I actually discovered it after the project was over. The duckies, the sports racers, world-wide sandwiches, and the ugly MySpace profiles were all finished projects that had been immortalized in this strange, eclectic mix of abruptly (but expertly) edited videos. I don’t remember how I found out about “The Show with Ze Frank,” but it was probably on the recommendation of some podcast host. The web site that housed all of the videos for “The Show” was very strange for two reasons- 1) it had rubber duckies of various sizes, colors, and shapes and; 2) It was not Youtube. Today, the site has undergone only minor changes. The proprietary video player has now been replaced with a blip.tv player and there’s a button on the right that allows you to “like” every video on Facebook. “The Show” drew thousands of viewers before Youtube was the go-to place for video on the Internet. The episodes were shared between dedicated fans while Facebook was only available to people with certain college email addresses. But what is, truly remarkable about “The Show” is that you have either stopped reading this and started watching your favorite videos all over again, or you have never heard of this before but the video above has instant resonance with you. It’s playful, but incredibly honest at the same time. It’s simultaneously goofy and sincere. It’s the ur comedy viral video show and after a very successful run on Kickstarter, it’s coming back. more...
Today I bring you one example of how medical technology and body modification are converging.
The Tongue Drive System uses magnetic field sensors to track the movement of a magnetized tongue piercing.
The image above comes from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where they have engineered a new form of wheelchair mobility through the use of a tongue piercing. The Tongue Drive System uses a dental plate that captures the movement of the tongue piercing below, which is fashioned with a tiny magnet on top. more...
Rush Limbaugh is experiencing an advertiser exodus, and social media is playing a big part.
It’s the kind of story that writes itself. A popular media entity, on one of the oldest forms of electronic mass media, bears the brunt of activists’ Facebook wrath. It combines two old rivalries: liberals and conservatives and new media versus old media. In case you missed it, here’s the brief synopsis of events from ABC news:
Rush Limbaugh remains in big trouble. Advertisers – 11 at last count – are pulling spots off his radio talk show because of the reaction to his calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Opponents are mobilizing on social media for a long campaign to try to convince even more sponsors to drop his program. Ms. Fluke herself has rejected as insufficient Mr. Limbaugh’s attempts at apology
Fluke had testified before congress about the importance of “the pill” for medical uses beyond birth control. Rush concluded that she was having so much sex that she needed the American tax payer to help defer the cost of her contraceptives. (This has led to some speculation that conservatives don’t know how hormonal birth control works.) Thousands of people are organizing to get advertisers to pull their money out of Rush Limbaugh’s show, and many of them are organizing via Twitter and Facebook. Will we be subjected to another round of technologically deterministic news stories about “cyber revolution,” or are we going to have a more nuanced conversation? More precisely, does Rush have a social media problem or has he -all things being equal- just gone too far this time? more...
Every Saturday morning I set up cages and tables at a retail outlet where a local animal rescue agency holds adoptions. On a recent Saturday morning, I was talking with an employee who had to cancel her internet service due to financial constraints. The hardest thing about this, she said, was her absence from Facebook. Not only was she outside of the social communication loop, but talked about a weekend trip with friends where she found herself socially marginalized. She wound up in the kitchen making fruit salad as people popped in to grab strawberries before returning to conversations from which she was excluded.
Technically, Social media is optional. No laws or formal rules require that we participate. As seen in the example above, however, there is a strong social cost to abstention. As an integral aspect of everyday life, social media is increasingly difficult to opt out of. P.J. Rey points this out in his recent discussion of Facebook exploitation. Here, I want to explore why and how this is the case. more...
On constructing a lesson plan to teach Pinterest and feminism
I teach sociology; usually theoretical and centered on identity. I pepper in examples from social media to illustrate these issues because it is what I know and tends to stimulate class discussion. It struck me while reading arguments about Pinterest that we can use this “new thing” social media site to demonstrate some of the debates about women, technology and feminist theory.
We can view Pinterest from “dominance feminist” and “difference feminist” perspectives to both highlight this major division within feminist theory as well as frame the debate about Pinterest itself. Secondly, the story being told about Pinterest in general demonstrates the “othering” of women. Last, I’d like to ask for more examples to improve this as a lesson plan to teach technology and feminist theories. I should also state out front that what is missing in this analysis is much of any consideration to the problematic male-female binary or an intersectional approach to discussing women and Pinterest while also taking into account race, class, sexual orientation, ability and the whole spectrum of issues necessary to do this topic justice.
In early February, I attended a fascinating conference hosted by the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley. This is a first rate organization and the conference did not disappoint. Many executives were present from various telecom, mobile, middleware, AR, audio, video, electronics and computer companies to discuss the future of the “connected car.”
The car is apparently one of the next battlefields for ownership of our personal data and privacy. It is an intimate environment and there will soon be enough sensors to document every human habit and behavior within it. While cars will become the panoptic reporter to our every move, people will also be burdened with an overwhelming amount of data ostensibly aimed at “aiding” them in the driving task. There will be touch activated windshields, Augmented Reality (AR) navigation lines projected onto the windshield that guide drivers on a track of navigation, and the blending of both scenarios with the addition of ads showing up on screen. Audio feedback based on sensor activity is currently available as a service in certain commercial vehicles. Installed sensors monitor driver behavior and provide immediate audio feedback if a driver changes lanes suddenly, is speeding or engages in other unsafe behaviors. more...
