Ongoing Investigations

Author: CapnPilot

  • ‘2D Game Kit’: Day 2 (& Other Projects in the Pipeline)

    Went through the back half of the 2D Game Kit (teleporting to another scene, and the video walkthrough). The video walkthrough was interesting — about half of it was information that had been covered partially or completely in the written tutorial, another 25% was inferrable, and the rest was basically new. For example respectively: monsters and how to fight/mod them; the fact that you can set up damageable obstacles and break down objects in your path (the written tutorial only covered damaging monsters, but it works the same way); and how to add items to your inventory and trigger dialogue popups. Still, I don’t think the redundancies were a bad thing, since working through a tutorial by yourself and having a game designer talk through her thought process both lay out two different and useful perspectives. Also, one noted difference between the 2D Game Kit and the Kart modding tutorial – the 2D Game Kit came with a lot of art assets, which I couldn’t change the color or look of easily. In the Kart mods, it was pretty simple to adjust the albedo on any given asset, which weren’t usually art/images.

    Other plans today: get a jump on “Getting Started with Unity”, and maybe look into some project management frameworks I’m not familiar with (specifically, Agile). The Getting Started tutorial looks like it’ll have some redundancies for me — I already worked through go-kart modding, I’ve tooled around a bit with the FPS intro project, and I have at least passing familiarity with the Unity editor by now — but there may be some new tidbits.

    Re: Agile, I’m passing familiar with the concept, but I don’t have a lot of experience with how to apply it properly. What I’m hoping is for better information on how to set up those sorts of recurring, multi-step processes (or whether Gantt charts can be extended easily and intuitively into an Agile framework, because I like Gantt charts a lot).

    This’ll teach me to look ahead — I started poking through “Getting Started with Unity” and it turned out that a lot of it was geared specifically towards the sorts of streams I already worked through with ‘Your First Game Jam’! I’m now wondering whether to work through the FPS and platformer exercises, though I’m planning to skip the kart modding section… but maybe it would be more worth it to move on to a different tutorial?

    As for Agile, I ended up going through a LinkedIn Learning tutorial on “Agile Foundations” that has been pretty disappointing so far. There’s some good information about Agile’s values and mindset, but most of it is evangelizing. I’m hoping there will be more actionable information later on, in the section devoted to Scrum, Kanban, and something called Extreme Programming (!).

    Overall, a pretty scattered day, but I feel like I at least got information I can use in a couple different areas.

  • ‘2D Game Kit’: Day 1

    Today we’re getting started on the 2D Game Kit! The last tutorial was entirely a 3D environment, which was good on the theme of working towards VR, but I’m hoping the 2D Game Kit will give a bit more variety of skills and practice with what I already have.

    Getting quite honestly kind of annoyed with the number of updates Unity puts out. Can’t tell if they’re treating every version as distinct or if each thing is just a few small patches, but it feels like every version is a new and distinct one and they push a new one every two or three weeks. Might just be me though.

    The 2D game tutorial is so far a lot more approachable than any of the 3D tutorials (though that may be the fact that I now have some idea what I’m doing). We’ve covered adding prefab assets, as before — this time, tile painting in order to generate platforms, and the ability to add a prefabricated moving platform. The tutorial shows how to get it to move in a square loop, but I decided to set mine up to move in a triangle.

    The tutorial was actually so straightforward that after my initial notes above, I didn’t end up noting down anything in particular I was having trouble with. Very clear drag-and-drop across the board. It was actually so clear that I’m curious what the walkthrough video will consist of, since the whole thing is another 45 minutes long.

    The 2D Game Kit tutorial I worked through today can be found here: https://learn.unity.com/project/2d-game-kit. I got through parts 1 and 2, though I didn’t finish the last bit (teleporting the player to a new level).

    One thing I ran into which I’ll need to look up a bit more: occasionally I would put a piece of environmental background art (extra backdrop, usually, as I ran out of room on the level) and then be unable to put any ground tiles on top of it. Tomorrow: putting the final touches on teleportation, and seeing what may come from the walkthrough video! (And possibly more…?)

