Matt Hampel | matth.org

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Adam Holland mentioned today that it’s getting harder to write predictive science fiction  because time between invention and adoption has decreased massively in the last 100 years.

Dan Levy’s copy of the WSJ had an article on tracking migration patterns with cellphones. How many people = one phone?

Whack-a-mole: a viable methodology for dealing with serious problems.

Like many power companies in the area, Consolidated Edison played whack-a-mole to keep up with power failures, though it said it had plenty of slack capacity. (nyt)

Backyard Post is a city directory edited by… editors that are paid moneys. Not as automated as EveryBlock, not as text-heavy as ArborWiki. William Hartnett’s “glorified spreadsheet“.

Alternative newspapers are being read by suburbia sez some (probably methodologically unsound) report.

Rob Curley responds to a WSJ article on his “‘Hyperlocal’ flop” — that geeks can and do know neighborhoods.

A different response: the failure is in the business model, not in real journalism. On the folly of local-local.

Andrea Calderaro of Caltech is using European and other demographic information to map the digital divide worldwide, the first such project. Follow up is asking how this will affect bottom-up political participation. All work is quantitative, based off survey  questions he didn’t write; he’s not actually asking people how they use technologies or investigating how they don’t. I wonder how much of the Real will be reflected in his report; excited to read it, in any case.

Big Pictures from Boston.com

“We need better ways to track discussion threads from the blogs” sez Dan Gillmor in a 2005 report on Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility. Which is still true. No way people will keep up with everything it’s a pull technology. Email updates may help (Alan does it well, for ex., at http://thinknola.com/posts/gis)

From the same report:

Carvin uses a service, Audlink.com, to record from his mobile phone directly onto the web. It doesn’t automatically create enclosures or an RSS feed, so the podcast is not automatic, but it’s a useful too. He also uses a tool called audioblogger.com which enables the blogger to ‘call in’ to their blog and post audio files directly on it.

That was 2005; both have failed. http://www.audioblogger.com is an Apache hello page.  Livejournal does http://www.livejournal.com/voicepost/

What is Berkman doing to help with the Digital Divide? Not clear. OLPC? Complaining about the situation? (C Nesson is doing something in Jamaica)

from the aanews:

Under the living-wage law, groups that have contracts with the city of $10,000 or more must pay above-minimum wages. That wage level is now around $12 an hour for employees who don’t receive health benefits

…

But upping the grant would increase the festival’s cost by some $19,000. And City Council Member Chris Easthope, who’s promoted the change, argues that the festival’s seasonal employees - almost all students - are not the kind of workers the wage law was meant to protect.

Thanks, Chris, for your beneficent leadership.

It seems that SMAC accurately represents my life in a short clip:

The new Palmer Commons / Life Science grounds on central campus are cold, uninterrupted, a flat passageway and a windtunnel, and that’s a shame:

Every few yards is another blue emergency light — it’s not safe to be here.

The green areas are raised, off limits, not for you. The ground has no texture. There are benches, hard, fixed, pushed to the side. Nothing is outside. There’s no reason to stop, to meet someone, to talk with colleagues or other students.

There’s a little stage area:

But no power plugs, or lights, or seating.

Compare to a similar intersection of major buildings on Central Campus:

Crowds of people walk here at all hours of the day. When it’s warm, a cafe sets up chairs outside, a hotdog vendor is open for business, political activists and panhandlers accost you. Benches and bike parking are everywhere. Artifacts: historical placks, posting boards teach you the past and the future. Ahead is the arch of West Quad, a transition to the Diag. It’s warm, even thought the temperature isn’t.

Why do we think that big, glass-fronted buildings with lots of flat space

will be pleasing?

They won’t, and they never will be.

The building is built, but there’s nothing stopping us from breaking up the flat:

Make the ground textured. Give it an end, and a narrower path:

Put in big objects, and small objects, and water, and wood:

Change the texture, change the color:

Who is planning North Quad?

Books new on the shelf in the last month-ish, categorized by approximate primary use:

Philosophy of Sociology, SOC 508

Actually a pretty awesome course on the nature of research methods and the formation of discipline. Professor curates changingsociety.org, does interesting video interviews with top sociologists.

• Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences / Jon Elster
• Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory / Green & Shaprio
• Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences / Mahoney & Rueschemeyer
• Social Mechanisms / Hedström & Swedberg
• Department and Discipline / Abbott

UROP research

• The Rational Guide to Building SharePoint Web Parts / Darin Bishop. While you’d expect this to contain only the repeated phrase “danger — run”, it does not, so it fails to fulfill the promise implicit in its title. That, or it sets up some sort of paradox that will destroy us all.
• (two other books related books, whose titles will sour this post, but are central to the success of my project)

General Awesomeness

• The Media Lab / Stewart Brand
• Finally: A Pattern Language /Alexander et al, thanks to a well-timed Borders gift card.
• Imagined Communities / Anderson, my first real book that BookMooch allowed me to take.

Christmas Sociology

• Structural Holes / Burt, reviewed and recommended on Vacuum some time ago.
• Orality and Literacy / Ong, which, as the title suggests, links oral and literary cultures;
• Emergence / Steven Johnson, on emergence theory and group power;
• Turf Wars / Gabriella Gahlia Modan, on linguistics and the formation of conceptions of place in neighborhoods.

And, finally:

How to Marry the Man of Your Choice (imagine the o in choice is a gold band) / Margaret Kent. Required reading for anyone entering a serious relationship. Sample chapter available.

