Tablesaw!

I can't yet say all I want to say, but I learned this morning that tam_nonlinear is dead.

I knew her from LJ from over a decade ago, but like many LJ/DW contacts, I wasn't in touch as much for a while. I would occasionally see the updates on DW about her garden, her cats, and her clinic-escort volunteering. She was one of the people I was hoping to get in contact with again.

Her family has asked for donations to be made to the Washington Area Clinic-Defense Task Force.

The links keep on coming. For those confused by my recent failk, here's an executive survey of "PervySurveyFail" (so dubbed by someone ithiliana can't remember).

Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam have landed a lucrative book contract (publishing grapevine says US$250,000); as part of that project, they designed a survey to find out more about slash and fandom. The survey, their handling of it, their interaction with fans and critics has been both stupid and offensive in multiple ways.

There are, essentially, two lines of outrage in this whole thing. There's the political outrage at the horribly sexist, heteronormative, transphobic attitudes of Ogas and Gaddam in their survey and their interactions. And there's the outrage about the horribly bad science—the lack of clear methodology, patently biased questions, an ignorance of previous research in the area, etc.

The political outrage has played out in form much like other BlankFails. Which is not to say, again, that it is unimportant or uninteresting. rm has pointed out some very good threads about the harmful assumptions Ogas and Gaddam have been making about transsexuals and people who otherwise fall outside of the male/female sex/gender binary. Earlier today, Ogas and Gaddam (apparently in response to objections to their construction of "transsexual" in their work and the use of the word "tranny" in discussions) "corrected" their FAQ to replace "transsexual" with "shemale."

As rm said, "You have not yet begun to see wrath, although the cat macros are now out to play." And in apparent response to the escalation of failout, Ogas has now locked all of the posts that were originally intended for feedback and discussion of the project (thus rendering over a thousand comments invisible).

But because of the ostensibly scientific and academic roots of the survey and the project, many fans who are also academics soon began taking issue with the incredibly shoddy "research" being conducted. Objections were raised that there was no control preventing minors from participating, there did not seem to be adequate safeguards protecting respondents, that questions were being changed while the survey was still continuing. (Sadly, most of these discussions that I know about them are currently unavailable, because they were made in Ogas's journal.)

Eventually, the Institutional Review Board of Boston University was reached. (Ogas identified himself as "a cognitive neuroscientist at Boston University" in his initial approach to eruthros.) The IRB is responsible for maintaining ethical standards when researching human subjects (including when that research involves social, not medical, science). In the words of deadlychameleon, they responded that Ogas "is no longer in any way affiliated with Boston University, except as a recent graduate. They have asked him to stop using his official Boston University email address in connection with this project, or his website. He is officially on his own, and this project is NOT IRB APPROVED."

Deadly Chameleon continues:

The problem with this is threefold:

1. The researcher has no expertise in the area he is researching, nor has he recruited anyone to give him guidance.

2. The researcher has substantial profit motivation to produce work in this area (book contract with Penguin) which may lead to unethical conduct/a tendency to misrepresent his results.

3. The research is in no way overseen by any external body which can examine it for potential unethical conduct.

In addition to all of these, the researchers have now alienated their participant population, who are now very likely to become unreliable participants.

This explains much. Many people, myself included, wondered how two scientists or academics could behave so unprofessionally. Our error was in assuming that "scientist" or "academic" was their actual profession. It is clear that they are not. But if their profession is "hucksters peddling junk science for profit," it really would be unprofessional of them not to act the way they have.

Finally, this has been a surprisingly creative -fail. In addition to my own offering, there have been macros, parody surveys, Ogi Ogas/Sai Gaddam slash fic.

Other key posts:

• "please don't take the fanfiction survey," eruthros. This is the post that brought the issue to most people's attention.
• "don't take the fanfiction survey," thingswithwings. Shorter Ogas (sadly the links do not currently lead to actual discussion).
• "Ten Steps to a Perfect Fanstorm," Hoyden about Town. An early summary of the Fail, and one of the first mentions outside of LJ/DW.
• Screencaps of ogi_ogas. This includes some screenshots of the threads on individual questions of the original survey. The original posts on Ogas's journal received over a thousand comments before he locked down the entries, removing the criticism from public discourse.
• "Wearing the Juice: A Case Study in Research Implosion," N Pepperell. Asks whether Ogas and Gaddam are simply too incompetent to realize how badly they're doing.
• "Why Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam Are Phrenologists," neededalj. Examining the fine line between good and bad science in the field of neuroscience, and how Ogas and Gaddam are far, far away from the line where you can even see the line between good and bad science.
• "Fandom to researchers: We are not your lab rats," FeministSF, The Blog. Summarizes Ogas and Gaddam's interactions with fan academics in the month before the survey was posted.

