Mob Justice

Original photo owned by Summit Entertainment LLC

The story of the village mob taking justice in their own hands is as old as villages themselves. My brother and I had always felt that living in any small town where everyone knew each other would be the worst thing imaginable. Apparently, one of the products of mass communication has produced a virtually world wide village effect.

José Luis Rodriguez's winner of the coveted British Natural History Museum's annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year award had sparked an Internet outcry late last year. There seemed to be two interesting factions between the "proper" photography community furious at the uncultured harassment of obvious trolls, and the Internet community who are furious at the elitist photography community for being so gullible about a fake photo. So it turns out that although the photo wasn't photoshopped, further investigation had shown the photo did turn out to violate the rules of the contest. So Rodriguez was stripped of the title and the £10,000 prize.

For me this is a great example of an almost democratic process of internet communications. I wonder if this would set a precedent in which the "noisy crowd" can overturn decisions in established institutions or even break down their authority altogether. Not that think that "tea-baggers" should be the new wave of democracy, but internet communication to form and create mobs would be interesting to keep an eye on.

Asian women

I found this video through a blog on how this artist seems very off from what cartoon drawing is about. To his defense, "How to draw..." instructionals for beginners are often quite bad and misleading.

I'm more concerned with the problem of his essentalist idea of what constitutes as an "Asian women". He seems to use the word "beautiful" as a descriptor for the physical traits. There is an uncomfortable awkwardness to his presentation of how he draws the figure and even the finished product is rather odd. If he had a similar presentation on how to draw "Black Women" it wouldn't be difficult to call him out as a racists, but for some reason it's socially acceptable for "Asian women"

I guess I'm extra sensitive on the issue of beauty and particular on Asian beauty is from a presentation I saw last night by Dr. Daniel Hamermesh. His argument was that from just looking at an input/output model, it seems that better looking people tend to get paid more, and are more valuable to their employers. What I found somewhat lacking was there was a very positivist and ethnocentric idea of what beauty was and there were little measures taken to take that into account. Obviously beauty is not a static thing nor is it commonly agreed upon in different groups. During the Victorian age, plump pale women were the height of beauty being indicators of being wealthy enough to stay indoors and eat, while tan skinny women were probably "gypsies" or "farm workers". So class is a huge predetermination for beauty and class defines what is beautiful.

What about the beautiful Asian women from poor third world countries that Western men go gaga for? They aren't rich why are they seen as beautiful. Again, as the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and the beholder are wealthy westerners justifying their taste and unaware of the fact their taste becomes an indicator of how wealthy they are. They are wealthy enough to spend time to travel to "exotic" lands and pursue "exotic" women. In the world we live in now, there is no greater indicator of wealth than showing how "globalized" one's taste is.

In the end we are not talking about beauty of perfect tube shaped women which flatter kimono, or long slender necks, or tiny delicate feet. They are not marks of beauty admired by those with power, only the tastes of those in power matter, and they are privileged in society.

Symbolic Analyst

Original photo from Wired Magazine

I don't know when this happened, but it seems that Penny Arcade is producing a webTV show. So far only the two part "pilot" episode has been made. It mostly sets up the premise of the show and goes over the things like how they understand their success, PAX and the birth of Jerry Holkins' daughter. If it wasn't for the fact that these guys are so humble and professional about their work, I'd be quite jealous of their success. But honestly, they're just fantastic people who happen to be living the nerd dream. I've thoroughly enjoyed the PennyArcade PodCast and really look forward to seeing more the show.

What I think was a really great message to me was that when they said on the show that they fully admit how lucky they are. There are a lot of guys that move in together, not attend college and try to start a business together and fail miserably. There are many who want to make it out there as a webcomic artist, and don't nearly have the fame as these two guys. What they have been able to do can not be replicated.

I've been really filling out my literature of great sociological writings and my gallery of references have increased immeasurably. One of which would be Robert Reich's "The Work of Nations" and his understanding of new globalized labor. In his work he describes one of the key professions of our age as the "Symbolic Analyst". Succinctly, Reich understands the profession to include a new exchange of information on a global scale.

...symbolic analytic services can be traded worldwide and thus must compete with foreign providers even in the American market. But they do not enter world commerce as standardized things. Traded instead are the manipulations of symbols - data, words, oral and visual representations. (1993:177)

I wouldn't assume the intention of the folks at Penny Arcade, but in a very organic way, these guys are doing just that. They have mananged to find a work around the tradition system of exchange of education for work, and work for resources, and have made a business out of grasping the nerd world around them and delivering it to a stable audience. They have created a nerd language and capture the experience in a way that is entertaining and meaningful. What is truly remarkable is that they have overcome many of the former blocks to such success.

I think the major component which has allowed this to happen would be the recent cheapness of wide reaching media. We are now in a time when one could reach a very wide audience over the Internet with a personal website with very little in terms of start up financing. I think this is the key component to understanding globalized work. Not to dispute Reich's work, but I think the profession of "symbolic analyst" has always existed; what is different now is that it is much easier for people of modest income to become one where before, one had to be very well placed and very wealthy.

