tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61036232009-06-03T18:07:57.605-05:00Figuring out how people work, one day at a timeQhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-125216186987653662009-05-09T07:06:00.003-05:002009-05-09T07:54:49.137-05:00

Almaty is a relatively small city where virtually all of the social context is built on personal social ties. The degrees of separation here are likely fewer than six and even though crossing the city itself can take substantial time and effort, crossing it socially can be a quick thing... even if you haven't lived here for 16 years.Although the Kazakh internet is relatively young and still quite

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-91039700081557709622009-05-07T07:09:00.002-05:002009-05-08T06:00:47.345-05:00

My classmate is one of the movers and shakers of the young generation of Kazakhstan. He arrived to meet me, dressed in a suit and permanently attached to a mobile phone and a blackberry - simultaneously talking on one and typing on the other. He is extraordinarily busy and sports the kind of mobile lifestyle that many in the US talk about as maddening (here it's seen as absolutely, incredibly,

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-19237210283050682922009-05-06T00:28:00.000-05:002009-05-08T06:01:26.361-05:00

Just like Moscow is vastly different from the rest of Russia, Almaty is different from the rest of Kazakhstan. Where it might be playing second fiddle to Astana on the account of not being a capital anylonger, it certainly remains the main center of the country. Just like Astana, Almaty sports advanced communication infrastructure and Internet access is becoming commonplace. So commonplace, that

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-72736894650225974662009-05-05T01:00:00.002-05:002009-05-05T02:26:24.318-05:00

One of consistent themes in the countries of FSU is that of renewal, rebuilding and restoration. The old little church, that used to be the only functioning Russian Orthodox church in the city when I was a kid, has been restored and looks just about brand new. When other forms of faith had collapsed in the collapse of Soviet Union, many turned to churches for some kind of emotional and moral

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-68036441617051303912009-05-02T01:24:00.002-05:002009-05-02T01:58:09.532-05:00

I was walking to a cafe that offers wifi here in Almaty. I've been spending quite a bit of time here lately, using their wireless and people-watching. This morning there was an interesting group of people here with name-tags. These kinds of things signify purposeful meetings so I walked up and asked what they were doing here. Turned out these were the professionals from Almaty who hang out on a

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-39387795355093913892009-04-29T00:51:00.000-05:002009-05-05T00:54:53.984-05:00

Moscow is surprisingly comfortable. It's like finding an old coat from childhood, putting it on and discovering that it not only still fits, but fits in all those old and very comfortable ways where every wrinkle is familiar. I wonder whether this comfort may impede by ability to see and notice differences from the western cultures that I now represent. It makes me wonder about the

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-125087305163958452009-04-25T01:59:00.002-05:002009-05-02T02:15:36.123-05:00

Moscow is a very large city, where the population of Moscow proper is nearly as large as all of Kazakhstan. Registered population of Moscow is about 10.5 million people, with estimates of unregistered residents (read illegal immigrants) anywhere between 2 and 4 million people. The total population of Kazakhstan is 16 million people. Moscow is very large. Despite the fact that the majority of the

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-90205193760612453452009-04-24T02:32:00.001-05:002009-04-24T02:32:44.168-05:00

My arrival in Moscow was rather exciting where even before I was able to set foot in a city, I was forced to pay fines and seriously consider what being deported would look like. This experience wasn't nearly as dire as it sounds. In fact, it was entertaining! Let me explain.On the flight to Moscow I glanced at my visa and realized that my visa was dated a day later than when I was arriving. I am

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-12455460193152678112009-03-31T02:26:00.003-05:002009-03-31T21:19:34.253-05:00

Fred Turner gave a talk today where he proposed a way to look at Burning Man as a cultural infrastructure of Google. That's a pretty big statement and he presented a very interesting, sophisticated analysis of this claim. Burning Man is a huge cultural and ideological institution in the Bay Area where Google is situated and the technical community comprises a large proportion of annual

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-77713466540243247602009-02-13T15:21:00.005-05:002009-02-13T16:01:28.855-05:00

Academic writing, or, really any writing is something that I find incredibly painful and always have as long as I can remember (all those tears shed over school papers). This is a problem because my career of choice is built around writing as a way of expression. Writing is this sort of voodoo thing for me - filled with ritual, painful effort, overwhelming weight of the knowledge of others that

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-85617818128901774822008-10-21T17:52:00.002-05:002008-10-21T17:55:10.336-05:00

Times change, people change, circumstances change. I have written and defended my dissertation and am now working as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Irvine with Paul Dourish. I am at a point in my career where I have more ideas about new projects than resources to pursue them. This does not mean these ideas need to be forgotten though. So I am resurrecting miswritings as a

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1156626989151023712006-08-26T16:16:00.000-05:002006-08-26T16:16:29.536-05:00

I am in the final throws of my phd - that is the hell of writing a dissertation (the actual physical act thereof). I will return to this blog, probably, once I am done (or have completed the process of failing). In the meantime, you can check out my academic paranoia at my lit-review blog on wordpress also, confusingly, called MisWritings. It's quite literally a "lit-review" blog.

