Tag Archives: postaday2011

Eli Pariser: How Internet Personalization Feeds Us Junk

7 May

One of the occupational hazards of life as a hermit is spending an absurd amount of time considering the intricacy of mundane scenarios.

For example, yesterday I blogged about how no one should trust salad.

And lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time considering only marginally more merit-worthy: something on I dub “Mini-feed Missing Persons”.

For quite some time, I have been wondering how it’s possible that I have about a thousand Facebook friends and yet see only a fraction of them in my mini-feed.  I could blame the privacy settings folks might have, but I’d venture to say I have well over 100 friends who are okay with me knowing every single aspect of their Facebook lives.    I don’t say this because I’m full of myself.  I say this because the majority of my friends are involved in theater, and theater people are open to a low, dirty fault.   You know, for the most part.

Besides, Facebook changes its privacy settings so often that even if you started out incredibly diligent about following up with your Account Settings every time an update was made, by now you’ve probably loosened up.  So what’s going on? Why am I only able to easily stalk a fraction of the friends I actually seem to have a connection with in my virtual society?

I started listening to TED lectures because they’re incredibly addictive and mind-blowing in new, brain-stretchy ways.   If we could replace some of the absolute filth on television with a TED talk or few, I’m quite certain that the average IQ and general decency of society would gain 10 quality points (which, on the imaginary quality scale I just made up right now, is a whole lot).  And in my recent run-in, I found Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”. 

In my not-so-witty-and-straightforward summary, the idea behind Eli Pariser’s discussion is that user-generated content and targeted advertising are based on a junk food mentality.   The algorithm that determines what we click on most often is actually targeting what we click on first.   And that what we click on first tends to be junk food for the mind – which are the ideas we already know and like, or sometimes even trash and guilty indulgences.  Eventually, we plan to get to higher-thinking activities and pages but over time it will be determined for us that we will click on the junk food most happily and most readily – and so all  that’s given to us is junk food.   Pariser relates the concept to our Netflix queue and how typical queues will show guilty pleasure movies being moved to the front and intellectual better-yourself movies and documentaries to the back.  He says, “We all want to be someone who has watched Rashomon but right now we want to watch Ace Ventura for the fourth time.” 

And wouldn’t ya know- after all this time I’ve been thinking of this Facebook friend void seemingly in my own little hermit mind, Eli Pariser comes along and talks about it as well:

“Take his Facebook page, for example. Pariser used to receive comments and links from readers on both sides of the political spectrum. Then one day he noticed his conservative friends had disappeared; only links from his liberal friends remained. Facebook, without asking him, had seen that he clicked more often on links from left-leaning friends and simply edited out the rest. The site used an algorithm that hides from view the kinds of content it has determined, from your past activity, that you are less likely to interact with.”  – Excerpt from an article by Kim Zetter for Wired.com Ted 2011:Junk Food Algorithms and the World They Feed Us.

And so that’s what’s happening to all my Facebook friends.  This new age of personalization on the Internet means that if I never wander over to that old high school friend I’ve been meaning to get in touch with and instead check up on my promiscuous neighbor, I will find my mini-feed devoid of said friend and chock-full of half-clothed, drunken neighbor.

What’s my point?  Twofold.  First, TED lectures are awesome and you should look into them.  You could start with the one I’m referencing.  It’s ten minutes: try it. 

Second, my Facebook friends are not more visible because apparently at some point, I stopped checking up on them.  As a result, they’ve been systematically weeded out.  I actually have to search through my friends list for a name instead of just reading the mini-feed? Preposterous!  But hey – mystery solved.

And listen – I know that I’m a millennial and all, but this affect everyone, not just mini-feed-crazy Generation Y.   You’re reading this blog, you use the Internet, and you probably use Google.  And it might be interesting for you to know that if you’re a conservative from Idaho and your buddy is a Liberal from Alaska, you can type the same search term into Google and be fed completely different search results.

I don’t know whether to be in awe or fear of the potential consequences.  What do you think? ♣

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Salads Are for Rabbits and Baby Eaters

6 May
File:5aday salad.jpg

Gross.

