Assignment #8: Gang Leader for a Day

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1

The most standout part of this chapter was obviously Sudhir's survey and the responses to it. Sudhir is obviously very oblivious to persons outside of his own social class, and has very little tact. I also found it pretty shocking that J.T. accepted him so quickly.

Chapter 2

I was very surprised by the fact that J.T. had actually attended college, and had a fair bit of business sense. It was interesting to begin to see the relationships between those who lived in Robert Taylor and how they seemed to rely on one another. 

Chapter 3

The door to door vote solicitation was a very funny portion of this book to me. I found it so amazing  that these foot soldiers were asking the residents to do something that they had no intention of doing themselves, and knew absolutely nothing about. This is also when you begin to see just how paranoid J.T. is about losing his position in the gang. 

Chapter 4

This is the chapter that lends the book it's name, and also perhaps the one that shocked me the most. I found it hard to believe that Sudhir would accept the challenge of being gang leader for a day, as I would think that he should be a silent observer in his research role. By making decisions about the goings on of the gang, he could have really altered the culture of the entire organization. 

Chapter 5

This is when Sudhir's focus shifts from J.T. and the gang to the other residents of Robert Taylor, and specifically Ms. Bailey. I was surprised by Ms. Bailey's obvious favoritism of certain residents and willingness to take bribes. While she did do her best to care for all of the children in the building, their parents were subjected to the need to bribe her.

Chapter 6

In this chapter, Sudhir interviews the prostitutes of Robert Taylor, and I found this section almost comical because of Sudhir's basically nonchalant attitude toward the women. Many of the residents of Robert Taylor are quite angry with Sudhir throughout this chapter and he spends much of it attempting to regain their trust, but failing to do so. 

Chapter 7

The drive-by shooting in this chapter was very eye-opening to me. I had just become distracted from the very violent nature of this area when it popped up and reared it's ugly head again here. I was appalled by the attitude of some of the cops.

Chapter 8

The conclusion of this book sees J.T. as a senior member of the black kings and then attempting his hand at things like being a barber, Sudhir moving on to be a professor, and Robert Taylor being torn down. J.T. seems to be more aware of the fact that Sudhir is not actually writing about him at this point, but is actually attempting to be helpful regardless. 

Book Reaction

Not many professors or PhD scholars enter a poor, black, gang infested neighborhood for seven years to ask the question, "How does it feel to be poor and black?". Most studies are carried out in the safe and quiet libraries where academics address the root causes of criminality. This book is different, and that is absolutely what made it so great. I found myself relating to the "characters" in the book as if they were the non-fiction heroes and villains that I so love to read about on my own time. The scary part is that the villains are real and the stories of injury and death are not just words on a page. 

Even though the book occurs during the height of the crack/cocaine epidemic in the US, it was surprising to learn that mo one really gets rich selling drugs. Most of the foot soldiers barely make the minimum wage and still live with their mothers. But the street is the only place where they can get consistent work. That amazed me. I was also taken aback by all the scenarios in which Sudhir suggested that someone should call and ambulance and was immediately met with the words "They won't come here". I just can't imagine an America where that is a possibility. Today, if such a situation occurred, there would undoubtedly be some consequences for those who refused to act.

When it was mentioned that the solution to poverty in public housing was the destruction of the entire housing project and the forced removal of the poor from their homes, I was also shocked. It was called "the transformation plan" and involved replacing the projects with "mixed income" developments. In practice this made people from those areas refugees in their own city. It is a barely disguised land grab by property developers. How can it be acceptable to just force people out of their homes like that?

I would also like to mention that Venkatesh is best known for his contribution to the best selling book Freakonomics, which exposed the underground economy of the urban poor. He provides compelling evidence that drug gangs are a product of US capitalism. I absolutely love Freakonomics, personally, and was extremely excited to hear of this connection.

This book is an excellent read that I would recommend to anyone at all, and not just those interested in ethnography or anthropology. 

Assignment #7: Nonobvious Observations

The video assignment that we have participated in this week is a great way to force us to notice the less than obvious things that distinguish people from one another. We can easily tell who a person is by their appearance or even the sound of their voice, but take those things away and could you still distinguish between the individuals? From that persons own perspective, are you able to decide who is who? It is very interesting to notice things like where a person looks when interacting with others, when being forced to wait, or while walking. There are plenty of other small things like this that can easily distinguish people from one another, but they usually go unnoticed by the majority of people.

