And another plot point from "Daemon" lurches into reality....
Right, and if I pick someone's pocket I'm really doing him a favor by showing how vulnerable he is, because it's better for us all to be paranoid and defensive in public spaces. Sigh.
What I find so revealing about projects like this is how starkly they reveal the poverty of imagination of their designers.
Seriously: I could probably come up with eighty valuable, practical projects that draw on publicly available data. None of them would jeopardize the health or safety or peace of mind of my fellow human beings.
I can't find it now but about a year ago Apple had a patent application publish that described a service where it would take the music you listened to and suggest friends near you based on musical similarity. Nice idea unless you're a predator using the service to find little girls that listen to Justin Bieber.
Holy smokes, author of that article Still Does Not Get It:
I replied that as sleazy as this app seemed, Girls Around Me wasn't actually doing anything wrong.... This was all public information. Nothing Girls Around Me does violates any of Apple's policies.
So apparently wrong=violating the letter of a written policy that probably 99% of people don't read. Somehow I bet that this guy doesn't use that definition of "wrong" in every area of his life.
So I'm writing about it now. Not because Girls Around Me is an evil app that should be pulled from the iOS App Store, or because the company that makes it -- Moscow-based i-Free -- is filled with villains. I still don't believe that there's anything wrong with what this app is doing, and the guys at i-Free are super nice, and certainly don't mean for this app to be anything beyond a diversion.
1. False dichotomy - check
2. Strawman - check
3. Nice people can't do bad things - check
4. Willful blindness - check
Bingo! What do I win?
On twitter it was claimed: some PR person for FourSquare said to an audience that "privacy is a modern invention", as if that just settled things; someone in the audience called out in response, "so is sanitation".
Foursquare isn't the only source of location data; Facebook put in a similar feature a while back, and it lets your friends check you in to places (if your privacy settings are set up to allow it). So the app can still get that info.
I wish someone would design a cab-share app with the "who's near me" technology. So like, purely random example, it's 12:15 and you've just gotten out of Les Troyens at the Met and the A train is going to be local, and that's after some D trains and a trash train go by, so you're thinking, I'll take a cab back to my northerly home, but it's so much money! If only I had someone to share with! Perhaps this has little general appeal. Do people even share cabs with strangers? (Non-rhetorical. I take a cab twice a year maybe.)
I have shared cabs with strangers, but usually in airport situations or when the train is out. I have yelled out to ask who is going to my neighborhood and figured that even if they stiff me it will still be cheaper than doing it by myself.
Charles Stross connecting this to the social network incentive structure.
I have heard good things about Grindr from the so-inclined. I've never had the mentality to hook up in that precise fashion (I've also never accepted an invitation to an orgy for the same reason), so I can't say I wish that Grindr's functionality for women were more happening. But it does seem like one should be able to get laid more easily by using technology. Instead it seems to result only in increased creepiness and less actual fucking.
Exactly. And guys I know who have used it sing its praises. What I wonder about things like "Girls Around Me" is if what it effectively does is mean that you don't even have to talk to a woman now in order to get the satisfaction of knowing where she is, what she's into, etc. We imagine a guy confidently striding into the bar and chatting up a girl about some band he knows she likes, but I wonder if that's what actually happens.
It seems likely that the main use of this application is as a source of masturbatory material, not as a way of picking people up. It's not clear to me how much creepier it is than just Facebook in that way.
From the link in 10:
Moreover we are actively discouraged from maintaining any separation of spheres of identity. Facebook was written by students, for students; one of its pernicious hallmarks is that it assumes that human beings possess but a single identity (which can be harvested by Facebook, needless to say).
Real human beings live complex lives in which they occupy different roles which are exposed to different people.
Amen.
15: It's creepier because you are in the presence of the person who you'll later be spanking it to. That's a modest increment in creepiness, but we only got to this point by a set of such modest increments one after the other.
Life got a little less frustrating when I realized that the moment I had what I thought was a good idea for and mobile application, I should just search for it. Either it would already exist, or it wasn't a good idea.
Jeffrey Rosen in The Unwanted Gaze has some interesting thoughts along the lines of the quote in 17 -- summarized very briefly, the argument being that the injury caused by privacy-destroying technologies is the injury of having information about you taken out of context.
Which is funny because I think it's right, but it doesn't sound that bad until you illustrate it with a concrete factual situation like the app mentioned in the OP. In fact that app is a much more gross (in both meanings of the term) example than anything I at least even could have thought of when I read Rosen's book a few years ago.
