Facebook: It’s a totally different sensation. Browsing Facebook is unlike browsing the web in general. When you surf the internet environment, much effort has gone into creating the sense of anonymity. The effect is convincing, despite the fact that we all know that internet use is not really anonymous — quite the opposite.

“Given total privacy and a cloak of invisibility, many people become coarse. They do selfish things — things that they would never do if a friend (or a video camera) were watching. Pornographic online chat rooms would be empty if users had to type in their real names to register. Polluting the Hudson River would be a lot harder to do if you had to meet with neighbors and explain that it was your decision. (from Small Is the New Big, by Seth Godin; quote from here)

When you browse Facebook, you need to think before each click you make…  many of your actions will appear in your profile, or in your friends’ news feeds. It generates a tension, but also an awareness of one’s actions and how they will appear to others that is almost completely lacking elsewhere.

Facebook is truly about revealing your [networking] face — it is the opposite of anonymity.
Is this a good thing? Is the the dawn of an age of accountability?

“The old-fashioned fronts of these houses, which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer from the pavement, into which the bow windows protruded like bastions, necessitating a pleasing chassez-déchassez movement to the time-pressed pedestrian at every few yards. He was bound also to evolve other Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed.” (from The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy)

“…before he walked to the window to recollect himself, and feel how he ought to behave.” (p. 56)

“But neither Charles Hayter’s feelings, nor anybody’s feelings, could interest her, till she had a little better arranged her own.” (p. 57)

– Persuasion, by Jane Austen, Wordsworth Classics edition 2000

Not only are these neatly turned phrases, but they imply a marvelous sense of intellectual control over emotion. Do we have similar expectations of ourselves in modern culture(s)? Do we assume that emotions have their place, but that it isn’t in public? Some of that does remain in attitudes regarding business relationships, but even there things are changing.

The LG Electronics’ Viewty phone (a.k.a. KU990) is looking very, very sweet. Is it a perfect mobile device? Well, I haven’t met one yet. But I am looking forward to playing around with Viewty. (Note to LGE marketing department: consider new product name.)

Here’s a nice mini-site dedicated to the Viewty. Be prepared for up to a minute of loading time on a DSL connection. Someone at LG has a sense of humor: where the internet browser’s panning function is demonstrated (”Full Internet Browsing”), the screen pauses briefly over a bright red link that reads: “iPhone owner sues Apple for $1 million”. LOL.

(Screen-shot image sharpened for clarity.) 

Might the Viewty actually convince me to transfer my cell phone love from Nokia? Despite the name, I’m seriously thinking that this may be my next daily-use phone, and I’m not the only one. The test will be to see how it is as a phone per se phone, given the lack of tactile buttons (the touch screen does provide haptic feedback). I’ll be telling those who ask that I’m carrying a KU990, though. “Viewty”? You must be kidding.

Check out this brilliant World Wildlife Fund ad campaign in the form of bathroom towel dispensers! Demonstrating that Saatchi and Saatchi is the undisputed king of transforming advertising into an art form, this genius PSA integrates a crucial environmental message into the built environment. Shown above is the latest example of clever marketing concept ingeniously integrated into the most banal space: a public restroom. These paper towel dispensers have a cut out the shape of South America through which a stack of green paper towels illustrates the green rain forest canopy of the continent. As the paper towel dispenser is slowly drained of its green paper towels, we see the greenness slowly drained out of South America, symbolizing the nasty environmental impact of disposable paper towels.

We think this is an shining example of communication design: making a direct, graphic connection for viewers about how simple thoughtless consumption impacts the environment in such a negative way. The message is clear: every piece of paper you take is a piece of South America’s rainforest. How much more visceral and engaging is that over a boring TV PSA or print ad?

[via Inhabitat]

Orexin A is a promising candidate to become a “sleep replacement” drug. For decades, stimulants have been used to combat sleepiness, but they can be addictive and often have side effects, including raising blood pressure or causing mood swings. […]

The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired.

The study, published in the The Journal of Neuroscience, found orexin A not only restored monkeys’ cognitive abilities but made their brains look “awake” in PET scans. [via Wired]

There will be obvious and valuable uses for a drug like this: doctors, soldiers, pilots, intelligence agents and other key personnel who are occasionally called upon to perform under suboptimal rest conditions. There will also be lots of people who want to use this drug (if it comes to market) to avoid “wasting” time sleeping, or to cure jetlag, or to get a day’s work in after a night up with the baby.

Would you take this drug (or another like it — it’s not the first; there are others already in use for night shift workers, for example)? Would you worry about long-term (or even short-term) physical effects of tricking the body out of its physical needs? Do you love to be up, or love to get your shuteye?

What effect will drugs like this one have on cultural expectations of stamina? Of neediness? Of being “always on” in a 24/7 world?

The changes are already happening, although they are subtler: expectations generated by the ubiquity of laptop computers, cell phones, and Blackberry PDAs. Executives report setting their Blackberry alarms to wake them in the middle of the night just to shoot off an email to a colleague, in order to “prove” that they work around the clock. Still, saying “I got your email first thing this morning” is still an acceptable excuse for an eight-hour delay. Will that change?

