I'm a total asshole...

I’m almost a month into my new job as a writer for ReadWriteWeb and I’ve already been called, “offensive”, “racist” and “a denigrator of religious minorities.” At some point in my tech reviews I’ve managed to take on the same post-colonial hate mongering that put my grandparents in internment camps and kept them paranoid about systemic prejudice until their dying days. Or maybe, rather than being a grand oppressor in the system of evil, I’m just one singular asshole.

While it’s not the RWW debut I’d planned, I’m honestly thrilled that strangers have actually read my writing and responded. I’m not sure if this will change or not, but I have a belief that if you’re going to try and be a writer, honesty is important. While it’s not my intent to be offensive, I want to write in my own voice, and I’ll be the first to admit that this voice isn’t always PC. That being said, it might be nice to remember that I’m not some bigwig fancy pants with crazy investments and an infinity pool.

I’m a dumpy Asian Canadian female getting paid per post to type up stories in her kitchen while her great boyfriend works his ass off to pay the rent and keep the writing dream alive. There are no roadsters in our garage, no insane parties and there’s no caviar in our fridge - in fact, all we’ve got is expired condiments. But think about this. If you’re some passionate and gritty little entrepreneur with a decent company launched out of nowheresville, who do you think is going to root for you as an underdog? Me or some fancy pants? Email me pitches at dana[at]readwriteweb[dot]com and try not to call me a jerk in the subject line.

Strangers and Honesty

I started a writing job this week where I get to see some incredibly amusing and often off-topic stuff. Some of it is funny but irrelevant to what I’m supposed to be writing about, and some of it just plain sucks. I’ve decided I’m only going to talk about the good stuff unless someone really oversteps their boundaries. I thought these 2 projects were cool because they’re all about strangers and honesty:

1. I Got An Envelope: When I saw this site, it instantly reminded me of a cross between GroupHug and To Do List. If you don’t know them, check them out. Basically the project is about strangers leaving envelopes around town for others to fill and send back to them. The returned envelopes’ contents are then scanned and emailed to the site owner. Everything gets posted. I like that this has a neighborhood element to it.

2. What’s Your Name: Essentially it’s sort of like Craigslist’s Missed Connections and the Griffin and Sabine books. What’s Your Name is about asking someone in your photo who the heck they are. It’s not that they weren’t important in your life, it’s quite the contrary. You’ve been thinking about them but it’s just been so damn long or they’re your long lost family member / traveling buddy / teacher. I especially like the photo of the man and woman at the racetrack in matching white outfits. He seems like he’d be happy to reconnect. Men don’t generally agree to matching outfits unless they love you.

Smule's Ge Wang speaks at the SF Music Tech Summit

Smule’s Ge Wang speaks at the San Fran MusicTech Summit, 5. 18. 2009 from Dana Oshiro on Vimeo.

Last week I went to the SF Music Tech Summit at the Kabuki Hotel. Here is some footage of Smule’s Ge Wang demoing the Ocarina and the Leaf Trombone. I’m off to City Hall…things have not gone well with Prop 8. (Namely that it still exists)

Kama Sutra keeps Project Gutenberg from iPhone

Wow. Project Gutenberg’s Eucalyptus iPhone app was just denied from the iPhone store because the catalogue’s inclusion of the Kama Sutra is considered “objectionable”. Despite the fact that Gutenberg contains a huge selection of canonized literary text, the reality is that Eucalyptus is just a button to a skinnier version of the website. The button/app has nothing to do with the content beyond saving readers the time of typing the URL into the browser.

Strangely, this sort of moral censorship on a button/app has huge implications on both the publishing industry and society. One piece of “objectionable content” in a massive library can stop the public from gaining access to some incredibly useful information. In the future, how will this effect open learning and distance education?

The Adventures of Huck Finn was first banned from libraries for its “coarseness, deceitfulness and mischievous practices” and then again in the 50s for its usage of derogatory racial slang. Isn’t it strange that Mark Twain can be considered “coarse”, “racist” and now a classic, all within the span of a century?

Regardless of who makes it into the iPhone store, I’m just glad that there are still people producing art and culture for the love of it.

Artist Authenticity: Active Promotion

On Monday I attended the San Fran Music Tech Summit organized by my friend Brian Zisk and learned two things:

1. The bands I listen to are so two thousand and late; and,
2. Social media and community-building is at times perceived as a hindrance to the creative process.

I realized the latter point after several conference audience members questioned the authenticity of social media presence.