Before, an aspiring comic artist to get out of distributing their comic outside of photocopies sold at the record store would have to appease the publishers at a comic book company or a newspaper. Many times this would require a vetting process and over time only artist who went to expensive art schools or were able to finance themselves would be able to get into the business. Even then, there were influenced by the whim of the publishers, a biased concept of acceptable material, and coerced product placement. Even famous and talented comic writers like Alan Moore, had his fair share of problems with publishers.

With Internet comics, there is less of these constraints and, an audience is generated commonly on the quality of their work. That being said, there are a lot of comics out there, and I would say a great majority of which are very poorly done. Below is a small list of comics that I have thoroughly enjoyed and is produced very well.

Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell: A British comic artist who has a very unique fantasy setting and some excellent character development. The art is very well done with a mix of beautifully detailed work and simple caricatures which don't end up too much like "Teen Titans" in the style.

XKCD by Randall Munroe: An American comic artist who mostly works in stick figures but manages to do them with a certain style and gets by with very witty jokes based on science and nerd relationships. Occasionally he has some objectionable opinions on women, but often they capture perfectly the issues of human interaction in our world today.

Shortpacked by David Willis: Shortpacked is a spin off comic which is part of an entire "Walkyverse" I have not had the time or ability to read the other comics David made, but I am told they were quite impressive. I think what I like most about this comic is the honest representation of working retail.

Hark, a vagrant by Kate Beaton: I'm afraid that I have have fallen in love with a women I have never met. Kate Beaton a Canadian comic artist writes a fantastically funny comic on history and literature. Her references to Canadian history are often great and force me to do a bit of research on the great white north. I think her subtle touches on facial expressions works well with the perfectly set up dialog. Byron's face at the end of this comic makes me laugh everything I look at it.

There are others of course, especially ones that I haven't had the time or inclination to read for whatever reason, but as a whole there is something unique about this business of web based comics.

Christmas wishlist

So it's the time of year when we have things that we want, but the realities of finance and responsible spending preclude our ability to get them. This post is my personal "fantasy wishlist" of things I'd like but realistically would feel guilty spending the money to acquire.

A New Gaming Laptop
The Toshiba Qosmio is really tempting. I've been really tempted to get a few PC games lately and I have never really had a decent gaming computer. DragonAge: Origins has been getting alot of good reviews and I've been very tempted by previews of Starcraft II and Mass Effect II. I've often really liked Toshiba computers and this one in particular have a few features that light up the geek in me. Things like solid state hard drives, multitouch track pads, and light up keyboards are really cool. Unfortunately I already have a Netbook and a dedicated work laptop that I use very much. A third computer would be a bit overboard in luxuries.

A Smartphone
Now that I'm a professional academic always on the go, I've found that I have a need to stay connected 24 hours and have the ability to access information while I'm traveling between WiFi zones. OK, that's mostly a lie. I mostly want a toy that I can play around with Android 2.0 software because I love Google so much and use everything they have (send me a Google Wave invite please.) I've heard alot of good things about the new Droid phone and my Verizon plan is up for a phone upgrade in January. Although this would mean an additional 30 dollars a month in service charges and that I'll be "that guy" that has all these crazy gadgets on his phone. Right now I have the Juke I love it because it's small, red and flips out like a switchblade. How much more phone do I really need.

New Wheels
Right now I my mode of transportation is through my feet. (Or riding The Bus) The idea of having something I can ride to the beach is very tempting. Zipping along on my little two wheeled thing might be fun and appropriate for my new island life. Also there is the raging desire to get an El Camino. For some reason I've been really interested in getting a muscle car, and one with a truck bed would be infinitely useful. (Also it's a freaking El Camino, that's just coolness on four wheels.) But to be honest the cost of gas, parking and other environmental factors are not optimal. I should just get a beach cruiser bike and get awesome abs from all the working out I could be doing.

Japanaphile

The above photo is cropped from the controversial photo of Hanna Montana doing that slanty eyes thing people used to do to me when I was in elementary school.

For those not in the know, the word "weeaboo" was the replacement word for "wapanese" after the world "wapanese" was used so often to insult other users on various online message boards, a filter was set up to block it. The word "weeaboo" itself is a reference to a fairly funny web comic "Perry Bible Fellowship".

I'm not entirely sure, but there seems to be a fairly large taboo with folks who are not Japanese (by ethnicity or nationality) who are highly interested in Japanese people and things. This "anti-weeaboo" sentiment is so strong it creeps in to mainstream media pretty often. The following video is from the new DLC of GTAIV, and although it is a satire of the Japanese animation industry, I feel that it strongly looks down upon the audience of the people interested in such media.



This video seems to be able to be insulting on two fronts.

First, it makes an extremely unfair generalization of Japanese animation as only poorly produced, over sexualized marketing tools. Almost in turn insulting the Japanese as a people as strange others who live weird lives and have weird interests. Reinforcing the long standing tradition of creating the Japanese as the exotic other.

Secondly, it insults the various people who are have an interests in Japanese animation. That surely we can't control what those strange Japanese people make, but why would red blooded Americans want to watch such things unless they were weird too.