Alternatively, will the backlash finally trigger a situation in which people start being more aggressive about drawing lines between their personal and working lives?

Stay tuned. Don’t fall asleep.

Whoddathunk?

(left, sign imitating the Bar Ilan trademark; right, an authorized Bar Ilan taxi sign) 

Taxis in Israel are required to be registered with the Ministry of Transportation, but they are essentially individual operators. Taxi “companies” are made up of independent drivers who pay a monthly fee in exchange for being included in the dispatch system of that company, plus the right to display the company sign in the front windshield.

In the last 15 years, that company sign has become more important, imparting a sense of trust and accountability. Many Israelis — and even more tourists — avoid non-affiliated taxis, for fear of inadvertently hailing an unregistered or unsafe taxi.

It’s not unusual for drivers unassociated with a company to have a one-off sign printed for themselves, with their name (or “company” name, like “Shema Yisrael Taxis”) and phone number on them. The theory is that the person hailing a taxi is likely to see only that there is a sign, not will not see what is written on the sign until after the taxi has gotten quite close, and the implicit agreement to take the fare is made. For the most part, that is quite true.

This is not especially about Arab vs. Israeli drivers, since many reputable taxi companies include both Arab and Israeli drivers (examples include Davidka Taxis and Rehavia Taxis).

One of the two largest taxi groups in Jerusalem is Bar Ilan taxis (they enroll Israeli drivers only). They are easily distinguished by a trapezoidal orange sign reading “Bar Ilan”, under which is the taxi call number, then the office phone number. Recently, they have also added flags on their roofs.

I have a couple of times seen a taxi using the sign of a defunct but reputable company. Today, though, I rode in a truly “counterfeit” taxi (click on image above for greater detail). The yellow trapezoidal sign reads:

Bar Alon Taxi

01

[cell phone number]

The sign clearly is meant to imply membership in the Bar Ilan group. Also, despite the imitative “BS”D” on his sign (an acronym for “with the help of Heaven”, common on documents of religious Jews), he was clearly an Arab. The driver also did not have the taxi owner’s and driver’s ID information posted in the car’s interior — a violation of the law.

Update:

According to Bar Ilan Taxis, the matter has been previously reported, and is under investigation by the police.

Incredible, but true. From the Nikon registration site.

The victimised Muslim woman is the lens through which Islam and Muslim society are seen. In medieval times she was cast as an intimidating powerful queen or termagant (like Bramimonde in the Chanson de Roland, or Belacane in Parzival) reflecting an intimidating powerful Muslim civilisation. And when the power balance began to shift in Europe’s favour in the 17th and 18th centuries, she was made to mirror her society’s fallen fortunes. She turned into a harem slave, leading little more than a dumb animal existence, subjugated, inert, abject, powerless, and invisible. She is the quintessential embodiment of a despotic, deformed, and backward Islam. [from Damsels in Distress?,  Soumaya Ghannoushi]

A fascinating assertion. I won’t comment on the overall theme of the blog posting; the issue is complex. Worth reading, though. It will make you think.

From the comments (which are well-worth reading, too): 

There are other aspects to this complex, too. Thus there’s the tendency for societies to use female symbolic figures to represent themselves (Athena, Britannia, Lady Liberty etc). There’s the sentimentalisation embodied in the phrase “motherhood and apple pie”. Among many other things. Religions, of all varieties, being concerned with the regulation of social groups, are particularly interested in women, because of womens’ status as social vectors.

So if a society is reacting against “the west”, that reaction will inevitably take the form of suppressing the freedoms of women, for the simple reason that those freedoms have become associated with westernisation. And this reaction will be justified in religious terms. But equally, western and other interests seeking moral justification for intervention will highlight the situation of women.

…and this…

This argument is OK as far as it goes but may I add a couple of points:
1) Human rights can and do exist outside of an imperialist narrative. In the European context they arose in the struggle against ruling elites that were also involved in colonialism. Hence they are better framed in an anti-imperialist narrative.
2) My first point would of course preclude blowing the **** out of someone in order to liberate them, but not of being concerned with their state of being, or of engaging with them to improve their situation. (R.A.W.A. springs to mind). Your point about ‘the oppressed Muslim woman’ being an imperialist construction, is quite possibly true. However, if you then conceive of a Muslim world that is self-contained and separate from the ‘West’, (or wherever), you are reproducing the same fallacy; namely that Muslim human beings have an essential difference that requires special treatment. […]

…and also this…

What would you say to people like me who abhor Islams treatment of women yet opposed the Iraq war? I’m sorry but tarring everyone who recognises that Islam oppresses women as some kind of racist imperialist is simply false. I’m not impressed at all with the OP, she seems to be trying to brush the abuses of women under Islam under the carpet by pointing out how western governments exploit this abuse as propoganda for their imperialist wars. […]

[via Racialicious]