(I don't endorse the whole book, by the way, it's been a while since I read it and I vaguely recall having disagreements with some parts of it, but not exactly what they were.)
How is that different from Facebook? Go to a party, see someone attractive, find them on Facebook. Especially in a college setting where people are easy to find it's pretty similar.
22: For one thing, if you go to a party, other people are also seeing you. It's a little more equitable -- and, should you later be up to no good, your fellow partygoers may well have photos or memories of your presence.
Facebook disguises itself as something less creepy, while this app disguises itself as more creepy, but the functionality of a way to find pictures of attractive people you've seen in real life to masturbate to is very similar. Remember where the name "Facebook" comes from, it's a college student stalking tool by design.
Certainly it's not as creepy as finger. That was some scary privacy shit.
Certainly it's not as creepy as finger. That was some scary privacy shit.
And the neckbeards turned out ok!
Oh, I think I can see how some new creepy functionality comes in. Say someone creepy lives near two coffee shops, they can use this app to decide which one has someone they want to ogle.
For actual stalking behavior, it seems like there's not much of an efficiency boost over foursquare itself.
But it does seem like one should be able to get laid more easily by using technology. Instead it seems to result only in increased creepiness and less actual fucking.
I see where you are coming from--technologies based on sharing should help us with the biggest kind of sharing at all.
Still, I'm not really surprised. When sex is the driver for technological innovation, it is usually because people are looking for sex substitutes. The barriers to the real thing, after all, is are purely social, not technical.
The barriers to the real thing, after all, is are purely social, not technical.
You might think that.
22: For the fb thing, you need to know their name to find them and splooge on them. For this you just need geographical proximity and them having checked in somewhere. It's creepier.
I love how the article goes from half-baked ethical rumination to "so hey, everybody should totally buy this app SO THEY CAN LIKE TOTES WARN THE FRIENDS AND STUFF." How bizarre.
At least it did prompt FourSquare to pull its participation though, so that's something.
Say someone creepy lives near two coffee shops, they can use this app to decide which one has someone they want to ogle.
Who wants to sort through all those pictures? Combine this with some Facemash app and instantly rank the nearby hotties. *googles*
I suppose this is as good a place as any to retell this story:
I once purchased a used digital camera at a garage sale from a nice young woman who lived down the street from me at the time. I admit, when I saw her, I noticed she was attractive and on some level wished to see more of her.
Well, when I put fresh batteries in the camera, my wish was unexpectedly granted, although mostly what I saw was the top of her head and shaft of her husband's penis.
33: In a non-girls vein: a non-profit I used to work for used to get donated cellphones for running events. One year, somebody failed to clear the previous user's data -- and we discovered that one of our interns had a cell phone that had been previously used by a drug dealer. He'd left some very, uhhhh, interesting texts and voicemails on it.
34: My s-i-l's sister once loaned a camera to a roommate and had it returned to her full of erotic photos of dwarves.
Er, that was to 33. Not that erotic dwarf photography isn't toujours déjà pertinent to LC. (Just in case -- I am making a joke.)
36: Oh no worries, I am all about the erotic dwarf photography. As long as it's tasteful.
You don't have to know someone's name to find them on Facebook, you just need to know the name of one of their friends.
38: It might take some effort, though, which might be enough to dissuade someone from doing it.
I've tried stalking people I've flirted with at parties on FB and found it incredibly difficult. Like, I remember that the guy I liked at the party was a college friend of a friend of a friend, but that person is friends with like 300 people from their college, and a bunch of them don't have pictures of their faces as their profile pics and...
But it's not like this app makes it easy: most people won't be on it because they won't have a public Facebook profile or they won't have a public foursquare profile.
There's a certain "you shouldn't go out on the internet when your profile is dressed like that" attitude to that article.
The writer is an idiot
That's exactly what I thought when I read the article just before seeing your post.
On twitter it was claimed: some PR person for FourSquare said to an audience that "privacy is a modern invention", as if that just settled things; someone in the audience called out in response, "so is sanitation".
Not to mention, like, computers and phones and stuff.
FourSquare, on the other hand, developed on the veldt. Within the company, they call their developers develdtopers, because they're just taking what's natural to all human beings - sharing stuff - and bringing it into the modern world. Why do all those privacy advocates hate nature so much?
