Archives for August 2003

Cyberspace all over again

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I’m two chapters into Howard Rheigold’s “Smart Mobs” and I realized I needed to get a mobile version of this site up. So, here’s a link to a version of this blog that will work on your favorite handheld or cell phone.

Now for an observation: Rheingold talks about mobile technologies allowing us to occupy more than one space at a time. When you’re on the subway talking on your phone, you’re both on the train and in cyberspace. This reminded me of this coffee shop I go to all the time called Common Grounds.

It’s right next to my law school, so it’s very convenient for me. The cool thing about it is that it’s independent (comfy couches and great tunes on the stereo) and they have free Wi-Fi. So, I go in there for a cup of coffee and maybe a grilled cheese, and am on the Net the whole time. I check e-mail, I blog, I do schoolwork.

The thing is everyone else is on the Net, too. Everyone in the place is interacting, just not with each other. They’re all in cyberspace. There are regulars who practically live there, staring at their laptops.

Why don’t they just do this at home I wonder? I think people like to be in close proximity to others. For many it probably beats staring at their laptops home alone in their underwear. But they’re still not talking to each other.

This reminded me of the article by David Brooks in the Atlantic Monthly. He shows how Americans segregate themselves into the most ridiculously improbable groups. The social network technology Rheingold obsesses about helps us do this now more than has ever been possible. We group because we have more in common with the people in our group (and thus like them better on average) than everyone else. This, in turn, reminded me of a story in Slate about amputation fetishists. Someone in the article made the point that things that used to be taboo and shameful are now celebrated because all the weirdos who share a fetish have found each other on the Net and started a Yahoo! Group.

So, as technology progresses, are we going to see more scenes like those at my coffee shop? Rooms full of people happily sharing smiles and a space, but not any interests or ideas? Will all our perfectly matched friends be online? Has anyone experienced this? Is this a bad thing?

Aug 21, 2003 | Comment

NASA more popular with each explosion

USA Today has a poll on its front page today that says Americans’ support for NASA has gotten a post-Columbia-crash bump, putting support for NASA at its highest level since the Challenger disaster in 1986. Do I really have to point out how stupid this is? We reward disasters caused by bureaucratic incompetence? NASA would be smart to blow something up every time Congress threatened its budget.

Aug 19, 2003 | Comment

The FCC’s funny seal

fcc_seal.gifJames Fallows has a great story in this month’s Atlantic that you should read. It’s ostensibly about Rupert Murdoch, but actually is more about media as a business and not sacred cow institution of democracy. Fallows does a good job of retelling the media ownership battle I got to witness first-hand at the FCC this summer. He lays out the key issues without tipping his hand too much. Also, Fallows’ portrayal of Michael Powell makes me like Powell even more (although I’m sure the same portrayal evokes disgust in other people). A sample:

He seemed affable and engaging—but eager to explain the rightness of his views, as if disagreement must be rooted in either emotion or illogic. This is an approach I associate with theoretical economists. Like them, Powell punctuates his explanations with “Let’s be honest about this” or “Once you move past the subjectivity and emotions …”

But the thing I want to bring to your attention is an observation that Fallows makes that I had also made soon after starting at the FCC: how ridiculous the commission’s seal is. Fallows writes,

But the official seal that hangs over the FCC’s hearing rooms is almost comically retro, with an eagle circling crudely drawn radio transmission towers while holding lightning bolts in its talons. It reflects not just the artistic style but also the technological attainments at the time of the agency’s creation, as part of the early New Deal, in 1934.

To me, it looks like a bald eagle that has been caught in power lines and is being electrocuted. You figure out the twisted symbolism.

Aug 15, 2003 | Comment

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