At one point in the book The Secret Life of Pronouns, Dr. Pennebaker mentions Sherlock Holmes and how his prowess as a detective was mostly because of his superb observational skills. I had to laugh laugh at that moment, because I had just been thinking of the new television Elementary featuring a modern Sherlock Holmes. The show is based around these spectacular observational skills possessed by Sherlock Holmes as a modern detective.

Assignment #4: Comparison: Design of Everyday Things vs. Emotional Design

I can see how these two books sort of contradict one another, but I also don't see why they can't peacefully coexist.  There were contradictory statements from Design of Everyday Things within Emotional Design, but if you were to sort of overlook the exact examples and take just the concepts into account, the concepts build on one another quite nicely. It is great to consider the beauty of the design as well as the practicality of design.In Emotional Design, Norman divides emotional affection into three levels – visceral, behavioral and reflective. The visceral level is initiated by the primary sensual perceptions – the appearance, sound, smell or even taste. The behavioral level reflects our immediate experience while using the product – if it is easy and pleasurable to use. Finally, the reflective level arises as a result of our observations of past experiences, of what we consider desirable and if the product can give us sense of achievement and self-esteem. In Design of Everyday Things, the brain is sort of barely mentioned.

Assignment #2: Book Reading: The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter by Chapter:

Chapter 1
I found the very first section called You Would Need an Engineering Degree to Figure This Out to be very interesting. I feel this way all the time, and now I realize that I'm not alone, and that I'm also not crazy or dumb. The story of Dr. Norman's friend who got trapped between the sets of glass doors was very relatable and realistic. I've found myself in a very similar situation with "automatic" doors that only work if you approach the correct side, but no clue as to which side that might be. The idea of affordances, that an object should really only have one intended use, was extremely useful.

Chapter 2
The description Aristotle's Naive Physics and the bullet and running with a ball examples were so intriguing and frustrating. I had never before contemplated these examples and on first guess, missed both. After Dr. Norman explained, the answer became obvious to me, but I was upset with myself that I had missed them in the first place. The concepts of learned and taught helplessness helped me to understand my servere dislike for mathematics.

Chapter 3
The fact that I have looked at a penny and a computer keyboard so many times in my life and could not tell you which was Lincoln's head faces or where the letter 'f' is located without looking at them is amazing. The human brain really is spectacular. I also found the coin confusion stories very relatable, as I have been known to mix up Canadian money with American money and pay way more than I should have for items. When Dr. Norman was discussing the number of things that we are asked to remember, I realized that I really do have quite a remarkable ability when it comes to those things. All of the things that he mentioned in his list, I was able to recite from memory without hesitation. The natural mappings section was also quite interesting. Easily my favorite part of this chapter, and the book in general, is the basic description of a cell phone.

Chapter 4
All of the talk of VCR's in this chapter is very comical. I realize that the concepts of the book still apply very well to our world today, but the fact that this is such a new technology at this time is entertaining. I really liked the constraints section and the Lego example. Overall, though, this section was really just a reiteration of the very first chapter. I did really like all the door examples, and I now find myself over thinking the operations of doors every time I use one. The switch control issue was also very interesting to me. the way that he implemented the light switches in his office was very useful. The ideas visibility and feedback are absolutely necessary in the use of any item.

Chapter 5
This particular chapter succeeded in making me feel much less like an idiot. I know that I frequently make mistakes, and that many of them can be explained away is a relief. I came across a statement in this chapter that I found really cool, but that could have used a bit more explanation. To paraphrase, it was basically that you do not make as many mistakes when you are first learning something. I believe that is might mean that when you are first learning something, nothing is habitual yet, therefore fewer mistakes are made, but I would love to know what Dr. Norman really meant. I felt as though I was laughing and thinking "I've done that before" after just about every mistake or slip example.  

Chapter 6

This was the first chapter in which Dr. Norman really cut designers some slack and admitted that it is very difficult to decide what the best design for a product will be. The whole section on faucets was perhaps a bit excessive, but also very true to reality. It is very rare that the same faucet setup is encountered in a different building. There is such a huge array of faucets in the world that I can see why such a large section was devoted to them. I found the idea of creeping featurism quite relatable being as I am a software consultant presently. There are always new features added to a new iteration of the software I develop because the client wants it, even though we had previously decided that it was unnecessary. Dr. Norman's description of computers and problems associated with them quite surprised me. Almost everything that he said about them was still true today.

