Love through the intertubes

I'm Jeremy, I'm doing an English major. I think I might head directly to the links and work back to introducing myself as I write.

There is a lot that interests me about the web and I'm pretty happy when I have the time to spend a few hours reading through links and collecting snippets and notes. I think because of that, I've also come to learn a bit more about how the different technologies work to solve problems, and extend ourselves, and reflect ourselves back to people we know.

One of the things that interests me most is the massive scale of data collection that comes with online life, and the things that that implies. Like, wikipedia and other hive mind projects, for example, reCAPTCHA, where account security is used to simultaneously transcribe archived text. Another example is the dating site OkCupid. This site was created by a bunch of mathematicians to matchmake by computation. Users are asked to answer questions for as long as they want (all the questions are user submitted), providing an answer for themselves, the ideal answer for their match, and the importance they place on the question. So there is a lot of data.

I'm subscribed to their blog, where they write up all sorts of statistical analysis of the way people recreate themselves online, and how this works out for relationships on the site. Here's an interesting post about introductions and the different language people use when introducing themselves: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message/. I like it because it puts the maths front and centre, and lets the data and the computation suggest how to behave online. There is a lot more on the site (and a lot more risque material dealing with sexuality, user expectations, user profiles and so on) which you can flick through; I thought it was relevant to the unit for the way in which it demonstrates how online identity is recorded and available for scrutiny, and how that might affect identity as a whole.

Also, I like the stuff at WNYC Radiolab because it is curious and thoughtful and well presented. The video "Words" that accompanies their current episode is pretty nice.

Introduction. I'm from Perth, but over the past 3 years I've lived in Broome, LA, and then Vancouver. I was on exchange in California and then working in a bar in Canada. And taking advantage of the surroundings whenever possible to ski/hike/kayak/go to Oregon. I wish the buses here had bike carriers on the front.

See you on Wednesday.