embracing apparent contradictions, diversity and change
“Diversity-Friendly Software”: a SXSW proposal!
Originally posted on the TapestryMaker blog Update, October 10: the proposal was accepted. Yay!Â And, thanks! SXSW’s “Panel Picker” opened for voting today, so it’s a golden opportunity to check out the session Shireen Mitchell and I proposed on “Diversity-friendly software“. Â Voting counts for 30% of the score on a proposal, so if you’re interested […]
Originally posted on the TapestryMaker blog Update, October 10: the proposal was accepted. Yay!Â And, thanks! SXSW’s “Panel Picker” opened for voting today, so it’s a golden opportunity to check out the session Shireen Mitchell and I proposed on “Diversity-friendly software“. Â Voting counts for 30% of the score on a proposal, so if you’re interested please vote for it – and pass it along! Here’s the description: Itâ€ s time for software to embrace differences (not just tolerate them), and see diversity as a strength. Most software today works best for people like the teams that create it, and embeds biases against women, African-Americans, Latinxs, LGBTAIQs, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups – and it’s even worse at the intersections. So the industry is primed for change. This session discusses current examples, “best practicesâ€ that teams can immediately leverage, and emerging ideas from projects that have focused heavily on diversity. We also discuss the challenges and how to overcome them – and chart a path to the future. And here’s a short video I did with some more information
Sarah Jeong on Online Trolling and Harassment
Notes from an Ars Technica Live discussion with Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Fariva
What to do on a Wednesday night in San Francisco?Â BART over to the Longitude tiki bar in Oakland, of course, for a discussion with Ars editors Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Farivar and journalist Sarah Jeong (author of “The Internet of Garbageâ€) about online trolling and harassment!Â I had just been working on a wiki page with a handful of links about muting, blocking, and tools for people to protect themselves online as reference material for next weekâ€ s presentation on Supporting diversity with a new approach to software, so the lively discussion was particularly timely The discussion covered a lot of ground, and itâ€ s certainly worth checking out. Here’s the summary on Ars’ site, and I’ve got the full video below. In this post Iâ€ ll focus on the topic of technical approaches that can help with harassment — although as Sarah pointed out, none of these are full “solutionsâ€. Â Still, incremental steps help, and combining enough of them could make a real impact. Sarah gave a couple of examples of technologies that help: shared block lists on Twitter, and Riot Gamesâ€ use of impromptu “juriesâ€ of other players when somebody is reported for violating League of Legendsâ€ code of conduct. Both of these innovations are forms of crowdsourced moderation: rather than having the site watch and control everything, they distribute the responsibility (and the workload). And both have had a positive, albeit limited, impact. Shared block lists on Twitter are particularly interesting in that the initial implementations (BlockBot, flamin.ga, and Block Together) came from the community, rather than Twitter. Harassment and abuse has been a problem on Twitter for quite a while, and the companyâ€ s attempts to deal with it have often missed the mark — see for example Leigh Honeywellâ€ s Another Six Weeks: Muting vs. Blocking and the Wolf Whistles of the Internet, describing Twitterâ€ s disastrously bad first attempt at implementing muting. So when it came to shared block lists, youâ€ d think that Twitter might have worked with the implementers from the community to learn from them. Instead, though, Twitter appear to have ignored them. Â Unsurprisingly, Twitterâ€ s own implementation of shared block lists is not particularly useful. Of course, Twitterâ€ s not the only company that hasnâ€ t paid attention to abuse until it became a problem. Google+ and Diaspora* both launched without any muting and blocking functionality. Microsoft didnâ€ t even put the simplest countermeasures in place for their Tay bot. Storify didnâ€ t consider how their notification functionality could be turned into a vector for harassment. The list goes on … In fact, I canâ€ t think of any social software thatâ€ s started by prioritizing giving people the tools to protect themselves from harassment and abuse. And itâ€ s probably not a coincidence that most targets of online harassment are women, blacks and Latinxs transgender people, and other marginalized groups — while the people creating (and funding) the software we use are disproportionately cis white and asian guys. If the industry devoted even a fraction as much effort to this as to ad targeting, weâ€ d no doubt have made a lot more progress. Yes, itâ€ s a hard problem. Still, there are plenty of approaches that can help – including crowdsourced moderation (where the state-of-the-art has regressed since Slashdotâ€ s work almost 20 years ago) and the techniques that the Coral project is experimenting with. Â So at some point, somebodyâ€ s going to get the “aha!â€ moment that thereâ€ s a huge opportunity to do better … I canâ€ t wait!
Notes from Underground: Tribal Convergence (New Year’s Weekend 2015/2016)
For the first time in years, we rang in the New Year at a psytrance party in SF — Tribal Convergence at the Gingerbread House!Â Michael Liu, Witchdokta, and the Mendo Organized Chaos crew had done a great job putting the party together, and the place looked amazing. Â We found a cab with no problem […]
For the first time in years, we rang in the New Year at a psytrance party in SF — Tribal Convergence at the Gingerbread House!Â Michael Liu, Witchdokta, and the Mendo Organized Chaos crew had done a great job putting the party together, and the place looked amazing. Â We found a cab with no problem (just say no to surge pricing and exploitative business models!) and got there just as Galactic Illumination started their set … I had been in a reflective mood for the last few weeks, spending lots of time with tarot cards. And fortunately there was decent cellphone reception at the Gingerbread House, so my online tarot journal on TapestryMaker (the social network/community software Iâ€ ve been developing) was right there there at my fingertips. So as I enjoyed the vibe, I looked back over these recent readings and reflected some more … Overall, it was a good year for me. I got more into tarot than I had ever imagined: three tarot conferences, going to the Seattle Tarot Meetup fairly regularly, several online workshops, a half-dozen professional readings, winding up the year by working with James Wanless on Fortune Circles, and so much more. And it’s been very good for me. Especially over the last few months (when Iâ€ ve been focusing a lot on the Temperance card), I feel like my lifeâ€ s much more in balance than it has been since I canâ€ t remember when. Even though I still feel like Iâ€ m in transition to whatâ€ s next, I have a much clearer picture of what I want. And TapestryMakerâ€ s certainly making good progress!Â True, thereâ€ s plenty of room for improvement in a lot of ways; but thereâ€ s some stuff itâ€ s really good at. Like doing tarot, for example, especially at psytrance parties :)So I started by meditating on a few cards representing different aspects of the life I want: the World from Obscurity, the Eight of Cups and Four of Wands from Barbara Mooreâ€ s Steampunk Tarot, the Ace of Wands (Ecstasy) from Jamesâ€ Voyager deck, and the Three of Cups from the Waite-Smith deck. Next I focused on a handful of cards from the Rider-Waite deck that reflect what Iâ€ m trying to do with TapestryMaker: the Eight of Pentacles for the craftsmanship, the Hierophant Reversed (for the underlying original and unorthodox theories) and Seven of Cups (for magic and illusion — in the positive sense) from a reading by tarot advisor Gina Thies last August, and the Magician for the magical. And of course the Magician brought me to “Magic Manifestationâ€ meditation from the November Fortune Circle: the four aces, for “see it, feel it, believe it, do itâ€. James talks about doing the meditation feeling yourself surrounded by gold light; at least for me, it turns out that black light works pretty well too So I put TapestryMaker in “autoplayâ€ mode, cycling through the aces, and danced for a while. Then I asked “How to make my visions come to life in 2016?â€ and picked a card. It would have been a bummer if I had gotten a negative card — or even a positive-but-challenging card. Yeah, yeah, yeah, thereâ€ s a lot to learn from those cards as well; but when Iâ€ m dancing and having a great time it would certainly harsh my vibe to have Death come up and have to spend all night reminding myself “itâ€ s really about transformation!â€Â So I picked the card from my special “partyâ€ version of the Voyager deck, with 20 negative and challenging cards temporarily removed. And why not?Â Tarotâ€ s a tool; for me on New Yearâ€ s Eve, this was the right way to use it. And geez, what a fine card I picked Iâ€ ll be talking a lot more about Harvest — and the Harvest Tree reading I had done just a few days earlier — in future posts. For now, letâ€ s just say it was exactly the right card for my mood. After which, it was time for the countdown to 2016, and then hours more of dancing and socializing. Doctor Spook and Random from Geomagnetic were spinning at midnight … how cool is that?Â I did a couple more readings using the Obscurity deck — one for my friend Andrea on “what would open-source consciousness be like?â€ and one for Spook on “what does 2016 have in store?â€Â The Wheel of Fortune came up in both. Seems like a good sign But mostly I just danced, enjoyed the vibe, and caught up with friends. So many familiar faces, people weâ€ ve celebrated New Yearâ€ s with for a decade or more (“remember that night at Somarts back in 2005?â€) … I really do think of these folks as my tribe, and we definitely converged on New Yearâ€ s Eve I <3 psytrance.