The tech world and consumers at large have been buzzing amid recent reports/leaks which indicate that Google will, in the next year, come out with smartphone-esque glasses. Apparently, these devices, often dubbed “Terminator” glasses after the cyborg technology portrayed in the 1980s classic film by the same name, will overlay the physical world with digital data—augmenting our practices of looking. more...
THE ZOMBIE IN FILM: FROM HAITIAN FOLKLORE TO APOCALYPTIC ANXIETIES
If you are alive these days, and not already part of the undead masses yourself, you probably have noticed a staggering increase of zombie references in film, television, pop culture, videogames and the internet.For instance, the big screen and small screen have both hosted a plethora of zombie films including the more popular blockbusters 28 Days Later(2002), Shaun of the Dead(2004), and I Am Legend(2007). In television, we have seen the recent success of AMC’s The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series of the same name. In pop culture, we have seen the viral video of penitentiary inmates dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and even the popular television sitcom Gleehost its own rendition of the dance. And if you are on a college campus like myself, you have probably seen undergraduates playing “Zombies Vs. Humans,” a game of tag in which “human” players must defend against the horde of “zombie” players by “stunning” them with Nerf weapons and tube socks. In videogames, we have seen the success of the Resident Evil franchise, eventually culminating in a series of films staring Mila Jovovich, as well as more recent games like Left 4 Deadand Dead Rising. Finally, the internet is awash with zombie culture. From post-apocalyptic zombie societies to zombie fansites and blogs.
The Annual "Zombie Walk" in Pittsburgh, PA, birthplace of the famed zombie director George Romero.
This post originally appeared on The Frailest Thing and is replicated here with permission.
By one of those odd twists of associative memory, John Caputo’s little book, On Religion, recently came to mind. Caputo, a well regarded interpreter of Jacques Derrida and a philosopher in the continental tradition, opened with a question culled from the work of Augustine of Hippo. Splicing two lines from Augustine’s Confessions, Caputo framed his study by asking, “What do I love when I love my God?”
I appreciate this formulation because it forces a certain self-critical introspection. It refuses the comforts of thoughtlessness. Precisely where some might be most inclined to rely on taken-for-granted assumptions and unquestioned constructs, Caputo’s Augustinian query interjects a searching critique. And it is the structure of the question that I want to borrow to consider one dimension what we are doing when we use social media.
But first, a little more from Caputo who takes the liberty of elaborating on the spirit of Augustine’s quest. Channeling the African saint, Caputo writes, “… I am after something, driven to and fro by my restless search for something, by a deep desire, indeed by a desire beyond desire, beyond particular desires for particular things, by a desire for I-know-not-what, for something impossible. Still, even if we are lifted on the wings of such a love, the question remains, what do I love, what am I seeking?”
Then Caputo makes an important observation. “When Augustine talks like this,” he cautions, “we ought not to think of him as stricken by a great hole or lack or emptiness which he is seeking to fill up, but as someone overflowing with love who is seeking to know where to direct his love.”
Not too long ago I posted some thoughts on what I took to be the Augustinian notes sounded in Matt Honan’s account of his time at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and Kevin Kelly’s subsequent reflections on Honan’s experience. In that post, I employed the very language Caputo cautioned against — in part because Honan’s rhetoric invited it. But now I’m chastened; I’m inclined to think that Caputo is on to something. His distinction is not merely academic and I’ll return to it a little further on.
In my research on the Dutch banking system, it became clear that the banks are seriously worried about social engineering. These techniques, such as phishing and identity theft, have become increasingly common. No reason for concern, right? Surely, a system upgrade, some stronger passwords, or new forms of encryption and all will be well again. Wrong! When it comes to social engineering, trust in technology is deadly. The solution, in fact, cannot be technological; it must to be social.
The term social engineering has been around for decades, but in the last couple of years, it has been popularized by famous social engineer Kevin Mitnick. In the book Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking by another famous social engineer, Christopher Hadnagy, social engineering is defined as “the act of manipulating a person to take an action that may or may not be in the ‘target’s’ best interest.” This may include obtaining information, gaining computer system access, or getting the target to take certain action. Kevin Mitnick pointed out that instead of hacking into a computer system it is easier to “hack the human.” While cracking the code is nearly impossible, tricking someone into giving it to you is often relatively easy. more...
About Cyborgology
We live in a cyborg society. Technology has infiltrated the most fundamental aspects of our lives: social organization, the body, even our self-concepts. This blog chronicles our new, augmented reality.
In my research on the Dutch banking system, it became clear that the banks are seriously worried about social engineering. These techniques, such as phishing and identity theft, have become increasingly common. No reason for concern, right? Surely, a system upgrade, some stronger passwords, or new forms of encryption and all will be well again. Wrong! When it comes to social engineering, trust in technology is deadly. The solution, in fact, cannot be technological; it must to be social.