If you have several cross-posted journals on your friends list, you should expect to see this happening a bit. Dreamwidth has added the ability to see how many comments are on a crossposted entry. So I'm testing to make sure that works here.

If it doesn't work the first time, I may post and repost for a little while until I like it.

Update: I think I've got it. Fun fact—updating the entry seems to also update the footer.

So, Dreamwidth.

You may have heard of it.

I have an account there now.

Unsurprisingly, it's Tablesaw.

Short version: Dreamwidth is a "fork" of the LiveJournal code. It's basically the same, but there's a lot that's been fixed and updated. Here's a short list of things that have been added from LiveJournal.

There's a focus on interoperability between various LJ-based sites. Dreamwidth already has a basically functional importer that will transfer entries, userpics, and comments at the push of a button from multiple sites. It's also beefed up the OpenID system and allowed the "lj user" code to refer to users of multiple sites. An automatic-crossposting function is in development. It's very aware that its potential userbase is made up of people who are spread across multiple accounts.

But I'm mostly moving because I've had issues with the management of LiveJournal that I haven't been able to fully reconcile for quite a while now. I like the mission statement and business plan put forth by Dreamwidth.

For now, I'm going to be playing around on DW, hopefully helping in some small way with the beta process. And it is still in beta. Styles are wonky, not everything works the same, etc. For the most part, then, I'm going to continue using this LiveJournal account. I want to figure out how best to keep everything working together, how to import everything, and how/whether/to what extent to crosspost.

I've mentally been planning on moving over to Dreamwidth for a while, but now that it's happening, I'm noticing how confusing it all is. More as it happens.

Now, it is I who have the new gmail account! And lo, it is connected to my livejournal account. E-maileth me, for sooth!

(Delivery of sooth is not guaranteed and void where prohibited.)

This has been a busy weekend. And I need to write about it quickly so that ladytabitha doesn't drop me.

Saturday was the puzzle party, and it was decidedly lackluster. I solemnly swear not to care about bringing things that are new and innovative. If necessary, I'll bring in something that's been done before and that takes me ten minutes to prepare. We could have used some of that.

One nice thing was that, since there were fewer puzzles, there seemed to be a bit more plain old socialization. Not everyone may have seen this as a plus, but I did. A lot of the discussion was with Eric Chaikin [link changed 6/22/11; original link to "http://www.sundancechannel.com/festival/profiles/index.php?ixContent=5769"], an irregular puzzle party attendee, whose movie Word Wars [link changed 6/22/11; original link to "http://www.7thart.com/wordwars/"] is hitting theaters now. It's a documentary following the lives of the nation's top tournament Scrabble players, and looks to be a combination of Crumb and Spellbound. Wrap your mind around that. It's playing in Silver Spring, MD, and it will be opening in New York shortly. Apparently, the success of the movie in New York on its opening weekend will dictate, how much it gets seen across the country, including in LA. And since I want to see it, I'm making you see it. Specifics on the NY opening when I get them.

But yesterday was much more eventful. Artistry and I planned to spend a day exploring a few local sites in preparation for the NPL Convention of 2005, which will be held right here in Los Angeles. Artistry has really wanted to do a big hunt on Hollywood Boulevard, and I was going to go along to listen to his ideas and offer new ones. cramerica was also interested, so we thought we'd meet up with him at another site we'd heard about, The Museum of Jurassic Technology.

This is a place I will recommend to everyone reading this journal, certainly. If you're in LA now, you should visit. If you're not, you should make it a point to hit when you're in town. Inspired less by the Smithsonian and more by the museums of earlier centuries, such as P.T. Barnum's American Museum. Most of the exhibits are of dubious import, consequence, or existence, and it takes quite a while to get used to things.

The first gallery is a grab back of information, including detailed information on Noah's Ark [link removed 6/22/11; original link to "http://www.mjt.org/intro/ark_1.html"] (which was, of course, "the most complete Museum of Natural History the world has ever seen"). One of the more famous items of the collection is the Human Horn, mounted on the wall.