DRAFT: Women writing about technology: a reading list for the new year
Draft!Â Feedback welcome! If you want to get straight to the list, feel free to skip the backstory. If you’d prefer to start of with a great example of why we need lists like this, read on 🙂 Inspired by Bill Gates, the folks at Y Combinator (YC) published a year-end reading list. Jared recommends […]
Draft!Â Feedback welcome! If you want to get straight to the list, feel free to skip the backstory. If you’d prefer to start of with a great example of why we need lists like this, read on Inspired by Bill Gates, the folks at Y Combinator (YC) published a year-end reading list. Jared recommends books by Steve, Philip, and Dan; Kevin recommends David and John; Michael, Daniel and Elon; Paul, Marshall; Matt, Michael; Justin, a different John … hey wait a second, I’m noticing a pattern here! To be fair there is one exception: YC associate Amy Buecholz recommended Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. But then it’s back to business as usual: Luke recommends Neal and Andy; Daniel recommends Charles, Noam and Shimon; Geoff, Yuval; and Aaron, Andrew. Maybe it’s time for Shelley Powers to write a post about how Guys don’t recommend. It turns out I wasn’t the only person to notice this pattern. On YC’s site Hacker News, roastbeast’s observation was immediately downvoted to the bottom of the thread. The comments are much like they usually are when gender issues come up on HN. The most popular response: Or, from one of HN’s highest-reputation commenters Sigh. No, it’s not irresponsible to highlight a systemic bias. And more generally pointing out marginalizing behavior doesn’t create an obligation on the person pointing it out to deal with it. If YC wants to try to overcome their reputation for sexism, it’s up to them. That said, a list of technology writing that’s skewed towards women sounds like a good thing! Â And somewhat to my surprise, I wasn’t able to find one with some quick searching. So I decided to write one up myself. The thing is, I didn’t read a lot of tech books in 2015. So with the exception of the opening essay, this is quite literally a “reading list”: a list of books I’m going to read. If you’ve got interests similar to mine — social media, startups, software engineering, computer security, and diversity in technology — hopefully some of these will interest you as well! Targeted Surveillance, Civil Rights, and the Fight for Democracy, Malkia Cyril I’ll start with an essay that I actually have read, and several times: a transcript of a powerful lunchtime keynote at the 2015 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference. Malkia Cyril is Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice, and does a great job of describing one of the reasons these kinds of systemic bias in technology matters so much. The decentralized power of the Internet has made much of this moment possible. But I ask myself, will the technology serve a future of equity and democracy? Will it fuel a new era of civil action, a renaissance of human rights? Or will it drive a widening wealth gap, a more militarized state, a political economy characterized by structural inequality and persistent discrimination? I submit that the answer to that question is up to you. Look around, see who is and who is not in this room. Yeah really. Â And if this whets your appetite, CMJ’s The Digital CultureSHIFT: From Scale to Power (a collaboration with Color of Change and others) explores the ways in which social change is affecting the internet in more detail. Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research, Sandra Harding The latest work from Sandra Harding, known for her work in feminist standpoint theory and post-colonialism, was my Christmas present to myself, and I’m a few chapters into it. Harding focuss one of the most challenging issues in science and technology studies — and one particularly relevant to people in the Silicon Valley startup scene who tend to pride themselves on their “objectivity”. From the description: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">In Objectivity and Diversity<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">, Harding calls for a science that is both more epistemically adequate and socially just, a science that would ask: How are the lives of the most economically and politically vulnerable groups affected by a particular piece of research? Do they have a say in whether and how the research is done? Should empirically reliable systems of indigenous knowledge count as “real science”? Ultimately, Harding argues for a shift from the ideal of a neutral, disinterested science to one that prizes fairness and responsibility. So, returning to my original rant, if you’re not sure why it matters that the almost-all-male partners at the most influential startup accellerator have an almost-all-male reading list and the almost-all-male commenters on Hacker News don’t think this is a problem, this book’s a good starting place — especially if you like analytical approaches. And if you already understand the problem, it’s even better Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture, edited by Elyssa Shevinsky Then again, as feminist epistemology Barbie might say, “standpoint theory is hard”. If you prefer starting with people’s lived experiences, this anthology might be more to your tastes. To me, it’s yet another good complement to the previous two. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">The split between the stated ideals of the corporate elite and the reality of working life for women in the tech industry—whether in large public tech companies or VC-backed start-ups, in anonymous gaming forums, or in Silicon Valley or Alley—seems designed to crush womenâ€ s spirits…. Lean Out collects 25 stories from the modern tech industry, from people who fought GamerGate and from women and transgender artists who have made their own games, from women who have started their own companies and who have worked for some of the most successful corporations in America, from LGBTQ women, from women of color, from transgender people and people who do not ascribe to a gender. All are fed up with the glacial pace of cultural change in Americaâ€ s tech industry. Hmm, I can see why this didn’t show up on YC’s list. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Sherry Turkle Sherry Turkle’s classic The Second Self, originally published in 1984, shaped a lot of how we think about the digital age, and it’s been fascinating to watch the evolution of her thinking about digital culture over time. In her latest, she laments the loss of empathy and connection she sees as a consequence of today’s technologies: <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence: at work, at home, in politics, and in love, we find ways around conversation, tempted by the possibilities of a text or an email in which we donâ€ t have to look, listen, or reveal ourselves…. At work, we retreat to our screens although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases not only productivity but commitment to work. Online, we only want to share opinions that our followers will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">But there is good news: we are resilient. Conversation cures. In an interview with Diane Rhem, Turkle clarifies that she doesn’t see herself as anti-technology, but rather pro-conversation. So her perspective’s a great complement to the go-go triumphalism of so much writing about tech. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, Whitney Phillips One of the reasons it’s so hard to have good conversations online these days is because of trolling. Â It’s almost like Mark, Jack, Ev and Dick, Tom, David, Kevin, Steve and Alexis, and all the other guys running social networks haven’t paid as much attention to trolling, harassment, and abuse as women in comparable roles might have!Â And in this book, Whitney Phillips sets trolling within today’s broader corporate-run media landscape. Trolls’ actions are born of and fueled by culturally sanctioned impulses — which are just as damaging as the trolls’ most disruptive behaviors. Phillips describes, for example, the relationship between trolling and sensationalist corporate media — pointing out that for trolls, exploitation is a leisure activity; for media, it’s a business strategy. She shows how trolls, “the grimacing poster children for a socially networked world,” align with social media. And she documents how trolls, in addition to parroting media tropes, also offer a grotesque pantomime of dominant cultural tropes, including gendered notions of dominance and success and an ideology of entitlement. Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon, Kim Zetter Long-time Wired journalist Kim Zetter has written a lot about computer security, and her work’s consistently approachable even if you’re not an expert. Here she starts with one of the most interesting stories, starting with the initial discovery of unexpected problems with centrifuges in a secret Iranian nuclear facility, caused by computer malware that became known as Stuxnet. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">In these pages, Wired <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">journalist Kim Zetter draws on her extensive sources and expertise to tell the story behind Stuxnetâ€ s planning, execution, and discovery, covering its genesis in the corridors of Bushâ€ s White House and its unleashing on systems in Iran—and telling the spectacular, unlikely tale of the security geeks who managed to unravel a sabotage campaign years in the making. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">Â <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">But Countdown to Zero Day <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">ranges far beyond Stuxnet itself. Here, Zetter shows us how digital warfare developed in the US. She takes us inside todayâ€ s flourishing zero-day “grey markets,â€ in which intelligence agencies and militaries pay huge sums for the malicious code they need to carry out infiltrations and attacks. She reveals just how vulnerable many of our own critical systems are to Stuxnet-like strikes, from nation-state adversaries and anonymous hackers alike—and shows us just what might happen should our infrastructure be targeted by such an attack. Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Edition, Gayle Laakmann McDowell Gayle Laakmann McDowell’s a software engineer who worked at Microsoft, Apple, and Google. As an undergrad, she started up Career Cup, a crowdsourced site where people could submit interview questions they were asked. A few years later, she published the first edition of Cracking the Coding Interview, with questions and solutions, and even more importantly coaching about how to think about the process and how the companies look at hiring. Over the years she’s continued to refine it, and the sixth edition is another major step forward. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">Learn how to uncover the hints and hidden details in a question, discover how to break down a problem into manageable chunks, develop techniques to unstick yourself when stuck, learn (or re-learn) core computer science concepts, and practice on 189 interview questions and solutions. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff;">These interview questions are real; they are not pulled out of computer science textbooks. They reflect what’s truly being asked at the top companies, so that you can be as prepared as possible. I went to the Seattle launch event for this latest addition, and there were literally hundreds of people there who told me how much Gayle’s book had helped them. So if you’re looking for a job as a programmer, or know somebody who is, check it out — no matter what your gender is And … ? This is a very short list, and there’s lots more great tech writing by women out there. If you’ve got other suggestions for books or essays written by women (or even co-authored by women, like danah boyd, Mimi Ito, and Henry Jenkins’ Participatory Culture), please leave them in the comments or share them on Twitter. As we go into 2016, notice who’s written the books you’re reading and recommending. My experience is that when I’m not actively paying attention to gender ratios, it’s easy to fall into the “almost-all-male” trap; if you look at Amazon’s tech bestsellers, books by women are quite rare. It takes an effort to get more balanced perspectives. At least for me, though, it’s well worth doing. Over the course of the next few months, I’ll be reading these books — and blogging about some of them. Whether it’s these or others, I hope you do the same! * To his credit, a third of the books on Bill Gates’ short list are by women: Nancy Leys Stepa’s Eradication: Ridding the World of Diseases Forever? and Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. But it’s still 2/3 guys.. Â
Galactic: New Year’s Eve 2013/2014 at the Atrium
“It’s the happiest I’ve seen you since I can’t remember when …” — more than one friend, to me, October-December 2013 Indeed! The last few months have been great: working on an exciting project, and (finally!) hanging out online at a positive, diverse, site with interesting people and great discussions. And even though 2013 as […]
“It’s the happiest I’ve seen you since I can’t remember when …” — more than one friend, to me, October-December 2013 Indeed! The last few months have been great: working on an exciting project, and (finally!) hanging out online at a positive, diverse, site with interesting people and great discussions. And even though 2013 as a whole was difficult , there were plenty of good times; and excellent progress on my resolutions like spending more time with friends and family, meditating regularly, reducing stress and sleeping better. So no wonder I’m happy! <img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3548" style="margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" alt="DSC00605" src="http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DSC00605-300x146.jpg" width="199" height="96" srcset="http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DSC00605-300x146.jpg 300w, http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DSC00605.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />The first two-thirds of the year was pretty challenging. Things happen for a reason, though, and I certainly learned (and grew!) a lot. Even though it turned out not to be a great fit for me, the role of “Senior VP of Products” running an international engineering and product management organization was incredibly valuable experience – including areas like mobile and web service development that were new to me. And while the family health crisis that cropped up just as I was leaving the job wasn’t a lot of fun, it was very fortunate that it happened at a time when I could prioritize what really mattered without feeling like I was letting people down at work … and even more fortunate that it resolved the way it did, with a full recovery! After all the turmoil, it’s been really good for me to roll up my sleeves and do some programming again. Of course there’s also the usual frustrations: learning a new platform, database, and programming environment, all of which have their share of quirks, and running into the same kind of annoying glitches that have always been a part of software development. Still, what I’m building is attractive, usable on phones and tablets as well as laptops, and has a surprising amount of functionality … and it’s a great feeling that it’s already at the point where D and I and several friends are using it regularly. Oh yeah, that’s right, I *am* pretty good at this software engineering stuff As usual we’re kicking off the new year at a psytrance party — Galactic, with DJ Anomaly at the Atrium!Â We shall see what 2014 holds, but as of now I’m quite optimistic. It feels like a very positive trajectory, in contrast to last year (when I didn’t even do a blog post) and even the year before (where I just couldn’t wait for 2011 to get over). And it really is the happiest I’ve been in a long time! <img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3557" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" alt="DSC01272" src="http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DSC01272-300x200.jpg" width="164" height="109" srcset="http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DSC01272-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DSC01272.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 164px) 100vw, 164px" />
Restore the Fourth: Grassroots civil liberties activism is back and better than ever!