  • ‘My First Game Jam’: Day 3

    Today’s technically day 4, but I got very little done on Friday, and day 3 started by finishing up what I started then. Which was… drumroll… machine learning! Not programming machine learning, but learning how to add a second AI-controlled kart to my karting game, then set up checkpoints for the AI to follow so it could see how to go around the track. I need to neaten up my checkpoints a little – at present my AI gets frightened of a big jump halfway through and turns around to go back to the starting line, where it gets confused and has to stop.

    Setting up the AI kart controls involved making a prefab object for the AI to use as a checkpoint, distributing it around the track so the AI could always locate the next one, setting all the checkpoints as a trigger event, and placing them on the ‘Training Checkpoint’ layer. And also making them invisible, so that I could see the rest of the track (turn off the Mesh Render for this bit).

    Next we moved on to a bit more decoration, aka using billboards – you can set images as an object’s texture using the albedo! Still haven’t answered my question from day 2 vis-a-vis what got my colors stuck, but cool nonetheless.

    Learned how to add new cameras, position them and make them follow the player – you can add them through the main scene editor, position them by aligning with the view (or moving them as you’d move anything else) and attach them to the player by putting them somewhere inside the player’s hierarchy and positioning them accordingly.

    I got to learn how to make new scripts! You can write a new script by creating it as a component, then opening it with your text editor, and proceeding from there. I’m having some issues with mine, however. I copied the code directly from what they were doing, but it looks as though variables that are instantiated but not initialized are meant to be able to be set in Unity. In the tutorial, they have blanks which can be filled by other game objects, but my Unity workspace isn’t displaying them.

    Update: found the issue. I had a double in my code that was meant to be a float. (Can you tell I’m writing these notes as I work through the exercises?) Running into some new issues bugtesting, though – namely, I’m very bad at driving the kart.

    Animation notes: have to create an animation as an asset (apply through Window > Animation > Animation when you have something selected, then hit ‘create’). Created through keyframes – position it where you want it at a keyframe!

    Also some interesting experiences with bugfixing and post processing. The first rule for bugfixing: don’t write code you don’t understand. I ran into an issue that wasn’t even a bug (on Unity’s part). I had an error that didn’t affect compiling, only a piece I had deactivated, so I was fine running the game with it, except I had Error Pause turned on, which meant any error would prevent me from playing the game. One fun bonus of following a tutorial livestream is watching people with more knowledge than me hit the same bugs I’m running into.

    I actually got through the entire rest of the tutorial today, which was honestly pretty incredible. The streamers’ process started to unravel a bit towards the end, when they ran into bugs which they didn’t have time to address and started taking requests from their chat which was overambitious for their time limits, but honestly, that was pretty bolstering. It’s a good reminder not to be intimidated by people who do this professionally — everyone starts somewhere, as they reminded everyone at the end of the stream!

    I’m not going to move onto making my own projects yet; I want to practice with some more tutorials and pick up more skills (especially problemsolving skills) first. I may also look for some C# tutorials so I can understand what it is I’m trying to write when I code.

    As I mentioned before, this stream was located here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dweo04X7mJU

    It was part of this tutorial: https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/join-your-first-game-jam-1

    Give it a try — it’s much less intimidating than you’d think! And if you’d like to play my game, it’s available here: https://connect.unity.com/p/the-zoomies/ (You have to knock down the donuts; for some reason my change to ‘pins’ in the instructions didn’t take.)

  • ‘My First Game Jam’: Day 2

    Still working through the livestream tutorial, as yesterday. I didn’t get a whole lot done today — my Unity files had gotten out of date, so I had to update a lot of packages before I could get started with the build. Only got through about half of what I had planned, but it was an important chunk nonetheless: how to add assets, add collision physics, and set up events to trigger!

    Clicking and dragging an asset onto the scene adds it to the dropdown menu on the side (technically, we also did this yesterday, but I count it towards today because we did more editing of the asset today). From there you can click into the asset’s menu and add components. Adding a BoxCollider makes the object solid, so you can’t move through it the way you might be able to for other objects. If the object has a script for it, you can also add particular events to trigger when you interact with it, like making a certain sound effect play. I did run into a weird issue where I couldn’t change the color of certain prefab assets, which is something I did a fair bit of yesterday. Haven’t resolved it yet.