Some collections are more straightforward, though still not precisely effable. "No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again" is a collection of unsolicited letters received by the Mt. Wilson Observatory in the period between the two world wars, explaining, in definitive terms, such mysterious as the composition of the moon, the location of God, and why that woman won't leave me alone. The Napoleon Library houses an collection of Napoleona so eccentric it might actually be Napoleona-ana. The art exhibits currently installed require the use of microscopes and magnifying glasses to make visible the works of art displayed on glass slides and within the eyes of needles. The back rooms of the museum are dedicated to an even more diverse subject matter. There are several celluloid dice from the collection of Ricky Jay, dioramas depicting antique stagecraft, and a gallery of three-dimensional X-ray images of flowers. The second floor features a Tea Room and a small theater showing short films.

And then there are several exhibits dedicated to curious persons or ideas, presented, in large part, without a clear concept of why these particular persons were chosen. The Delani and Sonnabend Halls are dedicated to the lives of Madelena Delani and Geoffrey Sonnabend, two very interesting individuals who have little in common except their proximity within the museum. The lights in the Delani room periodically darken, although none present could determine why. Another section is devoted to embodiments of the scholarly and theological writings of the 17th century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher. And one of the most stunning exhibits, "Tell the Bees: Belief, Knowledge and Hypersymbolic Cognition" provides examples and demonstrations of various vulgar medicines.

It was a fascinating place, and I do hope to prepare a puzzle handout to entice Krewe to visit it, although it will, undoubtedly, be much easier to solve than the museum itself.

cramerica, feeling ill, decided to not to continue on with us to Hollywood. I can only hope that he made it home safely and got much rest because today is his birthday, according to LJ. Hooray for him! On our way back to Hollywood, Artistry convinced me to stop at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to visit an exhibit they're currently showing: "The Secret Life of Sets: Set Decorators at Work" [link removed 6/22/11; original link to "http://www.oscars.org/events/set_decoration/index.html"]. The first floor features photographs of movie sets, sometimes accompanied by the decorators' notes, but the real show is on the fourth floor. Several, often major, pieces of actual set dressing, along with more detailed notse from the decorators, have been installed. It's a chance to get up close and personal with bits of the classrooms of Madame Trelawney and Remus Lupin, to see what Van Helsing's vision Dr. Victor Frankenstein's writing desk looked like, or lounge in the stylish apartments of Catcher Block and Barbara Novak from Down with Love. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area, but do yourself a favor and skip the first floor.

Then, Rwth called and invited us to see Coffee and Cigarettes. We tried to visit Hollywood before the showtime, but problems finding parking caused us to head for the theater first and try to grab some dinner. We met up at the Gaucho Grill and had a whole lot of meat, which we split. Then we walked across the street to catch the film. It's a bit uneven, as would be expected from what is actually a series of several short films, but there are an inordinate number of brilliant moments, and it's definitely worth catching, especially if you're a fan of any of its actors.

And after that, finally, we made it to Hollywood. I'd already seen it, of course, but this time I was looking at it with puzzle-design eyes. I wan't say much about it here, but this trip may have made it possible to turn a few puzzles meant for a touristy morning into a full-fledged event with a wow finish.

And now, the real adventure begins. The adventure of sleep organization!

My journal is oddly bare right now. I know, it's been bare before, but the "oddly" part is because there are two sizable entries that have vanished. I'm pretty sure I know where one went. I tried to do an Audblog this morning (possibly yesterday morning), but I may have hung up before I pressed all of the extra buttons to end recording and post the message. Apparently, that ain't good enough.

The other post was long, and was written on Wednesday morning, after I had gone to work packing zero hours of sleep, fueled by energy and anticipation of the festivities that were to occur on Sunday. I was pretty wacky that day, so I haven't a clue what might have caused the entry to disappear. LJ may have eaten it, but then again, I may have just forgotten to hit "Post".

Anyway, the short version is, I was really hyped this week, the party went well, and I slept for a very long time afterwards. Now, I'm pretty relaxed.

I'm going to start writing up the puzzle that accompanied the party, it'll start showing up in sections. In the meantime, I've got a bright and more or less clean house in which to sing dance twirl and do anything I want. So I thought I'd do some reading. But I've been having trouble getting started on new books, recently. The last new book I read was recommended by shadesong when I was in Boston. So I got to thinking, maybe if I read a book chosen by others, it'll be easier to start and finish. So, obviously, it is poll time.
[Poll #278572]
I'm doing this from memory. Next time, I promise I'll try to represent the second half of the alphabet.

Yeah, there's that meme going around, zooming to every journal at once.

I don't like it, really.

