Scrutiny

This is completely off my usual topic, although its not clear that I really have a usual topic. But I just read Andrew Leonard’s latest “How the World Works” post at Salon, and he quotes a radio ad for AM/PM mini-marts:

A woman is criticizing her husband for the excessive indulgence of his 64-ounce soda. He scoffs. “Too much soda? That’s like saying someone can have too much money! Or too many private jets!”

An announcer finishes off the commercial: “More is MORE!”

He suggests that “More is more!” could be America’s epitaph. I don’t disagree. But it reminded me to actually look up how much sugar that represents. I’ve been intrigued by an emerging field of research (for instance, this or this) that considers how socially beneficial ends might be encouraged by the strategic presentation of information and careful design of technology — for instance, if you had a real-time readout next to every light switch that told you how much power you were using and how much it was costing you, would you be better about conserving? I’m not so comfortable with mandating such things, so they probably have to come about through encouragement and subsidy and personal choice — I might want that in my house, because I want to conserve, I’m just bad at remembering. It’s a little harder to imagine a mini-mart that makes its profit on giant soda posting a similar “discouraging information. So I don’t know why it would ever be there, (guerrilla sticker operation?) but I like imagining a label on the AM/PM soda fountain that says:

your 64oz soda…
= 216 grams of sugar
= 7 candy bars
= 0.47 pounds of granulated sugar

with a picture of a large cup with 7 candy bars sticking out.

(I used Coca Cola Classic for soda, with a sugar content [12oz soda = 40.5 grams sugar] reported here; for a candy bar, with sugar content [1 2.07oz bar = 30 grams sugar] reported by M&M/Mars here. For the weight-to-volume conversion, which strikes me as so high that it just might be incorrect, I used this site.)

I know sugar isn’t the only health issue here; most candy hits you with a whole lot of fat too, and most colas have a whole lot of other toxic nastiness to consider. Still, I’m trying to envision the guy who grabs a 64oz soda on his way to work, instead, powering down 7 Snickers, or just spooning down a half pound of sugar. I remember Morgan Spurlock doing this in Super Size Me, when he visited a school that had a mason jar full of sugar on a classroom shelf, representing a can of soda a day.

This notice just came through on the Chronicle for Higher Education’s “Wired Campus” mailing:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Starts ‘Science of the Web’ Program

What is the future of the Web? Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute plans to explore this issue when it launches a new academic program next month focused on the emerging academic discipline of “science of the Web.” The field examines the architectural underpinnings of the Web, its social aspects, and who controls the flow of information, among other issues. The university has titled its program: The Tetherless World Constellation. The program will be publicized June 11 at Rensselaer Polytechnic where a panel of experts from academe and industry, including Timothy J. Berners-Lee–who is credited with having invented the Web–will discuss its future. Web users across the world will submit questions for discussion.–Andrea L. Foster

I’ve recently been in conversation with some of my colleagues at Cornell, from both Communication and Information Science, about how to reimagine and rearticulate (dare I say, re-brand) the HCI program here, based on the presence now of a enough people, and a range of people, to really say its something we do. It strikes me that this might be one way to get at some of what HCI is about, while getting away from some of the limits built into its very name and its particular history.

On the other hand, I saw a talk at ICA last week where a very well known scholar in media studies briefed the audience on the emerging discipline they were trying to create, called “cultural science,” which (from an albeit brief and rapid presentation) looked like a push to soak the study of culture in things like evolutionary economics and game theory. The endpoint of the talk was to focus on the “entrepreneurial consumer” — which I think is the most shocklingly wrong direction that the study of culture, media, and society could possibly take.