I hate salads.

The only way I’ll happily eat grass is if you dress it up so that I can’t recognize it as such.  I need chicken, cheese, and a creamy dressing – and let’s face it: by the time all that’s in the mix, it’s not healthy anymore so what’s the point of even trying.   I can find burgers with less calories than some salads.

I keep trying different dressings, different mixtures, different greens and it always reverts to the same miserable experience.  I don’t like rabbit food.  I was raised on cheese and grease and bread and that’s what I like.  Sad, but true.

Now I’m not so sure I can say I hate all salads. There are lots of types of salads and I’m not really sure what the term “salad” even means since there can be potato salad, fruit salad, etc.  Maybe salad is just a word for “miscellaneous stuff”.  Maybe fruit salad just means “miscellaneous fruit stuff”.

In that case, I don’t like salads because I can’t trust them.   Just because I like macaroni salad that I buy a local grocer doesn’t mean I’ll like your grandmother’s or your uncle’s, because I have absolutely no idea what those people are putting in it.   The one at my local grocer could make potato salad out of potatoes, mayonnaise and eggs and your grandmother could make it out of potatoes, mayonnaise and babies.

You can’t trust something with no boundaries.

I think I’m done trying.  I have shoved too many green and purple leaves down my throat and chugged water to keep them down.    I’ve bought fancy lettuce, baby lettuce, cheap lettuce, and pre-mixed lettuce.  I’ve tried 4 dollar salad dressings that go right in the trash.  Salads are stealing my money and my joy and I won’t have it any longer.  Today, I officially renounce salads.

Let the revolution begin. ♣

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Light Counter Conspiracy

5 May

Image from indypendent.org, "a free paper for free people".

Now I know that bringing up another work conspiracy (for the original, see my post about what’s in the tissue boxes), but I can’t help but think that I’m involved in some sort of underground dirty scheme.

Last week, a group of three men wandered into my office and began milling around in front of me, staring at the ceiling and looking particularly cautious.  It’s sort of a knee-jerk reaction for me to greet someone with a smile and ask if I can help them when they wander into my office because thanks to the awful positioning of it, it’s the first unintimidating-looking office people get to after they leave the elevator.  So if they skipped instructions in the lobby that were listed on a sign telling them to dial the extension for the party they need (with a list of numbers and names right beside it), they just mosey about the floor until they stumble upon me.

On an average day I have between 1-3 clueless visitors.  And you all know how much I love people who don’t read signs or plan out their lives or have any idea what they’re supposed to be doing.

But this group of three fellas didn’t need any help.  They said they were just fine and that they  needed to “count the lights”.

Count the lights? Seriously? There are three of you.  “Oh.  Okay…”, I said, staring on in confusion as they silently muttered themselves through counting and made marks on mysterious papers lodged in clipboards. 

If you ever want to look official at something, invest in a good clipboard.  Gets ’em every time.

So I thought the visit was strange, but hey – I work for an enormous company and I imagine something like how many lights are running at any given time might be useful for their files.  Maybe it was a sort of electricity census.  Or maybe they needed to switch all of them out at the same time and needed to know how many to replace because they lost the record from the last time they did it.

But then they came back yesterday.

Well it wasn’t actually them.  It was three completely different guys who looked slightly more dressed up than the group that visited me last week.  And when I asked if I could help them, they said they didn’t need any and were just there to count the lights.  “Huh.  Do you guys do that a lot? There was just someone here who said that to me last week”, I said.   “Yeah, I know”, the bossiest looking one replied “and they didn’t do it right, so that’s why I’m here.”

What?

I’m sorry – what? The last crew of three people that you sent failed to accurately count the number of lights in this room and so you had to leave your office and come take care of the business yourself?  There’s a bad joke about how many guys it takes to change a light bulb in there somewhere.  I’m starting to think that this isn’t about light bulbs at all.  What is actually going on underneath all this?  Am I part of some underground goings-on that I’m oblivious to? 

