thoughtcrumbs

Podcast killjoy

Not recommended in this order:
Savage Love --> The Economist Special Report on Al-Qaida

Background television and young children

This article from the journal Child Development is terrifying, but a great study design. Researchers brought in 150 toddlers into the lab (separately) and had them play with toys for an hour. For half the time, Jeopardy! was playing on a TV in the background. Researchers monitored how often the kids glanced at the television, and how long they had focused play with the toys. The background noise, even when coming from a show the kids had no interest in, changed their play patterns, reducing their focus and length of engagement with the toys.

So, we already know that lots of kids grow up in TV-heavy households, eat crappy processed food, and get medicated when the corn syrup wears off in class. But what about the responsible parents, or the overzealous ones who play Mozart in-utero and think a little background Jeopardy! will help their little ones remember state capitals years later?

Pennsylvania smoking ban

Yay! This time the state passed a smoking ban, which will hopefully be more resilient to legal challenges than the previous county one (which went into effect for about 15 minutes, and led to mocking by touring bands). After the governor signs it (and he's said he will), it will go into effect in 90 days.

Suspected job perk

I think the intersections downtown detect the presence of our security badges and turn green for us.

Work and play

Assorted thoughts:

• Palo Alto smells like jasmine, and there are copious plants on every block.
  
  
• Except where it smells like rosemary. Ibid.
  
  
• Melons taste amazing here. As do apricots and some peaches. And for those who can't wait for the farmers' market on Sunday, you can taste-test everything at Whole Foods. And by "those" I mean me.
  
  
• Work is so much better when the thing you're working on it the thing you used to procrastinate with.
  
  
• I live a block away from a designated "bike boulevard" with barriers to auto traffic and almost no stop signs. And approximately 0.1% grade.
  
  
• Being surrounded by smart, funny, social engineers is a rare privilege.
  
  
• Assassination of a high school president is a great movie. Bruce Willis makes a delightfully insane school principal. Though it has the outstanding Brick and Rushmore as peers it its genre of cheeky underdog high school nerdlingness, it holds its own. And has a better soundtrack.
  

Alberta Street changes (and my ambivalence about being the cause)

On my last trip to Portland, I was shocked to see how Alberta Street, once a relatively diverse neighborhood (for Portland, which is about 75% white) with a handful of good taquerias, divey (but tasty) cafes, and a co-op grocery, was suddenly full of boutique clothing shops. There's even a scrapbooking store.

In retrospect, I notice in my photos from a 2004 funky art walk that I labeled one existing shop a "clothing/lifestyle store," and even then the racial shift in the neighborhood was obvious. Everyone was talking about buying houses in Alberta because it was one of the few reasonably priced markets in the city proper, and house values were expected to go up with the addition of a light rail line a couple miles away in NoPo. A couple of my friends who have rented in the neighborhood for about five years said it's now getting hard to find reasonable rents. Real estate prices are edging out the older black and hispanic residents. Alberta now looks like Hawthorne, with lots of young, white people (exactly like me) drinking lattes and walking dogs. It was both comforting to see a place where I felt like I belonged, and frustrating, knowing that I'm part of a problem. I feel the same way shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods in East Liberty in Pittsburgh (which, you could easily argue is worse, because it's being led by huge chains).

Despite my ambivalence about supporting neighborhood development (that subsequently bring in wealthier outsiders and marginalize the original residents), something about the tone of this NYTimes article about gentrification in northeast Portland really bugs me. I was left wondering what was omitted. Who are the nefarious developers leaving fliers encouraging older residents to sell? Was the white nurse really that insensitive? Was the black business owner really being screwed in favor of white business owners? Quite possibly. But it's hard to know for sure, and I'm worried about being the bad guy. (Even one with good intentions.)

Social street view

Yesterday I introduced my mom and her childhood friend (both now in their fifties) to Google Street View. They proceeded to spend more than an hour tracking up and down their old street in Portland, talking about each neighbor in turn ("Do remember the Jones boys? They used to knock on our door and ask for cookies") and gawking at new construction. They would have peered in the windows, if the camera had had high enough resolution. As it was, they kept trying to zoom through hedges. They forced me to "drive" the arrows for about five minutes, but quickly weaned themselves and were only thwarted by the occasional slow network glitch.

