overstated

NYC bicycle abuse

critical mass in times square If you’ve ever been in New York on the last Friday of any month, you’ve probably come into contact with the NYC Critical Mass bike ride wherein hundreds of bicyclists “spontaneously come together to ride the ordinarily car-clogged streets of their cities.” I’ve seen this spectacle twice completely by chance, and it’s awesome.

Tension has been rising between these peaceful bikers and police, who claim their actions to be a dangerous act. This dispute reached its apex during the RNC when the NYC office of transportation declared Critical Mass to be “Disorderly Conduct and Obstructing Governmental Administration.” Since then numerous bikers have been harassed and sometimes even arrested on charges of traffic violations. Yesterday I recieved this email from my friend Jamie:

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:26:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Jamie Rollins
Subject: biking is a crime

So you guys might be interested to hear that I was arrested Friday night for riding my bicycle here in New York City. Yes, you heard me right; I was arrested for riding my bike, IN A BIKE LANE, in Manhattan on Friday night. I was riding during the monthly Critical Mass bike rally, which the city of New York seems to have deemed a criminal activity.

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Academic conference spam

About two years ago I started getting peculiar messages from unknown academics about conferences I’d never heard of. They all follow a standard form, with a subject like “inviting you to participate in BLAH-05.” Some address me as “potential speaker,” some “Dr. Cameron A. Marlow,” and some simple “Dr. Marlow.” This isn’t all that surprising, given that lots of legitimate emails I get from academic institutions refer to me as a Dr. (it’s much more offensive not to refer to a Ph.D. as Dr. than it is to inflate the ego of a mere student).

An increase in conference spam

The surprising thing about these emails is that they’ve been increasing in frequency pretty regularly. They have moved from the space of “oversized conference list” to legitimate spam. In some cases I’ve gotten emailed multiple times about the same conference, and for a subject that’s about as close to my research as I am to finishing my course in Scientology.

So who are these people? Given the regular structure of the emails, I assume that they’re being sent out from one master list. Some arrive from iiisci.org, which appears to be a collection of losely-related conferences, and others from vreme.yubc.net, an ISP in Serbia.

How big is this network? Did I get randomly added to some master list, or are they spidering for academic’s email addresses? Has anyone actually gone to one of their conferences? As with most spam, lots of questions, few answers.

Blizzard of ’05

As the snow slowly blankets the urban landscape here in Cambridge, I can’t help but think back to the last time we had snow like this. That would be, umm, last Saturday through Sunday. I love the snow. I also love blizzards, white-outs, winter weather events and snow emergencies. I classify these things as “fun disasters.”

Besides all of the truly bad side effects (snow shovel heart attacks, destroyed property, etc.), a big snowy storm forces people into a kind of alternate reality where the rules are different. Cars are silent and share the roads with pedestrians, people stop and chat in the street, stores offer free services, and everything happens at molasses-speed. There’s a solidarity in a good snow storm, a combination of “what the hell happened?!” and “I’ll shovel your car if you shovel mine,” that makes the city seem more amiable for a while.

The futile life of dogs in the winter

One of the changes I’m not so fond of is depicted above. Sure, dogs have to pee, and unlike New York, Cambridge dog-owners actually clean up after their dogs in the snow. But can’t someone explain to the modern pooch the futility of their efforts? Can’t they pee somewhere that I don’t have to look? If you’re horrified by this image (as I am), you can check out some other photos from this crazy time:

Photos from the blizzard of 05

Best Coffee Ever: Gimme Coffee

I’m not usually that impressed when someone receives a “Best of” award. The ones given out here in Boston include hundreds of categories, such as the illustrious Best Jewelry, Classic, West; and who can forget the inimitable Best Men’s Clothing Store on the Cape. This is Economics 101: given a fixed demand for “Best of” reviews, the more the supply, the lower the value of each award.

The science I’m about to drop here comes in the form of one award in one category for my entire life. It’s the Cameron Marlow lifetime achievement award for best coffee ever consumed. And the award goes to … Gimme Coffee! Located under the bright red awning at 495 Lorimer in Brooklyn, this spartan shop contains an espresso machine, a few tables and little else. But the coffee they make there is unsurpassed in my existence. Each cup is made by a small staff that (not surprising for Williamsburg) takes the art of coffee-making very seriously.