The benefit of living in U of M Student Housing is being around people I know and like. But there comes a point when we all want the responsibility and humanity of being in a home — a place where the rooms aren’t always locked, where you can cook dinner, paint your room, and where you don’t get “written up” for playing your music. University Housing doesn’t offer that — and that’s why we all leave.

At the end of year 1, nearly everyone who doesn’t become a Resident Adviser moves out. University of Michigan Housing wonders why — and wants to encourage students to stay.

Well, here’s why we’re leaving:

• The building feels like a hotel. Like an Econolodge, I have to insert my card and type a PIN number into my door, which then automatically locks after five seconds. Unlike an Econolodge, I pay $9,770 a year, not including laundry and other extras. And a “year” isn’t 12 months — it’s eight.
• No or inconvenient common spaces. Some residence halls have tiny, locked rooms. Others have big, empty rooms that require the keycard and a four-digit PIN number. Neither have entertainment systems of any kind.
• Rooms and common spaces do not have wireless internet, so we can’t go work with our friends. Only the Halfass (the cafe, downstairs) and the Benzinger library has wireless — the first is always filled with loud, the second generally so quiet you can’t work well with others. Not even the computer lab has wireless.
• The RC recently held its 40th anniversary, and hundreds of alumni returned. Housing administration refused to unlock the doors, citing “security reasons” (see the next point). The RC ended up hiring a private guard for the entire weekend.
• Building security is a joke. We have to swipe cards to get into the building, the library, the computer lab, and “our” rooms. But one door to the building was unlocked for over a month, allowing anyone free access. Repeated requests for maintenance were ignored. And if someone is waiting at any door, any student will let them in. It’s common courtesy — a facet of civilization that Housing Security wants us to refuse. (The four-digit PIN we need to key into our rooms is not actually secure. It is stored on the card — so if you have someone’s card, you have their PIN.)
• Having Housing Security patrol your “home” is alienating — especially when it’s a different armed officer every night. The officer never attempts to introduce him or herself, either. And how could they, when over 900 people live in the same building?
• No public kitchen space. Cooking is a bonding activity, entertaining, and a learning experience. But Housing purposefully removed the community kitchens from East Quad.
• Students who work in the Cafeteria are not allowed to cook. Actually, they are, if putting frozen vegetables in the steamer counts as cooking.
• The Halfass (our student-run burger joint) once had a unique, alternative menu. Now it has been standardized to have the same institutional fare as the other dorms.
• You can’t take your food from the cafeteria outside to eat. It used to be possible. I tried — even offered to give my MCard as collateral. No go.
• No running water in rooms. Some rooms have sinks left — but when they break, Housing removes them, instead of fixing them.
• Housing staff would rather deny than allow, and administration fights with the programs it is intended to serve. Desk staff and building administrators are generally kind, caring, and compassionate. But the next level up — Housing administration — defaults to denying any request.
• Bathrooms are locked 24-7 (the access card and 4-digit pin are needed to enter). What home has locked bathrooms?
• The facilities reflect their military origins (East Quad, for example, was once a military dormitory). Stall toilets, stall showers.
• All areas are poorly lit. The bathrooms especially — and you can see the patch holes in the wall were lights once existed.
• Prohibited items, a partial list: (how many of these do you have in your home?)
  • wireless networks and wireless network hardware
  • routers
  • hardware firewall
  • candles, incense, oil lamps—lit or unlit
  • coffeemakers without an automatic shutoff
  • halogen lamps or bulbs (all types, including clip-on, torchiere and desk styles)
  • hot plates or any cooking appliance with exposed elements
  • natural, cut trees, branches and/or greens (such as holiday trees, wreaths and garlands)
  • pets, except some fish
  • space heaters
  • toaster ovens
  • toasters
• Residents are not involved in any real administrative functions. The student “government” only hosts parties. Real involvement would mean a seat — and a vote — on the Housing board.
• We are told to “eat healthy” — but the standard meal plan doesn’t even include a simple breakfast.
• Residents used to be able to paint their rooms, creating memories and a connection to the space. No longer. (other colleges allow this, provided that the student either finds someone to accept the room next year, repaints the room themselves, or pays for the repaint)

Many of the complaints I have are against policies that are quite reasonable for a massive, profitable hotel operation. They are not, however, the values of a home. And that’s where the fundamental difference between Housing and the Real World of Living exists.

(historical photos: Kitchen space: John Knox, used under a Creative Commons license; Old Halfass menu: my photo)

Below is a list of classes at the University of Michigan, researched by Patrick Cooper-McCann, that focus on social theory. Not all are available every semester; check the LSA course guide for details.

ECON 408 - Philosophy and Economics

POLSCI 301 - Development of Political Thought: To Modern Period
POLSCI 302 - Development of Political Thought: Modern and Recent
POLSCI 306 - American Political Thought
POLSCI 343 - Political Economy of Developed Democracies
POLSCI 348 - Political Economy of Development
POLSCI 400 - Topics in Political Theory
POLSCI 401 - Feminist Political Theory
POLSCI 403 - Greek Political Theory
POLSCI 407 - Marxism and 20th Century Radicalism
POLSCI 409 - Twentieth Century Political Thought

RCSSCI 301 - Social Science Theory I
RCSSCI 302 - Contemporary Social and Cultural Theory

PHIL 355 - Contemporary Moral Problems
PHIL 359 - Law and Philosophy
PHIL 361 - Ethics
PHIL 366 - Introduction to Political Philosophy
PHIL 385 - European Social Thought from Hegel to Foucault
PHIL 408 - Philosophy and Economics
PHIL 429 - Ethical Analysis
PHIL 442 - Topics in Political Philosophy
PHIL 445 - Philosophy of Law