I've now seen this phenomenon of Street View being used socially several times, mostly with friends' parents. Its ostensible purpose is to help people find landmarks, but people seem to love to use it in groups to reminisce or show off neighborhoods that are meaningful to them. I've used it to get a feel for a neighborhood I'm considering moving to and others are collecting bloopers (seeming burglaries, people falling off bikes, etc.). A massive collective action art project/easter egg may be appearing in a beloved Pittsburgh alley soon. I really like seeing how people appropriate technology for unexpected social uses, which is probably why I research it for a living.

Singers with gravelly voices

I'm listening to Tom Waits. Mom just walked by and asked if it was Cookie Monster.

Zen spam

In my inbox today: "Broccoli . . . these medicines are available by puddle. The be yogurt similarity."

"The be yogurt" would be a good band name.

Better run it soon

The marathon is coming back to Pittsburgh, and according to the local press, there are incentives to running it next May: (1) A $25,000 prize, and (2) it's getting longer:

"The marathon distance of 26.2 miles has grown exponentially in the last several years." (source: WPXI)

Extending politeness theory, lolcats style

In the late seventies, two researchers described a series of linguistic strategies that people use when trying to be polite. People add mitigating words (e.g., "kind of" or "maybe"), phrase requests as questions, and joke, all to save the face of the person they're talking to.

The power of the interwebs has once again brought us new extensions to theory. In this case, I've caught myself using the elegant simplicity of the lolcats construction. Instead of saying "Hurry up and give me back that CD you borrowed months ago," I say, "I can has CD back?" Or, for a friend who was running late, "I be heerz. Where u is?"

On a related note, Anil Dash discusses kitty pidgin consistency.

Dog sitting

I'm spending a couple of weeks in Montara, California, at my aunt and uncle's beach house. My mom flew down as well, and together we're watching Daisy, a lovable Saint Bernard with occasionally overwhelming fears that cause her to run and drag whatever unlucky human is still holding her leash. So far she's been delightful, and I learned that subtle leash-leading is a lot like partner dancing: you relax the lead (leash) when she's doing what you want, and give a little tension when you want to change direction. Later this week I intend to teach Daisy to Lindy Hop.

Being a sophisticated Bay Area dog, she of course has her own blog: Daisy Day-By-Day. She also eats the same things I do: brown rice, spinach, flax seeds, and eggs.

Yesterday I found a place to live in Palo Alto, where I'll be spending twelve weeks at Facebook doing what is basically my dissertation research on their data. Last month I flew over for an interview and was really impressed with the smart and cool people I met; the sunny, urban office space; and the excellent setup for social psychology research. Note to self: jokes about monitoring your friends' facebook logs aren't funny. For those of you who know I'm actually an ethical researcher and won't be looking at your data, and those of you who are going who will be in the Bay Area this summer, I'll be living a few blocks a Caltrain station and would love to have you over for dinner.

Tom and Sally's house—where I'm staying this week—is pretty much an ideal setup. Gourmet condiments in the fridge (tamarind paste, flax seed, good peanut butter), natural bath products in the shower, good wifi all over the house, and gorgeous views of the hills. The cell reception's not great, but I get bars in surprising places (like the bathroom). Last night mom and I watched the Oregon primary returns and drank a $3 bottle of cab. Today I'll be working on a large pile of CSCW reviews.

Omniscient iPhone

So, either my iPhone is mining my email or it has some freaky omnisciece. I'm heading to the west coast to visit my mom for a week, and the iPhone's party shuffle just chose "mother and child reunion."

At least it's a pretty song to leave Pittsburgh by. Despite being excited about my summer internship at facebook, I'm pretty sad to leave so many of my favorite people behind.

Party full of yum

Last week some friends came over for a tasting party, in which we had three or more versions of peanut butter, pinot noir, chocolate, belgian beer, sprouts, olive oil, honey, whisky, etc. Take home lessons: MSG makes everything an order of magnitude better. Even pesto. Not that I'd ever cook with the stuff, but man, that umami is yummy. Raw honey is sweeter than processed honey. Also, I broke my 13-year vegetarian-ness by tasting a piece of bacon-infused chocolate. It tasted like bacon. Now I'm back on the wagon, and enjoying a fridge full of blue cheese, chocolate, and mole. Anna and I both posted pictures on Flickr (her photos, my photos).

Such a cute ratio

A friend and I are playing a married couple in a video sketch for a design class. We hold hands and gaze into each other's eyes. Today someone told us that we made a good couple because . . . <and he struggled for words> . . . we're so "nicely proportioned."