I’m going to get to the bottom of this.   Maybe it will be some sort of huge scheme by a bunch of folks to scam as light counters to get out of a day of work and they accidentally used the same site twice.  Or maybe it’s just a stupid job that the company I work for genuinely finds useful to employ.  But there’s a very small chance that I’ll discover something super secret and exciting.  Maybe all of this somehow leads to a Malkovich Room.  Maybe there are leprechauns somewhere along the way.  Or a secret plot of the CIA.

Or maybe I need to give the Netflix queue a break. ♣

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Dear Slow People Everywhere

4 May

 You know, I’m getting really tired of everyone slowing me down all the time.  

I can’t stand wasting time on stupid crap.  I can’t.  I have absolutely no patience for people who make me spend longer doing something I don’t want to do just because they don’t know how to find beauty in efficiency.  So let’s get real now. 

Dear Slow People Everywhere,

Please hurry up.   I know that seems like a really obvious thing to tell a slow person, but I feel like you just can’t be taking things seriously.  I want you to make an honest effort – give hurrying up the good ol’ college try.  Because I know you don’t want to be doing miserable things any longer than I do.  I don’t like traffic or grocery stores or taking care of business over the phone either, but sometimes we have to be adults and do these things and we should try to hurry the hell up so we don’t make people want to scoop their brains out with a melon baller.

You’ve driven me to this.

When you’re walking down a grocery aisle, stick to the right.  It’s easy – just like traffic flow that you demonstrated knowledge of just before you walked in the door.  Because if you want to stop and look at chocolate chips in the middle of the aisle and you’re hard of hearing, I have to say “excuse me” three times for you to notice me and we could have just saved time if you would read a Driver’s Manual and understand it’s an application for life.    Try it in the mall.  Try it at the airport.  Heck – try it when you’re walking down the sidewalk.  The positive effects on society are boundless.

Or hey – how ’bout this one: put your stuff back where you got it.  It’s super easy.  All you have to do is designate where something will live (keys go in the bowl by the door), put them in that spot, and then always put them back where you got them.  Try this for lots of things – wallets in pockets, glasses on side tables – and you’ll always know where your stuff is.   And I won’t have to wait around for you to find it.  Keys, money, license, you know – whatever.  Less stress instantly.

Next, why don’t you consider learning the Military Phonetic Alphabet?  If you have a job that requires you to use a telephone and you don’t know the Military Phonetic Alphabet, you’re slowing people down.  You and millions like you are responsible for slowing down business across major corporations, non-profits, and government entities.  Because when I’m trying to write down your last name and I can’t understand the difference between your “m” and your “n”, it’s really helpful to just say “Mike” and “November”.  Every time I have to ask you repeat what you said, or every time I write it down wrong and get an email returned, or any time you have to stop to think of a word that starts with “u” so that you can spell out something saying “u as in…. umbrella” – is time I could be doing something less miserable than I am in that moment.  So just think about how efficient your phone calls could be.  Really.

And on that note, please put your phone number and name at the beginning of a voicemail.  Every time you put it at the end, you waste enough time to be equal to the amount of your call.  A 3 minute voice mail means I have to listen to a 3 minutes twice to get your number down exactly right.  That’s six minutes of my life you’ve wasted because you can’t say “Hi my name is ______, my number is ___________” right at the beginning.

These are just a few suggestions.  Listen, I know change doesn’t happen overnight.   And with all the years you’ve all slowed me down, I understand these are well-worn habits that will take time to adjust.   But I’m hopeful that after a few attempts at the above suggestions, you’ll start to have a newfound lust for life and grab your day be the horns, now that you’ve added 2 more hours to it.

So buck up, Slowskys – it’s time to start practicing.

Puppies and Sprinkles,

Jackie ♣


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Human Flight: A Survivor’s Tale

3 May

Photo by Xlibber on Flickr. Click to check out his photostream.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have survived human flight.   Happy Lollipop Tuesday.

Thisweek, I abandoned my assigned status as a grounded biped and soared into the great blue somewhere. 

