterSync, which addresses two of the bigger parts of the problem -- Facebook and Twitter), Jason Calacanis posts today about multiprofiles in Mahalo Social, which tries to aggregate the viewing and management of your many and evermultiplying social profiles and pages using proven Web 2.0 HTML 3.x technology: Frames.

Now, there are already profile mashup services out there -- I have a profile on Profilactic that pulls from my blog RSS, Flickr, and a few other sources. But this is a technology I can really understand. None of this mashed-up, APIed, Open this or that. Just... Frames. It's simple enough that it may actually work (barring any frame-breakout stuff, but what I've seen seems to work) -- I will have to give it a try.

(Also, I see that the blog's comments, which require an e-mail validation, appear to publish a placeholder comment ["An e-mail has been sent to confirm your e-mail address. Click on the link within the e-mail to activate your comment!"] to the comment thread, instead of just relying on a confirmation message. That's actually pretty clever, as a very visible way to get people to realize that they need to do one more thing -- it was a problem I saw in the AIM Social Media Blog, which was also powered by Blogsmith, but didn't have that feature at that time. Edit: Hrm, it may be an artifact created by wiseacre or idiot commenters -- I can't tell. It would still be a useful prompt if you require e-mail validation.)

Another Bloggy Bit

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Brief blog bit in passing -- I cruise by the About.com DC page as part of my local links, mostly out of habit. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone talk about them, but their continued existence speaks to... continued existence.

Anyway, the DC page seems to be bloggier than it was before. I'm not sure if it's a recently updated design or something that's been around for a while that I never noticed. I didn't see any notes of it in the sparse comments or forum posts, so I will ping the maintainer, just to see if I am losing what remains of my mind.

Enough of all that Cal

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Anyway, now, I should go deposit my final severance check (which is probably the most fruitful thing I will do all day), buy a vernier caliper, and get a cup of coffee. Then, bowling, which means I will miss Social Matchbox, though bowling in this league is another form of networking (no shit).

Tags: target, about.com, crotchal area, pr-o-sphere, mahalo, multiprofiles, blogsmith, comment moderation, profile aggregation

Joelogon Is: Wondering About Social Profile Status Aggregators

I got invited to join Pulse (Plaxo's social networking play) last week, so I signed up and created Yet Another Social Profile. Haven't played with it much yet, but I saw that it had Yet Another Status Update field, which means that Pulse joins the ever-growing list of status messages that gets updated sporadically, if at all:

I think I'm wondering about social profile status aggregators.

The composite screenshot above shows the social profiles whose updates I use the most regularly (Twitter and Facebook), as well as MySpace, Pulse, and AIM/Adium (I don't have an active profile on any of the messaging services).

Having just sent five identical status updates to five separate services (each ditches the unchangeable leading "is"), this raises the obvious question:

Is there a service or app, current or planned, that lets people manage their different social networking/profile status messages -- a profile status aggregator?

The ability to choose which services you update with what status messages would be a nice plus. As would the ability to receive status updates from your friends. Oh wait -- that would pretty much be the social network version of a multi-IM client, and a hobbled one at that.

Well, that's the minimum of what I'm looking for: A one-way, multi-network status updater widget. Anything like that exist out there?

Tags: social networking, social profiles, social status, yet another status update

A Day's Mood Swing, in Fark Links

I started the day feeling pretty bad for yelling at my mom in a dream. That, and the hangover.

I felt better after making breakfast: turkey and cheese omelet, hash browns, english muffin, and coffee. No bacon, though.

Then I started reading the paper and going through my usual news sites, including Fark. I could feel my mood shifting with some of the stories:

* 5 Killed in Airport Runway Car Crash [Mood: Despair -- Edit: also, Irritation for the autoplaying musical slide show that they added]: This is a terrible story, though it wasn't really the reason why I felt bad. It only warranted a small blurb in the print Post, but the Fark link had more details: An 18-year-old driver, with four passengers, post-party, alcohol-enhanced judgment, and a 500-hp BMW M5, went off the end of a private, 7,500 foot runway, flew 200 feet through the air and into a tree, splitting the car in half, ejecting 3 of the occupants, and killing all 5.

There's also a social media angle to this: The driver, Joshua Ammirato, had posted the night before to an M5 community Web board, wanting to know about rough gearshifting at speeds over 140. There's a thread with the community reaction, and the media have picked up on it, too.

Like I said, the story, though tragic and stupid, wasn't what gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was seeing pictures of John Travolta's house and the off-runway, fly-in parking for his private Boeing 707.

I'm not sure why. I've never considered myself particularly ambitious, at least when it comes to money. I don't aspire to having plane money (though, I wouldn't turn it down). But seeing that just made me feel like I've been missing something.

