using data for good or evil?

today's haul from amazon

there was a time when amazon emails seemed to read my very mind. they suggested things to me based on the things i'd bought over the years and i felt like it was as close to browsing in a real bookstore as you could get online. sadly, they seem to have changed them and they're not like that anymore, now they're just sending me the same ads for crap electronics and pulp fiction that they send to everyone. i feel like we've drifted apart and they don't know me at all. and maybe in some way, that's a good thing. i'm less tempted when i get an amazon mail (in fact, i usually just delete without looking now) and maybe it means they're saving less of my data, so they actually don't know me as well.

many stores in denmark have gotten onboard the loyalty card bandwagon. the one i actually use is matas, which is a shop that sells makeup, perfume and body care products. i like the mails i get from them and i feel like they're using the data about what i purchase wisely, to target the mails to my desires. plus, they have cooperation with other shops, like clothing stores and even the shop where i got my glasses. you earn points when you shop and you can buy things, even nice things, with those points. thanks to my very expensive prescription, i've been able to get a nice hair dryer set, perfume, shampoo, hairspray, nail polish and lotion. they come in pretty packages and it feels like getting a present. in fact, i even gave sabin the hair dryer as a christmas present. it's a loyalty card program that i can get into.

but i'll admit that handing over that card feels a little like i'm voluntarily letting big brother look over my shoulder. if they're tracking my buying habits at the grocery store (you can also have a card there) or in ikea (where they appeal to your altruistic side by donating some miniscule amount to save the children every time you shop) or at h&m, what does that mean in the long run? and what are they doing with your data? do they share it with others? and if so, which others?

i just got a new cartridge for our soda stream in the local imerco (a homewares chain) and she asked if i had a card. i had one at one point, but didn't get it switched over to my current wallet, so i said to her that i did, but that i had just read an article about such cards and was feeling like i no longer wanted to use them. there was another woman in the store who, uncharacteristically for a dane, piped up and said she thought such cards were great because then the stores know what you would like to buy. i would argue that they don't. they only know what i did buy and have absolutely no idea about what i might have actually wanted to buy. they know what i settled for, because what i really wanted wasn't there.

i think with all of the nsa spying exposed by edward snowdon, i am more suspicious of such things. tho' i have no qualms, as i write here on my free blogger blog, and use my gmail in the chrome browser, at turning my every thought and interaction over to google. i am more suspicious of facebook, but still, i give them an awful lot of my data as well. i just can't see that they're using it wisely, as the ads they show me there have never had anything to do with what i like or would be interested in. google, on the other hand, really gets me, which is maybe why i don't find it evil that they have my data.

what do you think? do you participate in loyalty programs? are we already so entrenched in the matrix that there's no way out?

* thanks, bill, for getting me thinking about this. 

reading out in the corners

i am a frequent borrower at my local library. there's this brilliant service (bibliotek.dk) where you can order books from any library in the country and they send them to your local library. when they come, you get an SMS and then you pick them up and read them. i'm always ordering strange and esoteric things like postmodern theory from the mid-90s, books about early soviet textiles or artists that were popular in the 50s or else the entire collected works of whoever has just won the nobel prize for literature. as one of the librarians said today, "you're really out in the corners."

i laughed when she said it, because it really is true. but of course, i had to think about it afterwards as well. what does it really mean to be out in the corners? i hasten to say that it was said and meant in a kind way and was not at all an insult. we were laughing because very often when i go to check out my reserved books, the self-service machine won't allow me to do it - it always wants some other number or says that the book doesn't exist in the system or some such error. this means i very often have to go to the desk and have someone help me. in this way, i've gotten to know all of the library personnel very well. which is how the "you're really out in the corners" comment came about.

i took it as another way of saying off the beaten path. when i look for my books on the reserved shelves, i see a lot of self-help, how-to books, cookbooks, contemporary crime novels (i do order my share of those at times) and those infernal 50 shades books. those are all on the beaten path, down the middle, ordinary. today i picked up the tom phillips book (he's the artist who did the humument altered book i told you about a few days ago). at the same time i returned slavoj zizek's latest tome, less than nothing: hegel and the shadow of dialetical materialism. i'll admit i only read a couple of chapters of it, not the whole thing. i go for such a book occasionally to exercise my brain (this was, i will say, one of the more lucid zizek since sublime object of ideology) and to remind me of the thrills i found in grad school. but of late, i've also been reading douglas kennedy novels, which aren't exactly lacanian marxism.

which leads me to another aspect of what it might mean to read out in the corners - to read broadly, all over the spectrum, thoroughly in some sense, covering all the bases. i like that idea too. i read a lot and i love reading. i can't go to sleep at night without it. sometimes i want to read to relax. sometimes to think and be challenged. sometimes to help me figure out what my opinion is. sometimes to enlighten. sometimes to learn. sometimes just to be entertained. sometimes to get lost. reading can give you so many different experiences and feelings - the whole spectrum, really. and i guess that's what it really means to be out in the corners.

