http://www.micheletepper.com/blog "When bad techs happen to good cultures," Lentz said. "When bad cultures happen to good machines," I insisted. Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:14:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the focus group I did with HIV+ people on Sunday, someone raised a really interesting point. There used to be all sorts of movies about AIDS, all with the same inevitable theme -- death. Someone gets AIDS, and they have to set their affairs in order, or ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/18/the-effects-of-old-narratives/ I wonder if the complete lack of alarm clocks so far in my South African hotel rooms is in any way related to the intermittent blackouts the country is being plagued by? An alarm clock not guaranteed to ring in the morning is worse than no alarm clock at ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/18/technocultural-moment/ I'm not sure who's responsible for this... Originally uploaded by Kelly Sue. The way LOLcats spread last year showed me that the increased growth of the Internet has both homogenized it and just allowed a whole range of subcultures to flourish and interact. Or, to put it less wonkishly, it means the ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/18/oh-internets/ It's overcast here, which is a drag - there's so much sky in Cape Town, and by all accounts it's spectacular when it's sunny. But hopefully the sky will clear tomorrow, when we have some more tourist time. (I just went to check the weather forecast online, having forgotten that ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/18/closing-thoughts-on-interactions-opening-thoughts-on-south-africa/ I am here. It's useful to be reminded. The Internet access here is pay-per-hour -- not a lot, but just enough for me to take Malcolm McCullough's advice from last weekend and go for a walk. More soon. http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/15/hello-from-south-africa/ I had hoped to do a Rebecca and blog the heck out of Interactions'08, but the fact is, there came a point where all I could do was sit back and let it wash over me. With eight sessions a day for two days straight, there was a lot ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/11/after-interaction08/ You can follow the Interaction08 backchannel on Twitter, if you're so inclined. The best comment so far came from my former coworker Keith "it depends" Instone, who joined with others in complaining on Twitter about the noise from the sponsor area bleeding into the speaker area. When it ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/09/emerging-behaviors/ I'm at Interactions08, the first annual conference of the Interaction Design Association, and it's being held at the Savannah College of Art and Design. It's a beautiful day in Savannah, and I'm looking forward to the conference -- and, uh, to finishing the slides for my talk, which I'm ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/08/from-savannah-to-south-africa/ And as long as I'm talking about online chatter, ancillary fantasy worlds, and general obsessing about television, I'd be remiss to not mention this amazing video, which I was pointed to by my friend Francesca Coppa. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/videos/2008/01/28/pressure-a-metavid-by-the-california-crew/ It's a "meta vid," a fan-made vid about the process of making fan-made ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/02/01/aprs-moi-le-mash-up/ I was too annoyed with Virginia Heffernan's recent piece on the way new online "franchising" opportunities for TV shows may or may not help make them a hit to take the time to write up a response to it. Luckily for me, Maura had more time to spare, so ... http://www.micheletepper.com/blog/2008/01/30/the-advantages-of-laziness/