The Internet is an excellent source for all of the wide and varied forms of human emotion, but especially hatred.
There’s something about the anonymous medium that just makes it so easy to savage other people, whether through emails, bulletin boards, or public blog postings. This issue has been sort of loosely addressed over the years, with users suggesting guidelines for our global public community, but it has been highlighted for the world in general by the case of Kathy Sierra a high profile blogger who recently went public about hateful comments made about her. She also published excerpts from some of the emails which were sent to her…and I think her post was rather bold. I commend her for it. It’s also worth reading the comments below, because some of them are very, very interesting.
Cyberbullying is a big issue, and something that does not just impact children.
One of the things about existing on the Internet as a public presence is that you really do need a thick skin. People will say critical things about you or your work, and you need to be able to take it and roll with it. Sometimes criticism is helpful…and at other times, it’s just hurtful. I have certainly experienced hurtful and mean posts and comments, and dealt with them in my own way, but I haven’t gone through anything on the level of what Sierra has.
Vile commentary can become par for the course when you are well known, for a variety of reasons. Maybe you are vile yourself, like Ann Coulter, and people are responding to that. Maybe people are jealous of your popularity, or disagree violently with something you say. Either way it’s up there, out there, and hurtful.
It is often hard to know how hurtful it is, because many people remain silent rather than speaking out.
Where do we draw the line?
Certainly the Internet is a sort of fantasy land, and one could argue that as hurtful as vitriolic posts are emotionally, they do not pose a real threat. Obviously Sierra felt differently, indicating that some of the material she received suggested that she, personally, might be in danger. Clearly she feels badly enough that she is thinking about withdrawing altogether from online society, which is a great shame. Being pushed into abandoning something you love crosses a clear line, for me.
Turning such material over to the police is important in cases like this, especially ones where your personal safety is clearly being threatened. While law enforcement cannot play mommy and daddy and protect you from mean words, they can take action on decisive threats, especially if they include concrete information like your address and real name. When someone is pushing the line with you, most people instinctually want to push the offender away. Resist the temptation. Hang on to nasty things that people send you…because they could be evidence some day.
What can we do about it?
I suppose we can all start with ourselves. Readers may have noted that I am very careful about what I criticize, and that I generally try to keep personal opinions of people to myself, although I will not hesitate to speak out about wrong actions by public officials, or to criticize a business. Generally I speak from my own experience when I have something negative to say, and I ponder long and carefully before I post material which might be considered unfavorable to someone. I cannot imagine attacking someone directly, especially in such a hateful way. If I really did want someone to die, I certainly wouldn’t share that information with you, dear readers. And I see no reason to be mean and hateful, in a do as you would be done by kind of way. I don’t post anything about anyone if I feel like I would be uncomfortable if my name was substituted, if I thought my feelings would be hurt to read that about myself. The rules of common courtesy do, can, and should apply on the Internet.
I think that we can also act by speaking out when we see this kind of behaviour occurring. If we remain silent, we are part of the problem…and if you notice cyberbullying going on, talk about it. If you see hateful posts or photoshops about people, even people you don’t know, make it clear that you find that behaviour distasteful, and model a different mode of communicating about your issues. By not engaging in the behaviour yourself, and indicating that you will not tolerate it, you can help to eliminate it. Especially if you have a lot of public respect, or you run a forum…you owe it to everyone else. Or at least I think you do.
The Internet is never going to be a land of happy unicorns, but we can at least make it safer.
[Kathy Sierra]
[cyberbullying]
Posted 1 year, 9 months ago at 2:26 pm. Add a comment
I really do.
They have a stranglehold on our Internet, and it does not work half the time. I was able to get on briefly this morning before it booted me again, and I just now got back on.
Thanks for the day of lost work, Comcast! Yeah! I like it like that.
Seriously.
How is it, exactly, that they have a monopoly on the Island? Some other service provider should totally think about coming out here, because they would make bank off of us. I mean, serious amounts of money. I am fairly certain that 50% of the Island, at least, would switch services for high speed if they were given the choice. I’ve been considering satellite internet because Comcast is getting so bad…or perhaps dialup, which would be slow as hell, but a functional backup for the entire days that my internet is totally unavailable.
