Quadblogger

Just another blogs.cornell.edu weblog

Entries from November 2007

Of cell phones, iPods and the death of social awareness

November 16th, 2007 · No Comments

QB is not a social scientist. He doesn’t even play one on TV. But he lives in the world, drives cars, rides buses, walks streets and notices things.
One thing is becoming increasingly obvious to QB: cell phones, iPods and other self-insulating electronic amusements have led to the deterioration of general self- and social awareness.
The consequences [...]

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Tags: Technology

The back of my neck tingles

November 12th, 2007 · No Comments

Whether by coincidence or divine design, several reminders of the changing state of privacy in the modern electronic age have popped up in the last few days.
America Online, for example, recently supplied to sociologists a mass of data on the Internet searches conducted by its subscribers. The data was “anonymized” to hide the searchers’ AOL [...]

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Tags: Technology

The fungus amongus

November 2nd, 2007 · No Comments

About a month ago, as the itinerary for David Skorton’s Asia trip was being hammered out, QB was at the computer pondering the weirdness of a few potential headlines.
“Skorton carries fungus to China”
“China welcomes fungus home”
“Fungus repatriation finally reality”
Now, while QB had a hard time resisting silly jokes about locker-room exchanges (and giggling like a [...]

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Tags: International relations