• An Introduction to Whuffie

    This is my third blog post for The South. You can check it out over there, or just read it here.

    In Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, all the world’s shortages have been solved. There’s no need for money, because there’s no lack of supply. Even death has been conquered. In a world with no need for money, what’s the currency? Doctorow’s solution to this problem is called whuffie, a currency based on reputation. Everyone has a bank of whuffie, and anyone can give you a little boost or ding you based on your actions. My favorite part of the concept is that there are two types of whuffie – left-handed and right-handed. When you meet someone in that world, you get a little graph that shows you the whuffie that person got from communities or people you basically agree with (right-handed) and the whuffie that person got from communities or people you don’t (left-handed). In Doctorow’s book, the people with the most whuffie are those that do the most menial jobs: the janitors, plumbers, garbage men, etc.

    I read the book on a flight from San Jose to DC, and for five and a half hours, I was hooked. I finished the book about halfway through the flight and spent the rest of the time frantically scribbling in a notebook, trying to design a way to implement this concept in the real world, or at least on the internet. I was so fascinated that I spent the next several months trying to convince my company that we could actually implement it, and I still think it’s possible, and have implemented a crude whuffie system on Ficly.

    Why is the idea of currency based on reputation so interesting? Because when I look at the internet, I see that reputation is already the primary currency. In every community, there’s some concept of reputation, although usually unspoken. Every community has cultural norms, and rewards those that exemplify those norms and punishes those that don’t. The primary driver for almost every community on the web is not money, but something else. That something else is the source of whuffie in those communities. The other important point is that whuffie doesn’t travel. Just because you have a good reputation on one site doesn’t mean that reputation will travel when you join another. I believe it should at least provide some informative value to the communities I join. Don’t make me go through the usual new user initiation if I’ve got a good reputation on other sites.

    Let’s look at Flickr. The primary whuffie driver on Flickr is the photos people upload. Once you get a reputation as a great photographer, and have your photos show up on the Explore page, you’re considered a “success” on Flickr. But, there are many other valuable activities on Flickr, and on any social network, that should drive reputation but don’t. If you post the most constructive comments, there’s no quantified reputation for that… yet. If you post the most expressive and findable tags, there’s not quantified reputation or recognition of that very valuable contribution… yet. Both of those actions are extremely valuable to the community and are complimentary to the primary social object – the photo.

    Social sites like Flickr are perfect playgrounds to implement whuffie. They’re self-contained and have a limited set of reputation-building or damaging actions. On Flickr, those include uploading photos, adding favorites, tagging, posting comments, deleting things and participating in groups. Once you identify those activities, it’s then trivial to add values to those actions and increment or decrement a user’s whuffie based on their actions. This takes some of the gamesmanship out of other rating systems and can provide a way to reward the community-building secondary actions – like commenting or tagging – without detracting from the primary whuffie builder. That way, everyone is rewarded for their actions, and there’s an easier path to finding “bad actors” in the system. They could also make those first social interactions on the site easier. You could give people some clue as to the person’s reputation on your first introduction to them. How much easier would it be if you got some idea of how reputable someone was when you got that connection request on LinkedIn?

    There are people already working on implementing whuffie in the real world, and a lot more to it than what I’ve had the time to write. If I’ve piqued your interest, you should check out the Wikipedia page on whuffie. Tara Hunt has also written a great book called The Whuffie Factor about building and using whuffie in the real world, and someone’s even started a whuffie bank. I heartily recommend reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (you can download it for free), though, as it still has the best examples and explanation of whuffie. If you’d like to talk about whuffie in person, I’m speaking about it at Geekend in a couple weeks!

  • They won! Wooooohoooooo!!

    The company Kevin works for, Music Intelligence Solutions, won a Savannah area award for something awesome last night! YAY! Everyone should email Kevin a hearty congratulations (and, erm, ask what the award actually is). I am really proud of Kevin. I know how hard and long Kevin works. Big congrats to all of the team over at MIS!

  • A Boy and His Toys

    a macro photo of a werewolf toy

    I should be in bed, but the werewolf was sitting on my desk next to my camera. What was I supposed to do?