I wonder if they have some kind of sweet deal with the Navy, trying to keep us pacified through crappy internet.
[Comcast]
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago at 11:44 pm. Add a comment
Violet Blue writes about this disturbing trend better than I can, and I recommend that you read her post along with her links to other bloggers covering the situation.
Basically the easiest way to illustrate what’s going on is to have you, my dear readers, do something for me. I’d like you to open a new tab (you are, of course, using Firefox, right?)
In that new tab, go to Google, and type in “good vibrations.” Survey the first page of search results. Then search for “good vibes.” Check again.
Notice anyone missing from the lineup?
Perhaps this will have been corrected by the time you read this…I sincerely hope so. But as it stands now, when I search for the name of the premiere woman-owned sex positive store in the Bay Area on Google, it does not appear in the first page of search results.
This is due, sex bloggers are claiming, to a change in how Google runs search algorithms. As Violet Blue says, somehow this reworking involved the drop of sex positive retailers, bloggers, and sources of information. A mistake? Possibly…mistakes do happen. But I find it highly suspicious that this change happened right around the holiday time, when people might be shopping for high quality toys from reputable stores…or just looking for information on sexuality.
As I am often reminding the people around me, the internet is not a reliable source of information. There are a lot of things wrong with the internet. In theory, though, Google should not be broken. And when Google is failing to deliver logical search results, I see that as a major flaw. Most people searching the internet for Good Vibrations, for example, are looking for Good Vibrations. Adam and Eve comes up bright and clear in the sponsored links…very interesting indeed.
As this story has begun to break, clear changes have been wrought, and Google appears to be working to rectify the problem. A search for “vibrators” now turns up Babeland, as well it should. (You might know the retailer by the former name, Toys in Babeland.)
But I don’t like the sound of this…not one bit. Why is it that sex positive sites mysteriously vanished from the Google index, even with Safe Search off? Do we need a porno Google to meet our needs now? Or is Google, as Snape would say, up to something?
[Google]
Posted 2 years ago at 9:59 am. Add a comment
This entry is being written on my old Sony, which was recently restored to a usable state by a friend far more computer savvy than I am. I actually willed it to him, but he replaced it with a different computer and wondered if I wanted it back.
I did, actually, I realized. I sort of missed the mobility that a laptop had to offer, so I said “sure, why not.”
It actually made its way back to the Bay Area some time ago with another friend, but it took awhile for the two of us to reunite. Busy, I didn’t have much of a chance to muck about with it today until I booted it up to discover that he had installed Ubuntu on it.
Well heck, I thought, what’s a little Linux between friends?.
So far, I’m liking it a lot. Granted, I’ve only played in the Ubuntu environment for all of a day, really, but I am enjoying it immensely. Graphically, it’s very stripped down and elegant, a trait I really appreciate. Physically, it’s fast, even on this older machine, which is great. When the Sony was running Windows the system was always hopelessly bogged down—now it’s pretty quick for a laptop that I bought in 2000.
It’s also a very user friendly distribution. Given that I know absolutely nothing about it, I was surprised by how quickly I learned to navigate. (Of course, the person who installed it knew what they were doing, which is probably a big help—I’m sure the easy functionality is due to him as much as it is to Ubuntu.)
Of course, I also feel like I’m earning major geek style points, just by using it. I mean, not that this would be the primary reason…but I think I will leave the Sony running Ubuntu, and if I really like it I might see about switching the desktop over as well. There’s really no good reason not to, you know?
As it is, it’s like a neat Christmas present, a retooled old friend.
[Ubuntu]
Posted 2 years ago at 11:03 am. Add a comment
So, our internet connection has been patchy the last few days. I’ve mainly been pirating other peoples’, but today I was having trouble doing that as well, so I thought it was time for my weekly Comcast phone call to see what was up, and also to find out how much money they think I owe them.