Gimme Coffee’s average cup of joe

This cup of coffee has forced countless trips to Williamsburg and rerouted my New York entrance/exit route to always include a segment along the BQE. If you go there, there aren’t many options: large/small, filter/espresso/cappuccino/latte. I recommend a large latte (pictured above). The espresso is brewed in a machine that appears to have been bred with a motorcycle:

Gimme Coffee Machine

Manufactured by Kees van der Western of Holland, self-titled espressonist, this machine pours out the darkest, richest espresso I have ever tasted. It’s worth the trip to Brooklyn, no joke.

Media Lab Europe to close

Media Lab Europe (MLE) announced today that it will be winding down it’s operations in Dublin. Apparently it was not able to raise the â‚¬50 million necessary to stay alive before it’s time ran out.

As many of you know, I spent some time at MLE and I have to say that it engendered an academic environment like no other I’ve been in. I imagine it’s similar to the atomosphere that the MIT Media Lab had at its inception: tons of space, enthusiastic students and an experimental attidude that assumes nothing is impossible.

I’m not aware of the cause of its failure, whether financial or political, but I’m extremely sorry to see it go. I hope the current students there find a new home that is rewarding as their old space in the Guiness Hop Store.

MLE, RIP.

Wrong side of the road

look ma, i'm driving on the wrong side! I often tell the story of my driving experience in Ireland this past March, particularly the bits about adjusting to the opposite side, the random road signs and tiny (half-lane?) highways. I must have recounted these memories a dozen times, but a few days ago I had the strangest experience: as I was telling the story, the image in my head of driving along the Irish countryside was wrong somehow — I was driving on the left side of the car.

The more I thought about the trip, the more I realized that every memory had miraculously been reworked in my brain to have me driving American-style. Left-side drive, on the right side. When I got home I looked up photos from the trip and confirmed that indeed my recollection had been tampered with. Even more surprisingly, the more people I told about my memory failure, the more I realized that it’s not an anomoly of mine. Nearly everyone with a single experience of driving on the opposite side had adjusted their memories and put themselves on the wrong side of the car.

It makes sense from a technical perspective, namely that it’s easier to store memories as extensions of things we already know. Since driving on the left side of the road is a huge anomaly in my experience, it’s much easier to ignore that fact in the long run. Somehow the blending of old experiences and new has created a completely inaccurate picture. It definitely makes me think twice about trusting my mind’s eye.

IS2K4: Internet Campaign Strategies

To mark the beginning of the Internet + Society 2004 conference, the Kennedy School of Government cohosted an event this evening with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society on the topic of the internet in the 2004 elections. The forum consisted of two panelists, Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for the Howard Dean campaign and Michael Turk, online campaign director for the Bush-Cheney ’04 ticket. The panel was moderated by Kathleen Matthews, anchorwoman for ABC News.

The discussion was awash with utopian musings around the effect of technology on politics in the last year, but a number of interesting points emerged from the discussion. Trippi noted that the Dean campaign was largely due to the fact that supporters used technology to support the campaign in ways that the organizers had never expected. Most of all he stressed the importance of the conversation that emerged among Dean supporters, something that was not available to citizens in the 2000 election.

Turk followed suit with a similar handful of anecdotes and stories that made technology out to be a central part of the Republican success. He noted that the difference in their campaign strategy was the extent to which “viral marketing” allowed for the efficient spread of information to interested parties. Instead of relying on a centralized machine, the GOP was able to take advantage of their supporters to spread the word.
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Hiatus

a lonely journey Once again overstated has lain dormant while I sought answers to some of life’s most pondered questions: will I ever graduate? If I do, what the hell comes next? How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? Which shaker does the salt go in? Are spheres the only type of bounded three-dimensional space possible that contain no holes?

I tried Google Answers. I tried fasting and I rewatched The Matrix. Without any clear resolve, this existential period has come to a close. Or rather, I’m not so distracted by the rest of my life that I can actually do more with my weblog than just delete comment spam. I’ll be attending the Internet + Society 2004 meeting starting tomorrow, so look forward to some reactionary note taking.