This cuts across all facets of life from academic research (Why is that white woman studying geisha?) , political interests (What does that white guy think he's doing in the Japanese Embassy?), dating preferences (Rice Queens), travel (Another trip to Tokyo?) , and consumption ($500 dollars for a sword?) . It seems that there is constantly a strong rejection of people who are interested in Japanese related subjects. (or even just Asia as a whole.) So its a strange line to walk along, would people be more or less forgiving if Miley Cyrus was doing that slanty eyed thing because she wanted to be more Asian. Is it equally racist to love another people's lifestyle?

RFID chips

The use of RFID chips are hardly a new or incredible issue, but it is interesting to see this potentially dangerous technology being used to such a high degree without really knowing how it really works. Several tests at DefCon have shown that it is possible to make a long range reader that extends as far as 2 to 3 feet, and Mythbusters were barred from ever haveing a show on how to hack an RFID chip by several major corporations in cooperations with government agencies. At the same time, more and more companies are using RFID chips, even dermal implantation for clubs.

The video below from the blog Gizmodo shows a very interesting way of studying the range of an RFID chip.

Immaterials: the ghost in the field from timo on Vimeo.

I used to use a Metro Smart card to get around Washington DC and it felt really cool to wave the card to get through the toll gates. There is something very cool about RFID technology that appeals to our generation. Perhaps it's part of the current technological trend of wireless fetishism. We seem to love the idea of having something connect to something else without the need of cables. Perhaps there is a psychological relationship of cables as tethering our technology, when now we attribute "freedom" with having no strings attached to anything. The idea of being bound to anything by physical cords feels trapping, and wireless connections feel free. This relationship of freedom with physical bindings is obviously problematic. This is perhaps from a rejection of an obsolete idea of bondage. The traditional idea of bondage is to be subservient to a particular location. I believe in our desire to escape from any form of locational bondage, we have in turn created a new form of bondage. When I first got my mobile phone, I didn't realize that I was beginning a relationship of bondage. We tend to equate mobile phones with freedom, but for me it meant that no matter where I was, I was on call and reachable. Having a wireless connection didn't free me from physical bondage, it made the chain longer. At least when we were operating in the traditional idea, one could know when they had escaped bondage. Now when our responsibilities can contact us from very far away, we never really are free from their control and really only are "free" at their courtesy for our privacy and personal time.

This is not only a theoretical idea of post-post-modern terms of bondage, but has relevant questions for our age. Say if I a government contractor is assigned a government run blackberry. Do I bill my office for the time I have the devise on? Must I set up a schedule of when I'm on call? Am I beholden to answer my blackberry at any time? Are there different charges if it's an emergency? Can I refuse to carry a blackberry without worry of being replaced?

Back to RFID chips, how much personal choice will there be on implantation? Will there be laws prohibiting covert readers? Would wearing an RFID shield be a violation of federal laws like covering license plates or refusal to show ID? I admit that I think RFID chips have great potential and I enjoy it as a technology, but I wonder if we are moving too fast in its use before we really understand the where this is all going.

Otaku Politics

source photo from MSN

Danny Choo a man I'm extremely jealous of posted a short article concerning THE GREATEST PM THAT EVER EXISTED! (I know I know, he's sexist, a nationalist, friends with "W", and won't recognize his son Yoshinaga Miyamoto, but somehow all is forgiven)

In this article on Koizumi's involvement with the production of the new Ultraman movie, Danny had this to say about the issue of adult interests in anime.

Its things like this which many folks who are not into Japanese culture don't understand and I get asked a lot in interviews by reporters - things like:-

Why do grown Japanese men still watch anime - I used to watch cartoons as a kid but only until I was 12.

Well for a start, folks like this interpret the world on what they consider to be standards that they set themselves. Just because they "don't", they expect others "to not" and anybody who "does" is strange by their definition. What surprises me is that some reporters who should have open minds (to enable them to convey an unbiased message) have the most narrowest minds one can possibly imagine.

Being the type of person that I am, I am often questioned on my abnormal behavior and tastes. I am often quietly offended at other people's concept of what is standard. I once saw a presentation by one of my favorite comicbook writers Marjane Satrapi who commented up until a few years ago she thought that comics were only for children and addled minded adults. It wasn't until she discovered the French "New Wave" comic style in which she realized that this was a uniquely powerful form of literature. For me that is how I normalize my love of comics and cartoons. If being a nerd was a counter culture movement, my call to arms would be "medium not genre". In my experience many who are not fans seems to think that all comics and cartoons have the same themes and any selection of such are representative of the whole. As if you could judge all animation on loonytoons, or all comics on Batman. Not to say that either are bad, but they do not account for all there is to be had in the world. I have experienced too many great works using this medium to make any generalizations on it's credibility. There are plenty of bad stuff out there in all things. Much like there are bad country songs and good country songs, bad vampire novels and good vampire novels, bad landscape oil paintings and good landscape oil paintings. We tend to be very quick to judge others on their interests based on our limited experience of that interests. Perhaps there is nothing unique to nerds about this, but it is interesting to note the social stigma commonly associated with it.