It’s the Fourth of July, and we’re fighting for our civil liberties. — me, in 2008, to the Senator Obama – Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right mailing list Five years later, grassroots civil liberties activism on social networks is back and better then ever. Back in 2008, we were organizing online, trying […]
Restore the Fourth rally on the Federal Building, NY Itâ€ s the Fourth of July, and weâ€ re fighting for our civil liberties. — me, in 2008, to the Senator Obama – Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right mailing list Five years later, grassroots civil liberties activism on social networks is back and better then ever. Back in 2008, we were organizing online, trying to stop the disastrous FISA Amendment Act, and Barack Obama had just responded to our open letter. We lost that battle, but the fight goes on … and today it went to the next level at Restore the Fourth‘s rallies across the country: New York In New York, 500+ people filled four blocks. DC featured an all-star cast of speakers, 400+ people, and 20 news organizations. In SF, the 300+ people wound up the rally at 611 Folsom, the home of the famed room 641A. The Salt Lake City rally ended with a march on the NSA’s Utah data center. People turned out in Raleigh, Charlotte, Portsmouth, Louisville, Rochester, Boston (tweeted by the state police), the Alamo (!), Kansas City, Cedar Rapids, Philadelphia, Denver, Wichita, Birmingham (with a ton of local press) Syracuse, LA, Dallas, Atlanta, Tulsa, Gainesville, Harrisburg, Carson City, Reno, Chicago, Portland, Austin, Midland, San Diego, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Sacramento, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Iowa City, Asbury Park, Houston, Hartford, Chattanooga, Huntington Beach, Savannah, Tempe, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Seattle, Redmond, Lansing, Bozeman, Missoula, Olympia, … Coverage on NBC, Fox News, The Atlantic, Reuters, CNN, CNET, Mashable, CBC, the Christian Science Monitor, the Times of India, Buzzfeed (with the “40 best signs“) and dozens of local TV stations and papers. Update, July 5: more from the Washington Post, the Guardian, ThinkProgress, VentureBeat, Firedoglake, Newsmax, Hullabaloo, Â All Things D, Nextgov, an AP video, RT, the Daily Caller, the Sydney Morning Herald, US News and World Report, and Vice. How cool is that? Portland, OR One thing that really excites me about Restore the Fourth is its transpartisan base. Tea Party Patriots and Occupiers, together again for the first time!Â And the strong support from EFF, Free Press, BORDC and others high-profile non-profits for today’s actions and StopWatching.us petition really highlights the connections and skills that built during the battles over SOPA and CISPA. Austin, TX Even though today’s rallies are just a first step, their success a huge shot in the arm for civil liberties. Â The network of informed and connected people that came together to make today happen can be the basis for pressuring Washington as legislation moves forward in Congress and the calls for a investigating committee pick up momentum, and we start to head into the 2014 primary season. Â And as BORDC executive director Shahid Buttar discusses in Restoring the Fourth Amendment, local organizing offers opportunities to win back right on a city-by-city basis (as we did with Save the Rave!) while reinforcing national the movement. BORDC and allies have had several big wins already this year, and with drones, fusion centers, and the national ID card hidden in the immigration bill, there will be plenty of opportunities for more … <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3495" class="size-full wp-image-3495" alt="veryoriginal78, in DC" src="http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/130704-dc.png" width="208" height="252" srcset="http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/130704-dc.png 417w, http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/130704-dc-247x300.png 247w" sizes="(max-width: 208px) 100vw, 208px" /> National Coordinator veryoriginal78 Going forward, Restore the Fourth’s goals are similar to StopWatching.us and the coalition of 80+ organizations who sent an open letter to Congress last month: reforming the Patriot Act, FISA, and the state secret privilege; creating a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying; and holding officials who were responsible for unconstitutional surveillance accountable. Of course there’s a long way still to go and some big open questions. How to build on the initial energy?Â How to evolve the loose initial organization to something sustainable?Â How successful will Restore the Fourth be at crowdfunding?Â Will the media continue to cover the story?Â Â We shall see. Still, it’s a watershed moment when any social network activism campaign makes the leap from online into the streets — something we never managed to do with Get FISA Right. So major kudos to the Restore the Fourth organizers, both at the national level and of the individual rallies … and to everybody who turned out!
Happy Birthday Get FISA Right: Looking forward to what comes next!
Cross-posted on Get FISA Right Get FISA Right started on June 26, 2008, with posts by Mardi S on my.barackobama.com and Mike Stark on Open Left. We were the first high-profile grassroots social network activism campaign in the US and got enough attention that Obama responded to our open letter. Still, we and our allies […]
Cross-posted on Get FISA Right Get FISA Right started on June 26, 2008, with posts by Mardi S on my.barackobama.com and Mike Stark on Open Left. We were the first high-profile grassroots social network activism campaign in the US and got enough attention that Obama responded to our open letter. Still, we and our allies lost that battle over the disastrous FISA Amendments Act. And since then, it’s been more of the same. Five more years of the NSA vacuuming up our phone and internet information. Five more years without meaningful oversight. Five more years of evasion and outright lies in Congressional testimony. Five more years of secret court rulings. Five more years of legal maneuvering to try to prevent EFF, ACLU, or anybody else from challenging the laws’ constitutionality. Five more years of Patriot Act and FISA reauthorization. Happy f—ing birthday. But after the firestorm of publicity in response to the recent leaks, I’m increasingly optimistic that momentum is building for a change. The NSA’s lies and evasion are getting spotlighted in major media outlets. Bills advocating transparency in the House and Senate are getting bipartisan sponsorship. The huge cost to US tech companies’ international business is pushing more and more of them to take a stand. EFF, ACLU, and other civil liberties organizations continue to fight the good fight — and the leaks (as well as the details government spokespeople have revealed in resposne to the leaks) may well have improved the legal situation by documenting standing and reducing the scope of the “state secrets” defense. As more and more details come to light, people across the political spectrum are asking whether this is really the kind of world we want to live in. And just as groups like Get FISA Right sprang to life in 2008, the next generation of online organizing is emerging in 2013. StopWatching.us builds on the past successes of civil liberties activism like the alliance between civil liberties organizations and tech companies that beat back SOPA and CISPA. And Restore the Fourth‘s rallies on the 4th of July are a great example of the vision Get FISA Right member (and Bill of Rights Defense Committee Executive Director) Shahid Buttar laid out in Restoring the 4th Amendment: in-person organizing at the local level. I’ve been going to Restore the Fourth’s daily meetings and the energy is incredibly exciting. Not only that, they’re getting a lot of support from other groups … including Get FISA Right! There are other ways we can continue to contribute too; see here and here for some thoughts, and share your perspectives. So, happy birthday to Get FISA Right. We’ve accomplished a lot over the last five years, and I’m looking forward to what comes next! jon PS: image credit: “Bill’s Birthday Cake”, by Cattoo, via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons
TSA Comments due *Monday*, 11:59 p.m. Eastern
If you’re tired of the TSA to electronically strip-searching us, abusing and humiliating people, making kids cry, and wasting billions of dollars on technology that doesn’t actually make us more secure, make sure to file your comments by Monday June 24 at 11:59 p.m. Â You can theoretically submit comments online via regulations.gov (although as […]
If you’re tired of the TSA to electronically strip-searching us, abusing and humiliating people, making kids cry, and wasting billions of dollars on technology that doesn’t actually make us more secure, make sure to file your comments by Monday June 24 at 11:59 p.m. Â You can theoretically submit comments online via regulations.gov (although as I write this the site isn’t working), or by FAX or mail. Â See the first reply to this post for more about how to file comments. The most effective comments include personal experiences, and be specific about what you want to happen and why. EPIC recommends that commenters support “Regulatory Alternative #3″ (the use of walk through metal detectors and explosive trace detection devices) and support the right of passengers to opt out. tsacomments.net has a lot more information about the various issues. You can see my comment below; feel free to use any of the language. The number of comments sent in to the TSA matter. If the TSA doesn’t get a lot of comments, theyâ€ ll say it shows that most people donâ€ t have any problem with the body scanners or TSAâ€ s other security procedures. But if thereâ€ s a much more vocal response, itâ€ s much harder for the TSA to ignore them – theyâ€ re required by law to reply to all the issues that are brought up in the commenting period. So please, send in your comments! My comments The proposed rule is vaguely written and should be withdrawn, and the practices it would authorizes should be suspended. Â TSA should conduct a new cost-benefit analysis that fully considers the impact of body scanners and pat-downs on traveler privacy. If the rule is not withdrawn, it should be modified to adopt Regulatory Alternative #3 (walk-through metal detectors as primary screening and explosives trace detection on a random set of passengers) instead of AIT and pat-downs. AIT, as compared to WTMD and ETD, is extremely costly: the machines, training for the personnel to operate them, and the wasted time waiting in security lines are all hugely expensive, without providing additional value — tests at multiple European airports all led to dropping the AIT machines. As a business traveler, the extra time spent in line and the unpleasantness of the putdown process creates a significant impact on my travel. The docket claims that the machines do not introduce additional delays, but this is clearly not the case in practice: when lines get long, metal detector lanes are opened to speed people through the gates. In addition, the use of AIT as a primary screening technology fails the test laid out in US v. Hartwell that screening must be “minimally intrusiveâ€, “effectiveâ€ and “well-tailored to protect personal privacy.â€ To the extent TSA continues the use of body scanners and pat-downs, the final rule should codify minimum protections, including guaranteeing individual passenger image data is not retained; that all physical searches are conducted by officers of the same self-identified gender; that secondary screening will be conducted in private at passengerâ€ s election; that searches to resolve an anomaly are no more intrusive then necessary to resolve the anomaly; that screeners receive training on working with diverse populations; and that no traveler will be subject to discrimination on the basis of religion or gender identity.
Day of Action, Monday, June 17: Tell the TSA to End Nude Body Scanners
With less than two weeks left to comment on the 'nude body scanners' in airports -- and civil liberties on the front pages -- it's time for a final push to get the word out.