Call number one:
“Hi, thank you for choosing Comcast, this is—”
“Verizon Wireless Network Message 562: Call Lost.”
Call number two:
“Hi, thank you for choosing Comcast, this is John.”
“Uh, hi John, I just got cut off. I’m having trouble connecting to the internet? I’ve reset the router and modem multiple times and they aren’t working.”
“Right, could I get the phone number associated with the account?”
“Sure, 123-456-7890.”
“Great, and your—”
“Verizon Wireless Network Message 562: Call Lost.”
Call number three:
“Hi, thank you for calling Comcast, this is Jane, how may I help you?”
“Hi Jane, I was just cut off…I am having some problems with my internet?”
“Ok, could I get the phone number associated with the account?”
“123-456-7890.”
“Great, and your name?”
“Defenestrate Jones.”
“Great, Defenestrate…so what seems to be the problem?”
“Well Jane, our internet hasn’t been working all day, and I have reset the router and modem, and it is still not working.”
“Hrm, ok…well, I don’t see a modem online at that address. How many lights are blinking?”
“Uh, the one on the right.”
“Ok, I’m going to have you unplug the modem for at least fifteen seconds and—”
“Verizon Wireless Network Message 593: Call Terminated.”
Call number four:
“Hi, thank you for calling Comcast, this is Dave. How may I help you?”
“Hi Dave…I’m having problems with my internet.”
“Great! Can I get the phone number associated with the account?”
“123-456-7890.”
“Ok, and your name?”
“Defenestrate Jones.”
“What?”
“D-e-f-e-n-e-s-t-r-a-t-e.”
“Oh, ok. So, uh, I don’t see a modem online at that address.”
“Yeah, uh, the last tech I had said to unplug it and plug it back in…I’ve tried resetting it a couple of times.”
“Hrm, well, I guess I had better send a tech out then.”
“Uh, yeah, that would be great.”
“Hrm, well. Looks like the whole block is out!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, we can get someone out on…the 28th. Does that sound good?”
“No.”
“Ok, great! How about between one and three?”
“Fine, whatever. Dave.”
“Now, I should tell you that if the problem is outside the home or with our equipment, then we won’t charge you. But if it is your equipment, we’ll charge you $50.”
“Well, it certainly sounds like your problem if the entire block is out, now doesn’t it, Dave?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so. So I’ll make that appointment for the 28th then, okey dokey?”
“Yeah, uh, Dave, I was also wondering if you could tell me the outstanding balance on my account?”
“Sure thing, uh…one moment, let me confirm this appointment…yeah, $173.84.”
“Oh, great, Dave. That’s great. Thanks.”
“Verizon Wireless Network Message 592: Unable to Complete Connection.”
And how I am connecting to the internet right now, you ask? A lady never tells.
[Comcast]
Posted 2 years ago at 12:25 am. Add a comment
So, I realized the other day that I was wasting an alarming amount of time trolling through all the websites I check every day. I had been resisting the use of an RSS reader because I am not really an early adopter. This new fangled technology, you know.
Now I am really regretting that choice, because I could have saved an obscene amount of time by not being recalcitrant.
I love Google Reader a whole lot. I am kind of a Google slut—I am sure that there are other great readers out there, but I try to centralize things and Google is very central for me. So yeah, Google Reader. I’m still slowly loading it with all the sites I read, which is going to take awhile, and there are already about 70 feeds going on.
And I love it. I pop on in the morning and just troll through everything new. No more opening up eight million tabs to figure out what is going on in the world: oh no, I can catch up on everything in a central location. If I want to read comments and such, I jump over to the actual post.
I realize that many of my readers already use RSS readers, and are rolling their eyes at this post. But for the rest of you—you really ought to check it out. It’s an excellent time saving device, and most blogs make it super easy for you to subscribe to their RSS feed. (Here’s a link to mine, for example.) I’ve separated the sites I read into categories, allowing me to go through all the food posts at once, all the sexuality posts, etc, which is awesome. It marks things as read after I read them, allowing me to go back at leisure and read things when I feel like it.
