I'm feeling a little bit hopeless this MFW. Maybe it's a cry for help, but almost nobody reads this blog and I wrote this, and it mentions the media in some passing way at least. Maybe it's a cry for help. May be.
I work in a workplace where there is a new initiative being worked by the whole company for "disaster planning". Disaster planning is basically a set of contingencies for how business will be conducted if there is no office to go to and the office is destroyed or rendered inaccessible (due perhaps to a flu epidemic).
As I have also lately been working for another client as part of a diverse team of people, part abroad, and part in the U.S., I've been effectively working under many of the same kinds of constraints that a "disaster" would impose on the first workgroup.
This past year I've also begun to work the majority of my hours in a home office, and have ceased commuting to work and dressing for work much of the time. My gas bill and dry-cleaning bill have withered, while I have undergone a real transformation mentally to adjust to my new mode of community.
I have taken the first faltering steps toward exercising my own internal discipline about work. I've seen the imprint of isolation on my psyche and begun to take lingering breaks to walk up the street to the bakery or to a coffee shop to sip from the font of social interaction. And I've looked into the dessicated souls of my fellow commuters the one day a week I drive 40 miles to work "on-site". Watching the peak oil "fuel-o-meter" tick toward empty, while listening to the creaking and moaning sounds of our declining post-war civilization broadcast on NPR.
The dry-cleaner greeted me "long-time no-see" in broken English last time I saw her. Every night I wait for India to go to work, and my job at 11 p.m. is to check in with my team and remind them that our firm's work is more important than their other clients. India is 10 1/2 hours different from us, a devilishly simple conversion of numbers which is often an intractable puzzle at 2 in the morning. The team and I take turns keeping each other up and asking staggeringly simple questions that seem impossible to answer under the effects of time-zone-lag.
And it occurs to me that by my on-site work-mates' standards, the state I'm living in is a disaster. The workplace is inaccessible, and will eventually remain so in perpetuity. Now, home is the office. Work is where ever-you-are. "You are your job", and your job is to make someone you've never met, and never will meet, do your boss' bidding. You are an electric cattle prod that's been modified into a tool of social discipline. You are riding a de-escalator. Up. To the future. And you are just hoping, against hope, that it won't lurch to a stop in the middle. Between floors. Between first and third... worlds.
Of course, "Disaster planning" has another sense. Up until a couple of years ago, it only meant "planning" in the same sense as airlines phased the homily "in the unlikely event of a water landing...", while failing to mention that an airliner slamming into the ocean at any speed really could hardly be called a landing at all. But today, there is nothing comforting or dismissible about planning for the most likely disasters. Planning means making plans -- in the positive sense, such as "Let's make plans to go to a movie. How about Armaggedon?"
As one who has been on the vanguard of change for some time, I now believe that the huge investment I have witnessed companies making in enterprise-level web applications development is based on the assumption that in order for companies to compete, white collar jobs will soon be transitioning to a global fulfillment model. Companies are "planning" for this transformation. In English, that means that white collar workers are not in Kansas anymore. We are going to be clicking our heels together as a primary mode of transportation for the rest of our working lives.
As place dissolves, information spaces will rise in our psyches until they are the real "there", and what we now still think of as "here" will mean less and less to everyone else. In fact, eventually we won't need to be here, at all. "Here" will happily be relocated, out of the city -- in other words strategically redistributed, in the same sense as the internet's distributed network model positions its assets disparately so that local disasters do not threaten the larger whole.
Keep in mind, it's no coincidence that your blackberry contains the same basic hardware as a home detention device. If you are home-schooled, home-detained, or "working from home", it's basically the same. It's a form of distance [learning/storing/working] -- one that's imposed by a stranger you'll never meet, who is really just communicating his boss' prod to you.
Have you ever zoned out during a virtual meeting as the late afternoon packet-loss has garbled a transmission into broken broken English? Have you seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Mars, while attacking a shipment of mars bars? You will and more. It's time to colonize mars. It's time to step into Wonka's tram ride. You don't switch horses in mid-stream. It's war time.
And at the end of our time, the end of days, in our life-times, we will become experts in disaster planning. Naturally, what will happen then is a matter of deep personal faith. The faithful look to an omniscient being steering us toward our destinies -- a 3-point walking-on-water landing. In that inspired vision, there will be the holy, wholesale reclaiming of souls and other territory, especially Oceania and Eurasia.
By comparison, the dubious look warily at the decision making process of the all the fallen -- drug addicts, prostitutes, politicians, bosses, and selves. We perceive phantom hands pulling puppet strings in the shadows -- making us dream up new and disastrous plans, yielding to hunger and other aversions. Planning for an even better disaster.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A Video Is Worth....
This week was a big Media Free Week. Though I managed to avoid television and news all week, a few things leaked out.
The most notable was the story of a teacher who had been beat up by one of her students. I did not know the teacher, but I know the school where she works, and I know a young man who attends the school.
I heard the story from a colleague who was very upset by the news. She heard about the incident from the news, and then watched the cell phone video on YouTube that one of the students recorded. From her perspective, the most shocking part was that the entire class watched, and seemed to condone their peer’s attack.
Later the same day, the student I know came by and talked about it. While he wasn’t involved, and had not seen anything, he heard a great deal from his fellow students. From the information he had, he was of the impression that the teacher did not act appropriately, by egging the student on.
I was disappointed by his comments, but realized that for many young people this is the normal course of events. Of course this would happen, when someone gets in your face, you run or you fight. Or if you are really talented, you joke the situation away.
This sort of thinking is also easy to adopt when you haven’t had the experience. I often hear about an incident on the news, and try to break it down like I’m the detective. But I wasn’t at the scene, I don’t know the people involved, and all I have to go on is an anecdote between car commercials.
In this case, however, many people have been able to revisit the scene, thanks to a cell phone video. My student watched the video himself after we talked, and changed his perspective. He saw the person who was hurt, a teacher he knew, and reconsidered his position. While the entire context of the class is missing, the clear brutality of the situation is streaming on the web for anyone to see. [Though it may have been removed by now.]
I’m not sure what this says about society, or media, or the problems in our schools. But I’m glad that video was recorded, and that it might help shed some light on a terrible situation.
The most notable was the story of a teacher who had been beat up by one of her students. I did not know the teacher, but I know the school where she works, and I know a young man who attends the school.