With less than two weeks left to comment on the ‘nude body scanners’ in airports — and civil liberties on the front pages — it’s time for a final push to get the word out. So a loose coalition of grassroots volunteers and privacy and civil liberties organizations is calling for a “Day of Action” on Monday June 17. If you’re sick and tired of wasting billions of dollars and giving up your rights and dignity whenever toy fly, read on for how you can help — and why it matters. Effective comments – and why they matter Back in 2010, EPIC sued the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the “advanced imaging technology” (aka nude body scanners) from being used as primary screening in airports. Â The court ruled against them on most counts, but agreed that the TSA had violated the law by failing to get public feedback before introducing the machines. The TSA finally started the ‘rulemaking process’ in March this year, and the deadline is on June 24. People and organizations can submit comments online via regulations.gov, or by FAX or mail (see the first comment for information on FAX and mail). The number of comments sent in to the TSA matter. If the TSA doesn’t get a lot of comments, theyâ€ ll say it shows that most people donâ€ t have any problem with the body scanners or TSAâ€ s other security procedures. But if thereâ€ s a much more vocal response, itâ€ s much harder for the TSA to ignore them – theyâ€ re required by law to reply to all the issues that are brought up in the commenting period. Buried near the end of the rulemaking document are the four alternatives the TSA is considering for walkthrough metal detectors (WTMD), nude body scanners (AIT), and explosives trace detection: Regulatory alternative Name Description 1 No Action Under this alternative, the passenger screening environment remains the same as it was prior to 2008. TSA continues to use WTMDs as the primary passenger screening technology and to resolve alarms with a pat-down. 2 Pat-Down Under this alternative, TSA continues to use WTMDs as the primary passenger screening technology. In addition, TSA supplements the WTMD screening by conducting a pat-down on a randomly selected portion of passengers after screening by a WTMD. 3 ETD Screening Under this alternative, TSA continues to use WTMDs as the primary passenger screening technology. In addition, TSA supplements the WTMD screening by conducting ETD screening on a randomly selected portion of passengers after screening by a WTMD. 4 AIT Screening(NPRM) Under this alternative, the proposed alternative, TSA uses AIT as a passenger screening technology. Alarms would be resolved through a pat-down. The most important thing to cover in your comments is which alternative you recommend — and why. EPIC supports alternative #3, and I agree. Â My reasons include cost, effectiveness, impact on business and travelers, and privacy. Of course there are a lot of other reasons to be against nude body scanners. tsacomments.net has information on a lot of them, along with some suggestions about what to discuss — and links to different organizations submitting comments. The most effective comments include personal experiences. For example, many travelers say they received coercive and punitive pat downs when they tried to opt out of body scanners. If that happened to you, please add your experience in your comments to the TSA. You should also be specific about what you want to happen; EPIC recommends that commenters support “Regulatory Alternative #3″ (the use of walk through metal detectors and explosive trace detection devices) and support the right of passengers to opt out. Â You don’t have to include your name or address; if you do, it will become part of the public record. How you can help The first way you can help is to submit a comment. Not only does this directly help with our goal of getting as many comments to the TSA as possible, it makes it easier for you to help get the word out and get others involved. You don’t need to wait for Monday to do it — so please start now! The other way to help is to get the word out. Tell people you think might be interested in the issue. Ask them to submit comments — and enlist their help in passing the information along. Talking in person and on the phone is great; email and sharing information on social networks and Skype is also powerful. It’s not an either-or thing! More specifically: Between now and Monday, let people know about the day of action, and share the link to this site and tsacomments.net. Email the links, tweet them, post them on Facebook or Google+ or Tumblr or Reddit or wherevery you hang out. If you blog, start working on a post to publish Sunday night or Monday. If you know journalists or bloggers, let them know about the upcoming event. Forward the Facebook event to your friends. On Monday, follow up with the people you’ve already talked to; share the link to your comments and to tsacomments.net; tweet up a storm; post to your favorite soial networks — and ‘like’ and upvote other people’s posts! And then after Monday and until the 24th, keep following up. The more times people hear about an activism campaign, the more likely they are to take the time to participate; and everybody’s busy and prone to procrastination, so reminders are helpful. This is our one chance to tell the TSA to stop electronically strip-searching us, stop abusing and humiliating people, stop making kids cry. Now is the time. We may not get another chance.
Tell the TSA what you think about nude body scanners!
Airline passengers have been walking through full-body scanners for nearly five years, but only now are fliers getting a chance to officially tell the federal government what they think about the screening machines. In response to a lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled that the Transportation Security Administration […]
Airline passengers have been walking through full-body scanners for nearly five years, but only now are fliers getting a chance to officially tell the federal government what they think about the screening machines. In response to a lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled that the Transportation Security Administration could continue to use the scanners as a primary method of screening passengers. But the court ordered the TSA to give the public a 90-day comment period, which the agency did not do when it launched the scanning program. The TSA began the comment period online in March, and so far it has been getting an average of 26 comments a day — nearly all of which blast the TSA and the scanners for a variety of reasons. — Hugo Martin, Public Gets Chance to Comment on TSA’s Full-body scanners, LA Times, April 21 There are now over 4500 comments on regulations.gov, and sentiment continue to be overwhelmingly against the scanners. Â There are so many reasons to oppose them, it’s hard to know where to start: rights, effectiveness, cost, fairness, culture … see the Twitter Privacy chat discussion or EPIC’s preliminary analysis (PDF) for more details. So it’s a golden opportunity for the loose but broad coalition fighting for a more sensible and less abusive approach to airport security to get the word out about the commenting period and encourage people to submit their own comments. This is one of the situations where numbers are important. If the TSA only gets a small number of comments, they’ll say it shows that most people don’t have any issues and it’s only a “tiny but vocal” minority who is complaining. But if there are a lot of comments, it’s much harder for the TSA to ignore them (they’re required by law to reply to all the issues that are brought up in the commenting period). A loud enough outcry is likely to get media coverage and maybe even help politicians realize that hey, there’s an issue here that can make them very popular with their constituents! So to start with, please file your own comments. The most effective comments use your own language, instead of cut-and-paste boilerplate. EPIC recommends that commenters support “Regulatory Alternative #3″ (the use of walk through metal detectors and explosive trace detection devices), support the right of passengers to opt out, describe the devices as “Nude Body Scannersâ€, and include personal experiences. Â See below for instructions on how to use the regulations.gov to submit comments — as well as how to send them in by FAX or mail if you prefer. Once you’ve done that, here are a few easy ways you can help get the word out: Share links on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, and whatever social networks you hang out on. A few good links to share: EPIC’s summary page, the direct link to the “docket” on regulations.gov, and the Slashdot thread, articles from Mashable and the Verge, or this blog post! Email links to people and mailing lists you think will be interested. Look for tweets on the #tsacomments and #tsa hashtags (or from @TSAComments) and retweet them Look for good comments on regulations.gov, and tweet them or share them on your favorite social networks. If you blog, write a short post. Â Consider including your comments (or at least excerpts from them), and make sure to include a link to the regulations.gov page. Sign up for Reddit, and vote up TSA-related stories. [Why Reddit?Â It’s been a hotbed of activism on other civil liberties issues like SOPA and CISPA, and there’s a lot of political discussion there as well, so there are likely to be a lot of allies there.] Question: what other suggestions do people have?
A Rainbow of Light: Replenishing at the Atrium
A rainbow of light Candles and colorsReplenishing energy.A rainbow of light
A rainbow of light Candles and colors Replenishing energy. A rainbow of light
Notes from Underground: The Dark Before the Dawn
Dancing in the darkness, Your deepest desires … Do you know why you’re here? Do you think you have control? — Lexicon Avenue, Why R U Here? What a week. What a month. Hard to believe I’m back on the fast track in the Silicon Valley startup scene. Shipping!Â Hiring!Â Organizational issues!Â Interpersonal conflicts!Â Planning!Â […]
Dancing in the darkness, Your deepest desires … Do you know why you’re here? Do you think you have control? — Lexicon Avenue, Why R U Here? What a week. What a month. Hard to believe I’m back on the fast track in the Silicon Valley startup scene. Shipping!Â Hiring!Â Organizational issues!Â Interpersonal conflicts!Â Planning!Â Strategy!Â A third of my team is in Singapore, and if events had gone as planned I would have been there instead of at The Atrium last night. Alas, when I went to check in for my flight, they noticed that my passport expires in September — and Singapore (like many other countries these days) requires documents to be valid for at least six months. Sigh. Control is an illusion. Influence, however, is possible. — dialog with Alayne Reesberg, 2004 But instead, after stressful times and long hours working down in the Bay Area, it was great to get back to Seattle Thursday night. After a relaxing Saturday I was soooooo ready to dance. And talk about perfect timing: a six-hour DJ Anomaly set at The Dark Before the Dawn at the Atrium!Â Yay!!!!!! The west coast psytrance scene seems to be doing pretty well these days. I’ve been working so much that we’ve missed a lot of great shows, but I’ve still managed to see Cortex at Synchronize, Logic Bomb at Pulse, Full Power Friday at Retox. The Atrium’s smaller than any of those clubs, but it’s a lot more comfy, with two great chill areas and tasty food and drinks till late. DJ Anomaly had a lot of new tracks, and the vibe was great. By the time cinnamon rolls magically appeared at 4:30, we were both feeling happy and relaxed. I heart psytrance.
Jonathan Corbett’s video has over 800,000 views in the last couple days, despite YouTube censoring it for a while (possibly because the title has “nude” in it). Â Â The Travel Underground thread is the epicenter. The rough chronology: the original post had a great headline Lisa Simeone on TSA News was the first to blog […]
Jonathan Corbett’s video has over 800,000 views in the last couple days, despite YouTube censoring it for a while (possibly because the title has “nude” in it). Â Â The Travel Underground thread is the epicenter. The rough chronology: the original post had a great headline Lisa Simeone on TSA News was the first to blog about it It got hot first on Twitter: 2000 hits in the first 2 1/2 hours after he posted it. A couple hours later it hit #1 on Hacker News, getting 10 hits/second. Then Slashdot, Reddit, Mashable, the Daily Mail … after which Drudge and the Guardian, CNET, The Consumerist, TSA’s less-than-compelling response threw gasonline on the flames and sparked coverage from GizModo, Wired, The Next Web, Reason, and once again Hacker News … plus lots more. Mike Masnick at TechDirt and Steven Frischling on Flying With Fish point out that there’s nothing new here: security experts have been talking about the scanners’ high error rate and vulnerabilities to exploitation for years. But video footage makes it very compelling. And the spread through the tech community highlights that the same kind of grassroots coalitions that mobilized against SOPA are possible on other civil liberties issues — like the TSA, for example, and the PATRIOT Act and FISA next time they come up for renewal. There’s plenty of other learning too, so it’ll be interesting to watch things unfold. Stay tuned!