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1151663194907579772006-06-30T05:22:00.000-05:002006-06-30T05:26:34.976-05:00

Originally uploaded by aelita.

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1144552782876487872006-04-08T22:19:00.000-05:002006-04-08T22:19:42.876-05:00

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Cell phone users - a new study by Pew - they did not find much that is surprising, but this is at least informative. Most people use the phone to talk, very few use it for anything else, but some would like to. The more interesting aspect of the study is the idea of "shifting time". The two ways of "shifted time" that they observed are - making calls

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1144552572920454182006-04-08T22:16:00.000-05:002006-04-08T22:16:12.936-05:00

CTIA - The Wireless Association - Right, here is the official CTIA report on the latest numbers of mobile phone users. What's even more interesting, is the 97% increase in text messaging - now THAT's impressive. Again, what is fueling these jumps? Are we seeing saturation/tipping points going off, or is there something else driving these developments? Of course, there is always the danger of

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1144551618347517202006-04-08T22:00:00.000-05:002006-04-08T22:00:18.406-05:00

From the CTIA NewsWire: The number of U.S. mobile phone subscribers surged by 25.7 million in 2005 to reach approximately 208 million, CTIA-The Wireless Association reported at its CTIA WIRELESS 2006 show in Las Vegas. 'The mobile communications revolution is in full swing, and now nearly 70 percent of America is taking part in it,' CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent said in a presentation.

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1141800763698774362006-03-08T01:35:00.000-05:002006-03-08T01:53:23.310-05:00

One of the basis of social network analysis is the idea that people have connections between them. These connections can be anything from frequency of interaction or asking advice, to liking, friendship or joint membership in groups or organizations. Whereas these observed links have been thoroughly scrutinized, little attention has been paid to the reason those links exist in the first place.

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1141799335501079312006-03-08T01:28:00.000-05:002006-03-08T01:28:55.583-05:00

Tell me your friends, and I'll tell you who you are.Assyrian ProverbPersonal relationships are the basic building blocks of human existence. Regardless of our cultural backgrounds or personal biases, we depend on each other for both physical and emotonal functioning. A brief look at psychological and social research shows that social contact is important for psychological well-being. People with

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1131662734086083602005-11-10T17:45:00.000-05:002005-11-10T17:45:34.160-05:00

Recently, I searched Google Print for a word, because I couldn't remember where it was I read something and I knew approximately what it said but not exactly. Fortunately, the book in question was indeed on Google Print - Futuring: The Explration of the Future by Edward Cornish. Google conveniently jumped me right to the page I wanted. The paragraph was at the bottom with the meat of the

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1131375420498310982005-11-07T09:57:00.000-05:002005-11-07T10:03:12.966-05:00

Jordan, in a brilliant comment on Steven Winn's SFGate article titled Turn on, tune in, drop out -- today's motto talks about the fearmongering properties of sensationalist media and how the author essentially misses the point of technology use and sociability patterns in his rush to scare his readers into yet another chicken little scream of people turning anti-social with popular technology's

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1131346642570218652005-11-07T01:31:00.000-05:002005-11-07T02:07:28.653-05:00

driving home from watching Wallace & Grommit today, I was, for some reason, thinking about friends in distant places and Flickr, research ideas and this silly, mostly useless blog. Some weeks ago, I'd realized that I actually seem to have lots of these random little potentially interesting thoughts that are never written down anywhere. This blog is certainly a space for such. Instead I use this

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1130545895485913812005-10-28T19:31:00.000-05:002005-10-28T19:31:35.490-05:00

World Usability Day | Making it Easy! - I am so amused by this, it's left me speechless! hehehehehe

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1130385376039161052005-10-26T22:56:00.000-05:002005-10-26T22:56:16.110-05:00

From the CTIA NewsWire: "The percentage of consumers who make a mobile phone their only phone will increase from 9.4% today to 37% in 2009, predicts a report by In-Stat. The report says lifestyle changes are driving the shift, and that people who currently are heavy wireless users are more likely to consider cutting the cord. TechWeb Network (10/25)" I am not sure about "cutting chord" in a

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1129300383178929452005-10-14T09:33:00.000-05:002005-10-14T09:41:01.550-05:00

from the CTIA NewsWire:Apple Computer unveiled a new iPod model that can play videos as well as music. The company's online iTunes store will sell video content at $1.99 a piece and signed a deal with Walt Disney Co. to offer five ABC programs -- including "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" -- on the new device. The New York Times (free registration) (10/13), New York Post (free registration)

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103623.post-1128191767969154042005-10-01T13:36:00.000-05:002005-10-02T18:42:49.663-05:00

Find-A-Human -- IVR Phone S... - Approved* In a world of increasing mechanisation of labor, computer-phone systems (especially the ones that function on voice recognition alone) are extraordinarily annoying. More often than not, frustrated customers end up yelling "get me a human, you stupid thing!" only to get "i did not understand your request, did you mean .... ". Maybe there is a reason for

Qhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251818869772321708noreply@blogger.com1