I heard the story from a colleague who was very upset by the news. She heard about the incident from the news, and then watched the cell phone video on YouTube that one of the students recorded. From her perspective, the most shocking part was that the entire class watched, and seemed to condone their peer’s attack.
Later the same day, the student I know came by and talked about it. While he wasn’t involved, and had not seen anything, he heard a great deal from his fellow students. From the information he had, he was of the impression that the teacher did not act appropriately, by egging the student on.
I was disappointed by his comments, but realized that for many young people this is the normal course of events. Of course this would happen, when someone gets in your face, you run or you fight. Or if you are really talented, you joke the situation away.
This sort of thinking is also easy to adopt when you haven’t had the experience. I often hear about an incident on the news, and try to break it down like I’m the detective. But I wasn’t at the scene, I don’t know the people involved, and all I have to go on is an anecdote between car commercials.
In this case, however, many people have been able to revisit the scene, thanks to a cell phone video. My student watched the video himself after we talked, and changed his perspective. He saw the person who was hurt, a teacher he knew, and reconsidered his position. While the entire context of the class is missing, the clear brutality of the situation is streaming on the web for anyone to see. [Though it may have been removed by now.]
I’m not sure what this says about society, or media, or the problems in our schools. But I’m glad that video was recorded, and that it might help shed some light on a terrible situation.
Monday, March 3, 2008
You Can Trust the Brand, but You Can't Brand the Trust
I read some media the other day that Weather.com is always in the top 10 web sites. This has contributed substantially to the value of the TV network that owns it (which is currently for sale for some magnificent figure). The fascinating thing about their content is that viewer's interest in it is almost all real-time, so their ability to sell their audience to their advertisers is very stable, compared to the slow erosion of real-time viewing that most other broadcast media outlets are experiencing.
Meanwhile, advertisers are working on many fronts to combat audience erosion. Recently I saw SNL broadcasting a "mini-mercial" of the setup for the next sketch in between commercials. And, shenanigans being played by shifting the start and stop of programs by a few minutes to punish TIVO viewers is widely known. Product placements and even more insidious product themed content have become more normal. For example, a couple of months ago I saw an episode of some youth-oriented action drama where one of the major developments of the story was that a main character's new SUV was stolen -- the same SUV that was advertised throughout the broadcast! Co-branding, especially of music, has surged as well. And certain programs have always been transparent vehicles for advertising, The Apprentice perhaps being a distant second compared to The Price is Right.
This MFW I'm trying to steer clear of advertising as much as possible. Once again, I am doing some major class work on a media web site -- this time, my personal favorite technology web site TomsHardware.com. Hilarious digressions into content keep occurring. It's really a shame how easy it is to turn a simple class assignment about web site usability (Organization, Labeling, and Navigation Analysis to be specific) into a shameless bout of media frolicking. This is especially true since I am in no way motivated to finish this assignment even though it's due at 5:30. "Focus. Focus."
One of the interesting by-products of this assignment is that I finally [almost] understand TH's web site. It turns out that even the third largest web media outlet for technology has major (and I mean "Call-me-immediately-and-pay-me-to-solve-these-problems-today"-scale) organizational, labeling and navigation problems. It all goes back to their recent flawed/half-hearted attempts to disentangle the different parts of their brand. To be specific, they are still attempting to sort out the presentation of their content and site organization following their acquisition/merger by/with another company several years ago, and a more recent attempt to harmonize their brand into THREE[!] separate websites that all share a navigational interface and similar branding and mission, as well as [gasp] intermingled content. These are TomsHardare.com, TomsGames.com and TomsGuide.com. (Huh).
Like many broadcast media, the web site has attempted to blur the lines of their content and their advertising relationships in a attempt to befuddle their audience, in an unholy and unwise attempt to grasp at several foolish goals. For TH these are probably to split their brand into sub brands that each can hopefully evolve into separate viable brands. Of course they are very ambivalent about this and in no way keep it simple by sequestering content on one side of a fence or another. I doubt their advertisers feel that any advantage has been gained, and I especially doubt that many choose to be on ONLY ONE site, which in turn proves that there really is ONLY ONE site after all (albeit one huge site with many discrete parts).
In conclusion, like many broadcast media networks, TH has been cursed with success and has complacently started chasing its own "long" tail by endlessly promulgating content channels as places to put ads, rather than taking a hard look at what attracts and retains readers/viewers. They have long been seen as one of the most objective sources of information about technology, and their charts and common navigational interface have been imitated many times because they are simply the best. However, the trend toward obfuscation of relationship between content and ad, and "channelization" of content into more and more specific persistent parts of the site, each with their own nav, are powerful erosive forces that may set the stage for a competitor to grab the one, great thing that TH has used as to anchor its success. Trust. And, once it's gone, "trust me", it will be very hard to get it back.
Meanwhile, advertisers are working on many fronts to combat audience erosion. Recently I saw SNL broadcasting a "mini-mercial" of the setup for the next sketch in between commercials. And, shenanigans being played by shifting the start and stop of programs by a few minutes to punish TIVO viewers is widely known. Product placements and even more insidious product themed content have become more normal. For example, a couple of months ago I saw an episode of some youth-oriented action drama where one of the major developments of the story was that a main character's new SUV was stolen -- the same SUV that was advertised throughout the broadcast! Co-branding, especially of music, has surged as well. And certain programs have always been transparent vehicles for advertising, The Apprentice perhaps being a distant second compared to The Price is Right.
This MFW I'm trying to steer clear of advertising as much as possible. Once again, I am doing some major class work on a media web site -- this time, my personal favorite technology web site TomsHardware.com. Hilarious digressions into content keep occurring. It's really a shame how easy it is to turn a simple class assignment about web site usability (Organization, Labeling, and Navigation Analysis to be specific) into a shameless bout of media frolicking. This is especially true since I am in no way motivated to finish this assignment even though it's due at 5:30. "Focus. Focus."
One of the interesting by-products of this assignment is that I finally [almost] understand TH's web site. It turns out that even the third largest web media outlet for technology has major (and I mean "Call-me-immediately-and-pay-me-to-solve-these-problems-today"-scale) organizational, labeling and navigation problems. It all goes back to their recent flawed/half-hearted attempts to disentangle the different parts of their brand. To be specific, they are still attempting to sort out the presentation of their content and site organization following their acquisition/merger by/with another company several years ago, and a more recent attempt to harmonize their brand into THREE[!] separate websites that all share a navigational interface and similar branding and mission, as well as [gasp] intermingled content. These are TomsHardare.com, TomsGames.com and TomsGuide.com. (Huh).
