Posts for category ‘the borg’

So Apple came out with its big new deal today. It’s more or less a giant iPhone with the alarmingly terrible name, iPad. Oy. Virtually every woman I know who heard it said that it sounds like a feminine hygiene product. I tweeted that I bet there were no women sitting in on that product-naming decision. A follower commented that there were barely any women in the ROOM when the product was announced. As I’m reading You Are Not A Gadget I’m noticing that I’ve yet to come across a woman’s name as Lanier mentions IT development over the decades and the important figures involved. He talks about the chopping up of personhood, the compartmentalization necessary in a world of bits and how that compartmentalization is changing our idea of what it means to be human, and I’m wondering—would any of this be different if more women had been involved in key moments of tech development? Does the very nature of software design and IT development tend not to attract women and their particular skill sets and interests? I know with that question I am coming dangerously close to a sweeping generalization and buying into Mars v. Venus/”math is hard” bs, but really, where are the women? Or do I have it all wrong? Are there plenty of women engaged in this world and we just don’t hear about them? I was thinking about all of this last night while reading Lanier, and the announcement of the iPad (gawd…really…a company like Apple, working on this product forever, with lots of time to give it an awesome name, could not do better??) has me wondering if things would be different with more women involved. How would it be different? Just pondering.

[Edited to add that Linda Gerber pointed out how utterly reminiscent this is of episodes of Mad Men in which Peggy's input is often ignored by the suits...I seriously can't believe that no one mentioned what the word "pad" evokes in half the population, so I can only conclude it was mentioned and ignored and the sixties live on! Woot!]

[Edited again to add that I watched the iPad video on Apple's site. All upper middle class thirty- and forty-something white dudes in $180 T-shirts. One says something like, "I don't have to change myself to fit the product; it fits me." Read the Lanier book and see how you have already changed yourself to fit the product. "You see something and you just reach out and tap it! You don't even think about it, you just do!" Awesome. And, there are no women in this video. As Apple reps or users.]

[Also: Yes, I want one. Of course! I am not bashing the 'Pad, yo. It is a cool toy. I like cool toys as much as anyone. Just ask my credit card. I'm only saying to view advertising as advertising, be wary, deconstruct messages, and...wonder where the women are.]

- So apparently I’m not being an alarmist when I fret over the future of our brains. Study shows kids spend every waking minute online. In related news, parents “can still make rules and it still makes a difference.” You don’t say!

- The founder of Taco Bell died and much to my surprise, his last name was Bell. When I relayed this bit of information to my husband, he was quiet for a second and then asked, “What was his first name?” (If that is not hilarious to you, I don’t know what would be.)

- Interesting article on snacking culture, though it doesn’t reach a satisfying conclusion, which to me is: Fifty years ago when we did not have rampant obesity and metabolic disorders, people were mostly drinking whole milk, eating delicious fatty meats, and not subjecting themselves to spinning and Pilates. Guess what didn’t exist? The snack food industry. (Read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food.) A nutritionist quoted in the article says kids will self regulate. But we already know nurture can trump nature, and if adults are constantly offering snacks, eventually kids will lose touch with hunger.

- Do you read Tayari Jones’ blog? You should. She always finds the best links for writers. For instance.

- Story on NPR this morning about areas of Haiti where communities are coming together to help each other though outside aid is not reaching them. Moving.

It was Friday night. I felt restless and alive, a formerly huddled mass yearning to be free. Having long pondered the folly of interacting with others out of a flimsy and incomplete construction of myself defined by “stuff I like” and “stuff I own” and “stuff I think once sentence at a time,” I thought I’d delete my Facebook account. So I followed the instructions, and got the following message:

Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days, your account will be reactivated and you will have the option to cancel your request.

What is this, the Hotel California? In the age of caller ID, data recovery, aggregation, the archived cloud…it’s awfully difficult to do anything rash. Or, I should say, too easy and too consequential, and at the same time too difficult to do something rash and get away with it, like delete your entire inbox, disappear your Facebook account without leaving a trace, dial the number of someone you shouldn’t call, come to your senses, then hang up… I pity children today who don’t know the thrill of making a good crank call.

