overstated

Researchers concur: the fact that I feel guilty about not posting to my weblog means that I am aware of my audience. I wanted to say though that it’s much more than awareness, I really love you guys. All of you, even the ones I don’t know very well. Even Anil.

Instead of bemoaning my busy schedule and lamenting my lack of posts, I thought I’d give my readers an infographic and explaination of why I have lapsed from writing in the past year or so. So here it is:

Layers of Cam

There are four layers of activity in my life:

• Responsibilities: blogdex, grad school, etc.
• Necessary interaction: email, phone and IM with people who contact me
• Nonessential communication: weblog, low threshold links and interaction I initiate
• Leisure: Television, djing, etc.

Some people like to mash up everything on their plate and eat everything at once. I personally keep my dinner separate and distinct, and likewise I have a hard time allowing the outer layers of my life to exist if the core is not satisfied. Note the other half of the onion. That’s procrastination. It’s a mishmash of activities that would be fun except the existence of more central responsibilities makes them totally vapid.

You might be asking yourself why I all of a sudden have time to make infographics. Is it procrastination, or has he reached a sudden point of leisure? The answer is that for the past year I’ve had my general exams lingering over my head. Everything I’ve done for the past 12 months has been guarded by the fact that a huge hurdle of my graduate career was unfinished and collecting dust. Well last week this period of my life finally passed. I’m finally done.

I’m currently working through my inbox and I’m sure to be back on the blogwagon in a few days. Thank god!

I participated today in a blog-related panel at AOIR chaired by Alexander Halavais entitled Broadening the Blog.

The weblog audience

There were almost as many panelists as attendees in the audience, which might be an appropriate metaphor for weblogging in general. My notes on the conference can be found on my wiki.

I’d like to raise my hand in a toast with Harry Caray: to the Cubbies, the only team able to lose back-to-back games with the heart of their pitching rotation, at home in Wrigley Field to give up their best chance at a World Series berth in fifty years.

Every year, come rain or shine I’ll support you despite the fact that you string me along again and again. You are truly the most difficult team to be a fan for, and being the massochists that we are, we love you for it. Thanks for another great season, probably the best ever.

Bottom’s up,
Cameron Marlow
Cubs fan for 20 years

For the first time during my many-legged tour, the city of Toronto is the first to provide any level of connectivity, with an open network drop in my room, free wireless in a number of spots, and pay-for internet drops in nearly every hotel. So maybe it’s no Foocamp, but it sure beats the thick walls of Oxford.

And the payoff? For the first time in many weeks I get to talk to my peeps. Assuming that the Association of Internet Researchers conference is providing free wireless, I’ll be posting my notes somewhere in cyberspace. In the mean time, I think I’ll have me some Tim Hortons:

Fine Canadian Cuisine

This sign elucidates a piece of the age-old quandry: what makes Canadians unique from Americans? In terms of cuisine, it seems to be the substitution of coffee for coke and donuts for french fries.

I’ve always been fascinated by the psychology of "open relationships." The emotional turmoil of caring for someone and watching them be interested in someone else is too much for most people. In some parts of the world, the social technology of "don’t ask, don’t tell" policies protect members of open relationships from knowledge that might make them jealous or insecure. Swingers have employed a similar technique in separating sexual relationships from emotional ones.

In STD literature, these relationships are called "concurrent partnerships." Pamina Gorbach, professor of behavioral epidemiology at UCLA has created a taxonomy of concurrent partnerships in order to calculate the risk of contracting STDs for various motivating reasons. In 260 interviews with STD clinic attendees, she identified six main forms of concurrency:

• Experimental: Players. Working the scene, these peeps are looking for action not emotion.
• Separational: Baby’s gone. Jail, college, the military.. and they’re not going to let on that they’re having sex with other people to pass the time.
• Transitional: Testing the waters. Going in or coming out of a long term relationship, some people look outside to make their decision.
• Reactive: Tit for tat. One person makes a point of the fact that they’re sleeping with other people. What is the other person to do but go out and get laid as quickly as possible?
• Reciprocal: Your standard "open relationship." Mutual nonmonogamy. Consentual sleeping around. This pattern was only reported by white respondents.
• Compensatory: Baby’s not putting out. People not sexually satisfied by their main partner may look outside to find what they’re looking for.