  • A Divinely Inspired Lack of Historical Perspective

    “During my lifetime I have seen a significant deterioration in the respect accorded to religion in our public life, and I believe that the vitality of religious freedom is in danger of being weakened accordingly,” Oaks said. “Atheists and others would intimidate persons with religious-based points of view from influencing or making the laws of their state or nation.”\
    That’s a quote from LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks that I found in this lovely article from the Salt Lake Tribune via this post on blurbomat. In a speech given at BYU Idaho, Oaks said:\
    bq. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation. (emphasis mine)\
    The “incidents” you speak about are isolated and rare, especially when compared to the violence and intimidation inflicted on the gay community by supposed people of “faith”.\
    Your two statements are connected, Elder Oaks, but not in the way you think. Why have we lost respect for religion in public life? Why have we lost respect for religious leaders of most denominations? Because they say blatantly stupid things in public and then stand behind them. They ignore Christ’s teachings and support persecuting the different, weak and those in the minority. They incite hatred, persecution, inequality and show no empathy. They use phrases like “alleged civil rights”. I don’t understand the Church’s support for Prop 8 at all. It’s hypocritical when you look at our history as a people. The early members of the Church were actually persecuted for their beliefs – tarred and feathered, shot on sight and driven across the country – not yelled at or protested against. Why? Because they were different. Because they believed in a different interpretation of marriage than the majority of the country. Does that mean the early Saints were wrong? Does that mean that outlawing that form of marriage was just or right?\
    No\
    It wasn’t right then, and it’s not right now for the majority to inflict its imperfect morality on the beliefs of others – especially when those beliefs, those claims of rights, have absolutely no impact on the rights of others. Has the entire church forgotten the second great commandment the Savior gave, to “love thy neighbor as thyself”? If it wasn’t right for the government to outlaw polygamy, then it’s not right now to outlaw gay marriage. That’s showing a shocking lack of empathy.\
    And you expect people not to be angry when faced with your hypocrisy – with your persecution of the different? You claim that people who want to deny others their right to the pursuit of happiness are being persecuted by the very same people you’re persecuting? And then, to top it off, you equate the fight against your campaign against others’ rights to the fight for civil rights by a truly oppressed minority? Divinely inspired lunacy is the best thing I can think of to say about it.\
    I would have been fine if the Church had said nothing. But, the Church asked members to donate to Prop 8 organizations and donated an unknown sum of money itself. That support is why I stopped going to church – and you’re not making me doubt my decision, Elder Oaks.

  • We Were on Morning Edition!

    We were on Morning Edition today! You can read the transcript or listen to the story on the site. It’s very exciting, and the story’s great too. I think the artist they interviewed has a pretty typical reaction when people first hear about what we do. The comments on the article, too, are fairly typical.\
    A lot of people think it’s the “death of art” or “homogenizing the music industry”, what we do. I think that’s silly. There’s so much music out there, and the labels do a horrible job of picking the good stuff. We’re trying to fix the system, not replace the whole thing or remove “art”. We’re trying to bring the music that the labels will never showcase out from the “masses” of mediocre stuff out there. Ours is just one approach, but I think it scales and is less prone to gaming than crowdsourcing or the current label approach of blind hit or miss picks by a very small group of kingmakers. If you really look at how “hits” get made today, it’s pretty disgusting. Art in popular radio is already dead. We’re trying to bring the art back by showcasing the things that should be played, not regurgitating the same old stuff the labels will to be hits with their gigantic marketing budgets.

  • Trip Down Mom-ery Lane

    I have a 10 year old kid. I have a 10 year old kid. Ahhhhhhh. Which is better than not having a 10 year old kid. But still, way to make me feel O-L-D. Half of the birthday plans were put on hold since Max has a fever. Boo.\
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  • Max’s Karate Graduation

    KIYOP!

    It’s a big weekend for Max. He got his yellow belt last night, and it’s his 10th birthday on Sunday! Check out all the pics in the set on Flickr\
    Also, my first blog post for The South is up! They asked real nice, and I’ll be posting geeky bits there every couple of weeks.

  • Max

    I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks and haven’t done anything other than the bare minimum to keep the household functioning. Sadly, blogging does not fall into the priority chores list. I did have to pop in to say, “Max made yellow belt in karate!” YAY for him. Hopefully Kevin will post pics soon from the graduation. Also, Max received all A’s on his first report card. Double YAY!\
    Max’s 10th birthday is tomorrow, and hopefully Kevin or I will post about how awesome Max continues to be. Until then, just take my word for it.\
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  • No More Applications, Please

    Everyone and their mother-in-law seems to be covering Beyonce’s Single Ladies these days, but you can all stop now. Really. No more. It’s over. I’ve found the best cover of the song, and I really don’t think anyone’s going to top it. See?

    \
    By the extremely talented Pomplamoose Music. Check out the rest of their stuff on YouTube, especially their version of La Vie en Rose – it’s gorgeous.

  • The Best of the Decade: 2000-2004

    Some folks on twitter (I saw Mark Trammell and Corey Denis do it) have started posting their top albums from the 2000’s. Now that’s an idea I can get behind! So, here are my top albums from the 2000-2004. I’m going to try to do just three albums per year, but I love my music, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll post my favorites from the second half of the decade soon.