Like many broadcast media, the web site has attempted to blur the lines of their content and their advertising relationships in a attempt to befuddle their audience, in an unholy and unwise attempt to grasp at several foolish goals. For TH these are probably to split their brand into sub brands that each can hopefully evolve into separate viable brands. Of course they are very ambivalent about this and in no way keep it simple by sequestering content on one side of a fence or another. I doubt their advertisers feel that any advantage has been gained, and I especially doubt that many choose to be on ONLY ONE site, which in turn proves that there really is ONLY ONE site after all (albeit one huge site with many discrete parts).
In conclusion, like many broadcast media networks, TH has been cursed with success and has complacently started chasing its own "long" tail by endlessly promulgating content channels as places to put ads, rather than taking a hard look at what attracts and retains readers/viewers. They have long been seen as one of the most objective sources of information about technology, and their charts and common navigational interface have been imitated many times because they are simply the best. However, the trend toward obfuscation of relationship between content and ad, and "channelization" of content into more and more specific persistent parts of the site, each with their own nav, are powerful erosive forces that may set the stage for a competitor to grab the one, great thing that TH has used as to anchor its success. Trust. And, once it's gone, "trust me", it will be very hard to get it back.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
The Coldest MFW
February is the roughest of all Media Free Weeks. It marks the 4th anniversary of MFW, but there is no celebration. How would we celebrate? Watch some TV? Have a beer? Here are a few of the challenges to MFW in February:
>> I MUST know what the weather report is, but in the winter, it's too cold to risk opening a window. I wait and see what other people are wearing walking down the street. This is not always successful.
>> The early sunset means staying in is the most desirable option. When I stay in, I want to knit. When I want to knit, I want to watch TV. Another quandry.
>> The impending Valentine's Day holiday makes me want to find a gift for MFW Editor, and I am tempted to go on Etsy, or Threadless Ts, or go to the stores. (I must admit, I gave Etsy 1 hour of my week).
>> I'm almost always sick in early Feb. This week I spent the first 1.5 days at home. There is nothing better than lying in bed watching TV or reading magazines when you are sick. I read a book, and became very, very tired instead. Which really was ok.
>> I am finally flush again, after the December holidays. In between birthdays and other big obligations (save for V Day), I begin to think about that next purchase - maybe a Wii, or a new sewing machine. Researching on the Internets would be my first step.
>> It's the Primary Election. The relief of not hearing ads for candidates competes with my urge to read up the latest news about the campaigns.
I figure if I can make it through February's MFW, I can make it anywhere.
>> I MUST know what the weather report is, but in the winter, it's too cold to risk opening a window. I wait and see what other people are wearing walking down the street. This is not always successful.
>> The early sunset means staying in is the most desirable option. When I stay in, I want to knit. When I want to knit, I want to watch TV. Another quandry.
>> The impending Valentine's Day holiday makes me want to find a gift for MFW Editor, and I am tempted to go on Etsy, or Threadless Ts, or go to the stores. (I must admit, I gave Etsy 1 hour of my week).
>> I'm almost always sick in early Feb. This week I spent the first 1.5 days at home. There is nothing better than lying in bed watching TV or reading magazines when you are sick. I read a book, and became very, very tired instead. Which really was ok.
>> I am finally flush again, after the December holidays. In between birthdays and other big obligations (save for V Day), I begin to think about that next purchase - maybe a Wii, or a new sewing machine. Researching on the Internets would be my first step.
>> It's the Primary Election. The relief of not hearing ads for candidates competes with my urge to read up the latest news about the campaigns.
I figure if I can make it through February's MFW, I can make it anywhere.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Media Free Mondays
I haven't blogged much in the past two MFWs. Part of the reason is because I tend to get flattened on Monday - something happens on that first day of MFW that just shuts me down.
In October, it was a very difficult work situation, something that kept me up at night and wasn't really blog-friendly. In November, it was another work situation, this time a big event and numerous overtime hours. In December, I was in the throes of a serious headcold.
In January, I experienced disaster in the form of a favorite handknit shawl - loaded with sentimental value - becoming a child-sized scarf. I will stop writing about this as it is still too painful.
And February, the toughest of all MFWs, I was sick.
I wonder, are all Mondays so difficult? Is it just that the veil of media has been lifted, and I can see Monday for the bummer that it is? Or does the universe challenge me so I will become stronger each MFW?
In October, it was a very difficult work situation, something that kept me up at night and wasn't really blog-friendly. In November, it was another work situation, this time a big event and numerous overtime hours. In December, I was in the throes of a serious headcold.
In January, I experienced disaster in the form of a favorite handknit shawl - loaded with sentimental value - becoming a child-sized scarf. I will stop writing about this as it is still too painful.
And February, the toughest of all MFWs, I was sick.
I wonder, are all Mondays so difficult? Is it just that the veil of media has been lifted, and I can see Monday for the bummer that it is? Or does the universe challenge me so I will become stronger each MFW?
Thursday, December 6, 2007
The View From 10,000 Feet
So it's been a while. I've had two back-to-back horrible MFWs and the shame of cheating my way through them has made me unwilling to post. But maybe that's "ok".
This holiday season, plus the end of the semester, plus some long-distance travel with my in-laws has made me kind of stressed out. It's good to leave the house. At least I keep telling myself that. Meanwhile, I've been on a rampage of spending, eating, and media distraction. Sigh.
I caught some media about air travel disasters after getting back from the beyond. We had just had a tense 40 hours of travel in which 2 of our flights were canceled, one because of a volcanic eruption (yes!) and another because of "the electricity [in the plane] 'just went out'". That was just before a flight that was supposed to cross 10K-15K ft. tall mountain range, at night, in the rain, with cotton-ball like low hanging clouds.
Anyway, when we were abroad I didn't have email, phone, TV, or internet for whole week. Everything I did see was in another language. One of the big takeaways from the experience was an appreciation for how high the barriers of communication really are in much of the world. If you base your assumptions about telecommunications from hanging out on the East coast of the US then you are bound to miss a lot.
Anyway, "over and out".
This holiday season, plus the end of the semester, plus some long-distance travel with my in-laws has made me kind of stressed out. It's good to leave the house. At least I keep telling myself that. Meanwhile, I've been on a rampage of spending, eating, and media distraction. Sigh.