There are Lollipop Tuesday adventures that make me a little nervous or require me to try something I’d typically ignore, or to just jump in both feet and see what happens.  And there there is getting on a plane for the first time, which scared the absolute living daylights out of me the way, oh, I dunno – dying might scare the living daylights out of someone.   Because that’s all I could picture.   All I could think the entire time I was in the air was of what absolute disaster was about to overcome me.

I was raised on a lot of action movies.  So if I’m on a plane, I expect to see Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis.  

There I was, strapped into the seat in a steel death cage thinking of all the possible scenarios that could lead to my timely demise.   The stewardess is up there doing her safety demonstration thing and I’m staring at her intently, taking notes of every single thing she is saying.  Everyone around me is busy doing something else. 

I kept thinking, Can you possibly review this enough? Even if you’re a frequent flyer, shouldn’t everyone be paying attention every single time? Who knows what we’ll remember in the face of death!

But everyone just tuned her out.  Before we started moving, the stewardess instructed the exit row behind me that they would have to help in the event of an emergency given that they were in an exit row.  She asked that they take time to review their instruction cards and check in with her soon.  But the girl behind me was having none of it.  When the stewardess approached and asked if she was prepared to help in the event of an emergency, she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.  After some explanation, she agreed to comply so that she didn’t have to move and give up her 6 extra inches of leg room.  She followed it up with “Whatever, if something happens, I’m the very first one out of here.” 

So I’m right in front of her, trying to listen to The Postal Services “Recycled Air” ironically, and I’m thinking about how someone’s going to hijack the plane because the President is secretly on board and some terrorists want to use him as leverage to get a Presidential pardon for one of their jailed buddies.  And all the while, this silly wench behind me won’t be able to get it together to lend a hand and stand up for America.

Luckily, the ride to Chicago is only a little over an hour and by the time I played through 3 full-scale action movie scenarios that could apply to my life right there in that moment, we had landed in O’Hare.

Besides the flight, everything else was pretty enjoyable.  I mean, airport security really does yell at you and treat you like an idiot for not knowing that you’re supposed to take your shoes off or that when they tell you to put your hands above your head, they don’t mean like the police mean when they say the same exact thing.   And I think that taking my water bottle so that I have to go through to the other side of security and buy another one is a little silly.  

But hey – I survived a flight.  And since my only experience with planes has been action movies and not many of those folks come out alive, I’d say it was pretty freakin’ fantastic. 

Lollipop Tuesday win. ♣

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The Peculiarities of Old Cars

2 May

old car free stock photo

I think our car is on its last metaphorical leg.

You can usually tell that things are getting serious when there is some sort of physical obstacle to hurdle every time you want to use it.  Like our car, for example, has a passenger door that doesn’t shut all the way sometimes.  Instead of latching once it connects to the actual car, it will just swing back out into the great blue yonder.  The only way to fix it is to pull the door in close to you and push in a mysterious little piece of metal by the door handle.    Once you’ve made that fine adjustment, the door shuts with ease.

The physical sign of old age is different for every car and every owner.   For example, my last car (let’s call it Fred) had a broken gas gauge. I never really knew how much fuel was in Fred at any given time because it always read Empty.  I had to do the math for about how many miles per tank I could get and then constantly reset my odometer every time I filled the tank.  

Sometimes my math was wrong.

Fred had an added bonus of losing its charge every once in a while and occasionally overheating.  On any extended trip, you’d find me in a state of constant haggardness, flicking my eyes from my temperature gauge to my odometer and back again.  I would refuse to stop anywhere to use the restroom or eat because I wasn’t sure if the car battery would suddenly die.

It was a stressful period in my life.

I would almost rather endure all those problems combined to the problem I had to the car prior to that one. Let’s call it Bess.  One of the beauties of old car issues and their owners is that in order to keep the car moving through space, only the owner can be in operation of it.  The slowly fading bells and whistles are too much for a newb to manage.  But unless you actually ride in the car with the owner, it’s unlikely you’ll ever suspect the car has problems.

But Bess had noticeable problems.