    • 2000
      1. EelsDaisies of the Galaxy: This is still my favorite Eels albums. It’s heartbreaking and gorgeous throughout, except for the awesome and funny I Like Birds.
      2. The Crystal MethodTweekend: Just for Name of the Game… that song is so awe-inspiringly awesome, there’s no reason for any other song to be on the album. The clean version, the explicit one, doesn’t matter. It’s ten tons of kickass in a two pound sack.
      3. Amon TobinSupermodified: Unlike anything I’d heard before, or probably since. This album, a lot like Massive Attack‘s Mezzanine is still used in commercials, tv shows and movies to make you think something is futuristic or scary. I’ll bet you’ve heard Get Your Snack On and Four Ton Mantis dozens of times.
    • 2001
      1. Zero 7Simple Things: When I need to calm down and take a break, this is the band, and the album I turn to. The vocals are gorgeous and the music is lovely. In the Waiting Line and Simple Things are my favorite tracks, but I can listen to the whole thing on repeat for hours.
      2. CakeComfort Eagle: Yes, it’s commercial rock, but it’s infectious… oh so sweetly infectious. Short Skirt/Long Jacket is a fantastic song, and Comfort Eagle is great and not commercial at all. Give it up, this is just a great album.
      3. The Constantines – umm, The Constantines: If you want rock, you can’t go wrong with this band. I’ve written about them several times before, and they just keep getting better. But, this album has some of their best all-out rockers, and one of my favorite ballads of all time: the haunting St. You.
      4. Gotan ProjectLa Revancha Del Tango: Oops, we’ve already broken the rules. Here’s album number four from 2001, but I just couldn’t leave it out. It’s gorgeous latin tango with a trip hop twist and I still listen to this album all the time.
    • 2002
      1. Lemon JellyLost Horizons: Another album I can listen to on repeat for hours. This is the perfect coding music. It’s got great hooks but just flows from track to track. It’s not like anything else you’ll hear, but it lovely nonetheless.
      2. Sigur Ros – ****: This is the first album I got by the band and I was hooked. If you don’t know who Sigur Ros is, shame on you. Second, go get this album. If you like it, then get Takk and everything else they’ve done.
      3. LunaClose Cover Before Striking and Romantica: Cheating again! But, since they released two albums in the same year, and I love them both, you get a two for one. This band writes great songs that kind of fall outside of genres. I think that puts them firmly in “Alternative Rock”, but that sells them short. They’re just great songs, masterfully played and produced.
    • 2003 – I am totally going to cheat on this one. 2003 was an amazing year of music.
      1. Fruit BatsMouthfuls: Kind of like Luna, these guys defy genre for me. They sound like a band out of another decade, but the songs are so… perfect… that I can’t help but love them. I sing along with every one.
      2. The WrensMeadowlands: Enough feedback to fill a dozen albums, but these guys make it work somehow. Alternating between kicking ass and crying in their coffee, this is a great album to try to sing along with… if you can understand any of the words through the feedback.
      3. EelsShootenanny!: This album has my all-time favorite Eels song on it, and one of my favorite get-up-and-go tunes. Saturday Morning rocks. It’s dumptrucking sugar in your morning cereal, playing outside from sun up to sun down and moving as fast as you can because there’s daylight a-wastin’. It also has one of the greatest ballads of ever on it: Somebody Loves You.
      4. Sufjan StevensGreetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State: In one word, Sufjan Stevens’ work is heartbreaking. Always artful, gorgeous and layered, you just can’t get away from one of his albums without a tear in your eye.
      5. MewFrengers: Rockingly awesome and that’s all. I can’t really describe what’s so great about this album, but it grabbed me from the first chord on the first song and doesn’t let go through the whole thing.
      6. Massive Attack100th Window: It’s not as good as Mezzanine, but it’s still ten times better than almost everyone else. When Your Soul Sings is particularly good, though, and would have fit in nicely between Risingson and Teardrop on that album.
      7. The Polyphonic SpreeThe Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree: Jen calls them “Up With People for grownups”… and she’s not really wrong. They’re kind of goofy and happy, but the music’s so damned good. It makes me smile every time. This is my favorite album of The Spree’s three so far.
    • 2004 – The year of the mashup!!
      1. The KleptonesA Night at the Hip-Hopera: How can you go wrong mashing up classic Queen and hip-hop? You can’t. Well, at least, they can’t. I listened to just this album for over a month.
      2. Zero 7When It Falls: They successfully followed up Simple Things with another gorgeous album. The songs are a little more complex than on their first album, but still beautiful and mesmerizing.
      3. DJ BC and the BeastlesThe Beastles: The Beatles + The Beastie Boys = AWESOME. It’s so freaking good, especially Tripper Trouble and Mother Nature’s Rump.
      4. Arcade FireFuneral: Granted, I didn’t actually buy this album in 2004, but it’s still really really good.
      5. David ByrneGrown Backwards: I’m a huge David Byrne fan, and this is my favorite of his recent albums. I love his music because even though you really never know what you’re going to get, it always sounds like a David Byrne song – which is a lot of fun.\
        There you go… I only cheated, well, a lot.