Making invisible computers appear and disappear since 2014

newbie

Newbies of the world, speak up!

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date November 4, 2007

I’m not trying to convert anyone who doesn’t want to engage in social media, but I am trying to connect to people who have been thinking about what’s possible in technology nowadays. I think the key concept here is “joining the conversation” – we need to make people who are unfamiliar to technology and what it can do for them feel welcome to make their voice heard about whatever they want to talk about. I’ve been taking a sort of informal poll of people I know who may be into media but don’t have a blog or aren’t on twitter and I find that they all have niches – one is into Myspace while another has a personal web page, then one is on Second Life, another on Skype. Then there are the people who are kind of mystified by technology but realize its potential – like the guy who runs a business but doesn’t have an e-mail address or a website but all of a sudden needs to get a digital photo to a guy in another state, or my mother who is working on a website and starting to join the social networks but is frustrated because she hasn’t found people who share her interests. The barriers to helping these folks come into the fold is (as @philcampbell and @loudmouthman helped me to understand on operator11’s the Gravity show) firstly the resistance and confusion that any sort of change can bring, and secondly the sheer number of different ways that one can participate. To reiterate Phil’s point, you can’t just pick one and say that’s the one I want for now, like buying a car. These people who have just started maintaining a presence on the web have so many avenues available to them that they figure what they’ve done already is enough. What I have come to understand and would like to preach from my little soapbox is that different social media gets different content from you and reaches different audiences, so it maximizes your output.

I hear more and more enthusiasm from techies who want to be mentors and who want to bring people into their community. The key is to get the word out to newbies that their individual voices are important and there are people out there who want to engage them in the conversation.

I refer to the operator 11 Gravity show – the url is http://operator11.com/shows/4992/episodes/28676

geek

Taking back “Geek”

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date September 28, 2007

Pinhead, nerd, encyclopedia, and … geek? In fourth grade that’s an insult. Now it’s increasingly used as a compliment in various media.

By the way, did you know a technologically savvy person isn’t the first definition given on Merriam-Webster?

In fact, some people actually promote themselves as geeks. Where I live there are the Providence Geeks, an IT professional’s networking dream ( www.providencegeeks.org ). Speaking of whom, the headline on the Providence Phoenix a few weeks ago was “Geek Power” http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid44040.aspx

And you must have heard by now of the “Geek Auction” at Washington State University, in which the resident computer club members (apparently all men) have decided that auctioning themselves to a sorority is a good way to recruit women to their club and get dates.

As for whether I consider myself a geek, I actually aspire to geekiness, or as I would call it, geekdom (that sounds more dignified, IMO). Call me a geek-in-training. Just not a pinhead.

life

This and That I Believe

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date July 30, 2007

The NPR show This I Believe asks listeners for a paragraph summarizing their core beliefs. I haven’t integrated everything I believe into one cohesive unit – I’m not that together – but I can handle a potpourri-style list of major points.

Problems are challenges, not problems.
God exists when there’s a real problem.
Money is how I survive. Money is good.
I don’t need a boyfriend – I need a hero.
Why can’t I fly when I wake up?
People come and go – love them while you can

Just a few points, I’ll probably add to it later on. That’s the fun part about beliefs – they grow.

life

Move on, Move up, Move out

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date July 12, 2007

There is this glossy magazine cover of a life that some people call adulthood. Get a significant other/spouse. Get a better job. Get an apartment. These expectations for myself are not so much life goals, as they should be, as they have become status symbols. Have I fallen in love yet? Have I found my true calling? Have I decided where I want to establish myself and my eventual family? Not quite. Who decides what year is the appropriate year to answer these questions? I may never answer them, or I might answer them tomorrow. Either way, I want my responses to be for myself, not motivated by some false sense of responsibility to public approval. The reality is that everyone’s life has to follow its own path. In fact, the pressure to conform can suck the joy out of what would have been a unique and joyful life. A song by David Wilcox called “Leave It Like It Is” says it well:

Now most folks suffer in sorrow
Thinking they’re just no good
They don’t match the magazine model
As close as they think they should

