Prime Directive

Here's a story about a cultural anthropologist who uses his knowledge of universal cleanliness to help P&G sell its products in a global economy.  It all makes sense. And I'm sure that the people of Nuer, where the men decorate their faces with dung ash, make up a fertile market in which women, just like the Madeira daughter who fears soiling her mother's white socks,  can swiff their guilt away.

I like anthropology and I'm a dyed in the compressed fabric bits fan of Swiffer. But shouldn't an anthropologist's first allegiance be to the prime directive instead of a campaign to "give cleaning a whole new meaning"?

The Narrative

Friedman's column in today's NY Times gives a pretty good account of how "jihadist" media have created a narrative in which The U.S. and Israel are responsible for everything that's wrong in the Arab-Muslim world (whatever happened to the Arab-Muslim "street"?). What the column doesn't mention is the way in which all media - including the one in which Friedman's column appears - use narratives to create marketable, easy to write "news" ranging from Palin to Black Friday to Middle America to reality TV. Change a few nouns in Friedman's description of the "jihadist" propaganda machine and you've got ... FOX "news".

I first read about "the narrative" in Joan Didion's "Political Fictions" which, like the movie Network, shows that life can become much stranger than art.

Two Years Ago Tomorrow

TG in Cincinnati with Andy and The Myatts

Lambda

A.

B.

C.

Trap

This turned out to be a dead end for me.



...but I escaped.

Rockaway Taco

I had to see it. Hope to visit when it's open.

The good:
Maybe some artists and surfers will make something out of this place.
The bad:
1. Maybe some investment bankers will make something out of this place.
2. At the Shore Front Parkway end of B 96th Street there's a new condo. Looks pretty lonely and it's across the street from a  dilapidated bungalow. Ocean front blight.

Affordance

The little top thing is.....
The big handle on the big thing controls the.....
Clockwise is for.....
Counterclockwise....
The little handle on the big thing moves along with the big handle on the big thing.. so the things that they each control (whatever those may be) change simultaneously... or maybe not...

Affordance is an object's (or in the case a system's) ability to "tell" you how to use it.

This system didn't speak to me at all. I was cold, wet and confused.

Could happen to you. "The Psychology of Everyday Things", Donald A Norman.