A tidal wave in progress? I â™¥ Innovation at the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference
The sold-out Women 2.0 PITCH Conference’s opening keynote features Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch,* on “Making and the True Path.”Â The rest of the sessions look great too: case studies by Robin Chase of Zipcar and Julia Hu of Lark, and the “$50 Million Panel” featuring Deena Varshavskaya of Wanelo, Leah Busque of […]
The sold-out Women 2.0 PITCH Conference’s opening keynote features Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch,* on “Making and the True Path.”Â The rest of the sessions look great too: case studies by Robin Chase of Zipcar and Julia Hu of Lark, and the “$50 Million Panel” featuring Deena Varshavskaya of Wanelo, Leah Busque of TaskRabbit, and Sheila Lirio Marcelo of Care.com. There are a bunch of intriguing finalists for the pitch competition — including Tara Hunt’s Buyosphere!Â And the judges for the competitions are no slouches either: Aileen Lee of Kleiner Perkins, Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Naval Ravikant of AngelList, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy of JOYUS … looks like a #diversitywin to me, and some great networking too! A couple of weeks ago I had coffee with Pemo Theodore, who’s interviewed dozens of investors and entrepreneurs for her excellent Why are Women Funded Less than Men?. We both had the same feeling: momentum has steadily built over the last couple years** and it feels like there’s a tidal wave in progress. The women-in-tech and women-near-tech communities are extraordinarily well networked. And the data is compelling. Here’s Vivek Wadhwa’s summary from his recent Inc article: An analysis performed by the Kauffman Foundation showed that women are actually more capital-efficient than men. Babsonâ€ s Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that women-led high-tech startups have lower failure rates than those led by men. Other research has shown that venture-backed companies run by women have annual revenues 12 percent higher than those run by men, and that organizations that are the most inclusive of women in top management positions achieve a 35% higher return on equity and 34% higher total return to shareholders. So while there’s still a long way to go, the trend is in the right direction. Kudos to all the amazing women, the much smaller number of equally-amazing guys, and the outstanding organizations like Women 2.0, the Anita Borg Institute, Astia, Pipeline Fellowship, Women Who Tech, She’s Geeky, the Level Playing Field Institute, Geek Feminism and so many others how have worked so hard to make this happen! Combine the momentum and community with great content and plenty of opportunity for networking, and it should be a great conference. Â I’ll be live-blogging it in comments — and feel free to jump in as well. Stay tuned! jon * and strong pseudonymity advocate! ** here on Liminal States threads like Guys talking to guys who talk about guys, A #diversitywin as an opportunity, Fretting, asking, and begging isn’t a plan, The third wave and the anatomy of awesome, and Changing the ratio have some of the highlights
To ensure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered … We will save you We will save you We will save you From your selves — Robot Revolution (Say no to SOPA remix), Virtual Light vs. Wizack Twizack vs. ?, San Francisco over the holidays was a lot of fun but by early January we […]
To ensure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered … We will save you We will save you We will save you From your selves — Robot Revolution (Say no to SOPA remix), Virtual Light vs. Wizack Twizack vs. ?, San Francisco over the holidays was a lot of fun but by early January we were really glad to be back in Washington. We got there Thursday afternoon and spent the next few nights at The Atrium: psytrance Thursday, stompy darkwave on Friday, and then more psytrance on Saturday at Brightness. The next week it was a darkwave set Wednesday, psytrance Thursday … happy 2012! Saturday, it was all night psytrance at Gibbous/Deadly Snow. The drinks were strong, the snacks were tasty, the place looked fantastic, and DJ Anomaly was on a roll. Monday night was stompy darkwave at Dead Snow … hey wait a second, I’m noticing a pattern here. SnOMG! After six inches of snow followed by freezing rain, the Seattle area took a couple of snow days. The Atrium was almost empty Thursday night, and still pretty quiet Friday for Icy. And despite a huge victory for grassroots social network activism (yay Tumblr!Â yay Reddit!Â yay RedState and DailyKos, together again for the first time! and yay for everybody else who got involved on SOPA and PIPA) my mood wasn’t great either. Â During the week, I had decided to put Qweries on hold for the time being. Â Sigh. A friend of mine made the great suggestion that I write down my frame of mind, and when I read it over I was surprised how negative it was: frustration, disappointment, and beating myself up for decisions I wish I had made differently. Â Intellectually, I know that it doesn’t always go smoothly: startups are hard. But emotionally, it’s clearly taken a toll on me. Fortunately, DJ Anomaly was once again headlining on Saturday night — psytrance at Digging Out. w00t!Â After a few days cooped up, people were ready to dance. Â And as always, the lights, music, and vibe lifted my spirits. A couple of hours into the evening, I was in a complete different frame of mind: looking forward to what’s next, and ready to enjoy the process of digging out. I heart psytrance.
Blog for Choice Day: What will *you* do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?
Today’s the anniversary or Roe v. Wade, and this year’s Blog for Choice Day topic is “What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?”Â Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but reproductive rights remain under assault. The Obama Administration’s hand-wringing before finally denying an religiously-affiliated hospitals an exemption from the requirement […]
Today’s the anniversary or Roe v. Wade, and this year’s Blog for Choice Day topic is “What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?”Â Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but reproductive rights remain under assault. The Obama Administration’s hand-wringing before finally denying an religiously-affiliated hospitals an exemption from the requirement that they provide contraception, and the strident anti-choice rhetoric from all the Republican candidates, show just how far the window has shifted. It’s time to move things back. Here’s what I’m doing: My vote and my volunteering time are “in play” in 2012. Â Along with civil liberties and LGBTQ issues, one of the things I’m judging Obama, Cantwell, gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee and other candidates on is how assertively they’ll fight for women’s right to choose. And I’ll continue to raise awareness, with friends online and off, and discuss the issue. Yes, I get in people’s face when they make excuses for anti-choice politicians — or downplay the importance of the issue. [I’m looking at you, Ron Paul supporters.] What are you doing?
Quite a contrast, which seems like a good thing to me: New Year’s Eve 2011/2012
2011 wasn’t the year I expected it to be. But while it’s easy (and depressing) to look at what didn’t happen, one of my resolutions was to take a more asset-based thinking approach to life. If I look at what I — and we — accomplished this year, it’s pretty impressive. — NanoEvolution In keeping […]
2011 wasnâ€ t the year I expected it to be. But while itâ€ s easy (and depressing) to look at what didnâ€ t happen, one of my resolutions was to take a more asset-based thinking approach to life. If I look at what I — and we — accomplished this year, itâ€ s pretty impressive. — NanoEvolution In keeping with the goal I overachieved on the most in 2011 (“spend more time with family and friends”), we decided to spend a quiet New Years Eve at home hanging out with a few people … most of whom got sick and cancelled. So it was a very low-key wrap-up to 2011 and start to 2012, quite a contrast to the last couple years. Which seems like a good thing to me. Time to move on This year was the most I’ve journalled since 2004, and it’s been interesting to reread the posts as I’ve been editing DJ Anomaly at the Atrium. 2011 started out great guns, but then there were some big “pivots” both professionally and personally. Startups are hard, and some key things really are out of my control — Google’s stubbornness on the nymwars for example. And overachieving on “friends and family” goal took a lot of time and energy. So while I did a pretty good job on my resolutions, my progress against other goals wasn’t what I had hoped. Sigh. More positively, though, things are in a good place as we head into 2012: After a lot of groping around, Qweries is on track for a minimum viable product and a killer go-to-market plan: privacy, diversity, startups, zombies, RAWRRRRRR! The network of people who have heard a bit about Qweries and like the idea continues to grow. While the writing I’ve been doing is far from a finished product, there’s plenty of grist for the mill for Change the World and Make Friends Doing It and no doubt some other projects. Creatively, DJ Anomaly at the Atrium is the best poetry year I’ve had in a long time. And most important, my connections with the people I love the most, the elements at the core of my world, continue to get richer and more magical; and new friendships are blossoming as well. So: good progress — yay me! Still, it was a tough year – for me and a lot of my friends and family. I’m glad it’s done. Meanwhile at the societal level, I would say much the same. It was a great year for social network activism: Arab Spring, bipartisan opposition to the Patriot Act, Save the Rave, Occupy, and SOPA. That said it was also a pretty depressing year politically, with Obama continuing to follow the Bush/Cheney lead on civil liberties, massacres in Syria and Libya, SCAF resisting change in Egypt, the crackdown on Occupy, NDAA, Iraq, Iran … Once again, good progress, tough year. Time to move on. A change is coming There has never been a year like 2012, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one again. — The year that will rock the world – “21st century revolution remix” Building on last year’s flowering of protest, 2012’s movements will have people in the streets around the world. Meanwhile we’ve got the Eurozone crisis, ugly elections in Iran, the US, and elsewhere, and the 1% trying to hold on to power. Who knows how it’ll work out but change is in the air…. I’m still not entirely sure how to invest in this megatrend, but it sure feels like it is upon us. — Fred Wilson, 2012: The Year that Movements go Mainstream?, A VC I’m not completely sure either, but it seems like a great time to start up a project that thinks from the beginning about use cases involving activism and movements and rights as well as monetization. It’s also a great time for us to have been writing about changing the world and social networks for the last four years. And from an activism perspective, all kinds of exciting opportunities are shaping up! There has never been a successful social movement – from the Suffrage Movement to the Civil Rights Movement – that was successfully sustained exclusively by those who were not at the heart of the matter. — Carla Rover, How to play to win, Women 2.0 Speaking of movements, change is in the air in the tech world, too. Yeah, I know, itâ€ s always been this way. Â Thus does kyriarchy reproduce itself. Â But I donâ€ t think itâ€ s going to be sustainable that much longer. — In chaos there is opportunity Facebook seems on top of the world, as it approaches a billion users and an IPO. Google continues to grow despite its multi-front war against Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and its own users. But from a strategy perspective, they’re both looking vulnerable. Meanwhile in the startup ecosystem, women, blacks, Latinos and others who havenâ€ t had the same advantages as white guys continue to organize and network and succeed. 2011 was finally the year when the media spotlight shone on how under-represented women are in almost all power structures in business, government, technology and media – and how crucial it is that we leverage the leadership skill set that they bring to the table to tackle the problems facing the world today. The era of the patriarch is nearing an end. — Jalak Jobanputra, A Venture Capitalistâ€ s Take On 2011 Trends & Whatâ€ s Next For 2012, Women 2.0 So it’s also a great time to be working on a startup that’s prioritizing diversity! See why I’m looking forward to 2012?
Both houses of Congress have passed the #NDAA codifying indefinite detention — and Obama’s happy with the language, so won’t be vetoing it. Meanwhile even as I write this, the House is debating #SOPA. Remember back in 2006-8 when the Bush Administration rammed through PATRIOT Act reauthorization and FISA? Obama was on the right side […]
Both houses of Congress have passed the #NDAA codifying indefinite detention — and Obama’s happy with the language, so won’t be vetoing it. Meanwhile even as I write this, the House is debating #SOPA. Remember back in 2006-8 when the Bush Administration rammed through PATRIOT Act reauthorization and FISA? Obama was on the right side for a while — at least until July 2008, when he broke his promise to filibuster. Now, he’s continuing and building on Bush policies. Senator Chris Dodd was heroic on FISA; now, he’s working for the MPAA and using China’s internet policies as a blueprint for the US. And how about Patrick Leahy, bulwark of civil liberties — and co-sponsor of the Senate equivalent of SOPA? It’s not that I think the Republicans are any better on the whole. Both parties have a few standouts on civil liberties — Wyden, Nadler, the Pauls. But on the whole, the political establishment continues to show itself remarkably unconcerned with Americans’ rights. Here’s hoping that in 2012 we’ll start to do something about it.