The final presidential debate

image courtesy of cnn.com The third and final presidential took place tonight, and while I felt undecided on the results, an early CNN poll gave Kerry a substantial margin with a 59% to 39% victory over Bush. But first, a few words from our candidates (thanks to Microsoft Word):

Kerry in 100 words: 82,000 Arizonians lost their health insurance under President Bush’s watch. This president has turned his back on the wellness of America. President Bush has taken — he’s the only president in history to do this. 6 million jobs lost. This president has taken a $5. Once again, the president is misleading America. The president just said that government-run health care results in poor quality. The jobs the president is creating pay $9,000 less than the jobs that we’re losing. 6 million jobs. The president has denied 9. Let me pay a compliment to the president, if I may.

Bush in 100 words: My opponent talks about fiscal sanity. You voted to increase taxes 98 times. Most health-care costs are covered by third parties. If you have a child, you got tax relief. If you’re married, you got tax relief. If you pay any tax at all, you got tax relief. We passed tax relief. We’ll increase federal spending. We’ve increased funds. The people I talked to their spirits were high. My opponent, the senator, talks about foreign policy. I think people understand what she’s saying.

Kerry’s language in this debate focused on three phrases: minimum wage (8 mentions), health insurance (6 mentions), and social security (6 mentions), a recognizable platform for a democratic candidate.

Bush’s language on the other hand was less issue focused with the most popular phrases of my opponent (7), four years (6), and best way (5), a seemingly more defensive tone.

My personal reaction to the debate was that Kerry seemed overly repetitive and slightly less focused on the questions at hand, bringing terrorism and foreign policy into the debate too often when the focus was supposed to be on domestic issues. The CNN poll found however that viewers raised their opinion of Kerry more during the debate than Bush:

When asked who would handle domestic issues better, Kerry scored higher in health care (55-41). There was no clear leader on the economy (Kerry 51, Bush 46), education (Kerry 48, Bush 47) or taxes (Bush 50, Kerry 47). Kerry’s biggest win came on the question of who expressed himself better, where 61 percent of respondents chose him over Bush (29 percent).

I find it fascinating how bad my personal reaction is to the results of these political exchanges. After doing various forms of analysis for each of the debates, I feel like none of these methods have a predictive effect on the reaction of the voters. Or at least my reaction to the actual events and subsequent analysis seems to be contrary to the rest of the population. With that said, I guess it’s going to be a gripping election.

For more information on this analysis, please see analyses of the first presidential debate, vice presidential debate, and second presidential debate.

Telemarketing I can’t refuse

I’m a pretty harsh critic when it comes to telemarketing. I’m especially unhappy when these slimey creatures get my cell phone number. I can also be a bit unhappy when they wake me up on a Saturday. I’m not a housewife, I’m a grad student, and grad students need their sleep on the weekends. Doesn’t their detailed marketing data tell them that?

all telemarketers are this cute So this story starts with a phone call to my cell phone at 9am on a Saturday, and I’m about to rip this guy a few new eye sockets when he tells me he’s calling from Comcast. Ok, my bad, I’m the one that made the mistake of giving them my cell phone. Must have been a weak moment. Anyway, he tries to offer me a cable modem, I refuse, asks how much I pay for DSL and I say $30/mo., and he offers me cable for $23/mo. No contracts, no hidden costs, just 20% lower than their competitor. Suffice to say, once I had cleared the guck out of my eyes and realized the gravity of the situation, I accepted his offer.

So I’ve resolved that I’ll give telemarketers a chance in the future. I’ll constrain our interaction to the following dialog:

Me: hello?
Telemarketer: I am prepared to offer you a service you already have for 20% less than what you’re currently paying.
Me: ok. hit me.
Telemarketer: Knife sharpening for $3 per month.
Me: strings?
Telemarketer: one-year contract.
Me: deal. take care of the arrangements.

Any subtle deviation and I’ll revert to the old me. Truthfully, this was the first positive experience I’ve ever had with a sales person on the phone, and it was immediately followed by a speedy disconnection of my DSL and phone service immediately afterwards. Maybe these people are finally getting their act together.