I caught some media about air travel disasters after getting back from the beyond. We had just had a tense 40 hours of travel in which 2 of our flights were canceled, one because of a volcanic eruption (yes!) and another because of "the electricity [in the plane] 'just went out'". That was just before a flight that was supposed to cross 10K-15K ft. tall mountain range, at night, in the rain, with cotton-ball like low hanging clouds.
Anyway, when we were abroad I didn't have email, phone, TV, or internet for whole week. Everything I did see was in another language. One of the big takeaways from the experience was an appreciation for how high the barriers of communication really are in much of the world. If you base your assumptions about telecommunications from hanging out on the East coast of the US then you are bound to miss a lot.
Anyway, "over and out".
Friday, October 5, 2007
Cognitive Load
This MFW has been very welcome. I'm in week 6 of 15 for the Fall semester, and I have three classes spaced evenly throughout the whole week, so on the one hand there is at least a day break between every class, but on the other hand, there is no down-time at all. Literally, it's been six weeks without a day in which I was scheduled to be at school or at work. And excepting Thanksgiving, there are nine more to go.
I've used the extra band-width in my brain to tackle the odd house project (this week it was painting windows and messing around with hardware), and to nibble away at my exhaustion from staying up all night working on an assignment last weekend (no, Virginia, two hours of sleep are not enough to program in SQL at work).
One of the by-products of media-deprivation is that you tend to remember a lot more of what you see of it. Last month during MFW I absent-mindedly read the involuntary 1-article weekend newspaper product's one article (syndicated no-doubt), which was a human interest story about a psychotherapist who broke down preparing to euthanize a three-legged cat, and now uses the cat (happily rehabilitated) as the pseudo-author of a self-help (psychotherapy) newspaper column.
I have been working on web publishing skills in one class, and reading about human-centric interface design in another. One of the things I have realized as I have been trounced over and over by my classmates who know how to design for the web, is that usability and design at times conflict with one another. This apparently has it's origins in human cognition, where any design element which doesn't explicitly contribute to the message of the text contributes to the cognitive load on the reader.
This cognitive load creates a kind of friction which tends to repel or slow readers and send them to other sites, or to otherwise frustrate them. Naturally, this affects low-literacy, English as a second language, non-expert readers more.
Meanwhile as I s l o w l y gain an eye for good web design, I see many things that comprise a web design that indicate that you cared enough to make the effort to make a nice page (and which are thus expected) which contribute to the cognitive load of the user.
I am talking about things like styling with color which do not directly enhance readability. And, font changes which likewise add "flavor" but don't directly make the site more readable. And, I am talking about fancy menus which although delightful and perhaps internally useful, depart from lowest-common-denominator design choices for readability (left justified, left nav, standard color links).
I feel like I'm a little over-stimulated right now as a web user focusing on interface design for human users. It reminds me of doing restaurant service and finding it difficult to sit idly in a restaurant letting someone else serve me.
To bring this back around, MFW is about filtering out as much of the cognitive load encumbering noise that is coming at you so you can rest your mind, and especially so by interrupting it, that in it's absence you can perceive it's magnitude (like seeing the halo of sun flares around a solar eclipse). Like the web designer who can't decide how much [over-]stimulation is too much, I'm not sure that we as consumers can easily tell what media sources offer the best balance of information and (let's admit it) entertainment.
It's an interesting tension in the media-space I think, between information and entertainment -- in which to seek whatever it is that we really want. On the one side the vendors entice us to spend our scarce resources to decode their messages and otherwise buy[-into] their stuff (i.e. their brand).
On the consumer's side we want it all -- distract me from the factory I live in, drown out the noise from the street, let me forget about my debt-load and how fat I am. And yet also we variously want to explore our civil liberties, contemplate crime-prevention, learn the perils and opportunities of reverse-mortgages and to consider the futility of trans-fat laden baubles laid before us by the "captains of """consciousness"""" [extra quotes added].
I wonder where we can go now in the post-media-free-week world we live in. Trust is one of the biggest factors in brand success, particularly when we seek information. Really, MFW starts with the assumption that the media are a channel through which an obscene torrent flows which should -- at least sometimes -- be stopped. I guess as a designer/creator I think the take-away lesson is to earn trust by providing useful information and eschewing design choices which contribute to cognitive load. But is there more? Is there a moral or qualitative dimension beyond "information quality" that can be imposed on entertainment?
Good design is widely described as a paring down activity where eventually nothing which remains can be taken away. The best information products are pretty light. As for the entertainment thing, well that's not actually my forte. I am going to have to give that some thought -- maybe next month after I consult the three-legged cat, start eating candy again, and get a little "me-time" with my computer.
I've used the extra band-width in my brain to tackle the odd house project (this week it was painting windows and messing around with hardware), and to nibble away at my exhaustion from staying up all night working on an assignment last weekend (no, Virginia, two hours of sleep are not enough to program in SQL at work).
One of the by-products of media-deprivation is that you tend to remember a lot more of what you see of it. Last month during MFW I absent-mindedly read the involuntary 1-article weekend newspaper product's one article (syndicated no-doubt), which was a human interest story about a psychotherapist who broke down preparing to euthanize a three-legged cat, and now uses the cat (happily rehabilitated) as the pseudo-author of a self-help (psychotherapy) newspaper column.
I have been working on web publishing skills in one class, and reading about human-centric interface design in another. One of the things I have realized as I have been trounced over and over by my classmates who know how to design for the web, is that usability and design at times conflict with one another. This apparently has it's origins in human cognition, where any design element which doesn't explicitly contribute to the message of the text contributes to the cognitive load on the reader.
This cognitive load creates a kind of friction which tends to repel or slow readers and send them to other sites, or to otherwise frustrate them. Naturally, this affects low-literacy, English as a second language, non-expert readers more.
Meanwhile as I s l o w l y gain an eye for good web design, I see many things that comprise a web design that indicate that you cared enough to make the effort to make a nice page (and which are thus expected) which contribute to the cognitive load of the user.
I am talking about things like styling with color which do not directly enhance readability. And, font changes which likewise add "flavor" but don't directly make the site more readable. And, I am talking about fancy menus which although delightful and perhaps internally useful, depart from lowest-common-denominator design choices for readability (left justified, left nav, standard color links).