End-of-year schedule overload led to an intense week, complete with meetings trickling over to the weekend. Sigh. Â But Friday afternoon was sunny, so I knocked off early and went for a walk in the woods. After dinner I took a short nap and a good thing too. What leads to a pivot? You don’t just […]
End-of-year schedule overload led to an intense week, complete with meetings trickling over to the weekend. Sigh. Â But Friday afternoon was sunny, so I knocked off early and went for a walk in the woods. After dinner I took a short nap and a good thing too. What leads to a pivot? You donâ€ t just wake up one day and decide to do something entirely different. Itâ€ s a gradual process. — Tara Hunt, The Pivot (or How to Learn Humility in 4 Steps), Inc. Yeah really. It had been a week of feedback and reflection (as well as action), taking stock of where things are with qweries and thinking about what next. Â The consensus from my friends and advisors: I still can’t say just what “it” is that’s so transformational. Sigh. Startups are hard. It’s frustrating because even though I can describe the opportunity, the underserved audience, and key requirements for a differentiated product … people don’t seem to put a lot of value on any of it because I don’t yet know what the answer is. Â Fair enough. It’s all too abstract. Â What is qweries building and how is it so different?Â Um … Maybe it’s a mistake to position qweries as a Q&A site. Â It’s a ridiculously cluttered space, and most of the stories aren’t real happy: Yahoo! was never able to monetize Answers successfully; Cha Cha and Mahalo hemorrhaged money; Answers.com got wiped out by Google’s algorithm changes; Quora seems to have hit a wall. True, there are successes like Stack Overflow and Naver’s Knowledge iN; but they’re the exceptions (and people in the US tend to discount Naver anyhow). Â So perhaps it’s time to pivot and look at a new category. In any case, it’s clearly time for a “minimum viable product”: get something out there and see what people’s reactions are. Â As for the bigger picture transformational stuff, good solutions are clearly out there, they don’t defy the laws of physics, and I can describe a process for how to get there from there — and a short-term low-investment technology base for the initial MVP. Good progress! Which is why, after a gruelling Thursday evening shmoozefest at the GeekWire gala and a couple of big meetings Friday morning, I was ready for the weekend. The walk in the woods, dinner, and napped had all helped me get to a different place — relaxing, instead of thinking about work. A friend sent me an email with some insights from Vedic astrology. This eclipse is in the Mrigashīrsha nakshakra and so relates to the power of fulfillment and desire. “A good time for retrospection and introspection. Look at how you fulfill your desires and reflect on that.”Â Â Makes sense to me! We got to The Atrium around 11 for Eclipse just as things were getting going. There were some problems in the kitchen so the usual “tasty snacks” weren’t around but nobody cared: DJ Anomaly was on a roll and the crowd was totally into it. Â Â I introspected and reflected, on fulfillment and desire and many other pleasurable topics. Things were still in high gear when we left around 2:30. Possibilities Full moon. Swirling Mist. An impossible eclipse. Warm lights and candles D went to sleep after we got home; I meditated for a while about transforming desire, took another short nap, and then got up to enjoy the eclipse. It was surprisingly clear and by around 4:00 a.m. the moon started to disappear. I took this at 5:30 or so. The fog came in just before totality at 6 a.m., so I didn’t get to experience it turning red. Still, quite a treat! After a few more hours sleep I was somewhat the worse for the wear on Saturday but was glad I had stayed up … I heart psytrance.
Be an ally, not a hater (part 3 of “A Crucial Time for Diaspora *”)
CONTENT WARNING: This post discusses some dark subjects including depression and suicide. The past few weeks have been pretty crazy for us here at Diaspora*. It is unbelievably painful to lose such a close friend and collaborator as Ilya, and we want to […]
CONTENT WARNING: This post discusses some dark subjects including depression and suicide. The past few weeks have been pretty crazy for us here at Diaspora*. It is unbelievably painful to lose such a close friend and collaborator as Ilya, and we want to thank our countless community members, friends, family, and professional contacts for all of your support as we try to take care of ourselves and plot a course for Diaspora*â€ s future. We are forever grateful to the amazing community of people who have stepped up to help us get things back in order. — Maxwell and Daniel, Diaspora * is Back in Action Diaspora * co-founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy’s idealism, passion, and vision touched so many people — even those who like me who never had the pleasure of meeting him in person. So many moving tributes have been written that there isn’t much I can add. My heart goes out to his friends, family, and colleagues. “Thereâ€ s something deeper than making money off stuff,â€ he said. “Being part of creating stuff for the universe is awesome.â€ Ilya, quoted in the New York Times obituary It’s gratifying to see so many people in the community reaffirm their commitment to the vision in such difficult circumstances. Now that the core team is back in action, after a few weeks for grieving and replanning, it’s a natural time to step back and look at what’s next. First, though, there’s something I want to get off my chest. Ilya struggled with depression, and the stress of people like you constantly badgering him and pestering him and constantly making him feel like nothing he ever did was good enough certainly did not help his situation. — Ilya’s roommate David Kettler, on Diaspora David was responding to some particularly nasty trolling with this comment, but I think the point he makes applies a lot more generally. Whether it’s due to cynicism, envy, or ageism, From the beginning, along with the excitement Diaspora *’s attracted a lot of negativity. Of course just like any project, there are plenty of things that could be done better, mistakes that were obvious at the time, problems that still haven’t been addressed. But then again: literally hundreds of thousands of people have signed up, and the software’s surprisingly robust — I don’t think I’ve seen system failure or crash yet. the overall design is good enough that Google+ either copied it or came to the same conclusion independently. despite being a tiny team, they’ve managed to implement some extremely useful concepts like hashtags and the “like” and “commented on” streams, that Google with their infinite resources still hasn’t copied. So yes, there are some significant challenges; and to be clear, I’m not saying to sweep problems under the rug. What I am saying is to give the team some credit, and focus on the positive aspects as well. Be an ally, not a hater. Earlier posts in the series: A crucial time for Diaspora* and 4 Things Diaspora* can learn from Google+ For more on depression and startups, see Megan Krogh’s On Tech, Depression, and Startup Madness on Persephone, Foster Kamer’s The Hushed Dangers of Startup Depression on BetaBeat and the Hacker News discussion, and Ben Huh’s When Death Feels Like a Good Option
Yeah really. DJ Anomaly keeps getting better and better, the crowd was totally into it, the lighting made everybody look good, and at 5 a.m. cinnamon rolls appeared as if by magic … epic indeed! We had both spent most of the week sitting and working so had a lot of pent-up energy. D had […]
Yeah really. DJ Anomaly keeps getting better and better, the crowd was totally into it, the lighting made everybody look good, and at 5 a.m. cinnamon rolls appeared as if by magic … epic indeed! We had both spent most of the week sitting and working so had a lot of pent-up energy. D had hit her milestone and had that “I’ve earned it” feel. I had gotten a lot done as well, evaluating potential platforms for the next iteration of qweries, although wasn’t as thrilled with the results: most of the options have glaring problems like “doesn’t work on mobile phones or iPads”, “logging in via Twitter doesn’t work”, or “sends passwords in plain text through email”. Really?Â In 2011?Â Oh well, it is what it is; and by the time we got to the Atrium I wasn’t thinking about technology. Instead, I was in a reflective mood. Over the last 48 hours I had talked with several friends from the past — well, they’re still friends, I just don’t see them as often as I did about five years ago, so it brought back a lot of stuff. And as always, the music triggered memories: Astral Projection and being a scientist in an irrational world, S.U.N. Project at the DNA Lounge, Penta and Cortex and Dutch and New Years Eves, the Pesky Neutrinos and Nymwars remixes from earlier this year … 2011 wasn’t the year I expected it to be. I hate it when life gets in the way of life. But while it’s easy (and depressing) to look at what didn’t happen, one of my resolutions was to take a more asset-based thinking approach to life. If I look at what I — and we — accomplished this year, it’s pretty impressive. S o rather than lamenting the sad state of software, the sexism of Google+ (and Apple) (and Hacker News) (and …), and the way social networks like Diaspora * (or Google+ for that matter) never seem to pay attention to moderation, when I woke up this morning I realized that I was focusing much more on the opportunities for 2012. Which leaves me in a much better frame of mind! Not to sound like a broken record or anything: I heart psytrance.
Notes from Underground: IllumiNation, Travelling, and Transition II
Why yes, I have been quiet for a while now that you mention it. We spent almost a month on the road, starting with Sacramento for a privacy coalition meeting, and SF for Olli Wisdom at Space 550. We had juggled our plans to be at IllumiNation, and it was totally the right call. Â […]
Why yes, I have been quiet for a while now that you mention it. We spent almost a month on the road, starting with Sacramento for a privacy coalition meeting, and SF for Olli Wisdom at Space 550. We had juggled our plans to be at IllumiNation, and it was totally the right call. Â 550 Barneveld is a great venue, and we ran into plenty of familiar faces from back in 2003/2004 when we used to hang out there all the time. Musically, DJ Dragn’fly was great, and Olli was Olli — not as good as his legendary 2004 (((thump)) set, but still. One of our friends was at her first psytrance party. How cool is that? The rest of the weekend was sunny in SF. We took it easy on Saturday, and I spent Sunday hanging out in Dolores park with a friend. Life is good. Monday morning, it was on the train to DC. Well, more accurately, the train to Chicago, which got there eight hours late. So we missed our connection. So we wound up on an overnight thirteen-hour bus ride to DC. Fun!Â Well no, not actually. But still, we made it; and BORDC’s board retreat (the main reason we were there) was excellent. From there it was on to Charleston to see my Mom; very weird not celebrating Halloween, but it was great to see her. And then back to SF again, and finally home to Seattle. After sleeping at four different hotels, three residences, the train, and the bus (or at least trying to, on a 14-hour overnight trip from Chicago to DC) … can I just say how good it is to be home? Wednesday evening, when we finally got back here, I dropped by the Atrium. They had been closed for a few days after their Halloween weekend blow-out, and it was fairly low-key, but it was great to be back. Â Â Friday night was a stompy darkwave set by DJ Anomaly, and then last night was Transition II. Of course The Atrium’s nowhere as big as Barneveld, but even with a small crowd the vibe is amazing. It was looking partcularly trippy Friday night, with some new UV-active Cyberdog artifacts and gorgeous flowers. And the light makes everybody look good! no! its not a secret forbidden world that only a few fortunate transgressive people can/must participate in. it’s all of that but it is also a world anybody can enter…. and so its all about how you want the fantasies to be. — Can Fantasy Stand Against Hegemony?, 2003 Over a lunch at Samover in SF earlier in the week, I was talking with a friend about how the magic that happens when a psytrance party goes well — and how to get more of that magic in our day-to-day lives. Â Saturday night I was thinking about her and all the wonderful times we’ve had together, and looking forward to the next time we go out. After I while I let my mind turn off, enjoyed the music and the vibe, and danced with D. Â It was another great night. Â Plenty of magic. I heart psytrance.
