Posts by matt

Nicholas Kristoff:

[Quoting Melissa Harris-Lacewell.] “One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you

Grant McCracken offers an anthropological take on the recently-ubiquitous corporate reinvention session.

OMG, Jessa’s right: the birds are going to rule us one day. Article 1:

And article 2:

Such a bummer. I cringed when I read the remark last night. Now one of my favorite figures in any candidate’s campaign is out. I don’t know how these things work at all, but I really hope she’ll still be his unofficial foreign policy adviser.

Also: Why is it I love Samantha Power so much? First, there was her book, an exhaustive and exhausting account of the unchanging pattern of genocide, and why, despite our ability to recognize that pattern, we never stop it before it’s too late. Then, there was hearing her speak about the book at the Nieman Narrative conference a few years back. Although she was young (34?) and vibrant, she had this weariness about her. Maybe she was just exhausted for reasons completely unrelated to the subject matter, but you couldn’t help thinking, “God, the things this poor woman is cursed with knowing.” To speak at length for years with the survivors of genocides all over the world, to see it happening again and be utterly powerless to stop it — how do you have that kind of experience and not despair?

I was as excited as Robin about the prospect of Power in a major foreign policy position (which I really hope might still come to pass). When secretaries of state commonly can’t bring themselves to utter the word “genocide,” how amazing would it be to have a cabinet-level official with not only the experience to recognize the pattern of genocide, but also the moral will to call it by its name?

Of course, all these pretty things I’m saying about her shouldn’t erase the fact that calling Hillary Clinton a monster was not only boneheaded, but really lowers the threshold given some of the actual, human-slaughtering monsters Power has known. But it really sucks when a mistake redounds to such an ill and public effect.

Update: Marc Ambinder cites anonymous sources from the Obama campaign who say Power was not asked to leave, in case you were wondering.

I’m loving the clever remixes of old-school games at Retro Sabotage, brought to my attention by the fine folks at Grand Text Auto.

It

Having seen the name of Obama’s chief economics adviser Austan Goolsbee appear on a few blogs recently, I’ve become curious about who else is on the teams of the two lead candidates. Here’s what I’ve found:

The Chicago Tribune wrote a nifty round-up of Obama’s team of advisers. In fact, it seems they wrote two.

Meanwhile, here’s a brief Telegraph piece on Team Hillary. Here’s a wonderful Washington Post write-up of the Clinton squad, “Hillaryland.” An additional WaPo rundown. The articles themselves give you such an interesting picture of the candidates’ leadership styles and expertise. And from these articles, here are some links on some of the big names (I’m likely to refine this list as I get time to look into it):

Team Hillary:

• Mark Penn: chief pollster and strategist
• Harold Wolfson: senior communications director (no Wikipedia link, using a NYTimes story)
• Patti Solis Doyle: campaign manager
• Mandy Grunwald: chief media consultant
• Leecia Eve: chief policy adviser
• Ann Lewis: senior adviser
• Terry McAuliffe: campaign chairman

Team Obama:

• Foreign policy/national security:
  • Anthony Lake
  • Susan Rice
  • Samantha Power
  • Gregory Craig
  • Richard Danzig
  • Scott Gration
  • Merrill McPeak
• Domestic policy:
  • Austan Goolsbee
  • Michael Froman
  • David Cutler
  • David Blumenthal (PBS interview, may be better)
  • Jeffrey Liebman
  • Dan Tarullo
  • Eric Holder
  • Cass Sunstein
  • Laurence Tribe
  • Cassandra Butts
• Staff:
  • Mark Alexander: former campaign policy director
  • Heather Higginbottom: campaign senior policy strategist (couldn’t find much on her, but was kind of amazed to find that this Snarkmarket post was already among the results!)
  • Karen Kornbluh: Senate policy director

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danah boyd writes a typically thought-provoking post on the prospect of exposing users’ “Social Graphs,” a meme that’s been heating up recently. Quick backstory in case you didn’t know: Google and a bunch of techy types want to make it so you can easily port your identity and contacts to any application on the Web. The advantages include easier sign-ups for different Web applications, no longer having to maintain the same information in a bunch of different places, quickly finding any contacts who are using an application you just signed up for, etc. Those of us with MySpace/Facebook/Friendster/LinkedIn/Flickr/vita.mn/etc. accounts are planning to be, for the most part, happy.

But danah makes the good point that those stumping for this move are all tech-savvy people who mostly have no idea of what the repercussions will be for some of the most vulnerable heavy users of the Web — teens. A typical argument in favor of more open data refers to what Tim O’Reilly calls “security by obscurity” — i.e. we have the illusion we’re secure just because all our data is usually tucked out of the way, but this is patently false, as any reporter could tell you. Exposing public data more commonly means fewer people will harbor this false sense of security, ostensibly making them more directly conscious of how they manage their personal data. But as danah points out, it could be an awfully risky way to make a point.

Things points to the fascinating idea of the “virtual cable” for driving directions in cars. There’s been a lot of recent buzz about projecting data on car windshields. The virtual cable is a three-dimensional line drawn onto the road ahead showing you exactly where you’re going. Trippy, probably distracting, but nonetheless fascinating.

By now, the A.R.G. has had a long and storied history stretching from The Blair Witch Project to Cloverfield. The classical model of the A.R.G.: someone notices a name in a movie trailer, or a website on a television show; they look it up online, and they suddenly find themselves holding a piece in a narrative jigsaw puzzle. Others stumble into the puzzle, they form a community, and the game is afoot. Piece by piece, the players fit together a picture that helps them solve whatever mystery the game’s creators have spun.

One big drawback: if you stumble into one of these games late, catching up can be a chore. As far as I know, A.R.G.s haven’t exactly been a model of thematic coherence or narrative deftness; it’s not like catching up on a TV show or a comic book. The chase and the unfolding mystery are the fun. So unless you have worlds of time to devote to chasing obscure clues, the game might not hold much allure for you. These are the main reasons I haven’t been able to get into any A.R.G.s yet, despite my being an utter nerd.

But I find that idea — a fictional narrative kidnaps a piece of our reality and draws us into it — delicious. What I want is for a series to use the Internet in a way that fully blurs the edge between reality and the series.

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