Back on the veldt, people who went around shouting where they were at all times were less likely to be eaten by lions. They were more likely to be killed by their annoyed fellow people, but there were still relatively few of them and lots of lions, so this behavior was adaptively beneficial on net.
I can't find it now but about a year ago Apple had a patent application publish that described a service where it would take the music you listened to and suggest friends near you based on musical similarity. Nice idea unless you're a predator using the service to find little girls that listen to Justin Bieber.
Can't you tell if there's a little girl nearby just by looking around, instead of going by imperfect proxies like that?
It's true. Using a common Droid/iPhone app called "Eyes," predators identify and stalk women and children every single day!
I was thinking about the moral and legal line we draw between imagining someone naked and taking a picture of them naked. There's always been a middle ground where you can draw a picture of someone naked, but not many people in the past had the skills to make that a frequent intrusion in to someone's privacy. But it seems like we are getting near the point where face and body recognition technology could mix with CGI to create virtual x-ray glasses.
I don't think such technology would be morally acceptable, but the cases above do seem to form a spectrum.
I picture all of you naked. It helps me build up the courage to comment.
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Dear god, please take care of mommy and daddy and Rover and the Gundersons next door, and please let the goddamn fucking Wildcats lose so the people I went to middle school with who I am now sadly friends with on facebook will shut the fuck up about it. Amen.
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Almost no one on my FB feed is talking about it. The few who are seem to all be Cards fans. It's a little weird. Maybe I've already blocked all the others.
I've tried stalking people I've flirted with at parties on FB and found it incredibly difficult.
You just have to reverse the sequence. I was briefly single during the Friendster era, and I tried using it as a dating site once. There was a cute girl, a friend of a friend whose profile indicated she was single, straight, and seeking, and I sent her a note.
She didn't write back, but that week I went to an art gallery and there she was. Having never met her before, I think I weirded her out a little when I went up and introduced myself. She'd started seeing someone, or at least that's what she said. It didn't make things any less embarrassing when, after I explained to my friends how I'd summoned a cute girl into existence with my computer, one of them shouted out, "Hey, is that your Weird Science girl?" as she was leaving the gallery.
"and that's how I met your mother!"
50, 51: This is a pretty exciting game.
I'm at least relieved that my human-generated bracket is going to beat No Upsets. Good work losing early, Syracuse!
So now OSU has to win it all if I am going to get that cash $$$. Let's go Buckeyes, also "rock chalk Jayhawk" literally makes no fucking sense at all.
And I keep reading this as "Girl Rules Everything Around Me" and have the WTC in my head. FASCINATING FOR EVERYONE I"M SURE.
I was thinking about the moral and legal line we draw between imagining someone naked and taking a picture of them naked. There's always been a middle ground where you can draw a picture of someone naked, but not many people in the past had the skills to make that a frequent intrusion in to someone's privacy.
The search warrants reveal new information about the disappearance of Susan Powell and the behavior of her husband afterward. They also give further details of Steve Powell's obsession with his daughter-in-law, including a folder with pictures of nude women that he had pasted the head of his daughter-in-law onto and footage he filmed by sneaking a camera under Susan Powell's dress while she was sitting at a table.
Sorry, Smearcase. I'm bitter about this win for the same reason. Lee and our former foster son Rowan have a running bet on Kentucky-Kansas games, so I'm hoping Monday's finale will let them face off on his terms, since he's the one who started the tradition. I'm also hoping Kentucky loses because fuck that shit. They didn't earn that win, or only barely, which I guess is why they only barely won. I'd be cheering against Ohio State regardless because I hate how they say THE Ohio State University and give me a fucking break.
I probably have something to say about the topic at hand, but instead you're getting basketball. Sorry.
And I keep reading this as "Girl Rules Everything Around Me" and have the WTC in my head.
What is the meaning of GRIME?
Jeez, Halford, that Mobility WOD site is brutal. I knew I was inflexible, but those stretches are painful.
60: I'm interested in what others will say about this, as I'm somewhat conflicted. I realize that the most vanilla things Lee and I do are still beyond the pale for some members of our community, and for the most part I think just too bad for them. But it sure was convenient during the trial against Rowan's dad for child abuse that his dad had some regular practices that were outside the bounds of community norms. It felt weird to feel so relieved when that came into testimony because of how I'd have felt if it were a friend's polyamory on the stand or something. But I am glad Rowan's dad went to jail despite how I feel about jail in general (because I think someone who, without giving details, is continuously unsafe with multiple minors not confind to his family deserves to be removed from contact with minors) and I don't think there were any unfair things done that sent him there. But I did wonder if I should feel more like a hypocrite than I did.