Road trip! Bringing the #privchat community to Diaspora *
It’s hard to believe but #privchat — the Tuesday morning Twitter Privacy Chat — has been going on for almost a year. CDT, Privacy Camp, and EPIC have done a great job moderating, and the attendees are a great cross-section of the privacy and civil liberties community: non-profits, privacy-focused startups, academics, privacy professionals at large […]
It’s hard to believe but #privchat — the Tuesday morning Twitter Privacy Chat — has been going on for almost a year. CDT, Privacy Camp, and EPIC have done a great job moderating, and the attendees are a great cross-section of the privacy and civil liberties community: non-profits, privacy-focused startups, academics, privacy professionals at large companies, and activists (hiiiii!). So let’s build on that success with a road trip, and bring the same kind of social networky goodness to Diaspora *! If you’re thinking that you don’t have time for yet another social network, I feel your pain; the plan I’m suggesting only requires an hour of your time. Before we get there, though, I want to talk a bit about why I think it’s worth doing. Why Diaspora *? Diaspora shot to prominence last May, as four NYU undergrads raised money on Kickstarter for a distributed open-source privacy-friendly social network project just as a Facebook privacy storm kicked off. Good timing! Eighteen months and $200,000 later, Sarah Mei and Yosem Companys have joined the core team, and there are dozens of public installations with tens of thousands of Diasporans. Liz Gannes’ Diaspora Prepares to Launch Open Source network on All Things D and Not vaporware, not a Nigerian prince on the team’s blog give an idea of the current status: an engineering team focused on getting to beta, a growing community, another round of fundraising in progress. Hanging out on Diaspora a lot for the last month, I’ve had interesting discussions with interesting people from across the world. And one thing everybody that I’ve run into so far has in common: They care about their privacy. Sounds like a huge opportunity to me. Just by getting involved with Diaspora, we’ll be helping a privacy-friendly open-source social network project during a challenging time. And at the same time: non-profits and activists can engage with the grassroots — and find people to relay action alerts as well as potential new supporters privacy-focused startups can meet people who value privacy … aka potential beta testers, customers, and advocates corporate privacy professionals can get experience with a cutting-edge technology and dazzle your colleagues at IAPP (and the techies at your company!) with your insights into how the webfinger protocol enables decentralized name lookup Sounds like a win/win situation to me! It’s not all sweetness and unicorns of course. The software is nowhere near as polished as Facebook and Google. And there are lots of challenges from a privacy perspective: there’s no way to keep things on your profile private from your connections, the code hasn’t been through a security audit (so data is probably vulnerable to hackers), some pods have very weak privacy policies, and I’m not sure if it works with Tor. Which leads to another potential benefit for a road trip. Feedback from the #privchat community about what it will take for them to be successful as a privacy-friendly social network is extremely valuable to the Diaspora team and pod operators — as well as to all the people working on other open source distributed social networks like Buddy Press, Friendika, Appleseed, status.net, and Buddy Cloud. So let’s get started! You can get a quick taste of Diaspora in just a few minutes. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll try to develop a good one-page overview (analogous to Getting Started on Twitter), but for now here’s a rough outline Set up an account on one of the open “pods”. I’m on diasp.org; podupti.me and Pod Up have directories of other pods. Use #privchat as one of the hashtags in your profile to make it easy for us to find each other. Share an interesting link and include the #privchat hashtag Follow the #privchat hashtag, and reshare the interesting stories and join in the comments Add other privchatters to your aspects. Take notes while you’re doing these things, and let the Diaspora team know about any problems you run into — as well as any pleasant surprises, of course! Once a bunch of us have accounts over there, a good next step would be to have the privacy chat on Diaspora instead of Twitter one of these weeks. It’d be a very different dynamic: different threads for the different questions, a chance to use more than 140 characters, and a chance to interact with new people. And who knows, if it goes well enough there might be enough critical mass for a regular Diaspora privacy chat some other day of the week. Something that comes up again and again on #privchat is that many people want an alternative to the corporate social networks of the world where we’re the product. Here’s a chance to experiment with a different environment. Please check it out! jon Also posted on Tales from the Net, Diaspora and Dreamwidth My blogs drowning under spam so I’ve temporarily disabled comments here; please leave feedback at one of the cross-posts!
I’m getting hit by a ton of spam so am turning off comments temporarily. Carry on.
I love social networks. They’re how I follow the news, get different perspectives, stay in touch with friends — and make new ones. When people complain that online connections are just a poor substitute for “real life”, I just shake my head and tell them they’re doing it wrong. And as I’ve argued passionately in […]
I love social networks. They’re how I follow the news, get different perspectives, stay in touch with friends — and make new ones. When people complain that online connections are just a poor substitute for “real life”, I just shake my head and tell them they’re doing it wrong. And as I’ve argued passionately in Cognitive evolution and revolution, The future of civil liberties, A grassroots social network activist’s perspective, and Freedom not fear, combining social network and real world activism is a great opportunity to regain our rights online and off. But there are downsides as well. Facebook constantly changing its interface and finding new ways to violate my privacy, the arrogance and elitism of the guys running Google+ and their evil naming policy (along the incessant circling over the last few days), Diaspora*’s inability to edit posts or block obnoxious people … and the time I spend checking FB, G+, D*, Twitter, Quora, Dreamwidth, tribe.net, free-association and elsewhere. So it’s time for a break from social networks. See you in a week or two! jon
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In chaos there is opportunity (part 11 of Diversity and Google+)
I’m flashing! Back in 2006, the Ad Astra project proposed a strategy for Microsoft to outflank Google by leveraging its employee base and social technologies. One of the key insights: social computing technologies allow a company to tap into the combined energy of employees and their networks. This can be a huge asset — and […]
I’m flashing! Back in 2006, the Ad Astra project proposed a strategy for Microsoft to outflank Google by leveraging its employee base and social technologies. One of the key insights: social computing technologies allow a company to tap into the combined energy of employees and their networks. This can be a huge asset — and one that potentially grows non-linearly as a company grows. Alas, Microsoft took another approach, investing in algorithmic search to compete with Google head-on, and ceding the social market to Facebook, LinkedIn, and others.. Five years later, it’s Google in the role of a large company trying to use its size as an advantage against a more nimble competitor. If Google’s 20,000+ employees can work together effectively and are sufficiently motivated, they’ll be a huge asset in the “battle for social.” Tying bonuses across the company to success gets everybody to focus on the company’s priority. From a strategy perspective, a great move by Google. Which doesn’t mean it will work. — me, in a comment Prisms, Kool-Aid and Opportunity April 2011 One way to look at Google+ through the lens of what Robert Scoble calls the game of all games: the battle between Facebook, Google, and “own identity on the internet.” In that context, it was a brilliant move against all the other big US-based corporations run and owned primarily by white guys who are fighting over who can profit from mining our personal information and selling our eyeballs to advertisers. And in a lot of ways, it’s worked out quite well: Many early adopters prefer Google+ to Facebook, especially in some demographics like younger and middle-age guys, techies, photographers, and social media experts. With over 40 million people already signing up, Google+ is a big enough platform to woo brands, celebrities, and politicians — who, just like everybody else, often want to say things longer than 140 characters and are generally unhappy with their Facebook experience Google demo’ed how they can leverage their dominant position in search and advertising to reward people for using their new platform and undercut their competitors’ advertising prices — and even after reports that they pressured sites to put +1 buttons on if they want to continue to do well in search, Congress didn’t mention Google+ in their questions for Eric Schmidt. Facebook is the next … Yahoo? MySpace? Friendster? Facebook is certainly on the defensive right now. They’re making a lot of mistakes, and acting like a company under a lot of stress. Groups? Lists? Subscribing? Huh? It’s looking more and more like old Microsoft products where there are three somewhat-incompatible ways to do things, none of which are particularly useful. Here’s the poll I took about their latest changes. Facebook’s fighting back, of course. On the plus side they’ve already copied much of Google+’s functionality, improving on some of it in the process. But they’ve also bewildered their users, created more privacy gotchas, and will now get rid of the Wall and introducing the Timeline instead so that you can share your whole life with advertisers, HR departments, data miners, and stalkers. Hmm. With 800,000,000 users they’re not going away any time soon but it increasingly looks that the third-largest country in the world is about to be undergoing some massive emigration at exactly the time they’re going to need to further ratchet up the exploitation to justify their valuation. Can’t wait for the movie: Social Network II: Lockdown! Google is the next Microsoft? On the other hand, just because Facebook is hitting the wall, that doesn’t mean Google’s out of the woods. In fact Google’s arrogance and tone-deafness are very reminiscent of Microsoft back in the evil empire days of the mid-90s. Their dominant, and arguably monopolistic, position is scaring regulators, and open source projects and competitors are banding together. Back in the 1990s, Microsoft successfully fought of Netscape, won the browser market, and prolonged their hold on the desktop. Even so, it wound up backfiring badly. By the end of the decade they were facing major political problems in the US and abroad, had fallen behind on the next big thing, and despite billions of dollars of investment still haven’t caught up. Of course, times have changed; and Google’s not Microsoft. Then again, Google’s core business is under threat. In case you haven’t noticed, their advantage in search quality has largely disappeared. With its overwhelmingly male population (currently two guys for every woman) and power base (80% of the “most followed users” are guys), Google+ isn’t likely to be the magic bullet they’re hoping for — at least not with the most valuable demographic on the web.** So it’s good news for Duck Duck Go, Blekko, Quora, and yes even Microsoft. As I predicted in February, a big chunk of the search market is up for grabs. I’m noticing a pattern here … It is the game to addict us, to impel us to give our identities over to Google or Facebook, and what will that do. — Robert Scoble, The game of all games: content and context (why Mark, Marc, and Larry are carving up the social world) But even though it’s fascinating to have a ringside seat as the lads of Silicon Valley battle over who will control our access to information, track our every move, and slice-and-dice our privacy, my first reaction to Robert’s post was that I’m really tired of playing this game — and a lot of other people are too. At some level, how much does it really matter whether we’re carved up by Larry, Mark, or Marc? Or for that matter Jack and Dick or Jeff or Mark (no relation) or any of John’s other companies or Charlie and Adam or …*** With my civil liberties activists hat on, it’s depressingly clear that in any case more and more of the world’s information under the control of US-based companies and subject to the PATRIOT Act and FISA and whatever secret interpretation the current administration chooses. And wearing my trendy little diversity chapeau, all the systems they’re building have huge biases that lead to most of the power, influence, and profit going to white guys. Yeah, I know, it’s always been this way. Thus does kyriarchy reproduce itself. But I don’t think it’s going to be sustainable that much longer. And in chaos there is opportunity. Stay tuned for my next post, tentatively titled Hey, that sounds like a pretty good idea. jon * in the gender-neutral sense of the word, of course ** Aileen Lee of KPMG has some great data on this in TechCrunch, although the headline and framing are problematic; see CV Harquail’s Why women DON’T rule the internet and comments from ptp, Terri, and others on Geek Feminism for more *** update, February 2014: some so of the references might be a bit obscure, but at the time, Zynga and Quora were taken seriously, and Kleiner Perkins was on the top of the VC heap Check out the previous posts in the series: A Work in Progress, Why it matters, #nymwars!, A tale of two searches, The double bind of oppression, Anxious masculinity under threat, Still a Ways to Go, Booberday, Talk about a hostile environment, and The Trend is in the Wrong Direction
Notes from Underground: Equinox+One and Solitude
Summer ended quickly in Seattle this year. One day it was sunny and 80 degrees; the next it was cloudy and 60. DJ Anomaly’s Thursday night Equinox+One marked the official start of fall with a great set — and some familiar faces. “Hey, I remember seeing you years ago at Infected Mushroom and Astral Projection […]
Summer ended quickly in Seattle this year. One day it was sunny and 80 degrees; the next it was cloudy and 60. DJ Anomaly’s Thursday night Equinox+One marked the official start of fall with a great set — and some familiar faces. “Hey, I remember seeing you years ago at Infected Mushroom and Astral Projection at Premiere … what’s new?” Good times! D was out of town over the weekend, so after a long day of work on Saturday, instead of going out I decided to stay home, put on a DJ Anomaly mix, and enjoy the solitude. Â At first I was thinking it would be a night filled with introspection, checking out old journals and photos and blog posts and reflecting on what’s happened and where I’m going next. But as I listened to the music, my mind wound up turning off … So instead I just enjoyed myself. I heart psytrance. Solitude (2011 remix) Candles, Grounding. Sacred space. Seduction. Goddesses I look at the candles … and experience you In the air … on my skin … In my mind … Throughout my being. I remember (or imagine) other seductive times with you, Grounded and sacred, By candlelight And other magic illumination. I remember (or imagine) Every moment we’ve spent together, And all the moments I’ve remembered, Imagined, anticipated, and fantasized about. And then I realize I’m thinking too much And watch the candles And experience you.
