Observation Lab: Show Me The Plastic

Part One: Initial Observation

I observed credit card usage for stage one of this project. Stage 1 actually had two phases for me - part one was during my four hour shift at Starbucks. I worked a cash register for a little over two hours, and I counted 37 swipes of credit cards at my register. This occured between 10am and 2pm this morning. This probably accounted for about half of the transactions, which doesn't seem like as much as I would have expected, but I also have to keep in mind that most of these purchases were for under $5 or $10. Several were for under $1. Later in the day I counted my credit card uses and relevant info. I used my credit card five times - three times at Duane Reade and twice at Famiglia (I got a salad and then decided I also wanted a piece of pizza). All of my purcahses were under $10 and were for either food or household/personal items.

Part Two: In-depth Examination of Credit Cards

The most interesting interaction occured when a woman used a mini-credit card on her keychain to pay for her $3.36 latte. I thought about the swiping technology that has now become such a popular way to pay for things, ranging from a $0.54 coffee refill to my tuition to automatic monthly car payments. Why have credit cards become the only method of payment so many people (including myself) use? I'm so ticked when I buy something at a small deli or store and they either don't take credit cards or there's a minimum purchase amount. One issue is safety/insurance. If you loose your cash, it's gone forever, but if you loose your credit card, you can cancel it and are probably not responsible for fradulent purchases made on your account. Probably the biggest reason I use my credit card is because I earn frequent flier miles with every purchase, so I feel like even though I'm spending money, I'm getting something back. True, it will take me a reaaaaaaally long time to earn enough miles to get a plane ticket when most of my purchases are under $20, but I tell myself that even small purchases add up over time. It's also a matter of convenience - I don't get my work paycheck in cash, and it doesn't magically appear in my wallet, so I actually have to go to the ATM if I want cash, and who has time for that when you can just use a credit card?

On the flip side, credit cards cause confusion more often than cash. It was awkward when this woman handed me her entire keyring instead of just her card, and I had never personally used a mini-credit card before and wasn't sure if it would work in the Starbucks machine. Of course it did - I don't know why I wasn't sure - I mean, what would be the point if you couldn't use it anywhere you can use a credit card? But still, in the moment, I hesistated. There's also confusion regarding signing receipts/entering your zip code / pressing "okay" on the screen to approve the purchase, etc. Four people asked me if they needed to sign the receipts this morning, to which I reply that no, you don't have to sign unless the purchase is over $25. So they were standing there waiting for their receipts, unsure about how to proceed with the interaction. In addition, sometimes credit cards (or credit card machines) don't work, which causes a problem unlike that posed with dealing with cash. This morning one person's credit card wouldn't swipe successfully (which is actually fairly low for a whole morning) and had to be entered by hand. Occasionally, the connection dies and credit cards can't be approved at all. Sometimes they're declined, which then results in a potentially embarassing situation when you have to tell the person that his or her credit card was declined. Where am I going with this? Oh yes - credit cards generate a whole new spectrum of social interactions around paying for a product/service.

CSS No Zen Garden

I've been working on the css for my itp blog with minimal progress. I find that my limitations are not what I can accomplish technically but my utter lack of visual design skills. I can do a lot with css, but I can't make my pages look decent. Not sure what to do about that. I have an image that I want to use as a banner/logo, but I think it's too big and square to work with. Then I tried moving the menu up and putting it in the banner area, thinking that I would use the horizontal space at the top for navigation and logo and leave the sides clear for content, but realized that the length of the menu would probably continue to change based on the entries and categories, so making the menu fit in a block probably wasn't the best idea. So I'll probably go back to a vertical menu.

On another note, I found movable type's naming scheme for various page elements to be extremely confusing. Why name something alpha, beta, and delta instead of some meaningful identifiers? Perhaps because the platform is meant to be generic and easily adaptable to any content, but I still found it confusing.

I'm a Pot User

Lab: Analog Input & Output

I am proud to be a pot user. Today I can use a potentiomter to dim and brighten an led. The problem that I was missing for a while was that I wasn't giving the pot any power. I also discovered that to view the info you print via "Serial.print" or "Serial.println" you have to switch to the Serial Monitor view in the Arduino program. I was wondering why none of my info was showing up!

Hello Arduino!

Lab: Digital Input & Output

I'm burning through pcomp labs now. I've successfully created my first arduino program that receives digital input (a switch) and produces digital output (via an led).

Shine On, Little LED

Lab: Electronics

I just finished my first Physical Computing Lab: Electronics. Yes, I know that it's the third week of school and this was week one's lab, but I'm behind. The good news is after spending two afternoons on this lab, I'm successful and learned quite a bit along the way. Here are the highlights.