I feel like I'm a little over-stimulated right now as a web user focusing on interface design for human users. It reminds me of doing restaurant service and finding it difficult to sit idly in a restaurant letting someone else serve me.
To bring this back around, MFW is about filtering out as much of the cognitive load encumbering noise that is coming at you so you can rest your mind, and especially so by interrupting it, that in it's absence you can perceive it's magnitude (like seeing the halo of sun flares around a solar eclipse). Like the web designer who can't decide how much [over-]stimulation is too much, I'm not sure that we as consumers can easily tell what media sources offer the best balance of information and (let's admit it) entertainment.
It's an interesting tension in the media-space I think, between information and entertainment -- in which to seek whatever it is that we really want. On the one side the vendors entice us to spend our scarce resources to decode their messages and otherwise buy[-into] their stuff (i.e. their brand).
On the consumer's side we want it all -- distract me from the factory I live in, drown out the noise from the street, let me forget about my debt-load and how fat I am. And yet also we variously want to explore our civil liberties, contemplate crime-prevention, learn the perils and opportunities of reverse-mortgages and to consider the futility of trans-fat laden baubles laid before us by the "captains of """consciousness"""" [extra quotes added].
I wonder where we can go now in the post-media-free-week world we live in. Trust is one of the biggest factors in brand success, particularly when we seek information. Really, MFW starts with the assumption that the media are a channel through which an obscene torrent flows which should -- at least sometimes -- be stopped. I guess as a designer/creator I think the take-away lesson is to earn trust by providing useful information and eschewing design choices which contribute to cognitive load. But is there more? Is there a moral or qualitative dimension beyond "information quality" that can be imposed on entertainment?
Good design is widely described as a paring down activity where eventually nothing which remains can be taken away. The best information products are pretty light. As for the entertainment thing, well that's not actually my forte. I am going to have to give that some thought -- maybe next month after I consult the three-legged cat, start eating candy again, and get a little "me-time" with my computer.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Things To Do During MFW
This month's Media Free Week was fairly easy for me. I was busy enough, and tired enough, that I welcomed the quiet of a media-free house. I had the opportunity to rest and think, plan and ponder. Here is a list of things I did during Media Free Week:
1. Cooked fresh food - taking advantage of the cucumbers delivered by my generous neighbors, I made a huge batch of tzatziki, which we shared with our other neighbor.
2. Finished craft project - I finished a bag I was making for a friend, knitting the bag and then felting it. Several hours were spent bending over the sink and washing machine, hand felting wool and shaping it. I relished the physicality of the work.
3. Went to the gym - I've been off my workouts for a few weeks, and MFW was a great opportunity to get back in the swing of working out regularly.
4. Slept 8 hours - I managed to get enough sleep every night, without feeling like staying up to watch a little news, or being all pumped up from whatever movie I had seen that night.
5. Read books - Ah, this is where is gets tricky. I managed to re-read 1.5 of my favorite books. Some would say that this is all good - reading is not on our no-media list, after all. Yet I read so much, so often, that it may be considered addictive. I think I will try to limit my reading next month. (I'm not even sure that I could take a full week off of reading!)
6. Connected with friends and family - I had dinner with my neighbor, arranged a couple of upcoming dinner dates, and went to brunch with family from out of town. It was very nice to be in the moment with them all.
7. Kept house - laundry, dishes, you name it. Plus I made some small yet meaningful progress in larger house projects. For example, with the help of a friend (who wanted to borrow a book in my basement), I went through about half of our boxes in the basement, labeling their contents. I also discovered that we really have a lot of stuff in boxes that we probably don't need - fodder for another project!
Looking back, I feel a little more in control of my life, and have set in motion some good projects and plans to stay connected to the people and goals that matter to me. Hopefully I will be able to keep this momentum going throughout the month.
So. my question to you is, what will YOU do with a Media Free Week?
1. Cooked fresh food - taking advantage of the cucumbers delivered by my generous neighbors, I made a huge batch of tzatziki, which we shared with our other neighbor.
2. Finished craft project - I finished a bag I was making for a friend, knitting the bag and then felting it. Several hours were spent bending over the sink and washing machine, hand felting wool and shaping it. I relished the physicality of the work.
3. Went to the gym - I've been off my workouts for a few weeks, and MFW was a great opportunity to get back in the swing of working out regularly.
4. Slept 8 hours - I managed to get enough sleep every night, without feeling like staying up to watch a little news, or being all pumped up from whatever movie I had seen that night.
5. Read books - Ah, this is where is gets tricky. I managed to re-read 1.5 of my favorite books. Some would say that this is all good - reading is not on our no-media list, after all. Yet I read so much, so often, that it may be considered addictive. I think I will try to limit my reading next month. (I'm not even sure that I could take a full week off of reading!)
6. Connected with friends and family - I had dinner with my neighbor, arranged a couple of upcoming dinner dates, and went to brunch with family from out of town. It was very nice to be in the moment with them all.
7. Kept house - laundry, dishes, you name it. Plus I made some small yet meaningful progress in larger house projects. For example, with the help of a friend (who wanted to borrow a book in my basement), I went through about half of our boxes in the basement, labeling their contents. I also discovered that we really have a lot of stuff in boxes that we probably don't need - fodder for another project!
Looking back, I feel a little more in control of my life, and have set in motion some good projects and plans to stay connected to the people and goals that matter to me. Hopefully I will be able to keep this momentum going throughout the month.
So. my question to you is, what will YOU do with a Media Free Week?
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Wired but not Web 2.0?
I saw this article in a classmate's blog. It has profiles of new media users. I guess I'm more of a "Lackluster Veteran" than anything else.
MFW September 2007
Alright, so here's how my Media Free Week (MFW) went for September 2007.
I recall reading the following media without noticing that I was starting to do it:
1. I picked up a copy of PC Gamer at Borders where I was getting a cup of coffee after work and I started reading some very encouraging reviews about BioShock, Crysis, and if I am not mistaken, Far Cry 2. When I realized what I was doing, I wiped the [ahem] sweat from my brow and went home.
2. I reflexively stopped at the magazine rack that has recently sprung up at the grocery store during its recent remodel. I thumbed through pretty commercial outdoor spaces furnishings and goo-gahs magazine and realized that I had in fact been drawn before to the exact same magazine in the past. Sheepishly I put it down and went back to shopping.