And…good God, how much time it saves. Efficiency, thy name is Google Reader.
[Google Reader]
Posted 2 years ago at 1:16 pm. Add a comment
Being in the throes of a moral quandary at the moment, I decided that the best thing to do would involve distracting myself. The best source of distraction, for me, is abusing innocent phone support workers. I realize that some of my readers are troubled by this dark and terrible part of myself, and I do honestly wish that I could purge it. But there is something so deeply and innately satisfying about browbeating people in phone banks, a pure and simple happiness which I strive for in daily life but rarely achieve.
Luckily, in this modern world where otherwise respectable restaurants call patrons “fucking cunts*” and the phone company tries to sneak inappropriate charges onto my phone bill, the problem isn’t finding someone to abuse…it’s choosing who to abuse.
Enter Comcast, stage left.
Comcast, for those who are not aware, has a monopoly on high speed internet and cable service on Treasure Island. This means that if you want either of these things, you are forced to go through Comcast, and Comcast knows it. Oh, does Comcast know it. The Boys use Comcast and Cap’n Raspberry does battle with them every time the monthly bill arrives.
That’s why I was so delighted when I got my last bill…it was for the correct amount, and they were charging me for the correct services. I was actually flabbergasted that Comcast had decided to not suck, and I was tempted to frame the bill to marvel at. Of course, the online payment system wouldn’t let me in, but I figured I could phone in a payment closer to the due date.
Alas, such was not to be, I discovered when I finally remembered to check the mail today. In the dark crevices of the mailbox was an envelope from Comcast. It crackled ominously as I pulled it out and opened it, revealing a bill for approximately three times the amount of our monthly services.
Ah, Comcast.
Thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart, for having 24 hour service.
Calling Comcast at 1:00 AM results in a long hold time, for an unknown reason. But ultimately an innocent “customer care agent” came on the line and I gave her what for.
I’ve got to give the lady credit, she kept her cool, even in crisp exchanges such as this:
“Well, I see here that you were charged $59.95.”
“Yeah, see Yvonne, the thing is, I see that too, and that happens to NOT BE THE CONTRACT WE SIGNED UP FOR.”
“Well, you signed up for internet, Ms Jones, correct?”
“Uh, yeah, we did. We did not sign up for $59.95 worth of internet. Who in fuck’s name would pay that much for monthly internet service, even to a bloodsucking cockroach such as Comcast?”
“Uh, I’ll check on that, ma’am.”
Comcast has won round one, with a “call back” promised for tomorrow. Yvonne actually agreed that we had been incorrectly charged, but couldn’t do anything about it.
Couldn’t…or wouldn’t?
I can hardly wait, billing department. Bring. It. On.
*You are going to have to disregard my earlier comments on Piacigate, my friends, because I have taken a new stance: please don’t eat at Piaci and please don’t eat at their new restaurant, either. You know. Assuming that you live anywhere near Fort Bragg. Calling patrons “fucking cunts” is simply not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination, especially when you are the owner of a restaurant.
[Comcast]
[NaBloPoMo]
Posted 2 years, 1 month ago at 1:34 am. Add a comment
This heat is killing me. Every day I wake up in a torpor and stagger to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, to no avail. I’ve been essentially living in a yukata in a feeble attempt to fight the heat but sadly it’s not permissable outside the house wear and at least once a day I find myself forced into the constriction of actual clothing. I find myself strongly opposed to social norms right now, because they involve me torturing myself with fabric when all I want to do is lie in the shade by a nice little stream, cooling off.
I seriously cannot comprehend how people live in this weather. Today I stood in the shower with cold water streaming for 10 minutes and it was heavenly until I got out and it was still hot. My brain has slowed, my appetite has dwindled away, and I live a life of day to day misery longing for the clammy fog.
My other adaptation is to move by night. I find myself able to think more clearly in the coolness of the night, even though it’s still warm enough to force me to leave all the windows open. At night I plumb the depths of the internet in an attempt to catch up on everything I missed during the day when I was lying in a heaving puddle on the bathroom floor with Loki because it’s the coolest place in the house.