A glaring white quarter panel (installed to replace the original one I ruined in my wreck), a couple dings, a water-stained roof, a “not-so-automatic” window, a broken handle cover, an unrecognized CD player, a cherry-stained backseat, a lack of air conditioning, rust that was spreading like cancer, and a gas tank I believed to be leaking topped off the list of amenities on this crap trophy.  And then it lost its power steering.  And started squealing like a naked newborn piglet every time I turned the steering wheel to the right.

I can’t remember a time when I ever had a car that didn’t have some sort of magic password of physical obstacles to overcome in order to drive it.  Even when I was young I remember pinning up the fabric on the ceiling of the family car with little push pins because the fabric glue that once held it up had become old and stick-less, and I’m not sure I’ve ever even known someone who owned a car with a working air conditioner.

And so it looks like our car is slowly stacking up its list of old age peculiarities.  The CD player doesn’t read discs unless you put them in a few times in a row with a small turn of the disc at a different angle until you trick the player into not spitting it back out.  There is a peculiar thudding that develops occasionally upon braking, and an interesting squeak developing during hard turns.   The driver’s seat doesn’t quite pull up as far as the passenger’s, so we can only let people into the back from the passenger’s side.  Oh, and of course there’s the door trick with the mysterious nub of metal that started this whole post.

We will eventually have to part ways with Old Faithful, and venture out into a used car lot to find our next glorious bucket of peculiarities.  

Or maybe we’ll just use bikes. ♣

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One Third Celebration

1 May

Folks, I’m 1/3 of the way there.

Today marks my celebration of completing 33% of the postaday2011 challenge.  And though I already did an Ode to 90 Days post, I’m pretty excited that the good chums at WordPress have encouraged us to use today’s post to link our three favorite posts from the challenge so far.  Because hey – I’m all about celebrating small victories.  And I’m all about having more time to run around Chicago like a crazy fool.  So here I give you: my three favorite posts from the challenge so far.

3) Emergency Underwear Day: This post make the top three because it embodies a lot of things I love about blogging.  I didn’t go out of my way to think of a topic or stress about whether it was entertaining.  I just sat down and wrote whatever came to mind first, and it’s great when it turns out all right.  But my favorite part about this is the comments you all left for me.  I absolutely adore that I can blog about anything from untameable underarm sweat to underwear wedgies at work and you will all unashamedly chime in that the same happens to you.  Thanks for that.

2) The Underwear Made Me Do It:  I just like this guy because I think it’s well-written.  When you have to blog every day, it’s tough to take the time to focus on each and every post.  Sometimes you just have to accept that you have things going on and you’ve done your best with the time and effort you could dedicate that day.   So some of the posts I enjoy the most are the ones that are the most effortless and this is certainly one of them.  I don’t know why I blog about underwear so much.  Apparently it presents a lot of challenges for me.  

1) My Pole Name Is Jasper Highland: This gets top spot, without a doubt.  This blog post is the best Lollipop Tuesday event yet.  I would have absolutely never, ever wandered into a pole-dancing class if I didn’t have a blog to maintain.  And  I’m so proud that I did it because it is without a doubt the most terrifying thing I’ve done so far.  And as an added bonus, it made for a pretty decent post.  This is certainly the post earning top-most marks this far into the game.

So I’m 1/3 of the way finished.  That’s pretty cool… but what can I possibly write about for the next two thirds of this journey?  

Meh – I gave up on worrying about that a long time ago.  Here’s to the next 2o0-something posts.

Thanks for coming along for the ride. ♣

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Chicago Is a Fine Seductress

30 Apr
File:Chicago Sears Tower.jpg

Image by Daniel Schwen via Wikimedia Commons

Hey, I’m in Chicago.

Last night I went to a show (cuz I’m a theater nerd like that) and then went to see some really, really bad stand-up comedy (because I like to die a slow, painful, humorless death).  I then traversed back to my friend’s apartment where we promptly went on the roof with a guitarist and a fiddler.  

The best part about mingling with entertainers is that there is always an odd variety of talents hanging out in your social circle.  One never knows when a professional-grade picture will show up on Facebook thanks to my photographer friend.  Or perhaps a random, improvised dance will bust out in public by a couple of my Dance degree friends.  

Last night, it was a random blue grass concert.