Chapter 7
I found that this chapter did a good job of bring the book together and wrapping it into a neat little package. I found the part about the way we become attached to doing things very interesting. It is very true that change can be very scary and even frustrating when it comes to something that has been the same for a long while. I was surprised that Dr. Norman was opposed to the idea of a Smart Home. I find this idea extremely appealing, and I get excited when I hear or read about some new technology that is designed to help this become a reality.

Book as a whole:
Overall, I found this book to be a great read with very many interesting and relatable topics. The idea that the problems might usually lie in the design of the object being used had never occurred to me. I was certainly one of the droves of people blaming themselves for making mistakes when, in fact, the fault lies in the design of the product and not the user. It took me about a week of trial and error to figure out my alarm clock. And, now I am convinced that this book has caused some sort of malfunction is said alarm clock. Since placing this book on my night stand, my alarm has been changing time at random intervals throughout the day. Of course I realize that the this is simply a chance occurrence, but you must admit that it is rather ironic. Dr. Norman does a great job of describing why and how we successfully and unsuccessfully use everyday objects with the great examples that are so relatable. His stories are usually accompanied with an explaination of good design human behavior. For example, the fundamental principals of designing for people are to: Provide a good conceptual model, make controls visible and to constantly provide feedback to the user. Dr. Norman reiterates his points at the end of the book by listing the seven UCD principles for transforming difficult tasks into easy ones:



1. Use both knowledge in the world and in the head

2. Simplify the structure of tasks

3. Make things visible

4. Get the mappings right

5. Exploit the powers of constraints-Natural & Artificial

6. Design for Error

7. When all else fails, standardize



In general, I think that this is an extremely useful method of approaching things. Simplification is really the key to everything, and given adequate instructions for the approach, things become much easier. The book as a whole is fantastic and very readable.

Good Designs:

Dog crate

This is my puppy Brodie and his crate. I feel that his crate is designed very well. It has 2 doors, so that it can be place in almost any area, but still be usable. The best part about the design of this crate is the closing/locking mechanism pictured below.  

It has great visual feedback that the crate door has closed and makes a sort of metal clicking noise when it is slid in all the way. 

Shampoo/Conditioner Bottles

These bottles are easy to use and well designed. They are curved so that they fit together in the smallest possible space, which is very convenient. It is also great that the conditioner bottle is designed to sit "upside down". The lid of this bottle is on the bottom, so that the conditioner is always right at the bottom and you don't have to do the awkward slippery bottle shake every time that you wash your hair. While the shampoo bottle is designed to sit "right side up", it is possible to flip it over when you are running low on shampoo, because the lid is flat on top.  The caps or tops of the bottles (pictured below) are also well designed.

It is very obvious where you should push when you want to open these bottles as there is a small indentation there. They also make a nice clicking noise when they are both opened and closed so that a user knows they have done so properly. 

Salt and Pepper Shakers

It is very easy to distinguish which shaker contains the salt and which contains the pepper. The conceptual model made by a user is almost without fail the correct one. 

Retractable Leash

This leash is great because it is so easy to use. There is only one button and one latch (pictured below) to operate the features and it is obvious what there functions are. 

When you want to stop the leash from releasing any more slack, you simply depress the button. If you want to lock it in that position, you depress that latch and the leash stays. It even makes a click noise when it has been locked. 

Desk Lamp

This is the lamp on my desk at work, and I feel that it is very well designed. It features a very useful knob that controls the intensity of the light. As you turn the knob clockwise the light gets more and more intense, and as you turn in counterclockwise the intensity decreases. It can no longer turn clockwise when the light is at full intensity, and makes a click and can no longer turn counterclockwise when it is all the way off. This lamp also features two outlets on the back where you can plug in anything that you like. 

Bad Designs:

Hall Light Switches

This light in my hallway is so very confusing. Each of the light switches or controls circled in red controls the light circled in blue. This hallway is literally about 5 feet long, so there is no need for it to have a switch at each end to control this light. I would be happier with it if it only had the one that is actually on the light itself. Fact is that one of the switches is always in the off position and one is always in the on position, no matter if the light is on or off. And the control on the light itself further complicates things by having no visual cue as to what mode it is in. If that bulb ever burns out, I might never know because I will simply not be able to tell if one of the switches has been operated incorrectly. 