Thus it is that I find myself reading a new version of the 95 Theses, updated for the modern world. There’s some important information in these new theses, information which is relevant not only to the computer inclined but to the world in general, like number three: “all corporations are not on your side.”
There are also some excellent recommendations, like “express your opinion in public” and “do not follow the Electronic Frontier Foundation, participate in it.”
Above all, these theses are here to remind us that we need to be active. We need to speak out instead of remaining silent. We need to participate in our societies. We need to interact with the world if we want to change it, and this is something I think a lot of people, including myself, forget sometimes. Yes, blogging is a powerful tool, and it’s great when it can be used effectively to reach thousands (or millions) of readers. But I feel sometimes that just writing is not enough. I should be out proactively pounding the streets in pursuit of what I believe in, bringing down yuppie civilization and unschooling our children and farming organically.
It’s something we were talking about at dinner, that there’s a large shadow economy in this county which consists primarily of people who don’t contribute and don’t give back, even though many of them are making a great deal of money. One might argue that it’s hard to contribute to society when what you do is illegal and much of your life is dedicated to concealing the truth of what you do. And there’s no excuse for the rest of us making a legitimate living to reject our community.
Anonymous donation is still feasible. Participating in your community, volunteering, helping out–these are all things any of us can do, and things I remember more of us doing. I grew up in Caspar, a town where we knew all our neighbors and helped each other other. We were like a giant happy family, and when that family shattered thanks to a handful of assholes, it was a great tragedy. It was a greater tragedy, though, that none of us spoke out–we all decided to leave rather than facing the source of strife. We gave up rather than retrenching and building a better home.
Tonight I have been thinking about how we fail to recognize the value of community and of making the communities we live in stronger. Part of this is activism, and part of it is compassion. What have you done for something or someone in your community lately? How are you helping to make a stronger, more awesome world? Or are you so wrapped up in your own deal that you have forgotten to look around you, like a growing number of us? Shall we live forever in fractionated communities of people who barely know each other, or is it time to come together to build something great?
Or is it too late?
We have responsibilities, we members of the human family, to “…not allow corporations to get away with assisting oppressive regimes. Let your voice be heard,” to “decide what is offensive for yourself- don’t let the government decide it for you. If you do not, pretty soon, you may only see one side of every argument,” to “most of all- have fun.”
So why aren’t we doing it, in our 9-5 grinds, in our hastening down the street in avoidance of human interaction, in our failure to register the world around us? What has happened to society that we think it’s acceptable to answer cell phones in the midst of a group of loving friends, that we turn to computers rather than people for comfort, that we build safe and comfortable bubbles in which nothing of wonder and interest ever happens?
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s late and I’m rambling and I have heat stroke. But I think we need to question what we’re doing here, because I don’t see it going anywhere good.
That is all.
Posted 2 years, 5 months ago at 12:09 am. Add a comment
I haven’t done this in awhile, so I thought today was a good day to highlight some of the more entertaining search terms that bring people here. Some of them appear to be pressing questions which need answering. Others just don’t make sense.
“giving cat a bath” presumably lands readers here and also reminds me that Loki needs a bath.
I’m also a fan of “how to behave like a polite.” A polite what?
“victorian pelvic exams” is rather good. I was actually just reading an article about Victorian doctors and how they conducted exams (in case you were wondering, which you apparently are, they were expected to conduct the examination within the voluminous folds of a skirt, which must have made things rather challenging).
“massage therapists, do they see the genitals.” No.
“water holes navarro river.” Like I’m going to tell you where those are.
“pineapple lumps,” of course, lands the reader on part four of the candy report, featuring exciting New Zealand confections like pineapple lumps.
“asparagus spoiled.” I have a pretty high tolerance for spoiled food, but I imagine asparagus is irrevocably spoiled when it’s molding or slimy. Or it’s gone the other way and has turned wrinkled and wooden. Either way, it can probably still make your pee smell funny.