* * *

how charming are these diving pigs?

one time at blog camp*

yesterday when husband suggested blog camp, i was just kind of fording the stream of consciousness, talking to him about this interface culture of the blogosphere and all of the naked conversations that result from it. and wishing out loud that it was more than an imagined community, but sort of more of a sunday philosophy club. and so in a fit of whimsy, i posted my little wish list about what i imagined blog camp would be. and the comments poured in. it seems that in you guys would actually be interested in doing this! and since it is a liquid life we lead in these days of globalization (even in light of GEC**), i began to think, hey, why not? we could really do this!

we can easily accommodate four guests at our house (hence the rule of four) and possibly five if i got my ass in gear and cleared some junk out of a room upstairs. but let's see how it goes with four, if interest is great enough, i might be motivated to clear out that room for one more. here's what i'm thinking about how this will work...

because of deadlines, travels and events at work, the first weekend i could host a blog camp would be june 19-20-21. i'm thinking that this first round will no doubt attract those of you who live within a reasonable distance of denmark (e.g. right across the sound (and with your dog, perhaps?)) or within an hour or so by air (ahem, oxford and london spring to mind but i am certain there are others!!) and who are fairly spontaneous (tho' in my view, this is plenty of time to plan ahead).

for fabulous bloggy friends from farther afield, how about a long weekend in early september (the weather is usually pretty reliable in denmark in september)--september 4-7 to be exact (since the 7th is labor day in the US and therefore a holiday).

here's the deal:

1. you are responsible for getting yourself here (i'll happily answer any questions you might have about the best route).
2. you will have a place to stay once you get here.
3. if you'd be willing to pitch in to help buy some groceries, we will feed you well.
4. all of the fun, laughter and wifi is included.

the first group will be a bit of an experiment. we will do activities to include all of you who can't attend either because it's too far or because space is limited. we'll try out that stickam thing and/or others that work well (i've seen stickam working, so i know it's more or less ok) to be live and interact online. we'll tweet. we'll blog. we'll laugh and laugh some more. maybe we'll make some stuff. and perhaps we'll even do some vlogging, just for fun. we'll go on photo walks, so bring your camera. we'll spend at least one day in copenhagen taking the city in through our camera lenses. the rest of the time, we'll hang out here, eating, drinking and laughing:

if you are interested, please send me an email (email is in my profile) with "blog camp" in the subject line. i am open to suggestions for other dates (subject to veto by me due to work schedule with my real job). and if interest is great enough, i'll definitely add some more dates.

just one more thing...if husbands/boyfriends/significant others/random people you live with are difficult to convince that this is a good idea or there are guys out there who think it sounds like fun but rather girly, there's also a rather more masculine playhouse at our place, so either bring 'em along (one of the bedrooms has a double bed and we could arrange for one more) or just don't be shy:

i'm sure i'll be writing about this again along the way, so pls. ask any questions in the comments to help me figure out what people need to know (for obvious reasons, i'm not publishing my address here, but will definitely provide that information to who are serious about coming). once again. shoot me an email (it's in my profile) with "blog camp" in the subject line if you're interested in attending one of the two dates i've listed above--stating which date, of course. other than that, start packing your pjs and have a nice day!

* with thanks to iasa !
** global economic crisis (i hope i can stop typing this out soon)

i love lucy

i've been thinking of lucy ever since i saw her last week at the zoological museum in copenhagen. it was, of course, just a replica with the bits filled in that were missing from her fossil, but somehow, i still find myself standing before her feeling awestruck.