Anyway, you know what the Facebook thing reminds me of? Back in my online poker-playing days I learned that if in a moment of clear-eyed determination you wanted to cash out your account while you were ahead, the automated cashier would tell you yes, you can cash out, but the transaction takes 7 days so if you want to come back during that time and gamble your money away it will be right here waiting for you.

After a phone conference with the fabulous yet sensible Coe Booth, I was convinced to let my Facebook account live. But, I am cashing out, at least on particular ways of using the Internet: As a platform for being right or proving other people wrong, as something to which I feel daily obligated, for having conversations that are best had over lunch, coffee, or an adult beverage. Reacting out of context. Saying anything that can too easily be misread. (This past week I discovered you really shouldn’t try to debate all of the implications of the Haiti disaster or why Rush Limbaugh is wrong about everything in 140-character bursts.) Cashing out on listening to the little voice inside me that asks, “If I’m not being right, demonstrably smart, witty, savvy, and getting good reviews as a person, writer, blogger, social networker…do I matter?” I was talking to one friend about this and she brought up the idea of the performative self, which led me to ask, “You mean there’s a NONperformative self?” Huh. Who knew.

Oh, so you’ve heard me talk this talk before? I waffle, I know. Of Web 2.0 sometimes I think, “MY GOD IT’S BRINGING ABOUT THE APOCALYPSE!” Other times I see it’s pretty useful, and brings about some good things. But, generally I’m feeling more urgent about this as an issue for society and humanity and our ability to listen, think critically, love, create, and live lives in which “interaction” does not always mean with a screen. How to balance that with a career that benefits from connectivity during the long stretches of time between books, in an industry that has many interesting and important ongoing conversations facilitated by aforementioned apocalyptic technology—that’s the question, that’s the figuring out that needs to be done. I’ll tell you, it’s temping to go off the grid completely. In the last year I have come so close to pulling the plug on everything but the house phone. That’s a reaction, of course. I’ve been thinking through what I’m reacting against and trying to problem solve instead of running away.

The big old experiment in the laboratory of my brain continues.

In other news, I am so thrilled that Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me won the Newbery Medal. I loved that book. Though it’s brand new, it somehow managed to feel like a piece of my childhood, and I can’t think of any other book not actually from my childhood that has done that. Congratulations, Rebecca! And congrats to all of the ALA winners and honor books. The only other books I’ve read that won something are Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork and Flash Burnout by LK Madigan. Loved and blurbed ‘em both.

This may be one of the few times I ever find myself saying this, but I completely agree with Maureen Dowd about this and do not think she is overstating the problem. I decided awhile back never to talk on the phone while driving, and whenever I can tell a friend or family member is calling me from a car, I scold and shame. This isn’t just about cars and phones, though. Dowd cites a Harvard professor who says using digital devices gives you “a dopamine squirt. She goes on to write:

That explains the Pavlovian impulse of people who are out with friends or dates to ignore them and check their BlackBerrys and cellphones, even if 99 out of 100 messages are uninteresting. They’re truffle-hunting for that scintillating one.

Americans woke up one day to find that they were don’t-miss-a-moment addicts who feel compelled to respond to all messages immediately.

The tech industry is our drug dealer, feeding the intense social and economic pressure to stay constantly in touch with employers, colleagues, friends and family.

I read this last night and emailed it to myself to blog about. Then this morning, while getting my first dopamine dump of the day, I saw this blog post from Sara Ryan, describing the anxiety she feels when she gets behind in her Internet reading.

We tend to see our Internet/technology addiction as a bad habit, I think, something about which we say, “I really should cut down…” Or we joke about it or Tweet about it. But it’s kind of a giant problem. We already know from research that the way our brain pathways work changes depending on what mental habits we’re in. If you’re like me and feel like you’ve developed ADD since web 2.0, you probably have.

Last night after reading the Dowd column I was laying in bed, feeling anxious about my recently acquired iPhone. Did I need it? Was it too late to return it? Should I check it right now to see if anyone responded to my latest Tweet, or mentioned me? (Seeking validation that my existence matters, perhaps?) No, I shouldn’t. But also I don’t need to return it in a moment of panic. It’s a tool, and a very handy one. Like so many things in life, it just needs to be put in its proper place. I know that, and I’ve made good progress on Project Reform Brain Pathways.