3. I have been tasked with keeping up with some serious advertising, media, and gadget online websites for a new grad school class on new media. My assignment is to watch a long list of sites, and at least scan the headlines every week. I am not sure how to adjust my MFW strategy in light of the class. It's like being in recovery and taking a wine-tasting class. On the whole I feel like it was a good week off from most external media.
A quick look at headlines suggests that I haven't missed much in a slow news week. My wife and I had a funny moment when we check the weather online and noticed that a tropical storm was passing close by our shore tomorrow. Ha!
On another level, I was up till 2 am every night except one this week, mostly working on school -- much of it on my own media projects. Self-created media isn't really something that I feel should be discouraged, but who knows, maybe it's the next thing to be curtailed.
I recall reading the following media without noticing that I was starting to do it:
1. I picked up a copy of PC Gamer at Borders where I was getting a cup of coffee after work and I started reading some very encouraging reviews about BioShock, Crysis, and if I am not mistaken, Far Cry 2. When I realized what I was doing, I wiped the [ahem] sweat from my brow and went home.
2. I reflexively stopped at the magazine rack that has recently sprung up at the grocery store during its recent remodel. I thumbed through pretty commercial outdoor spaces furnishings and goo-gahs magazine and realized that I had in fact been drawn before to the exact same magazine in the past. Sheepishly I put it down and went back to shopping.
3. I have been tasked with keeping up with some serious advertising, media, and gadget online websites for a new grad school class on new media. My assignment is to watch a long list of sites, and at least scan the headlines every week. I am not sure how to adjust my MFW strategy in light of the class. It's like being in recovery and taking a wine-tasting class. On the whole I feel like it was a good week off from most external media.
A quick look at headlines suggests that I haven't missed much in a slow news week. My wife and I had a funny moment when we check the weather online and noticed that a tropical storm was passing close by our shore tomorrow. Ha!
On another level, I was up till 2 am every night except one this week, mostly working on school -- much of it on my own media projects. Self-created media isn't really something that I feel should be discouraged, but who knows, maybe it's the next thing to be curtailed.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Media Free Week - the Beginning
Media Free Week began for me on February 14, 2003. Since we first were dating, my (then) boyfriend and I have always traveled on Valentine’s/President’s Day Weekend, usually somewhere close by, but far enough away to get a break from the routine. It was incredibly cold, the forecast called for a major snowstorm the following week, and we were determined to get our vacation in before it struck.
On the road, we had the time to have a long conversation. We were both concerned that we were not spending as much “quality time” together as we used to. I was upset that we didn’t go out as much, or see our friends as much, as we used to. He felt like I was too busy, and that I never made time to just spend with him. It sounds pretty analytical, but quickly came to a point:
“I come home and you are watching TV, so I go upstairs and play video games.”
“ I watch TV because I know you will go upstairs to play video games.”
So yes, we work too much, yes, we are “busy” people, but really, it came down to two little boxes sucking up all our free time. And while there were some really great shows on then (Buffy, 24, Pioneer House), I had to admit that I was watching a lot of crap, too. And I would truly sit in front of the TV for 4 hours a night, taking breaks to cook dinner, or while knitting and paying bills. But I kept the box on – the whole night. My boyfriend (now husband) could argue that he was “doing” something by playing a video game, but from my perspective it made him even less available – he couldn’t look away from the screen for a second. At least I had commercials.
We also felt overwhelmed by the news media. We had just been through the media blitz surrounding the Presidential Election, September 11th, and the invasion of Afghanistan. And then there was the DC Sniper Shootings – well-documented, yet factually flawed. We had felt the powerlessness of ourselves as individuals watching our own military actions, and the frustration of discovering news we relied upon to protect our community (remember looking out for a “white van?”) was completely wrong. We needed to focus on our own community, and the things that we could control.
We got inspired then. We asked ourselves – “What would happen if we took a media fast for a whole week?” It sounded easy. We spent the rest of the trip discussing what constituted media, and agreed we would not: watch TV, listen to the radio, surf the internet, or play video games. We would spend the evenings and weekends together. It made sense to fast Monday through Sunday, so we could build up to the weekend, which would surely be more difficult. We agreed to institute MEDIA FREE WEEK the first week of March.2003.
That happened to be the week that the U.S. invaded Iraq. I sat at coffee with a friend, listening to her fear and anger. I cared, but I also knew that there was nothing I could do in the moment that would change anything. I drove to work in silence, and I was able to focus more clearly on my day – not needing to check the headlines online, or catch a little bit of NPR at lunchtime.
At home, I felt more creative. I had no pattern to follow for the evening. I cooked dinner with my boyfriend and we had a chance to talk about our day.
That was the first day of MEDIA FREE WEEK. It has now been 3.5 years or so, and we are still going strong. Some months it is easier than others, sometimes I forget and drive to work with the radio on the whole way. But when we do it right, when we stay focused on the here and now, I feel calmer and more focused for the rest of the month.
What will happen when YOU interrupt the pattern?
On the road, we had the time to have a long conversation. We were both concerned that we were not spending as much “quality time” together as we used to. I was upset that we didn’t go out as much, or see our friends as much, as we used to. He felt like I was too busy, and that I never made time to just spend with him. It sounds pretty analytical, but quickly came to a point:
“I come home and you are watching TV, so I go upstairs and play video games.”
“ I watch TV because I know you will go upstairs to play video games.”
So yes, we work too much, yes, we are “busy” people, but really, it came down to two little boxes sucking up all our free time. And while there were some really great shows on then (Buffy, 24, Pioneer House), I had to admit that I was watching a lot of crap, too. And I would truly sit in front of the TV for 4 hours a night, taking breaks to cook dinner, or while knitting and paying bills. But I kept the box on – the whole night. My boyfriend (now husband) could argue that he was “doing” something by playing a video game, but from my perspective it made him even less available – he couldn’t look away from the screen for a second. At least I had commercials.
We also felt overwhelmed by the news media. We had just been through the media blitz surrounding the Presidential Election, September 11th, and the invasion of Afghanistan. And then there was the DC Sniper Shootings – well-documented, yet factually flawed. We had felt the powerlessness of ourselves as individuals watching our own military actions, and the frustration of discovering news we relied upon to protect our community (remember looking out for a “white van?”) was completely wrong. We needed to focus on our own community, and the things that we could control.
