Monthly Archives: March 2013

The Quantified Self Movement is not a Kleenex

by Dawn Nafus and Jamie Sherman The Quantified Self (QS) is a global movement of people who numerically track their bodies.  If you were to read popular press accounts like this, this and this, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a self-absorbed technical elite who used arsenals of gadgets to enact a kind of self-imposed panopticon, generating data for data’s sake. Articles like this could easily make us believe that this group unquestioningly accepts the authority of numerical data in all circumstances (a myth nicely debunked here). Kanyi Maqubela sees a lack of diversity in “the quantified self.”  On one hand, he is absolutely right to say that developing technologies to get upper middle class people who do yoga and shop at farmers markets to “control their behavior” is a spectacular misrecognition of the actual social problem at hand, and one that can be attributed directly to (read more...)

Inside MOOCs: A First-Hand Account, Part 2

On a personal note, I’ve noticed that a medical event is not as devastating to progress in a semester when the class is online as it might be in a regular classroom. I may be behind, but I’m not missing the lectures. This is a real boon for students who have chronic or recurring illnesses, and a true benefit of a MOOC (massive open online course). But I’m also behind in my MOOC diary which I started several weeks ago, and I hope the reader will forgive me for that. Now, onward. A friend pointed me to this quote: “And, finally, the organization of popular education will pass into the hands of Radio. The Supreme Soviet of Sciences will broadcast lessons and lectures to all schools of the country—higher institutions as well as lower. “The teacher will become merely a monitor while these lectures are in progress. The daily transmission (read more...)

Popular (Mis)Conceptions & the Perpetual Rise of the Machines

In the opening scene of the recent NOVA documentary, Rise of the Drones, the narrator ominously tells us that a revolution is underway. “Are we” he leads, “approaching a time when movies like The Terminator become our reality?” A clip from the Terminator III, with two humans cowering in fear whispering, fades in and out, “Oh God. It’s the machines. They’re starting to take over…” The narrator continues, “a time when machines fly, think, and even kill on their own?”   My dissertation research is focused on how technologies used in remote warfare are changing conceptions of warfare and experiences of agency within human-computer systems. These technologies include what the Air Force prefers to call RPAs, Remotely Piloted Aircraft, also known as UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and more commonly known as drones. While my fieldwork looks at individual experiences and institutional narratives within military communities, a larger backdrop of my research (read more...)

EPIC Conference CFP [Abstracts Due March 19]

Come venture beyond the academy to the place ‘where science lives’! Join us for the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) at the Royal Institution in London from September 15-18, 2013. Better yet, submit your work! The call for papers is below. Note the March 19 deadlines for paper abstract and Pecha Kucha submissions. EPIC is an international conference attended by anthropologists, designers, computer scientists, sociologists, business strategists, and others working in and through businesses and organizations. It aims to illuminate social phenomena through theory and practice of the contemporary digital era to transform industry and the world. Proceedings are published and can be found through AnthroSource or on Wiley Blackwell. The objects and subjects of science, technology and cultures of expertise, as well as their production and consumption, figure prominently in explorations engaged at EPIC. All the more expected this year, as the 3-day, richly interactive conference will be (read more...)

“Discovery” Systems and Algorithmic Culture

Understanding “discovery”—the processes through which people locate previously unknown information—is a critical issue for academic libraries and librarians as they endeavor to provide and make accessible materials for students, faculty members, and other library users.  Until relatively recently, people seeking information at an academic library were typically faced with a myriad of confusing catalogs, indexes, and databases, each with a different topical coverage, organizational structure and search interface.  For people increasingly accustomed to Google’s simple search interface and natural language functionality, the “cognitive load” of siloing information in this way can be extremely high.  Library discovery systems were developed to address this problem.  By creating a centralized index of a library’s resources, these tools allow a user to simultaneously query almost all of a library’s holdings via a single Google-style search box. Along with my colleagues Lynda Duke and Suzanne Wilson, I recently completed a research study examining how undergraduate (read more...)