What I worry about are the people who don’t know, who haven’t even considered that all this looking into screens might possibly be very bad for them personally (not just for safety reasons, though the Dowd column is certainly compelling on that front), bad for culture and society, bad for humanity. Of course the tools themselves are great and I don’t dispute what they’ve given us as society. But our relationship to the tools needs to be as masters, not slaves.

If you have any connection to the universe of children’s publishing, you have probably heard about this. I’m not up in arms or anything, as a) I’m not completely clear on the details of the proposal and b) “best of” lists are always limited, ultimately, in their usefulness. But, the idea is that BBYA would be replaced by some kind of popular vote, and that got me thinking about the starification of our culture, something that’s been bothering me for awhile now.

I love our friend the Internet. You know I do. But I’ve always hated that you can’t write an Amazon or Goodreads review without adding a star rating. How can you rate a Carson McCullers novel using the same scale as a VC Andrews novel—that is, 0 to 5 stars? I might give both Member of the Wedding and Flowers in the Attic a 5, as they are both totally satisfying to me in their own ways. But they are hardly equal. This same star scale is used to rate all consumer products, restaurants, cities, mechanics, doctors, ISPs, hair stylists…the list goes on and on.

Aren’t these things a tiny bit more complicated than a five-star rating system? What do the ratings and rankings really tell you other than an average opinion of average people who may or may not be anything like you in their needs and tastes? In an ideal world, excellent things would also be popular, but the fact that America’s Funniest Home Videos has been the most widely-viewed TV show for eons tells you that is not always the case.

Some books are excellent but not popular. Some books are popular but not excellent. Some are excellent and popular–yay! Of course this all ties into the last big online debate in kidlit: Who is qualified and should be allowed to review books? Which ties into the bigger cultural picture and the demise of print journalism, the controversies over citizen reporting and mommy bloggers, and the re-evaluation of the purpose of and need for gatekeepers.

There is a seismic cultural shift going on, and the ALA is not immune. As is always the case with change, whether it turns out to be bad change or good change, something is lost. I think we lose a lot by the way star ratings have encroached on how we make choices, and I fear that they—and any kind of popular vote scenario—can even keep us from knowing certain choices exist. The breadth and depth of the BBYA list has been so great—it’s hard for me to see the proposed changes as anything but a loss, with nothing gained since there are already so many ways to measure and reward popularity.

Doesn’t that sound like one of those Wheel of Fortune before and after puzzles?

The new sarazarr.com is now more or less fully functional. There still seems to be an image quality problem when you look at the book covers in Explorer, and in the sidebar they should be three across, not two plus one (also only happening in Explorer as far as we can tell). Investigating. In Chrome, Firefox, and Safari it seems fine. So, here are five new things about the site:

1. If you click on the book covers in the side bar, or go to the books page and click from there, there’s a little background on each book in terms of the process of writing or coming up with the idea.

2. Every book now includes an order link to indiebound. Here’s the deal with that: just because I support independent book stores does not mean I think chains are evil. I really don’t. B&N has been very supportive of my books, for example, and some of our local B&Ns have amazing staff. (Hi, Angie!) But, I think if people want to get my book from Amazon or B&N or wherever else, they’ll just do it and don’t need any help from me with a link to show them how. On the other hand, they may not realize there’s a great neighborhood store nearby or that indie stores also have a lovely site where you can find a lot of information all in one place.

3. I’ve added a F.A.Q. page. If there’s some question I seem to have missed, let me know! It can grow and grow and grow as big as we want it!

4. There is also now an On Writing page, with some of my thoughts on writing. Only some. I feel like I might be constantly changing this page, because my experiences and conclusions based on those experiences are always changing.

5. My bio is now far less abbreviated, and there is other handy stuff such as the next three events automatically feeding from Google calendar into the sidebar, as well as automatically feeding onto the appearances page. I know some of you will miss the Rand-O-Sara. I’m sorry. Change is hard, but necessary.

5a. Comments are revolutionized! You can now get email notification of new comments, and the comments are “nested” (aka threaded). Hooray! If you typically read this blog on LiveJournal, never mind, but for sarazarr.com readers, hopefully this changes your life for the better.

Many many thanks and cheers to my designer/friend Chris for all his hard work. And now, enjoy your safe, sane 4th of July weekend!