They live just like the “paint by numbers”
The teacher would be impressed
A life-time of follow the lines
So it’s just like all of the rest

Life should not have a an end that’s completely up to me like those choose-your-own-adventure books. I want a surprise ending.

image

Morph

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date June 4, 2007

What’s your image? Your do, your presentation? Some people (like me) like to go with what’s natural to put it nicely, or the default to put it more bluntly (and precisely). Some people like stand out and even go for a bit of a shock value, going from the quirky end to the radical. I definitely have the urge to customize my appearance according to my preferences and as a means of self-expression. I go for the shapely but reserved look at work, but I’ve been known to do the eye-popping sexy look during a night on the town.

Part of the appeal of exercising my control over my appearance is the feeling that I’m exercising control over my life. To some degree, this feeling is based on reality. Others will respond to me appropriate to the quality of the clothes I’m wearing and the care I’ve taken to look nice. It also has to do with how my appearance makes me feel – assertive and a teeny bit naughty, or dependable and a quality person.

second life

Going on Life #2

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date May 30, 2007

I checked into Second Life, and I can already tell I’m hooked. I’m still trying to figure out basic things like how do I IM someone who’s not there and how do I link prims together. It’s really fun though. I went to a dance party (Superman was grooving there), participated in a philosophical discussion, and rode a flying horse. So far. The cool thing is when I’m done on Second Life, in Real Life I feel really energized and motivated. It’s so easy to move virtually – you can walk, run, fly or teleport – that it makes me want to go for a real run. The other thing is it’s very easy to meet people. You can start a conversation by chatting openly and then switch over into a private IM channel.
If anyone reads this who is on Second Life and interested in meeting me, my avatar is named Thisbe Streeter. I’m generally online after 6:30pm Eastern Standard Time. See you there!

life

Anything but the Best

All my life I have heard the line “you deserve nothing but the best.” Well-intentioned as the sentiment was behind the line, as a credo this screwed me over. A friend of mine insists that the word ‘deserve’ implies an action on my part, like “he got what he deserved” implies he did something and the result was fitting. In my experience, the word ‘deserve’ separates action from result. This perception of the word could be because of how it has been used – “nothing but the best” is a very vague statement that lends itself to obscuring the gradations of good – what if I just get ‘better’ for now, or what if ‘alright’ is all I can handle?

If I earn something, it’s mine by right of having it as a goal and achieving it. Rather than “nothing but the best,” what I want to earn is a specific achievement.

life

Brick in the wall

Post author By sarajarjoura
Post date May 21, 2007

I earn a paycheck la dee da dee dah – but is that good enough? I’m in school, studying theory – fascinating reading material, eighty dollar textbooks. What this blog is about is aspirin – oh wait, aspiring to be more than you already are, but also being realistic. I have limits and I have dreams – but what do I deserve from people on paper?

That’s the theme of the overall blog, but today I have something in particular to talk about. That would be letting the real me guide my actions. Is there some alternate me that could be making decisions? Kind of – in that random urges tempt me to act impulsively. Good results won’t be consistent, and bad results will have even worse consequences.

I was a mentor for a student who had worked hard to get into a career building program, but she let it all go without fighting to stay in it. She had endured mental illness, and part of her issue was the tendency to act compulsively on whims. I don’t know what went on in her mind – not having my crystal ball handy – but my guess is she dropped out of the program because she acted on a whim or thought her original enrollment was on a whim.

I deal with compulsion myself, and I’m working to know the difference between my own true inner voice and the passionate yet passing urge. Even when it’s a matter of mental illness, the pills can’t distinguish what’s right for me. Only my mind can – to paraphrase Lex Luthor on Smallville, ” A person isn’t who they were the last time you spoke to them, they’re who they’ve been throughout the whole relationship.” My latest act or speech doesn’t define me; it’s the cumulative effect of patterns of behavior that come to be identified with who I am. Be that a brick in the wall of the local McDonald’s, or the keystone of an arch in a cathedral.