So standing up on the roof with a beautiful Chicago skyline before me and a little twangy music behind me, I thought – I could really get used to this place. Chicago, that is.  Then again, I’m sure that if I hung around for any extended period of time, I would find that blue grass bands and rooftops are only a sometimes snack.  So they can’t really be the reason I come here to stay.

Today I will go out and eat delicious food and celebrate having survived the terrifying experience of human flight.   I will walk amongst the Chicagoans and see if they can smell the Central PA lingering on me (it’s something like Amish mixed with cow manure).  And I will – mark my words – eat an absolutely divine piece of Chicago pizza.  I will not sleep until it is done.

I’m tending to important things here.  Pizza is certainly worth moving for. ♣

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My Life’s Calling

29 Apr

Today could be my last  day alive.

At 9:00 am, my blog will be updated with this post.  And at 9:05am, I will be boarding a flying machine that will quickly transport me through time and to Chicago, Illinois. 

I am wrought with fear.

There are so many things I don’t know.  Airports seem so complicated – what with all the scanning and checking and lining up.  I’ve spent the last 4 years sending my bosses on airplanes all over the world and have completed itineraries for them chock full of details on what to do, where, and when.  But alas, this is my first flight and I personally don’t know a damn thing about it all.

Most of what I know about flying comes from stand-up comedy.  Isn’t that sad?   It’s totally sad.  Just say it.  I didn’t even realize until today at Rite Aid just how darn convenient travel sizes really are.

Perhaps the most pathetic moment was when a director in my department at work reenacted a play-by-play for where I would go in the airport and the things that would happen to me in each phase.  She literally walked through it in her office, going on about gates and boarding passes and things. She logged on the computer, put in my name, and printed my boarding pass.  She ran through every single detail she could and took note of each step.

 And that’s when I realized that that’s what it’s like to have an assistant.

Suddenly, the roles were reversed.  All I had to do was tell her where I was going and she looked up the flight, printed my info, and directed me on the next steps.  It was freaking awesome.  I can’t even imagine how incredibly cool it must be to tell someone what I want to do in life and to have them figure it out and break it down for me in terms I can understand without humiliation in learning it because it’s that person’s job and I pay them to do it.

That’s pretty mindblowing.

I have literally logged on to Google Maps and converted it to Street View so that I can walk on the sidewalk exactly where my boss is walking at that moment to tell her exactly where to go.   Can you imagine having someone do that for you?!  I wouldn’t ever have to worry about how something happens – I could just go out and have new experiences and pay someone to research them and explain what to expect to me in small, childlike terms.  I COULD DO ANYTHING.

I love this.  This may be what I’ve always wanted my entire life.

I will make it so. ♣

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Vote. It’s Patriotic.

28 Apr

All right, folks.  It’s poll time.

Last night I went out to face the biggest of my Lollipop Tuesday adventures yet: singing in public.  I ventured out to an open mic session that Dave frequents (Dave’s a musician, for those of you who are just tuning in) after psyching myself up all evening.    It features a small but loyal crowd of about 40 folks on a good night and would serve me well as my locale of choice for absolute suckage.

Unfortunately, I failed to realize that the Penguins game was on and it was a home game.  And it’s finals week.   And since I live in Pittsburgh, home to the Penguins and several colleges and universities, the open mic was absolutely dead.   There were ten people in the crowd and I knew 3 of them were good friends.  And one was Dave.

It wasn’t exactly the pee-myself-scared experience I was looking for.

Now don’t get me wrong – I was scared.  I was nervous enough to not have any breath when I went to open my mouth at the microphone – but I wasn’t nervous enough to feel like I wanted to run away crying.  

And if I don’t fight the urge to run away crying, what kind of Lollipop Tuesday is it anyway?

So I’m taking a poll.  I want to know if my singing in public counts or if it was unworthy of the Lollipop Tuesday series.  Whatever you say goes.  I can do a redo on a night with a full bar, I can nix the idea altogether, or I can call it a day with last night’s performance.   So please do chime in: I want to know if I have to shake in my boots until the next open mic or if I’ve shaken in them enough. ♣

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