    Questions for the future:

    • How do you add events to objects that don’t have scripts for it?
    • What about certain objects (or certain Unity configurations?) allow/prevent changing colors?

  • ‘My First Game Jam’: Day 1

    Today I worked through the first hour of ‘My First Game Jam’, a recorded livestream tutorial about how to use one of the go-karting beginner projects in Unity. I’ve done a couple of the other beginner projects, which weren’t very informative (they serve more as a getting-to-know-the-interface, rather than showing you where and how to change the functionality of objects). 

    The stream covered a couple of different topics – some stuff was intro-to-interface, but with extra pro tips (different ways to move around the 3D space); some of it was about how to use prefabricated assets, like different road tiles, to change the path; and some of it was about how to edit colors and materials. I don’t know what else we’ll be covering yet, but the stream is over three and a half hours long.

    If you’d like to work through the livestream, the link is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dweo04X7mJU

    The livestream is a part of this tutorial: https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/join-your-first-game-jam-1

  • End of Year Wrap-up, Ethics Style

    I’ve covered a lot of different ground in the past year. Fall term was privacy of individuals; winter term was privacy under law; and spring term was privacy in software. That’s a bit of an simplification, though: I’ve also covered organizational tools through tech, American politics, ethical data collection and scrubbing, social media culture, preservation of digital projects, and more.

    My goals, set out at the beginning of the year, were to improve my time management and organizational skills; to develop my ability to write project proposals; and to create a portfolio of the work I’ve done in the digital humanities. And I’ve done all of those things, in one way or another: I wrote a blog post annotating the tips and tricks I used for time management, wrote project proposals for several major projects including my social media zine and my portfolio, and — oh yeah — created my portfolio, available here.

    I am so, so grateful to my supervisor Sarah, the other heads of the intern program Austin and Celeste, and the interns who worked with me in making this year a delight, Chris, Shiyue and Matt. This year, I learned about topics I’d barely even considered before, let alone thought of as relevant to digital ethics; I strengthened my research and writing skills, making me much more confident in my nonfiction and reporting abilities; and I created nearly twenty blog posts, all of which were (I hope) useful to someone.

    What a ride. Thanks for taking part.

    Here, by the way, is the semi-annotated bibliography of all the sources I looked at over the course of the year:

    • A bee with a blog. “Open Is Cancelled – A Bee with a Blog – Medium.” Medium (blog), January 13, 2020. https://medium.com/@beewithablog/open-is-cancelled-da7dd6f2aaaf An article published in response to the scandal involving Joi Ito, and Lawrence Lessig’s response, declaring the open-source software movement “cancelled”. The author brings criticisms specifically to open’s culture of prioritizing freedom over justice and privileging rationalist discourse. Part of some research I did into open-source software early in winter term.
    • “A Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Certification on the Privacy Shield Website.” Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.privacyshield.gov/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=015t0000000QJzS.
    • Albright, Dann. “18 Time Management Systems To Boost Your Productivity.” Hubstaff Blog (blog), January 29, 2019. https://blog.hubstaff.com/time-management-tools/ A list of various time management systems and then short rundowns of how each one works. Used for my blog posts and research into organization and time management.
    • Beaumont, Peter, Julian Borger, and Daniel Boffey. “Malicious Forces Creating ‘perfect Storm’ of Coronavirus Disinformation.” The Guardian, April 24, 2020, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/coronavirus-sparks-perfect-storm-of-state-led-disinformation Summarizes a rise in disinformation and misinformation campaigns in the first few weeks of people staying home due to the Coronavirus pandemic; heightened anxieties and political fervor create a situation where people who want news will click on frightening and untrue articles.
    • Bensinger, Greg. “So Far, under California’s New Privacy Law, Firms Are Disclosing Too Little Data — or Far Too Much.” Washington Post, January 21, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/21/ccpa-transparency/ This article lays out the issues facing the California Consumer Privacy Act in its first month of existence, noting that it is unclear what constitutes a “sale” of personal data and companies can take advantage of this and other ambiguities to avoid having to change their practices. Part of my research into consumer data privacy laws for a blog post explaining the CCPA and any responsibilities Carleton might have under it.
    • Bishop, Katie. “We’re Embracing Tech during Lockdown – but Can It Replace the Classroom?” The Guardian, April 24, 2020, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/24/remote-learning-classroom-technology-coronavirus Discussion of technological innovation and adaptation for teachers and educators as a result of online learning during the Coronavirus pandemic. I found this article interesting and relevant, so I brought it for one of our group discussions.
    • Board, Editorial. “Opinion | California’s Privacy Law Was Supposed to Spur Congress to Act. It Flubbed Instead.” Washington Post, January 7, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/californias-privacy-law-was-supposed-to-spur-congress-to-act-it-flubbed-instead/2020/01/07/26088850-30c8-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html An op-ed about the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the ways it was ineffective during its first month in practice. Part of my research for a blog post regarding consumer privacy law, the CCPA, and what Carleton’s responsibilities would look like regarding both.
    • Bours, Ben. “The Mirai Botnet Was Part of a College Student Minecraft Scheme | WIRED.” Wired, December 13, 2017. https://www.wired.com/story/mirai-botnet-minecraft-scam-brought-down-the-internet/ An article about the 2016 Mirai Botnet attack, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack which caused major internet outages across the East Coast in October 2016. The attack later turned out to be the result of people hosting pay-to-play Minecraft servers looking to slow down or disable their competitors’ servers, but turned out to be an incredibly powerful worm beyond what they had anticipated. Brought in by a fellow intern for one of our group article discussions.
    • Bowles, Nellie. “A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret – The New York Times.” The New York Times, September 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/business/lessig-epstein-ito-mit.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap An interview with Professor Lawrence Lessig, asking him to clarify views he put forth in an essay defending Joichi Ito for accepting money from Jeffrey Epstein. Lessig’s viewpoint is that accepting the money was wrong, but making the contribution anonymous once the money had been accepted was not, since Epstein could not use anonymous philanthropy to bolster his reputation. Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab; this discussion relates to the presence of big money and corruption in tech.
    • Burger, Kevyn. “‘It’s OK Not to Be OK’: Minnesota Psychologists Push Back on ‘Toxic Positivity.’” Star Tribune, May 1, 2020. https://www.startribune.com/it-s-ok-not-to-be-ok-minnesota-psychologists-push-back-on-toxic-positivity/570042452/ An article explaining toxic positivity and its prevalence during the first few months of the Coronavirus pandemic. Toxic positivity is an insistent pressure to be positive and cheerful even in stressful and dismaying circumstances, leading people to shut down or ignore negative emotions rather than processing them in healthy ways. A resource found as part of a teleconference I attended discussing people’s reactions to the switch online, telecommuting, and social distancing.
    • Carleton.
    • “CCPA Fact Sheet (00000002).Pdf.” Accessed January 21, 2020. https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press_releases/CCPA%20Fact%20Sheet%20%2800000002%29.pdf.
    • Corse, Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and Alexa. “The Shoestring App Developer Behind the Iowa Caucus Debacle.” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2020, sec. Politics. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shoestring-app-developer-behind-the-iowa-caucus-debacle-11580904037 A short rundown of Shadow, Inc., the company which created an app for the 2020 Iowa Caucus which ended up causing major delays and security concerns throughout. Discusses their credentials, how they were hired, and pre-caucus concerns. Part of research I did for a blog post looking into the technological problems behind the 2020 Iowa Caucus.