We got inspired then. We asked ourselves – “What would happen if we took a media fast for a whole week?” It sounded easy. We spent the rest of the trip discussing what constituted media, and agreed we would not: watch TV, listen to the radio, surf the internet, or play video games. We would spend the evenings and weekends together. It made sense to fast Monday through Sunday, so we could build up to the weekend, which would surely be more difficult. We agreed to institute MEDIA FREE WEEK the first week of March.2003.
That happened to be the week that the U.S. invaded Iraq. I sat at coffee with a friend, listening to her fear and anger. I cared, but I also knew that there was nothing I could do in the moment that would change anything. I drove to work in silence, and I was able to focus more clearly on my day – not needing to check the headlines online, or catch a little bit of NPR at lunchtime.
At home, I felt more creative. I had no pattern to follow for the evening. I cooked dinner with my boyfriend and we had a chance to talk about our day.
That was the first day of MEDIA FREE WEEK. It has now been 3.5 years or so, and we are still going strong. Some months it is easier than others, sometimes I forget and drive to work with the radio on the whole way. But when we do it right, when we stay focused on the here and now, I feel calmer and more focused for the rest of the month.
What will happen when YOU interrupt the pattern?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Media Free Week Launch
September 11th was a catalyst for changes in many people's lives. Among the effects in my own life, was a recognition of the power that the full spectrum of media had to affect my perception of the world and also my relative inability to control the stream of information coming from radio, TV and my coworkers, as well as from other media like internet news, bill-boards, outdoor newsfeeds, music, as well as more nuanced and subtle messages from things like in-game advertising, patriotic flyover spectacles, t-shirts, etc.
Like many people, my experiences of the momentous events of the day were established by the media coverage of it, starting with the reports of the unfolding events which I followed with peaked interest while driving to work. I recall joining my coworkers around a TV in the conference room to behold the towers in flames with huge columns of smoke pouring out.
But later that day after being sent home, watching the macabre horror of the TV and radio coverage, and not really sure what else to do, my [then] girlfriend and I took a walk through some marginal spaces in the park in our neighborhood. Emboldened by the fear of war, we ventured into areas of our neighborhood park which we would have otherwise been apprehensive to visit. And there, where the stream passes beneath each street we found a cavern adorned by thousands of beautiful cave drawings, revealing something of the other side of the world. This was something we would have probably otherwise missed for our whole lives, and yet which was there a few blocks from our house all along.
To the gurgling of the stream and the occasional sounds military aircraft flying sorties over Maryland, and to the most remarkable sound of all--the unreal silence of no domestic air travel, I began to reevaluate my perception of reality itself, contemplating--at least for a few moments--the inter-connectedness of the worlds we live in. And how what is seen on the surface is so often a bizarro-world mirror image when viewed from below. And I wondered, not entirely playfully, if the denizens of the park were preparing to take it all away.
You never turned around
In the weeks that followed, while we talked for many hours with our friends and family about current events, their meaning and consequence, I never spared myself TV news and NPR coverage. At one point about two weeks into it, we attempted to get some people to come over and just talk as a group about the September 11th attacks and our hopes and fears for the world, but there were no takers.
In the year or so that followed I made great use of internet news media and broadcast news media to try to understand what was happening in the world. I developed a great fatigue trying to make sense of it all and at the same time to preserve a sense of balance in the face of so much media whose agendas I felt I didn't agree with.
As it turns out, this year was the most commercially profitable year for the media industries in all history. Among the stories that captivated our attention and kept us raptly attached to the broadcast and print media were the "DC" Sniper, the Invasion of Afghanistan, and the lead-up to the Invasion of Iraq (including the infamous WMD arguments for the second US invasion of Iraq). This was also the period of time that I like to say terror was discovered by prime time dramas with the first season 24 (which we watched beginning to end).
Looking back on it I am glad that I followed those stories, but I also recall an intense mental exhaustion trying to keep up with it all as well as a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the world-view which was created and fed by an endless buffet of condensed information about grave things that I had little ability to control, change, or even begin to critically explore. What seemed the most out of place, was the zeal that even NPR (gasp!) effaced in trying to keep us "informed" with ["]stories["] that were really just rehashings and un-rehearsed updates-to-the-updates, but which conveyed no new information, and in many [most?] cases were designed to exploit my concern about the news, and to fan it further for the sake of the media production enterprise.
This time the bullet cold rocked ya
Blasted through ya head
I give a shout out to the living dead
It was thus, that my wife and I somehow came up with the idea of taking a week off of media consumption every month. We debated how to organize the time, as well as a set of ground-rules for what kinds of media to prohibit. The first few times we did it, we discovered a number of issues which led rapidly to a number of changes to the plan.
Among the first things that I noticed was that deprived of media distractions, the world was a dull place indeed. We instantaneously threw ourselves into other near-total distractions. Drinking was for me at the top of the list and soon I recognized that in order to appreciate a world free of media distractions, I would have to be sober to do it. [Ahem], at least while I was doing it. Another distraction-enhancing tactic which had to be neutralized was the desire to go shopping, as if purely for something to do. Through the trip to the big-box stores or the mall, we could attained the escapism, the "retail therapy", of being pandered to commercially, more directly from the retailer.
The evolution of rules and adjustments, Media Free Week (MFW), has long-since become for me a universal "good week" in our household. The first complete week of the month (Monday-Sunday), I invite myself to do all the stuff I am supposed to do as a friend, husband, home-owner, healthy person, etc. -- at least for one week a month. That is why my list of things I'm prohibited from doing for MFW includes some unlikely "media" indeed, and I'm OK with that.
Forbidden "Media" [for me] are:
TV
Radio
Video games
Magazines
Catalogs
Internet (except for [ahem] work and [ahem] school)
Entertainment Shopping (Best Buy, CompUSA, the mall, etc.)
Non-work computer fussing (I'm in IT so this can include anything from installing, updating and patching software, file management, breaking and fixing the computer, defragging the hard drive, reconfiguring software and hardware, etc.)
Candy
Ice-cream
Sugary Baked Goods (cookies, cakes, pie, etc.)
News feed headlines
So far, I observe reasonable-use exclusions for:
Books (I'm not much of a reader)
DVD movie screening
Cinema screening
Theatrical Performance
Email
CD Audio and MP3s
Internet for work
Computer fussing for work
The critical distinction for me is between streams of media which you don't control as a viewer/reader, where you don't know what's coming and which actually never really end, like radio, TV, entertainment shopping vs. on the other hand, something like a movie or a CD where you conceive of consuming the media text and then watch it through to its conclusion -- and then it's over.