Part of that's because I do know most of you, or at least your journals. The journals I don't know are ones that I just started reading (so it's my fault, really). I used to read a month's worth of posts every time I added someone, now, not so much. But I still keep adding people. ADDICTION!

I do feel bad, though, because I've been neglecting this journal for some other, more personal writing. And I do like this journal, and the people who read it, and I don't want to ignore it.

So I'll try to say something significant about me here, soon.

Regardless, I hadn't heard anyone rave about Friendster in a while, so I thought it might be time to sign up, especially since I was thinking about using Internet personals anyway. But now I can't log in. Is this just me? I try to log in and it returns me to the log-in page. Yes, I've got cookies turned on. In fact, I can watch my browser get dizzy by selecting "Remember My Password." Then, when the page redirects me to itself, it realizes that it's supposed to automatically log me in, which it does. Then it returns me to itself, where it realizes that it's supposed to automatically log me in, which it does. Then it returns me to itself . . .

Stunning, the networking that can be accomplished.

tyrsylvia offered a link to a post by insomnia about LiveJournal's proposed "compromise" on discontinuing invite codes. In summary, users will be able to start a free account, but after thirty days, the journal will be "frozen" unless the user makes a donation or solicits an invite code. This leaves the original invite-code system in place, even if it puts it on a time delay.

insomnia's post got me thinking about this, and I agree with his disagreement, although not for precisely the same reasons. Where he was focusing on the open-source aspects, I pulled a thread that he dedicated less time to, the propensity of the invite codes to discourage the inclusion of "outsider" voices. I was moved to add a dissenting comment, which I duplicate here:

The trial-account procedure seems to me to be wholly ineffectual, designed to placate opposing sides without making a firm statement of direction for the site.

The invite-code system was put in place, apparently, to prevent abuse. The means to stop rampant abuse appear to be in place, which one would think, would mean that the system is no longer necessary. I believe, however, that the system has subtly warped the culture of LiveJournal during its tenure as gate-keeper.

Some say that it's easy to get an invite code, but this is not precisely true. It's easy to give invite codes. A prospective user who does not know any members and who does not read any members' journal, a prospective user, perhaps, who saw an add in a movie theater and thinks it's a cool idea and wants to join, is told that he has to either find a friend on the system or pay. This is a major disincentive to the casual user who just wants to start a blog, and he is likely to look elsewhere rather than try finding some random user among the thousands who can offer him membership.

It's been considered that LiveJournal's greatest asset is the amount of community it provides through things like commenting, friends lists, etc. It's something that many LiveJournal users prize, and so it's understandable that so many are attached to the invite-code system. The system fosters this type of community by penalizing prospective users who are not already part of it. The majority of people who start journals with invite codes know and read at least one user before joining, since that user gave them their codes. These users, then, start using LiveJournal with a foot in a community already and are enveloped into it. But I believe, with others such as insomnia, that the perpetuation of the invite-code system as a requirement to use LiveJournal works to suppress independent voices who might otherwise become members. By putting up these absurd obstacles, LiveJournal is squandering its own potential.

It has been mentioned elsewhere in these comments that users may wish to screen "trial users" from commenting on their posts. This option may provide a final disincentive against would-be spammers. But if a nonabusive blogger decided to start a trial account under this system without reading any other LJ blog and without seeking any other LJ user to read his, then he or she ought not be penalized for the decision. To require this user make a payment or solicit the aid of other users whom he does not care about in order to continue using the supposedly free service to avoid the deletion of his account is ridiculous.

If I were to propose a compromise to the compromise, I would suggest upgrading all current "Free Users" to another class such as "Free Members" or "Nifty People" or some such thing. The requirement to become a "Free Member" would be a payment to LiveJournal or the donation of a "member code" (once an invite code) by another user. Anyone could become a Free User by passing the Turing test and would have all the benefits of current Free Users. However, individual embers would be able to prevent Free Users from commenting on their journals or joining the communities they moderate at those other members' own discretion. This would allow new users to blog to their hearts content, but would allow those who value the sanctity of whatever community they define a measure of protection. I have no problem with users discriminating against users, but the site itself should not.

The Terms of Service say that "LiveJournal.com is a web-based service that allows its users to create and update online journals . . . ." The community is wonderful, but I think that LiveJournal now has the opportunity to let people blog for the sake of blogging. If, instead, the site is to be transformed into more of a social network, then I say go for that too. Change the TOS and make this site more like Friendster. But a direction must be chosen as soon as possible.