I think it has to do with the fact that Travolta has enough multi-engine flying experience that he could be a commercial pilot if he wanted to. Not bad for a fallback career. Meanwhile, I dabble in a lot of things, but I can't think of anything that I'm really passionate about, or accomplished in.

* Allentown Man Charged in Two Homicides [Mood: Amusement]: No, I'm not a sociopath. Look at the picture:

Yes, he's doing his perp walk in fuzzy lion slippers. Looks comfy, though. Prison footwear is often flip-flops, though, so maybe he's just preparing himself. (Related Fark thread.)

* New Craigslist Personals Category: Women Seeking Hitmen [Mood: Despair]: Another social media-tinged story -- a Michigan woman posted on Craigslist looking for a hitman to whack (sorry, "eradicate") the wife of the man she'd been having an affair with (which had also started online).

To her credit, she didn't come right out in the ad and say "I'll pay you $5,000 to kill someone" (that was for the followup e-mails), but if you're relying on Craigslist to find a hitman, you deserve whatever you get.

Especially for denying us the chance to see grainy surveillance video of the arrest from the inevitable hotel room sting. (Fark discussion thread.)

I'm still feeling a little low, but I think I'm through with the rapid cycling for now.

Until I get to the next batch of links, of course.

Tags: fark, craigslist, plane money

Web Content Mavens Meetup: Tony Byrne on CMS

On Wednesday, I went to the Web Content Mavens Meetup at RFD in DC: Tony Bryne of CMS Watch was the featured speaker, talking about Web Content Management and Web 2.0.

Organizer Jasmine Sante and speaker Tony Byrne.

The presentation was very informative, and provided a lot of framing around what we expect from Content Management Systems, Web Content Management, and the whole concept of "management" and Web 2.0 in general.

A few bullets that stuck out for me:

• Web 2.0 in a nutshell: It's a quest for simplicity, with an ethos of participation
  
  
• Simplicity is doing only what's necessary. At its core, Google is (or was) a single-dimensional app -- searching Web documents.
  
  
• Enterprise 2.0 (whatever that is) is about rebalancing user enablement vs. control, as well as adaptability and flexibility vs. control and standardization.
  
  
• When choosing social media applications, there's a distinction between socializing software (taking a core offering and adding social features -- blogs, wikis, etc) vs. social software (that's designed first and foremost as a social application)
  
  
• Related to that: When adding social features (such as a wiki), there's always a tradeoff between the convenience of sticking with your existing vendor's implementation vs. the capability of a standalone purpose-built app.
  
  
• Usability = Suitability to purpose ("Useability doesn't necessarily make a program more usable.")
  
  
• Only by doing scenario and task analysis (not building huge checklists of requirements), and by doing bake-offs, will you be able to determine what suits your needs.
  

It was a very accessible and down-to-earth way of looking at things, even if I don't get the intricacies of the actual architecture. Contact Tony Byrne if you want his presentation slides.

Other Events:

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* The next Web Content Mavens meetup will be a comparison of open source Web CMSes on February 27th, again at RFD (we were in the back room -- I hadn't been there before).

* I didn't manage to make it to the DC New Media Technology - Web 2.0 & Video 2.0 Happy Hour on Thursday. I keep saying, "Next time...."

* Also on tap is Social Matchbox DC, Monday, January 28 in McLean.

As always, check out Ross's DC Tech Events listing to see what else is going on.

Tags: web content mavens, tony byrne, cms watch, enterprise 2.0, web 2.0, dc tech events, social matchbox dc

5 Minutes of Dumb

Let's see how many dumb things from today I can highlight in just 5 minutes:

* This Is Why Indie Musicians Do Not Stage Dive: British Sea Power
keyboardist takes a header off a stack of amps, hits the floor with predictable results.

* Lesson: Steal From a More Obscure Sex Columnist: Claudia Lonow, sex columnist for free alterna-weekly New York Press, gets fired after her inaugural column after getting caught by Jezebel stealing a question from Dan Savage.

According to the editor's note on the matter, she didn't realize that was a no-no, coming from the fast and loose world of television writing.

I don't think this helps the cause of the striking writers any.

* Dumb Hair: Former cow-orker Jeff Simmermon is again featured from BoingBoing for his observations and forensic sketch recreation of a haircut (see previous: karaoke robot zombie and others).

Okay, that was a little more than 5 minutes.

Tags: 5 minutes of dumb, jeff simmermon, british sea power, claudia lonow, new york press, boing boing

What Is, Stumbling My Way Into the Championships?

Back in September, I blogged about winning at Jeopardy night (sorry, "JOTTpardy" night) at Jimmy's Old Town Tavern (primarily because the frontrunner forgot to answer Final Jeopardy in the form of a question).

I got a call this week from Jimmy's saying, "Congratulations, you're in the finals." I replied, "Huh?"