Yesterday I asked Todd if he could teach me how to "sol-der," and he informed me that indeed he could teach me how to solder. Today I soldered alone to wire my potentiometer. I learned that it does actually matter which end of the LED you plug into which side - the longer side is power and the flat side is ground. I used the multimeter to measure the voltage and amerage of my circuits. I have a somewhat better understanding of electronics. I get that the red wire is power and the black one is ground. Circuits start at power and go to ground via other wires (and parts). I'm unclear about the piece that looks like a fork - the regulator (?) and the resistor still. But I like making the LEDs light up!

Facebook: My Online Social Network

In June I moved to NYC from Shreveport, Louisiana without knowing anyone, without having a job, without plans for the summer, and with lots of loneliness and fear. Until then, I had used Facebook occasionally but always just as a distraction or as entertainment, never as a practical tool. I was consumed with homesickness and feelings of isolation and knew that to be okay in this new place I needed to make some friends (or at least friendly acquaintances). Being the computer nerd that I am, I sought out ways to meet people online, and the single most helpful tool was Facebook. I found that a girl I went to high school with in Baton Rouge lived in the city, as did a friend from college. Neither of these women were people I hung out with in school, but they were a friendly face in this strange new city, and I arranged to meet with each of them asap. Over the summer I met a couple of other people by looking at my friends' Facebook profiles to see who each of them knew in NYC. Now that school has started, I'm not in touch with most of these people as much, as I've begun to make friends (and have my time consumed) at ITP. Back in June, I knew that this would probably happen, but the thought that in September I'd have friends didn't help with the immediate loneliness. Thus, Facebook helped me get through a difficult time by making connections with people I wouldn't have had otherwise. Yes, I probably would have/could have made friends other ways this summer (and I did), so I'm not saying that Facebook is the answer to all of my social needs or the best way to meet people. But in this case it was effective.

I've also had the opportunity to look at online social networking for college students from the perspective of the university administrator, having worked as the asst. web developer of Centenary College before coming to ITP. Last year, one of the big debates was should Centenary have student blogs? Students and prospective students, along with some of the faculty/staff, enthusiastically responded, "Yes!" But some of the administration were not easily convinced. One member send around an email that talked about another similar college who had student blogs and (gasp!) one student didn't like the school and talked about his decision to leave! Heaven forbid that some student didn't like the school and actually expressed his opinion. After much debate, blogs were finally introduced this fall.

Another project at Centenary involved creating an online roommate matching system to help incoming students find roommates. After working on this project full-time for about two months, it went live and was extremely popular with the incoming students. As an alumna of the same institution, I would have much rathered use this system than fill out the 10 question hard-copy survey the school mailed me before my freshman year. This way students got the chance to read other students' profiles (including living preferences), get contact information for others, and decide to live together in the fall. It was a sort of limited, single-purpose, small-scale Facebook. It worked. Over half of the incoming students matched themselves with roommates over the summer instead of waiting for Residence Life to match them up. Much to our dismay, the following year, the new Residence Life director decided to revert to the archaic hard-copy survey system.

To summarize, I think that colleges need to embrace and figure out how to utilize Facebook, MySpace, etc. rather than ban or discourage students from using them. If colleges want to create their own sites, like HelloWilkes, have at it. One thing to keep in mind, however, is, "Why would students use your site instead of Facebook?" In the case of the roommate matching system I described above, it served a clearly defined purpose and had a functionality not allowed by Facebook (you could actually commit to room with another person with the school). In other cases, security or functionality might make an individual college's site preferable to a larger site. However, to create your own just to have it is futile -- "reinvent[ing] the wheel" according to the res life director from the College of Saint Rose. My high school has an alumni network, but I never use it because Facebook is so much better and more widespread. So my advice for colleges is two-fold: 1) create a site only if it will serve students in a way that Facebook/ MySpace don't and 2) recognize that students WILL use these sites and teach them to be smart in terms of posting personal information, pictures, etc. My advice to students is simple: don't be stupid. Realize that you're posting things that other people will see. Don't post things that you wouldn't want your teachers, coaches, bosses, etc. to read. If colleges and students use this social networking sites in a constructive way, they have incredible potential.

55 Word Story

Dust (The Grapes of Wrath, Abridged)

Dust.
Dust. Turtle. Parole. Greed. Foreclosure.
Dust. Hot. Thirsty. Propaganda. Promises. Hope. Lies.
Dust. Car. Trip. Migration. Depression. West. Eden. Journey. 'Okies'.
Dust. Poverty. Unions. Capitalism. Unemployment. Strike. Violence. Exploitation.
Dust. Pain. Death. Disappointment. Separation. Cruelty.
Dust. Birth. Stillborn. Family. Fear. Loss.
Dust. Crowded. Scarcity. Hunger. Longing.
Dust. Courage. Perseverance.
Dust. Milk. Life. Giving.
Dust.