“sweet potato gnocci recipe.” I’m shocked to see that I am apparently the number one return on Google for this, which must mean it’s a topic without that much coverage. This sort of surprises me, actually, because sweet potatoes are rather trendy right now. Incidentally, singular potato, plural potatoes. Just so we’re clear on that. (Oh, and here’s the recipe. It’s really good with a cream sauce. I’m just saying.)
“piaci pizza.” Don’t go here.
“poultry pluckers.” Did you know that after you cut a bird’s head off, it really does run around the farmyard scaring the shit out of all the other animals? Pretty neat, eh.
There were a few other things which I prefer not to contemplate. The internet is an amazing place, I tell you. Amazing. Google captures most of the market share here (72%), followed by MSN. Usually it’s Google alone with one random Lycos search or something like that thrown in. Ah, Google.
I’ve also got a lot of Middle Eastern readers right now, which is sort of neat. Especially considering that some Middle Eastern companies have national firewalls and I sort of assumed I’d be banned, since I talk about all sorts of inappropriate things. This is what happens when you let a gal out of purdah.
Posted 2 years, 6 months ago at 9:01 am. Add a comment
I just finished reading Phil Jacobsen’s touching post on outsourcing, which is well worth reading even if you don’t read him on a regular basis.
And then I turned to this article in the Times talking about the changing world of robotics. What the authors are pointing out, essentially, is that as the science of robotics makes advances, we need to start seriously thinking about the roles of robots in society, what niches they are going to fill, what sort of rights they may or may not be entitled to, and whether or not we need broad spectrum laws to deal with the issue. And make no mistake, robots are getting smarter and more complex every year. According to the article, “In Japan, human-like robots such as Honda’?s Asimo and Sony’?s Qrio can walk on two legs. More advanced versions are expected to be undertaking everyday domestic tasks and helping to care for the elderly in as little as 20 years.” At first glance, this seems like a major step to solving the problem of the baby boomers, who are rapidly growing older and will soon max out our capacity to care for them.
To me, the robotics has some very exciting potential. It’s fascinating to read about the steps that have been made, and where we are going with robots as a society. More and more tasks are automated now, from flying aircraft to detecting rotten fruit. The myriad uses that people have developed robots or automated systems for are really quite incredible, and it’s awesome to see some of this stuff at work. It’s an almost Willy Wonka-like dreamworld, where things are not always what they seem.
But to me there is a sinister undercurrent. (And no, it’s not robot sexuality.) It’s that as robots get more advanced, and are capable of performing simple, repetitive tasks, what happens to the humans who have performed these tasks since time immemorial? If the timeline above is correct, we may see robots efficient and cheap enough for most consumers within forty years. Will this lead to mass human unemployment as basic jobs are outsourced to the robot community? Will we end up in a highly stratified society where humans with unique abilities and skills rule over a teeming underclass which is unable to find employment thanks to the highly advanced state of automation? Will this underclass in turn revolt and speak out against the robot takeover, or will it shrink in size and dwindle away with until all that’s left is a small core of humans, surrounded by service bots?
I admit, part of this possibility intrigues me, because I feel that at this point humans are making too large a footprint on the world, one which will ultimately lead to ecological disaster. But I suspect that in this instance, the first world (and its robots) would continue chewing up resources while the third world continued much as it always has. The number of robots you have, in the first world, would serve as a class indicator, certainly, much like servants and slaves did not that long ago. The lower classes will probably grow larger, and continue struggling to survive as they always have. A utopian society of happy educated skilled yuppies drifting through gardens tended by robots might be possible–but only if the garden is enclosed by a heavy wall to keep the rest of us out.
I’m not sure where robotics is going to take us, and I’m glad that scientists and thinkers are pondering this, thinking about the ways in which we need to expand the laws of robotics, and hopefully thinking about the implications of highly developed service robots. Especially as these are naturally going to integrate some form of artificial intelligence and a learning mechanism in order to perform these tasks better. It seems likely that robots will not face the same conflicts and logical fallacies that humans do, at least at first, and that may put us in an interesting place.
Are we ready for it?
[robots]
Posted 2 years, 6 months ago at 9:04 am. Add a comment