Lucy (AL288-1) - 2.3 million years old

i think i had some distant knowledge of lucy before i picked up donald johanson and maitland a. edey's book, lucy: the beginnings of humankind from my father-in-law's bookshelves a good eight years ago. it was one of those lazy afternoons at his house in sweden. he was an architect and had designed and built the house when my husband was just a little boy and something about the design seemed to have bent time so that it felt like it stretched out to be exactly the amount of time you needed when you were there in that house. i was sitting in a low, comfy chair and when i glanced at the bookshelf beside me the lucy book fairly leapt from the shelf into my hands.  i picked it up and began reading. i read non-stop for the next couple of hours, husband fortifying me with the occasional cup of tea. i was transfixed. because it's a fascinating story, well told by johanson and edey.

they were digging at hadar in ethiopia in late november, during the last days of the dig season in 1974. johansen had lots of paperwork to do, but on a hunch, decided to go out with a graduate student named tom gray to survey locality 162. it was during the heat of the day that they stumbled upon what appeared to be quite an intact single individual primitive hominid. at 40%, it's one of the most complete hominid skeletons ever found. johansen lucidly walks through the tangled web of paleoanthropology and the politics of the naming and dating of fossils. it's fascinating stuff and has since led me to read a whole lot of other books on the subject, several by the leakeys--louis, mary, richard--who are perhaps the most famous paleoanthropologists in the world and one on the piltdown man hoax and one on raymond dart, who found the taung baby in south africa. paleoanthropology has a way of doing that to you, it keeps you coming back for more with beautiful fossils (like mr. toumai below), heated controversies and fiery personalities.

toumai (sahelanthropus tchadensis) "ape" 

6-7 million years old

i think i mentioned recently that husband and i spend quite a lot of time talking about evolution. our discussion these days is centered largely on what the next steps might be and whether we are part of/witnessing/being left behind by it. is there some step into cyberspace on the horizon...when will the 'net take on a life of its own (or has it already?) or will the next step be a cyborg? not really along the lines of bladerunner or even the matrix (tho' the matrix is closer to what we think is happening), but more subtle than that--starting with chip implants for faulty neural transmissions and the like. that's why i made the stack of books i did above. because for me, it starts with lucy, who, although australopithecus and not homo, isn't a direct human ancestor, she's part of evolution's picture and i'm very interested in where we're headed next.  and we can't really explore that without knowing where we were.

when i was a kid, i wanted to be a paleontologist/archaeologist, but actually abandoned the idea because i thought all of the good fossils would be found by the time i grew up. little did i know. i should have stayed interested in science in that way, because i'd love to be part of a dig, looking for the next link in the evolutionary chain, scribbling away and cataloguing my discoveries in a wonderful notebook.

i guess that's ultimately what lucy represents to me...the ultimate discovery--finding something that is so old and reveals so much, yet opens up a whole new set of questions that no one even imagined. pushing the boundaries of human thinking and knowledge, both back in time and forward. evolution this way...

stacked books and balderdash

i hadn't stacked any books in awhile, but this morning, these books leapt off the shelves and just stacked themselves. strange, i'm not feeling as bleak as this stack would indicate, perhaps it's just residual withdrawal from the antics of sarah palin.

* * *

for several weeks, i've been collecting those blogger verification words that look like real words. it's so much more entertaining now that they changed their algorithm and the words look like they might mean something. i find myself constantly scrambling for a pen and paper when i'm surfing the blogosphere, so these words are scribbled everywhere in the house..on the edges of newspaper, in the notes on my iPhone (for those times when no pen/paper were available), i even started a document with a bunch of them in it, but mostly, they're scribbled here, along with phone numbers and movie seats and journal prompts and stamped owls and the name of a fabulous chanel perfume, on a scrap notecard at my desk.

but, inspired by amanda's post nearly a month ago, i thought i'd make up some definitions for some of the ones that seem most fun.

cringo: i was going to say that it's what you do when you see a WTF Wednesday posting like this one, but upon further reflection, i think it's a curly-haired white person in mexico.

rhorifer:  a filter which clears away boring conversations like "do any of you ever use the highest temperature wash on your washing machine?" at dinner parties. i'm looking into a portable version of one of these.

domit: a small home constructed in the garden to attract hedgehogs.

menwisms:  the all-too-seldom clever utterance or observation by the male of the species. as in husband's statement last week while watching news of california wildfires on CNN that it so typical of americans to participate in global warming in such an extreme way.

brapigic:  that itchy feeling you get when you've just taken off an ill-fitting bra.

mismar:  to accidentally get caught in the waves and get the bottom of your pant legs all wet.

kajushin:   spontaneous squatting.

quinort:  an orangey-colored moss found at the foot of evergreens in the forest.  can be brewed into a healthy (if somewhat bitter) tea.

this reminds me of playing balderdash, that game where you make up funny definitions for words, at family holidays.