Scentsy Warmer

 The on/off control for my scentsy warmer is badly designed. There is no visual cue as to whether the warmer is on or off. It is also positioned badly at about 6 inches down the cord. This is hard to access as it normally falls behind my television stand and I cannot reach it.

Vehicle A/C Controls

The way to control my car's air conditioning system still baffles me after over a year of ownership. While the ability to choose the temperature for each side is extremely convenient, there is also this little control at the vents that affect the air temperature (pictured below). 

I just can't get it right, and the temperature changes based on the setting of this twist knob, so there is no way that the temperature you have set is the actual temperature inside the car.

School Desk

This desk is just an example of similar desks that I have used before that I find to have a very poor design. Given that you lean too far back in the seat, the entire unit comes crashing down on you. The curved leg design looks nice enough, but it is much to easy to "rock" backwards and fall on your back. 

Storage Door

This is the door to the storage unit outside my apartment. While it is a perfectly nice door, it has no handle, only a lock. The door swings out toward the person opening the door, so if it were ever to get stuck, there is really no way to get it open. While the lock area does have a protrusion, it it very difficult to grasp and pull. 

Assignment #3: The Chinese Room

I believe that I agree with Dr. Searle's argument, but I must admit that I am still a little blown away by the whole concept. I didn't actually realize that there was an argument at all on this particular topic. Perhaps I am showing a bit of ignorance, but I believed that it was just common fact that a computer was incapable of "thought" as a human is. That there are those who would argue otherwise completely amazes me. 

The "other minds" argument was easily the most interesting, in my opinion, and I found it down right frustrating that Dr. Searle basically passed it off as not worth his time. There really is no way to know if the way that some other person understands is the same as the way that someone else understands. Except for the way that it is perceived that they understand, there is no way. Who is to say whether or not the computer understands except the computer itself, which is of course not to be believed. Mos of the arguments surrounding the theory are circular and thus can not in present times be proven or disproven. 

I also found the Zombie argument outlined in the Wikipedia article to be rather interesting. This seemed extremely preposterous when I first read it, but the more I think about it, the more plausible it seems. Mutations are by no means uncommon, and given that such a mutation did occur, I have no trouble believing that a "zombie" would insist that that it had the consciousness of humans. 

The syntax versus semantics argument was well put, in my opinion. It is almost exactly this idea that led me to believe that it was obvious that computers couldn't think. There is no way that a computer program could mimic the way that every individual person has a very different and unique interpretation of any one symbol. Take the hamburger example from the example story. The combination of hamburger smells, tastes, sounds, and images that come to my mind when I hear or see the word hamburger are not the same on two different occasions, let alone the same as someone else might have come to mind. To mimic that in a computer program would be next to impossible.

Personally, I don't believe that there is any need for strong AI as described by Dr. Searle. The "weak" AI is more than sufficient. The ability of computers to even mimic the abilities of the human mind is phenomenal.

Paper Reading #5: `Timid Encounters': A Case Study in The Use of Proximity-Based Mobile Technologies

Intro
Author Bios
Christian Lipcoppe - Christian is a Professor of Sociology of Information and Communication Technologies and the head of the Social Science department at Telecom Paristech in Paris, France.

Yoriko Inada - Yoriko is also a professor in the Department of Social Science at Telecom ParisTech in Paris, France.

Summary
This paper reported a comparative ethnographic study of a proximity based mobile video game (called Dragon Quest 9) in Japan. The Nintendo DS game terminals may ‘recognize’ one another and allow players to exchange game resources when they are close to one another. Players who are within about 20 meters of each other may participate in multi-player gameplay. When within the same range, a window pops up on the screen with the name of the other player’s game character and description. When this occurs, the player may go to the place in the game called ‘Rikka’s Inn’, where the other player’s avatar appears. By clicking on it, the player’s profile and tag message appear. During the event, some of the resources of the player who has just appeared may get transferred to the initial player. The game only allows three connections of this type at any one time, and the screen needs to be refreshed before allowing three more to occur. There are specific incentives in the game for users to assemble in groups. For example, the cellar and first floor of the inn, which usually remain hidden, may appear when there are several players close by whose avatars have entered the inn.