AUTHENTICITY
If a bass player lays down a track in the woods but no one tweets the YouTube video release, does it exist? With the need for independent distribution forms comes the need for networking and self-promotion. Music and art will always exist; however, if artists can’t get the resources they once had with traditional deals, then they’ve got to hustle even harder to stand out.

Look at the facts. Being exceptional is important, but nobody books a gig in a vacuum. It’s all about running with a crew. Networking is essential to artist success. Just look at the Bromley Contingent. The Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Billy Idol - while they were considered some of the most jaded rockers, for the most part they still valued the need for a community. (Well, everyone but Sid Vicious)

In other words, if you make great music and you want people to hear it, you need to own it publicly. If you’re not willing to talk about your box of cds in the corner, you better get some friends that will.

IT’S NOT THE BAND I HATE, IT’S MY FANS
Fans are people, they aren’t puppies. If someone is nice enough to blog about you, tweet about you or pass your info on to their friends, you should be grateful. Maybe you’ve got hang ups about technology, but if your fans don’t, then by all means, encourage their positive participation in your career. Better yet, if you’re at all concerned about authenticity then it’d be good to participate in the community that loves you. They’d be thrilled that you’ve made the effort.

Diana Eng: Fashion Nerd

Designer Diana Eng as a child in her floppy disk costume courtesy of Dork Yearbook

I’ve just spent the last two weeks creating patterns and sewing. I’ve learned two things:

1. Unless properly draped, stretch jersey makes me look like a sausage; and,
2. Season 2 Project Runway contestant Diana Eng is awesome. In addition to being one of the chosen few to own a childhood floppy disk costume (myself included), Diana’s life includes:
- Creating a camera hoodie that takes photos when the wearer’s heart rate increases (2004);
- Rigging up a camera collar system for dog owners to look at real time pet’s-eye view video from a phone (2006); and,
- Producing an auto-blogging purse that took the prize at Yahoo’s 2006 Hack Day.

Eng recently wrote the book, Fashion Geek - a series of projects incorporating fashion, LED installation and tech-related clothing hacks. And if you still didn’t think she’d earned her geek cred, she’s a licensed ham radio operator. See…awesome right?

Digital Open & Today's Learned Youth

I had an extremely lackluster public school education. Between nervous science presentations, a lack of resources, a plethora of heckling cool kids and 13 years of humorless math teachers, I certainly managed to fly under the radar. Writing and Lit were the only 2 subjects where I wasn’t average in every way. I can’t help thinking I might’ve been a different person if my school had had internet access.

My friend Jess Hemerly from the Institute for the Future just sent me the link to Digital Open - a community and competition for youth to engage in free and open technology projects. The IFTF, BoingBoing and Sun Microsystems launched Digital Open to encourage young adults and kids under 17 to create openly licensed projects related to software, activism, science, environmentalism, ethical entrepreneurship, tinkering/invention, art and gaming. In dedication to the free culture movement, the project accepts all licenses approved by freedomdefined.org as well as Affero GPL v.2 (AGPLv2) and CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.

I’m already blown away by the first entry. Brennon Williams is a 14-year-old who created a science magazine in 5th grade and a well read science blog - bwsciencelabs.com in 7th grade. Editors at Make Magazine write, “If Brennon is our future, I think we’re going to be okay.” Williams is certainly better equipped to change the world than the punks they churned out from my school (myself included). Below is a video of Williams addressing a school assembly entitled, “From Passion to Action”:

Defending the Normals

In a city rich with the history of the Beats, the Civil Rights movement, and the dot com boom and bust (and subsequent boom and bust), thousands of hardcore geeks, crunchy activists and tattooed intellectuals share a 7X7 grid and the common ailment of what other cities would consider Peter Pan syndrome. San Francisco is finally my home, but it took a year to meet the friends I love and find my footing.

For so many, SF encourages an adventurous spirit and serves as a haven from the scornful judgement of the normals. Like the Bad News Bears, we are a ragtag bunch of misfits. In a sense, we are the anti-Los Angeles.

But the problem is that in this city, if you have ever been normal or lived up to conventional ideals, you may be shunned.

My boyfriend started working with a girl who was on a reality show. On the show, she was constantly picked on and made to look like a dumb blonde. In reality, she’s amicable, competent at her job, classically good looking and tries not to eat fried food. San Francisco rejects her on principle.

What would it be like to be the punching bag for jealous girlfriends and the unsolicited target for lecherous perverts? I read the comments on her blog and my heart aches knowing that there is a human being that returns from an honest day of work to read public hate mail.

I’m not saying that I’ve got a new BFF, but as a ragtag misfit, I’m trying to be empathetic with the new girl.