Based on Calipari's track record, in a few years the NCAA will determine that Kentucky's win did not happen.
I'd be cheering against Ohio State regardless because I hate how they say THE Ohio State University and give me a fucking break.
Hee.
My brother-in-law who went to Mizzou is here so it turns out I am rooting fiercely against Kansas.
60: Do you have any idea why the hell that case was so badly screwed up?
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"I hate Kansas. I hate them with a burning fire."
Do it for my brother-in-law, OSU.
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Not looking so good. OSU looking a bit tired.
"Oh god, I hate them so much."
This could be a rough night for him.
Seriously, if any of you OSU partisans or quoters of partisans wrote "The Ohio State University" instead, everyone would be on Team Me. 8.3 seconds!
People overturned cars in Lexington? That's... something.
Is there some reason to dislike Bill Self? Because when he was at Tulsa, I liked to see Tulsa do well simply for underdog reasons and then my good will towards his teams seemed to follow him to Illinois and Kansas.*
*My good will towards Tubby Smith teams followed the same pattern. Actually, Smith went first.
Anyway, say what you will about The OSU, but it seems like that state has continued funding higher education unusually well in recent years (despite having a Republican governor, even). Not that this necessarily outweighs the definite article.
78: I have nothing against OSU except annoying fans (hardly unique to them) and the definite article. My friends who are teaching or learning there seem very happy and I'm happy for them. I like Cbus a lot, but haven't spent much time in the university area.
Columbus is nice, or was not long ago.
81: Hi.
79: Nice haircut. My wife refuses to cut mine. I keep saying she should try.
The university area doesn't seem especially interesting. There's a strip with student-y places and then some more suburban-ish shopping centers. The Short North might be nice? Had a good meal there, anyway.
[angst redacted]
I first got my taste for Ethiopian food from a place near OSU. I also have fond memories of a used music store, but with the internet that's not so relevant anymore (and it's probably closed down anyway).
Isn't a bracket where Syracuse loses early by definition No Upsets?
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Completely off topic, but this is magnificent.
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86: Also, where Wendy's was started and the headquarters of White Castle.
88: Ha! I was just coming to leave a link to that.
90. Who is that guy? Does he write a lot like that?
Former head writer and executive producer at The Daily Show. I'd never heard of him either, but WIkipedia tells me he's about as decorated a comedy writer as there is.
Huh. I think I met him in college.
His Twitter feed is pretty funny: http://twitter.com/#!/thetweetofgod
Yeah, been following that for some time but didn't make the connection. I love that he has 90,000 followers and only follows Justin Bieber (at the moment).
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If any of the front page posters see this, there are plans for a mini-Unfogged London meetup on Tuesday.
7:30ish, the Angel:
http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/clubs_bars/venue-357.php
So far, only Tierce and myself I think as definites, but all welcome.
>
60: Do you have any idea why the hell that case was so badly screwed up?
There's definitely been quite a bit of "what the hell are they playing at" talk in local enforcement circles. I think part of it was the PD and/or the DA was squirrely about going to trial without a body. Which is understandable to an extent. Casey Anthony's dead kid was found in her back yard with duct tape on the skull FFS and still somehow that nut didn't get convicted.
And those supervised visits in WA were a joke. Having the visits on his turf with the supervision being a social worker was insane. It's a miracle they didn't get their employee killed.
If it is like our local government, they probably look at the pension funding levels and figure it is win-win.
Usin da pHone 2 loocup bit3z, that be my idea.
http://textsfrombennett.tumblr.com/post/16539095211/new-technology-by-bennett
Coo as fuccc !!
That's true, we haven't considered the potential of this app for vampires.
re: 101
Cool. Btw, I think your email is bouncing, or Tierce seemed to think so.
Is that an email address with E / uro / W / eek in it? Because that won't work.
No, the one your name here links to, with S/cream/ing in it. Maybe it just took Sunday off.
Huh. I think I met him in college.
I definitely smoked dope with him in college. He was that funny then, too.
Oh that one. That's just one I use on websites to suck up spam. I've no idea if it actually works any more.
They've pulled it "for further development". Unimpressed.
And a writer for Forbes thinks that finding the app scary is tantamount to wanting to put women in burkhas. After all, what if they wanted to be stalked?
109: Seems like making it opt-in would take care of that.