Of course these categories reflect standard relationships; group sex and prostitution are also forms of concurrent partnerships that can lead to STD transmission. In the cases where concurrency is secretive (separational, transitional, compensatory), most subjects didn’t use condoms with their main partner (otherwise they’d be caught out!) and thus greatly increased the chance for STD transmission to their unsuspecting lovers.

Source: Pamina Gorbach, Bradly Stoner, Sevgi Aral, William Whittington and King Holmes, 2002. It takes a Village: Understanding Concurrent Relationships in Seattle, Washington, Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 29(8) pages 453-62

Unbeknownst to most of my friends, I snuck back into Cambridge undetected last Friday night. Of course most of the sneaking happened in the last few minutes before getting off the Mass Pike, while the previous 15 hours was spent on the road. Given that it was Labor Day Weekend eve, I decided to avoid I-95, the tried and trusted East coast connector (Richmond, VA, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Newark, New York City, Providence and Boston) in favor of a less populated but slightly longer I-81 (switching over to I-84 to avoid ALL major cities). The trip was just over my threshold for driving in one day, so I decided to stay in Knoxville Thursday night and make the rest of the trek on Friday.

I-81: The Appalachian trail

Having grown up in California, I’m a professional long-distance driver. I don’t have any problem driving alone for 12 or 15 hours straight with only required stops for gas, drive-thrus and rest stops. I have a number of patent-pending techniques for passing the time, such as the infamous "breath-holding practice," where I repeatedly time myself to see how long I can go on one breath. Sure, it might be dangerous, but it makes the trip fly by! And I broke my own record this trip with a time of 1:56.

So, suffice to say I’m back in Cambridge, and I do miss the ATL quite a bit. Even though it’s not a coastal city (not even the third coast), I think it’s one of the sweetest cities in America to live in. Based on my experience I have observed the following inequality:

NYC > Atlanta ~ Chicago ~ S.F. >> Boston

Sorry Boston!

I’ve asked a number of Yanks what they remember about the south, and the first thing that comes to mind is almost always Waffle House. There’s nothing extraordinary about this 24-hour diner chain except the fact that, well, it’s a 24-hour diner chain and they’re ubiquitous. Whether you’re on the highway, in the city, or the suburbs, you’re bound to see the bright yellow sign.

There are 22 Waffle Houses within the city limits of Atlanta, and I pass by 5 on my way to work (that’s about one per mile). Not overly suprising considering that the original restaurant still exists in the Atlanta suburb of Avondale Estates.

W.H. on Cheshire Bridge

The menu

Waffle House owns a lot of titles in the food world: top waffle dealer, #1 omelet peddler and largest T-bone pusher in the world. Do Waffle House doors have locks? Maybe you should ask the burgeoning Waffle House fan club, or post your question to alt.food.waffle-house. And if you have a chance to visit one, don’t forget the rules to the Waffle House drinking game.

A rare treat I discovered here in Georgia is the Scuppernong, a green grape indigenous to the southern states of America. First discovered by Giovanni de Verrazzano in 1524, these bulbous fruit are a bronze variety of the Muscadine family. They have a thick skin with a texture I’ve never really experienced before; people have evolved different approaches to eating them.

Scuppernong Grapes

I stumbled upon them in the Dekalb Farmers Market in Decatur, which has the largest selection of produce I’ve ever seen assembled in one place. There was a small display of Scuppernongs and Muscadines next to the rest of the grapes, which I wouldn’t have noticed except for two or three shrieks by fellow shoppers when the local grapes were available. I was about to go for the standard Muscadine when a woman picked up two or three of the broze variety and told her friend that the Scuppernongs were riper and sweeter this early in the season. Can’t argue with that.

My friend Zach says that hicks in the south drink Muscadine wine, and are commonly seen foraging by the roadside for fresh ones. Sounds like a likely story, but I can’t seem to find anything on the web about the hillbilly’s affection for this grape. And of course if it’s not on the web, it’s not true.

Yesterday I received a note from my landlord under my door. Here’s what it said:

This message is for real. If you don’t believe me, check the original. I’m going to test my realtor’s logic this weekend and feed the hell out of one of these homless people. And if I’m lucky, he might come back to Boston with me!!