It is, however, possible to ignore interaction requests from players, unlike the real world where such a thing is obligatory. One issue that arises is that it is very simple to identify possible persons withing the game in the "real world", and players lose their anonymity.

Related Work
Diaz, L., Ekman, U. (2011) Introduction to Mobile ubiquity in public and private spaces

De Cindio, F., Foth, M. (2007) Digital cities 5 : urban informatics, locative media and mobile technology in inner-city developments (Workshop)

Drucker, S., Gumpert, G. (2010) The Urban Communication Infrastructure: Global Connection and Local Detachment

Gordon, E., Silva, A. (2011) Net locality: Why location matters in a networked world

Waltz, S. (2010) Toward a ludic architecture: the space of play and games

There is no directly related work, so it would seem that this is in fact a novel idea.

Evaluation
There was no formal evaluation completed, other than observation of players participating in the game. There arose certain subsets of the population who played the game very frequently and subsets who were not so fond of the proximity feature, thus did not play.

Discussion
Seems like an interesting idea, but also has some drawbacks. 

Paper Reading #4: Homeless Young People on Social Network Sites (Blog #4)

Intro
    Author Bios

Jill Palzkill Woelfer - Jill is a PhD Candidate in Information Science at the Information School at the University of Washington and an affiliated graduate student in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Canadian Studies Center. Her primary research focus is improving situations for homeless youth. She has a cat named Tigger.

David G. Hendry - David is an Assistant Professor at the Information School, University of Washington. His primary research focus is improving situations for homeless youth. Jill has worked with David on quite a few projects.








Summary

Studies show that homeless young adults use social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter) and face similar challenges as college students who are transitioning into a work place. That is, they struggle with keeping a profile that is forced to sever multiple social spheres.

 It is estimated that up to 1% (about 3 million people) of the population of the United States is both young (under 30 years old) and homeless at some point in the year. This is rather a sizable number of people, so it is very easy to justify a study on their social networking habits. Findings suggest that these social networking sites are very beneficial to the homeless young people who might otherwise only have contact with others on the street. After interview and use evaluation, individual profiles were created for 8 of the participants. Their main uses for social networking sites is outlined below:
Bernie: Family, Tech Savvy and Survival
Lulu: Facebook for Friends and Life
Jazz: Multiple Selves
Mary: Street Friends
Sheri: Multiple Profiles for Different Audiences
Marvin: Friends with Everyone and a Better Life
Roger: Facebook is like Crack
Chip: Skateboarding and Couchsurfing
You can see that each of these individuals is using social media for slightly different purposes, but they do have some commonalities. They all seem to be dealing with identity problems in some way, attempting to further develop their social ties, and manage their affiliations. 

Related work
Bailey, S., Ennett, S., Federman, E. (1999) Social network characteristics associated with risky behaviors among runaway and homeless youth

Hoyt, D., Johnson, K., Whitbeck, L. (2005) Predictors of social network composition among homeless and runaway adolescents

Passero, J., Zax, M., Zozus, R. (1991) Social network utilization as related to family history among the homeless

Tyler, K. (2008) Social network characteristics and risky sexual and drug related behaviors among homeless young adults

Hersberger, J. (2003) A qualitative approach to examining information transfer via social networks among homeless populations

Barman-Adhikari, A., Monro, W., Rice, E., Young, S. (2010) Internet Use, Social Networking, and HIV/AIDS Risk for Homeless Adolescents

While it was slightly difficult to find directly related work, all related work found was nearly identical. The research idea does not seem particularly novel.

Evaluation
Twenty-three participants of varying ethnicities were interviewed in groups of same-sex individuals featuring 4 participants each. There were 11 women and 12 men with a mean age of 21.7 year old. The interviews consisted of questions about the uses, benefits, and harms of social network sites and how people present themselves online. Qualitative analysis of these interviews showed that young people explore their identities, cultivate and exploit social ties, experience interpersonal tensions, manage incompatible audiences, and respond to shifting affiliations and transitions.

Discussion
I find the social media research geared specifically toward homeless youth fascinating. It is a great way to get a look into the mind of any young person, and that is a great way to go about helping to meet their needs.