I knew the three best scorers from all the weekly winners would get to play in a championship game, but I figured that my point total was low enough to keep me out of the Top 3, so I pretty much forgot about it.

I was sort of right -- apparently, one of the top 3 finishers had been an out-of-towner and wasn't going to be available, so I moved up into the championship game. (Kind of how Maverick and Goose made it to Top Gun after Cougar turned in his wings.)

Anyway, since crowd participation is allowed (and even encouraged -- you can shout out the answers), if you're going to be around next Tuesday night (January 29), stop by Jimmy's Tavern in Herndon about 8:30 pm or so and give me some help, and I'll buy you a beer out of my (presumed) winnings.

Tags: jimmy's tavern, jottpardy

Plenty of Snow Day Self-Righteousness to Go Around

Here's a superficially simple, social media-enhanced incident that turns out to be kind of a litmus test, depending what angle you want to take:

• A high school senior wants to know why the COO of Fairfax County Public Schools didn't declare a snow day over last Thursday's 3 inches of snow.
  
• He calls the COO's publicly-listed phone number and leaves a message.
  
• The COO's wife calls him back, leaving a rather foamy voicemail message to him.
  
• The senior posts the audio and links to the phone number to Facebook.
• Hilarity ensues, and we read about it in today's Washington Post.
  

I tend to side with the folks who say the student's action was kind of self-indulgent and inappropriate, but that the wife's was even more so, and she just happened to get caught out by social media.

There are some very prominent generational differences here, and it would be easy to fall into some generational stereotypes. I've been having a hard time trying to stay neutral and not let any personal feelings about "spoiled snot-nosed Generation Y punks -- wait until they see what it's like in the real world" get into this. Some of the angles include:

* Accountability: Assuming the administrator, as a public servant, is accountable for his actions, is he accountable to the group as a whole, or does he also have to justify his actions to individuals? If so, at what point is it acceptable to buck any processes and end-run to the top -- is it like escaping a company's helpline phone tree by calling the president's office?

On the student's part, how accountable is he for perceived harassment (in the form of phone calls, some late night) after he posted the info to the Facebook group?

* Accessibility: The COO's home phone was publicly listed. The student asserts that he tried other methods of reaching the administrator -- was he justified in calling the guy at home?

The student says that the cell phone generation is used to being reachable at all times (though I suspect he would feel differently after working at a job that required him to be on-call).

Some of his critics counter by invoking a civility gap, saying that crossing contexts (trying him at home) crossed a line -- that he shouldn't be called on a whim, just because he has a listed phone number.

* Self-Righteousness: The fuel for any fire like this -- there are plenty of ways for interested parties to be self-righteous: Bratty, self-entitled kids vs. cranky, condescending adults; concerned citizens vs. indifferent public servants; students who invoke the spectre of icy, firey road accidents vs. snow snobs who scoff at the notion of a three inch snow day.

I don't think anyone really comes out of this looking particularly good. (The student also has a little more control over the story, since his audio wasn't posted.)

It does reinforce the point: Don't post (or leave voicemails) while you're angry.

Tags: self-righteousness, facebook

Because All You of Earth Are Idiots!

Plan 9 From Outer Space is pretty rich with quotes. Here are some others:

"You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"

"In my land, women are for advancing the race, not for fighting man's battles."

And that's just from the second half of the movie, since I got to Dr. Dremo's way late for the last screening there of the Washington Psychotronic Film Society.

Incidentally, it was jam-packed, with people sitting on the floor.

Also, Jenny won yet another door prize: A numbered print of former porn star/actress Traci Lords. You can clearly see how thrilled she is:

Jenny poses with her prize. Score.

WPFS was a good fit for Dr. Dremo's, so it'll be interesting to see where movie nights will end up moving to.

Tags: plan 9 from outer space, dr. dremos, wpfs, washington psychotronic film society

Get Your Bids in to the AOL Reston Asset Auction

The liquidation auction of the former assets of the AOL Reston offices that I mentioned last week started at 10am and is going on right now.

All the kitchen & cafeteria stuff is sold, but you still have a little time to get at some of the office fixtures if you like.

I'm not going to be bidding on anything -- the few things I was looking priced out of my range quickly. Though I did go to the preview yesterday to take a look, and got a few pictures -- here's the set: AOL Reston Asset Auction Preview, 1/22/08.

I'd only been to the Reston building once or twice, so I didn't really know it. The guy who let us in said that over 100 people had been by looking over stuff, and sources inside AOL say that lots of folks (who used to work in that office) were following online. (Though looking over the sold items now, the same high bidders keep popping up -- most likely not interested individuals, but probably resellers, or property owners.)

The photos of the fixtures aren't much different from in the catalog, so I was mostly just looking for remnants of the AOL presence:

Empty Infrastructure Services cubicle.