The Trend is in the Wrong Direction: Reflections on the Field Trial (part 10 of Diversity and Google+)
Also published on We Get Google Plus, Diaspora *, and G+ For the past 12 weeks we’ve been in field trial, and during that time we’ve listened and learned a great deal. We’re nowhere near done, but with the improvements we’ve made so far we’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce […]
Also published on We Get Google Plus, Diaspora *, and G+ For the past 12 weeks weâ€ ve been in field trial, and during that time weâ€ ve listened and learned a great deal. Weâ€ re nowhere near done, but with the improvements weâ€ ve made so far weâ€ re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups. — Vic Gundotra, Google+: 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99… 100.9/20/2011 Many aspects of Google+’s field trial went extremely well. Hangouts are clearly G+’s “killer app”.* It’s been remarkably reliable for such an early stage project: no “fail whales” and (at least for me) a lot fewer bugs than Facebook. G+ has a lot of momentum with social media experts, photographers, and 20-45-year old guys; and most of the reviews have been positive. From a business strategy perspective, Google+ has been a huge win, highlighting how many people want an alternative to Facebook. Facebook’s fighting back, copying and improving on many of G+’s features and completely reworking their profile page. But with so many users sick of the constant changes, declining software quality, and postponing the IPO, they’re in a difficult — especially with Google’s far greater resources. Advantage Google. But there are a few flies in the ointment … It’s beginning to look a lot like MySpace Google+’s minimal filtering, noise reduction, and moderation functionality is already a problem — and likely to become substantially worse as people start flooding in. Valeria Maltoni and others are seeing an exponential increase in spam. Guy Kawasaki is getting a lot of bad behavior in comments. I notice it too: when Google+ started, most of the people who circled me was interesting enough to circle back. Now, almost all the circle requests are from spammers or people who haven’t posted anything I’m remotely interested in. Unsurprisingly, it’s noticeably worse for women.** I haven’t seen any recent statistics on gender ratios on G+, but anecdotally I’m seeing more and more women cut back their involvement or just leave. Nymwars: it’s not over The nymwars, resistance to Google’s insistence on policing what names people can call themselves, are still getting a lot of attention — in the mainstream media like ABC and Time, from VCs like Mark Suster and Fred Wilson, and of course on Google+. There was a good example of this earlier this week when Google Community Manager Natalie Villalobos asked the community what questions they had for new member will.i.am’s upcoming hangout. Surprise, surprise: the top questions were all about pseudonymity and the naming policy. A few examples: Emilio Osorio García – Why can you use a pseudonym in Google+ and endangered citizens in countries like Mexico can not? Paul Hosking – I’d ask him what his real name is. Because… you know… here on G+, we don’t deal in “fake names.” Right, +Vic Gundotra? Greg Krajewski – +Natalie Villalobos How is he able to use the Pseudo name, +will.i.am .? Just asking because if there is something internet users hate the most it’s a double standard. Brandi Crowell – I anticipate Google staff to completely ignore all the comments regarding the double standard of allowing +will.i.am . to use that name, but here’s a serious question for him: What is his stance on Google+’s real name policy? Google’s strategy seems to be to try to ignore the issue — they refused to comment when Harry McCracken contacted them for his story in Time, and none of the 100 improvements Vic Gundotra mentioned involve supporting pseudonyms — but as I discussed in Talk about a hostile environment, it’s shaping to be an ongoing drag on G+’s success. About that suggested users list … After Google+ has been opened for everyone in the last days, the follower numbers for the Top 10 exploded. — Daniel Sandstein, Exploding numbers and a new Nr. 1 for the ladies Remember a few weeks ago when Bradley Horowitz responded to the outcry about the suggested users list by talking about how the users on the list would rotate so we shouldn’t get upset? When I went back to check the “Picksâ€ list — the one that all the new people signing up see by default — here’s the changes I see: +will.i.am . and +Trey Songz are there of +Chamillionaire The Ceo and +50 Cent. Aas Zennie Abraham pointed out in Google+ Suggested Users List is Overwhelmingly White, the black guys are all male rappers or athletes +Tyra Banks has replaced +Taylor Swift. It’s nice to see a black woman there; but it still fits the pattern that are primarily actresses, singers, or in sports and fitness +Guy Kawasaki has replaced +Robert Scoble. +Larry Page is now there too, along with Sergey and Vic. Because, y’know, everybody should be following the Google guys! As Daniel’s fascinating site Circle Count illustrates, now that the doors are open, being on the suggested users list makes a huge difference to the number of followers people get. The rich get richer … and black and women techies, executives, photographers, investors, and politicians are virtually invisible. That’s what field trials are for Google+ hasn’t completely ignored diversity in their field trial. Two months ago, in A work in progress, I ticked off several things they did right early on: launching in multiple languages, reaching out to get suggestions for better hangout support for deaf people, allowing the gender field to be private. In her reply, Google community manager Frances Haugen said “trust us that we’re working on developing ways for our users to express who they are and to feel comfortable being themselves on Google+.” It seemed like a promising start. Since then, though, it’s hard to point to any new examples of diversity. The shameful way they’re treating people like Skud and Identity Woman continues to send a strong message — as does Bradley “Elatable” Horowitz and Vivek “Vic” Gundotra’s ongoing pattern of refusing to engage with critics and making misleading communications. Well, that’s what field trials are for. Google’s learned a lot. So have we. From a diversity perspective, the trend is in the wrong direction. And Google’s certainly acting like they couldn’t care less. jon * Rebecca Greenfield has a nice roundup in Google+ Hangouts May Have Gotten Good Enough to Lure Facebookers, quoting Jenna Wortham, Tim Carmody, and others on how the latest improvements like screensharing, Google Docs integration, mobile access, Sketchpad, and an API make Hangouts a great collaboration platform for groups and businesses. ** Unsurprisingly because women get harassed a lot more than guys online — and because Google’s ignored suggestions about how to make it a more woman-friendly environment. Check out the previous posts in the series: A Work in Progress, Why it matters, #nymwars!, A tale of two searches, The double bind of oppression, Anxious masculinity under threat, Still a Ways to Go, Booberday, and Talk about a hostile environment
Talk about a hostile environment (part 9 of Google+ and Diversity)
also posted on G+ and on Diaspora* I feel very let down by Google’s behavior. I had hoped to escape the heavy-handedness that is Facebook, but that is not to be. I’ll have a presence here; I have to, professionally. But the joy is gone. — Kathy Gill, Google+ As An Identity Service Is Bait […]
also posted on G+ and on Diaspora* I feel very let down by Google’s behavior. I had hoped to escape the heavy-handedness that is Facebook, but that is not to be. I’ll have a presence here; I have to, professionally. But the joy is gone. — Kathy Gill, Google+ As An Identity Service Is Bait And Switch Like Kathy, I’m feeling pretty disenchanted with Google right now. As an entrepeneur, I was excited enough about Google+’s possibilities that I was ready to make a big bet on it. Â If things had worked out differently, Kathy and I would have been starting up a G+-based business, and I would have been one of those developers eagerly waiting for the API to come out, developing and testing an app in Hangouts, sharing it with the world, recruiting all my friends to Google+ so they could use it … But no. Instead, I’m hanging out on Diaspora and having a great time — interesting discussions with a diverse group of interesting people from all over the world. I’ve stopped using Google’s search and am encouraging my friends to de-Googlify themselves. Instead of thinking about how to build software on Google+, I’m thinking about how to improve Diaspora, Dreamwdith, Friendika, Status.net and the other alternatives to Google’s and Facebook’s “identity systems”. True, like Kathy, I’m still on Google+. Â For what I do, I need to be there — and I’m more convinced than ever of its potential for activism, a topic I’ll turn to in a future post. But overall Google+ turned into a job for me. Fortunately I have some great colleagues and have some really good discussions in the break room, but still … its the kind of workplace where my friends get suspended, guys pass around photos of breasts,* and the people running it are committed to a policy that harms abuse survivors, LGBTQs, people with medical conditions, teachers, whistleblowers, activists, women, and so many others. Talk about a hostile environment So yeah, the joy is gone for me too. Multiply me and Kathy by whatever percentage of Google+ 25,000,000 early users are upset and you get an idea of how much of an impact the nymwars have had on its success so far. Â Sure, there are plenty of people who don’t care; but when so many talented well-connected people who would otherwise be passionate supporters are actively telling their friends and colleagues how much they dislike it, it’s a huge blow. And there’s also the effect on the morale and productivity of the sizable contingent inside Google who disagree with the policy. It’s hard to be optimistic It’s still possible for Google to reverse course if they want to: G+ is still in field test, so all they have to do is say something along the lines of “this was our biggest learning from the field test, and here’s what we’re going to do about it” and then take Suw Charman’s advice Reinstate everyone youâ€ ve suspended. Remove your current name policy. Collaborate with the community on how best to moderate bad actors. If you need some sort of identity policy, let us help you write it. And, finally, apologise to everyone youâ€ ve bullied. There are lots of them, so you might want to start now. As I said two months ago in Why it matters If Google then builds on this by actively all these groups they havenâ€ t been paying a lot of attention to so far, my moneyâ€ s on them to dethrone Facebook and Twitter. At this point, though, it’s hard to be optimistic. Â Bradley, Vic, Larry, Eric, et al. pretty clearly want to make Google+ a place for the Nicks, Davids, Eds, and Roberts of the world. Â Â So they’re basing their future social and search strategy on a product and environment that’s so hostile to pretty much everybody other than cis males with names that don’t look “weird”. It sure seems suboptimal to me. jon Revised, September 26. Â Originally I had led with a section talking about how despite progress, there were also some warning signs: lack of adoption, Facebook’s response, and major functionality gaps. Since then, Google’s finally integrated search, made some significant improvements in hangouts, and opened the doors: Paul Allen estimates that Google+ is up to 50,000,000 profiles already and seeing 2 million new signups each day, and Experian reported that traffic shot up an astonishing 1269% last week. Meanwhile Facebook’s much-anticipated response is confusing and annoying users. So I chopped that section out and left the focus on the hostile environment. Live and learn * See A.V. Flox’ Painting It Pink Doesn’t Make It Less Sexist for a great discussion of the impact of Booberday on the community Check out the previous posts in the series: A Work in Progress, Why it matters, #nymwars!, A tale of two searches, The double bind of oppression, Anxious masculinity under threat, Still a Ways to Go, and Booberday