Technology in Society

I am not one who cares for Valentine's Day, or any of the other consumerism driven celebration. However, I got a nice surprise a few days ago, that is worth writing on: Valentine for Geeks.Alexandra Samuel, Aaron Pettigrew and Rob Cottingham of Social Signal sent me a small present. It was a typical Valentine present with sweets in it, and a card.What is interesting, is the custom nature of the larger sweets, and what was written on them.

Many systems in human societies are started for good reasons, for sound principles and for the benefit of society. As time passes by, that same system is often abused to become completely opposed to the principles it was designed to uphold.One such case is the U.S. Patent system. Initially designed to protect the small inventor from large corporations, it has grown into something that disregards the individual inventor, and favors the corporations. For example, individual inventors working for companies are made to sign agreements ceding all rights to the corporation, in exchange for a "bonus" of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. The system is prohibitive for the individual because it takes a lot of money, time and effort to get the filing right, and takes a lot more time, money and effort to defend the patent in court because legal fees are expensive, and only a corporation has the resources for a protracted fight.

One of the known shortcomings of the popular site Slashdot.org is the frequent duplicate stories.A recent story I posted on research on how visitors judge a web site in 50 milliseconds later made it to Slashdot.What is funny, and sad, is that the story was posted on the 16th, then on the 17th, and on the 20th.

This is both good and bad news to web site developers and theme designers.Many of us have read the phrase: "First impressions are the most lasting" on fortune cookies in Chinese restaurants, or heard it elsewhere. While it seems unfair to judge a book by its cover in a second or two, research shows that humans mentally rate web site by their looks in less than half a second, and often less than that.

Arturo from Mexico writes to me:

I am visiting Egypt in January and plan to visit Alexandria and specially the Library and I want to know the procedure to donate two books of Mexican Industrial and Graphic Design edited by the Mexican Industrial and Graphic Design Association which I preside. 

This is of course a very nice gesture.It is also the fourth mixup I got confusing my site with the Library of Alexandria. Others are the university student, the secretary, and the offshore drilling company.

I get a lot of strange feedback from visitors to this site, most of it fall in the mistaken identity category.However, it strikes me how some people are just plain lazy. They want their homework done for them, and complain when they don't get their "entitlment". An example is someone with the email address: kkpepsipuppy, who did not like what I wrote on food Recipes From Ancient Egypt.

The title should really read: "Distant relatives finding you via the internet" ...Running a web site is an experience that is full of surprises.One pleasant surprise is when someone reads your web site and discovers that they are a relative of you, and gets in touch with you for details.About a year ago, I had someone contact me after reading the paternal side of my ancestry. He is living in the village my father is from. After some emails, we discovered that my paternal grandfather and  his paternal grandfather are brothers.

I got this in my inbox yesterday:

Dear Sir, We know you from Internet. We are one of the strongest oil paintings supplier in China. Following is the wholesale price for the paintings from our website url deleted. 20 x 24 inches on canvas ... US$4.95 for each 24 x 36 inches on canvas ... US$7.95 for each 36 x 48 inches on canvas ... US$14.95 for each All the paintings are reproduced and handmade on canvas by our artists. And also the custom painting is acceptable. If you have interest,please contact me. I will reply you as soon as possible! We hope hear from you soon! Yours sincerely, Shirley

Here are some examples of online collaboration experiments that are interesting. Some are fun to watch, and all are interesting to study, not from a technology point of view, but rather from how few people use/abuse the privilege behind the anonymity the internet provides. First, visit the The Scratchpad, which is a Flash application. People draw on the same whiteboard simultaneously. The whiteboard clears itself every 2 minutes, and the whole thing starts over.