Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Walking about with Google

Yet another Google-based data mashup is WalkScore, which plots locations against nearby businesses and civic destinations.  The results are shown via Google Maps, with the most walkable destinations listed alongside.  Locations are also assessed for general walkability.  It's probably the first climate change/peak oil mashup - the first of many.

Scoring our house was entertaining.  Living on top of mountains means some things are walkable, but not businesses, usually.  We scored a brilliant 0 out of 100.  Or, in Google Maps representation, note the zone right around our house:

What's interesting is where the results point us.  We normally drive down to East Middlebury or Middlebury, but WalkScore shows many Lincoln destinations to be comparable, or closer.  We'll see about biking these before the snows come.

Staples.com: that was a pain

Staples.com offers several bad design features for users, which I just discovered in spending 30 minutes trying, and failing, to buy stuff there.

One feature is punishing users for their own inventory choices.  If you search for an item which Staples no longer carries, the site simply claims that there is no such widget.  A "we no longer carry widget X" response, along with "here are some related widgets" would likely draw the customer into another purchase.  Instead the user is thrown back on their original search.

"related widgets" - there is no such function.  Each item exists in isolation, knitted to the rest of Staples' inventory only by a bread crumb trail leading to broad categories.  One should not be surprised to not find a "customers who bough Z also bought Y" function.  And no recommendation network.

Better still, Staples.com hides some restrictions on your purchases.  When you begin a session, you're required to enter a zip code.  According to a Staples service rep, who I reached by phone, if your location has shipping limitations, subsequent search results are limited.  For example, heavier items can't be delivered by UPS to some parts of central Vermont... so they simply don't appear on searches.  There's no warning on the site ("widget C cannot be shipped to your location..."), no nudge to another location ("...but can be purchased from stores in zip code ZZZZZ, click here").  Some results simply don't appear, and the casual user has no idea that they've been blocked.  Are there other such restrictions on Staples.com?  Who knows, since we aren't told?

On top of that, the site uses scripts to render each hyperlink, disabling many right-click menu options.  So no tabbed browsing, no saving or sharing links from a page.  It's a forced linearity, keeping the user along certain aisles, er, paths.  And adds time to rendering each new page, when clicked. 

Treating customers without transparency, not designing a site to make more purchases attractive - it's almost as if the intention was to reproduce the physical experience of walking through a large store, rather than taking advantage of what the Web can offer. 

There are, unfortunately, many sites like this, demonstrating distrust for customers, and assuming we users cut them large amounts of slack. 

Terrorists playing with MMOGs

Terrorist uses for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are explored by this post at the Counterterrorism Blog.  The author identifies three main uses:

1. Recruitment
2. Training
3. Money laundering

Interestingly, especially in light of our previous post, there's no mention of Second Life for propaganda.  The emphasis on small-group activities like recruitment and teaching is in line with this conception.  Next step, terrorists use Web 2.0 to amplify their Metaverse work?

(via Edward Castronova)

Web 2.0 and Second Life: marketing connection

Wagner James Au notes this important nexus point between Second Life and Web 2.0:

After that, however, my illustrated transcript of the SL chat log of Chris Anderson's appearance garnered about 90,000 page views, and is still often read; a subtitled YouTube video of the appearance produced by Millions of Us has been seen 2657+ times, and when you Google "Chris Anderson", it currently comes up as the 61st hit out of 1,270,000 returns.

So here's the question:  when considering the effectiveness of marketing Chris Anderson's Long Tail in Second Life, how many pairs of eyeballs should be counted?  Just 30?  Or another number?*

Au's point is defensive, in the mode of explaining low Second Life participant numbers, but the observation is a good one.  Web 2.0 tools and projects can radically amplify SL activities, based in part on the very large size of Web 2.0. 

The Dark Ages are already here, just unevenly distributed

Let me paraphrase William Gibson, at the risk of a bit of technological determinism.  The Dark Ages are already here, just unevenly distributed.

Middle Eastern scholar Mark Lynch reflects on the recent story about the Grand Mufti of Egypt suggesting that Muslim apostates don't necessarily merit death.  Lynch notes that new media news stories cycle around the world and across borders with great speed, opening up new connections and opportunities for sharing information and views.  Which isn't news.  But Lynch goes further.  In this case, to a degree

...the internet has made it impossible for Islamists - or anyone - to really engage in 'double talk' anymore.  Maybe there was a time when Arab Islamists could say one thing to a Western audience and another to an Arabic audience - as critics of Islamists always charge - but that time has passed.  When[grand mufti] Gomaa said something relatively liberal in English, it almost immediately filtered back into the Egyptian public sphere - forcing him to either defend the assertion or else repudiate it.   It's not that these things haven't happened before, that statements made in one realm have traveled back to the other, but it happens much faster now, and more routinely to the point where it has to be expected rather than coming as a surprise.

This is hugely important.  It's the flip side of increased access to documents and digital objects, since reactions to those objects are also part of the information ecology's circulation.  Again, this is a vital point for teachers to consider, since this is a large part of the world students inhabit, and a larger part of the world they're heading into.  Are silos the best place for students to learn about this?