-------------------------------
Now, we would like to invite you for your thoughts about and experiences of going "media free". So if you are interested in being a guest poster to initiate a thread, please contact us (mfweek AT gmail dot Com) and one of us will get back to you. Just remember, the topic of this blog is about what happens when we try to opt-out of media consumption. It's not really about criticism of the media per se, or even about whether the media are good or bad. We'll leave that to "the media"! ;)
Interrupt the Pattern
Like many people, my experiences of the momentous events of the day were established by the media coverage of it, starting with the reports of the unfolding events which I followed with peaked interest while driving to work. I recall joining my coworkers around a TV in the conference room to behold the towers in flames with huge columns of smoke pouring out.
But later that day after being sent home, watching the macabre horror of the TV and radio coverage, and not really sure what else to do, my [then] girlfriend and I took a walk through some marginal spaces in the park in our neighborhood. Emboldened by the fear of war, we ventured into areas of our neighborhood park which we would have otherwise been apprehensive to visit. And there, where the stream passes beneath each street we found a cavern adorned by thousands of beautiful cave drawings, revealing something of the other side of the world. This was something we would have probably otherwise missed for our whole lives, and yet which was there a few blocks from our house all along.
To the gurgling of the stream and the occasional sounds military aircraft flying sorties over Maryland, and to the most remarkable sound of all--the unreal silence of no domestic air travel, I began to reevaluate my perception of reality itself, contemplating--at least for a few moments--the inter-connectedness of the worlds we live in. And how what is seen on the surface is so often a bizarro-world mirror image when viewed from below. And I wondered, not entirely playfully, if the denizens of the park were preparing to take it all away.
You never turned around
to see the frowns
on the jugglers and the clowns
when they all did tricks for you
Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone", Highway 61 Revisited
In the weeks that followed, while we talked for many hours with our friends and family about current events, their meaning and consequence, I never spared myself TV news and NPR coverage. At one point about two weeks into it, we attempted to get some people to come over and just talk as a group about the September 11th attacks and our hopes and fears for the world, but there were no takers.
In the year or so that followed I made great use of internet news media and broadcast news media to try to understand what was happening in the world. I developed a great fatigue trying to make sense of it all and at the same time to preserve a sense of balance in the face of so much media whose agendas I felt I didn't agree with.
As it turns out, this year was the most commercially profitable year for the media industries in all history. Among the stories that captivated our attention and kept us raptly attached to the broadcast and print media were the "DC" Sniper, the Invasion of Afghanistan, and the lead-up to the Invasion of Iraq (including the infamous WMD arguments for the second US invasion of Iraq). This was also the period of time that I like to say terror was discovered by prime time dramas with the first season 24 (which we watched beginning to end).
Looking back on it I am glad that I followed those stories, but I also recall an intense mental exhaustion trying to keep up with it all as well as a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the world-view which was created and fed by an endless buffet of condensed information about grave things that I had little ability to control, change, or even begin to critically explore. What seemed the most out of place, was the zeal that even NPR (gasp!) effaced in trying to keep us "informed" with ["]stories["] that were really just rehashings and un-rehearsed updates-to-the-updates, but which conveyed no new information, and in many [most?] cases were designed to exploit my concern about the news, and to fan it further for the sake of the media production enterprise.
This time the bullet cold rocked ya
A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika
Nothin’ proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow rules when the set commands ya
Said it was blue
When ya blood was red
That’s how ya got a bullet blasted through ya head
Blasted through ya head
Blasted through ya head
I give a shout out to the living dead
Rage Against the Machine, "Bullet in the Head", Rage Against the Machine
It was thus, that my wife and I somehow came up with the idea of taking a week off of media consumption every month. We debated how to organize the time, as well as a set of ground-rules for what kinds of media to prohibit. The first few times we did it, we discovered a number of issues which led rapidly to a number of changes to the plan.
Among the first things that I noticed was that deprived of media distractions, the world was a dull place indeed. We instantaneously threw ourselves into other near-total distractions. Drinking was for me at the top of the list and soon I recognized that in order to appreciate a world free of media distractions, I would have to be sober to do it. [Ahem], at least while I was doing it. Another distraction-enhancing tactic which had to be neutralized was the desire to go shopping, as if purely for something to do. Through the trip to the big-box stores or the mall, we could attained the escapism, the "retail therapy", of being pandered to commercially, more directly from the retailer.
The evolution of rules and adjustments, Media Free Week (MFW), has long-since become for me a universal "good week" in our household. The first complete week of the month (Monday-Sunday), I invite myself to do all the stuff I am supposed to do as a friend, husband, home-owner, healthy person, etc. -- at least for one week a month. That is why my list of things I'm prohibited from doing for MFW includes some unlikely "media" indeed, and I'm OK with that.
Forbidden "Media" [for me] are:
TV
Radio
Video games
Magazines
Catalogs
Internet (except for [ahem] work and [ahem] school)
Entertainment Shopping (Best Buy, CompUSA, the mall, etc.)
Non-work computer fussing (I'm in IT so this can include anything from installing, updating and patching software, file management, breaking and fixing the computer, defragging the hard drive, reconfiguring software and hardware, etc.)
Candy
Ice-cream
Sugary Baked Goods (cookies, cakes, pie, etc.)
News feed headlines
So far, I observe reasonable-use exclusions for:
Books (I'm not much of a reader)
DVD movie screening
Cinema screening
Theatrical Performance
CD Audio and MP3s
Internet for work
Computer fussing for work
The critical distinction for me is between streams of media which you don't control as a viewer/reader, where you don't know what's coming and which actually never really end, like radio, TV, entertainment shopping vs. on the other hand, something like a movie or a CD where you conceive of consuming the media text and then watch it through to its conclusion -- and then it's over.
-------------------------------
Now, we would like to invite you for your thoughts about and experiences of going "media free". So if you are interested in being a guest poster to initiate a thread, please contact us (mfweek AT gmail dot Com) and one of us will get back to you. Just remember, the topic of this blog is about what happens when we try to opt-out of media consumption. It's not really about criticism of the media per se, or even about whether the media are good or bad. We'll leave that to "the media"! ;)
Interrupt the Pattern
See What Happens
