Archive: The Gnovis Blog
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Beyond the Kitchen-Goddess Domestic Paragon: Food Box Narratives
Food is a wonderful distraction and a locus of cathected emotion for so many of us. As Mahvish Khan’s recent article on the shifting kitchen-goddess paragon indicates, cooking plays a similar role, though perhaps less broadly for most of us than for the talented few (or many, depending) who cook on a regular basis and enjoy it.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Confronting Cultural Conventions through the Elections Process
On the Superest of Tuesdays, millions of voters across the U.S. trudged through inclement weather and dealt with logistical voting fiascoes in their states to support their candidate of choice in record-breaking numbers.
Meanwhile, Mardi Gras goers in southern Louisianna gorged themselves
on all things celebratory– as the tradition goes, before the next forty
days of Lenten abstinence.Right.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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The Power of Facebook to Mobilize a Mob
Howard Rheingold has been writing about the impact of computer-mediated
communication on interaction for the last three decades. I am currently
reading his 1993 book, "The Virtual Community ,"
on the rise of web-based communities and namely the influence of the
WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) on the way people interact online.However, one of Rheingold’s more recent books, "Smart Mobs ,"
holds special relevance in light of recent global events.Category: The Gnovis Blog
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A Flicker of Hope for the Commons: Library of Congress Makes Images Available on Flickr
The Library of Congress recently joined the photo sharing website Flickr . So far, "The Commons" pilot program has added 3,100 photos available free of charge and have tagged them as without any "known copyright restrictions." The goal, according to the program’s Flickr page, is to provide a "… a model that other cultural institutions
would pick up, to share and redistribute the myriad collections held byCategory: The Gnovis Blog
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Fairey says OBEY Barack Obama!
It is no secret that Shepard Fairey (master of the OBEY giant) has given in to commercial pressure. I hesitate to say that he’s sold out, mostly because I don’t really know what "selling out" means anymore.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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The XM-Sirius Merger: Harmony, or Merger to Monopoly?
The proposed consolidation of XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Radio, is one media mashup that’s certainly gotten a lot of play.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Does the power of the mob count for anything?
Over the course of the last six months or so, I have become an avid consumer of technology blogs, especially those dealing with social networking sites, and most especially with Facebook. While much of the blog postings are rather boring in nature and deal with the perpetual argument over the pros and cons of Facebook versus MySpace or how Facebook doomed itself with the Beacon debacle in November, every now and then I find a tidbit that shakes my very existence.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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An Invisible Network in the Developing World: The Argument Against the OLPC XO Laptop
There are certainly more controversial charities out there, but the level of debate surrounding the merits of the One Laptop Per Child initiative is amazing . People debate the design and technology, the motives behind the project, what real needs can technology serve, etc.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Facebook Relationships and Information Architecture
It is an age-old story. Boy/girl/* meets boy/girl/*, they go on a few dates, and all seems well. Then one of the two (or three?) brings up a daunting topic: the Facebook Relationship status. This was the case for a man I met during a recent visit to NYC. He had just begun a serious relationship, and everything seemed great from the outside, but he confessed some worry. It seems that the Facebook-based DTR had been less than successful. Thier Facebook statuses defiantly remained "Single" as trouble brewed in paradise.
Why is the Facebook status so important? The DTRs of the past (those between the individuals actually involved) have been replaced with relationship statuses on social networking sites, a virtual equivalent of wearing your beau’s team jacket. But where the relationships of our youths could be discarded as easily as the physical emblems that ambiguously represented them, social networking sites eliminate any notion of ambiguity. Even Facebook’s status of "it’s complicated" seems to cover an ever narrowing range of experience.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Caucuses, New Years: Hoping for the best but not expecting very much
Given my demonstrated interest in Media and Politics, which is my course of study and the basis for most of my gnovis articles, one might expect that I would have already written about the huge deal that is this year’s Iowa caucuses.
Category: The Gnovis Blog