Back to Lynch: while

[t]hese new media trends promote transparency... they don't necessarily promote liberalizing trends... In this case, [mufti] Gomaa's relatively liberal interpretation got walked back when Egyptians and other Muslims got wind of it.   Rather than forcefully defend the position, he tried to weasel out of it and then essentially repudiated it (at least as I read his interviews published today in various papers).   That in itself says something about the conservatism of the Egyptian public realm and the entrenchment of Islamist worldviews.

Lynch connects this point to commentary by "the highly influential Yusuf al-Qaradawi". If Mufti Gomaa argues that changes in religious belief deserve social sanction only when there's a negative social effect, consider a response when the context sees one's religion as driving specific, tangible social benefits, and mitigating real social woes:

since Islam was so central to the identity of Muslims and their states, apostasy in and of itself represented a threat to society and even treason to the nation.

The great accessibility of foundational Islamist Sayyid Qutb's writings, seriously banned in Egypt, has shown this as well. 

In short, new news media, mechanisms of transparency, and planetary systems of information circulation can also serve theocracy.  al-Qaradawi invokes state power to enforce religious and social ends; "weary giants of flesh and steel" can, in fact, lurch into life at the service of currents circulating through cyberspace.

 

Serious mashups

Several mashups have appeared recently which aren't in the typical, humorous vein.  They push the limits of what mashups are.  Contra Bruce Sterling, who said mashups would always be jokes, what does it say about the form that they can be actively offensive?

Case 1: the climax of Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), with a new soundtrack.  First off, do not watch this if you haven't seen the entire film.  And if you haven't watched Sergio Leone's masterpiece, possibly the greatest western of all time, go take the day off, find a copy, and screen it at once.  I won't sing the praises here (Henry Fonda as villain! Morricone at the top of his form! Claudia Cardinale! the pacing) - it simply must be watched.
  Which brings us to why this remix is interesting.  It's a good example of matching new music to preexisting footage, yes, especially in aligning lyrics to movement.  But it gleefully spoils the emotional impact of a long film, gives away a secret painstakingly built up throughout the film, and also has the audacity to replace the music of Ennio Morricone.  Even embedding it here risks offense on ant of these (ahem) scores. 
  I had to watch this orchestral performance to, well, feel better.

Case 2: "Ocean's 911".  This mashup is easily the most offensive I've ever seen.  It takes sequences from Ocean's 11 and mixes in... historical footage of the 9-11 attacks in New York City.  The music selections are energetic, driving home, even celebrating the jarring juxtaposition.  There's a ferocious grinning at, or with, horror based on connecting these real-world images to goofs from the movie, from George Clooney's lazy smile to the final airborne thumbs-up.  It's the video complement to Stockhausen's 9-11 comment.
  The creators are quite explicit in their intentions, and offer a manifesto.

To feel such horror, shock, dismay, embarrassment, loathing in the face of a mashup suggests this form has taken a developmental step.

Covert Front: spy point and click mystery

Covert Front is another fine point-and-click game from Mateusz Skutnik.  The setting is the early 20th century, an alternate history where WWI has happened a few years earlier.  You play a spy casing the house of an important Habsburg leader.

Style and mood is a mix of nearly pop art color and sharpness with loving attention to premodern Mitteleuropean taste.  The puzzles aren't too difficult.  Clues are sparse, greatly outnumbered by objects and possibilities.

The alternate history becomes even more alternate at it heads into steampunk territory, a bit like Alias with mysterious objects and - but the player should discover that for herself. 

Nice credits, too, which not only establish the genre and style, but require user interaction to proceed.  Can't wait for the sequel(s).

Skutnik also created Daymare Town; cf our earlier blog post.

Monsters on Facebook

Haunted Facebook - not yet, but there is already growing Gothic-themed content on that growing social network platform.  Clickable Culture notes a series of monster-based games to play, including a Zombie game, a Vampires game, one for Werewolves, and inevitable Vampires vs. Werewolves matchup.

Daymare Town, new game-story from Mateusz Skutnik

Today's insidious, lovely casual game is Daymare Town.  It's a point-and-click escape-the-room type of story-game, where you need to figure out how to get away from a mysterious little town.  The art is fascinating, being all black and white line drawings.  Puzzles aren't hard, but finding some objects can be tough. 

The atmosphere is impressive, a haunting, spooky, yet calming tone.  A simple, repetitive soundtrack is very effective in establishing this.  Sudden appearances of people are also potent, even poignant at times.

The birds are tough to find, and I never did get all of them.

The creator is Mateusz Skutnik, who creates graphic novels along with a series of games. I gather than some of the latter constitute a series, the Submarine sequence, starting with #1. Definitely a fellow to follow.

(via JayIsGames)

Severed Mouth Women

"Severed Mouth Woman" is a short video about a Japanese urban legend.  It's a nice one, from the appealing smile to the weird use of "Brylcreem":

Last night I listened to a similar story, a Librivox podcast reading of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Case of Lady Sannox." (1912)  Both tales, British and Japanese, are quite disturbing.

(via Pink Tentacle)