Buddhist Marketer

Should the gubmint build a social network?

Hot off the presses, I ruminate on the idea of a government-erected social network. (Watch me experience SYNTAX ERROR at the six minute mark when I think for a moment that I may have forgotten to click “record”!)

Background reading:

A. Social norms go bye-bye

‘melting the solids’ left the whole complex network of social relations unstuck

– Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman in his 2000 Liquid Modernity

As quoted in my 7/21/2008 post: Has our composition of interactions shifted away from social norms towards market norms?

B. Peeps use thug calculus when making decisions

… teenage delinquents could really care less if stealing that old lady’s handbag is going to hurt their chances at getting into college. Applying to college is three years away; $20 and a crusty tube of lip balm is three seconds away: “I need to get some cash right now!” not “I need to maximize lifetime earning potential.” The timeframe over which mental calculus is conducted is significantly shorter for the teenage delinquent and their behaviors and actions crescendo accordingly.

From my 7/1/2008 post: Are middle managers like teenage delinquents?

C. Taxes = Club USA membership dues

Membership benefits include a stable financial system, air quality that’s better than Mexico City, and a buncha other stuff. But I’ve never looked at my taxes this way, and I’ve gotta say … man, that’s a lotta taxes.

From my 4/14/2006 post: Aren’t taxes simply membership benefits?

My line of thinking regarding the government erection of a social network is loosely organized as follows:

1. We do not interact with our fellow citizens in the way we did 25 years ago, in part due to technology
2. As a result, social capital gained from the walking neighborhood has plummeted, arguably resulting in increased demand for social services
3. This drop in social capital has resulted in suboptimal decision making on an individual level which, in aggregate, negatively impacts society / increases my taxes
4. Could the government launch a CLUB US and A social network to attempt to replenish the lost social capital, with the end goal being a more efficient use of public funds (by decreasing the need for social services and replacing top-down community policing with socially normative, flat community policing) ?

Curious to hear what y’all sink about siss.

Tastes like …

Looks like delicious just released some new code with some interface tweaks. Me wonders: why?

Me also wonders: how does this business unit make money for Yahoo!?

Protected: Yale Alumni Magazine > July / August 2008 Class Notes

Back-to-school gifts for wifey

Marketers know that one way to push product is to wrap it around something temporal, like (oft-times invented) holidays. This orients the product in a consumer’s mind in a way that increases its relevance: it’s now been wrapped in a limited! time! only! bow. In a way, it’s kind of like engineering a situation such that your target audience uses thug calculus and chooses the optimization of now over the optimization of lifespan.

Right now, as the days get shorter and those bugs hum into the twilight, my brain thinks of shrink-wrapped packs of 200 sheet loose-leaf paper and sharpened No. 2 pencils. Hot diggety! Likewise, the clever folks algorithms at Amazon have designed a marketing campaign just in time for the linear algebra class I’m taking in a couple of weeks:

(If you wish the ‘Learn more’ button glistened a little bit, raise your hand.)

Me want:

• The Apple MacBook Air (Does anyone know the value of a solid-state drive v. a hard drive? What is a solid-state drive?)
• Ken Wilber’s ‘A Theory Of Everything‘ which sounds like one sexy big-arse equation if ya ask me
• OMG!!!! Cutest file folders ever! If you are someone’s hubby and you want your lady to squeal with ‘OMG how did he know?!?’ delight, get the Wallpaper, Emma, Sophie, and/or Helena. CLICK NOW and thank me later (or forever be buried in a chaos of receipts).

How to help your friend Anittah score 8,000 points on the GRE, part II

I want to thank those of you who have already taken part in putting the wisdom of clowns to work by surrounding me in a dense fog of chunky vocabulary per my request. For those of you who have not yet had a chance, fear not! There’s still time to help me elevate my game.

For starters, any corrections to my stabs at using these words in a sentence is very much appreciated. Amemba: I wuz raised by a woman from the Thai jungle.

Here we go:

1. effrontery: shameless boldness; insolence

There’s still a nagging suspicion in the back of my head that daring to ask for a more flexible work schedule is considered an act of effrontery.

2. chary: hesitant about dangers and risks

While I thought my father would be chary regarding my decision to pursue a doctorate, in fact he’s been nothing but a champion. Chary, not! Instead, chariot.

3. virulence: venomousness; rancor

You’re able to minimize the virulence of any given pathogen if you shift to a produce-rich diet that creates an alkaline environment in your bloodstream.

4. mephitic: foul-smelling

I am sure that most people think sweat-soaked tee shirts are mephitic.

5. discomfit: thwart; disconcert

A discomfited Mr. Roe left the Academy to allegedly fold shirts for GAP in Chicago.

Help me study so I can avoid a lifetime of the above.

And by “avoid” I mean “sedulously engage in”.

How not to invite Anittah Patrick to a party

Please do not send me a text message the day of the party you’ve invited me to reading:

Hi! If possible can you bring a six pack tonight ? We will have sangria and caipirihas of course too ! Thanks !

This kind of text perturbs me because:

• If I drink anything at your school night party, it will not be alcoholic
• When I throw a party, I throw a party, even if it means spending hundreds of bucks on grub
• Do you really think I’m the kind of bozo that shows up to a party empty-handed?

So, really, even though I understand that your text message is all about you and your interior narrative, I think it’s important that you understand how sending it to me will trigger my interior narrative. And even the faintest suggestion that I don’t know how to show up to a party or that I need to be told what to do activates the grumpy switch.

That said, maybe I don’t know how to show up for a party. So, call for crowd-sourcing:

• What do you expect of your guests when you throw a party?
  
• How do you like to show up to a party?

Pretty, floaty data balloons

I am so sad that I missed this exhibit at MoMA; I’d wanted to see it. Presentations of self in a technology mediated context! Delta between what we claim we want versus what we actually select when given a choice! Variance in desires of demo a, b, c versus 1, 2, 3! Yowza!

Here’s a project by the peeps who brought project We Feel Fine to the universe:

Note that the following picture of yours truly will appear in the upcoming We Feel Fine book. I feel kinda neat-o about that.

I also feel kinda neat-o about the open source of the We Feel Fine data. Statistics class, anyone?

ANITTAH : DATA :: PIG : ____

How to be the optimal mother for Anittah Patrick

Be the woman in this photograph.

Happy birthday, ma. (57!)

And: I love your cooking! Can I have some beef laab? Nyum nyum.

How to help your friend Anittah score 8,000 points on the GRE

You can help me win a GRE score that’s 47,000 standard deviations above the mean by peppering your conversations with me with fatty vocabulary words. Here are four that are giving me fits, if you’re looking for idears.

1. abdicate: renounce; give up

I decided to abdicate my account management responsibilities when reduced to tears for the fourth time in two weeks by a client.

2. abjure: renounce upon oath; disavow

While I abjure vast swaths of my behavior circa 1994 - 1999, I don’t regret anything.

3. abrogate: abolish

If I were President, I would attempt to abrogate all legislation that made the buying, selling, and use of marijuana, shrooms, LSD, cocaine, and ecstasy illegal.

4. abnegation: renunciation; sacrifice

I suspect that my historical abnegation of my latent talents and interests, borne from a need to protect the feelings of others, has informed both my Libertarianism and my desire to head back to school.

Game on! Lard up on your syllables, folks!

Well, I mean, not you kids.

(More vocab words with which to pepper your comments, emails, phone calls, and even co-present interactions (!) available here.)

What would Tufte say?

This is my blog on algorithms:

This is my blog on drugs:

(Created with Wordle, which was put on my radar by Briggles.)

I wonder how these programs work.

I mean, I have a sense, but I want to play!