    • Crispin, Jessa. “‘Incel’ Culture Has Sparked Panic and Pity – but Little Thoughtful Conversation | Jessa Crispin.” The Guardian, May 1, 2020, sec. Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/01/incel-culture-film-tfw-no-gf-jessa-crispin A review of the documentary “TFW No GF”, created and funded by right-wing Internet reactionaries, and a meditation on how to understand them and why. Relevant to my work based on how Internet culture affects people differently, the sorts of subcultures that spring up, and the need to investigate and learn about alienated individuals and political countercultures, either to try and help or to more effectively combat their actions.
    • Dash, Anil.
      • “Function \\ F5: Why Are Copyrights on YouTube So Confusing?” Function with Anil Dash. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://glitch.com/culture/function-episode-5/ An explanation of copyright law with particular emphasis on digital works, and an interview with someone who got a copyright violation for posting his own work. Interesting breakdown of how copyright law works. ———.
      • “Function \\ F11: Social Media, 20 Years Ago.” Function with Anil Dash. Accessed February 3, 2020. https://glitch.com/culture/function-episode-11/ A roundtable with people who developed/contributed to early blogging platforms before contemporary social media existed, and a reflection on how their work shaped modern social media. ———.
      • “Function \\ F14: Design Bias Is Ruining Accessibility.” Function with Anil Dash. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://glitch.com/culture/function-episode-14/ Interviews surrounding the conversations that need to be happening around disability in tech, and disabled people of color.
    • Devlin, Hannah. “’We Are Hurtling towards a Surveillance State’: The Rise of Facial Recognition Technology.” The Guardian, October 5, 2019, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/05/facial-recognition-technology-hurtling-towards-surveillance-state Article for Fall DSI discussion, talking about the development and use of facial recognition technology in different places around the world; crime deterrent, fighting child trafficking, etc.
    • Du, Susan. “Hennepin County Tells Library Workers to Staff Homeless Hotels or Take PTO.” City Pages, April 10, 2020. http://www.citypages.com/news/hennepin-county-tells-library-workers-to-staff-homeless-hotels-or-take-pto/569514121 An article discussing Hennepin County’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic crisis. The county converted several hotels into places where homeless people could stay, but without people to staff them, they called on county library workers to do that job, without training or information on what the job would require, for no additional pay; if workers refused, they had the option to take PTO, to take additional paid leave up to 240 hours (entering debt to the county) or to take unpaid leave. No word was given on whether library workers would be laid off after that, or whether they would be eligible for unemployment. A resource from a teleconference I attended discussing how people were reacting to the social distancing and self-isolation protocols, with particular focus on Minnesota, libraries, and overworking vs. protecting oneself.
    • “Editorial | The Guardian View on Machine Learning: A Computer Cleverer than You?” The Guardian, September 22, 2019, sec. Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/22/the-guardian-view-on-machine-learning-a-computer-cleverer-than-you This article talks about the concerns of the writer on developing AI and machine learning technology, particularly when people’s beliefs on the use of various technologies differs depending on the situation (eg, we should not develop X technology for warfare, unless our enemies are doing so already).
    • Elsevier. “The Researcher Journey through a Gender Lens | Elsevier.” Elsevier, March 5, 2020. https://www.elsevier.com/research-intelligence/resource-library/gender-report-2020 A report published by Elsevier looking into gender dynamics and equity in the research industry in the EU and 15 other countries. A resource I was connected to as part of a teleconference I attended (sponsored by Elsevier) which discussed library workers, social inequity, work/life balance and compensation, and life during and after the Coronavirus pandemic.
    • Ettarh, Fobazi M. “WTF Is a Radical Librarian, Anyway?” WTF is a Radical Librarian, Anyway? Accessed May 1, 2020. https://fobaziettarh.wordpress.com/ The blog of Fobazi Ettarh, where she discusses activism and librarianship, especially in each other’s context. I attended a webinar taught by her and this was offered as a source of extra literature.
    • “Executive Summary: Information Literacy in the Age of Algorithms.” Accessed February 12, 2020. https://www.projectinfolit.org/uploads/2/7/5/4/27541717/executivesummary.pdf.
    • Feingold, Laney. “Ethics in the Digital Accessibility Legal Space: ADA Enforcement Cases or Something Else?” Law Office of Lainey Feingold (blog), July 23, 2019. https://www.lflegal.com/2019/07/ethics-2/ A discussion of the influx of lawyers to disability rights cases regarding digital accessibility, operating in ways which set bad precedent so they can make a profit.
    • Feldman, Brian. “Is It Safe to Use Zoom?” Intelligencer, April 9, 2020. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/the-zoom-app-has-a-lot-of-security-problems.html A roundup of the various security problems found in Zoom, the teleconferencing software adopted widely during the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic. Part of my research for a blog post detailing these security problems and their relevance to Carleton’s usage of Zoom for synchronous online teaching.
    • Fruhlinger, Josh. “What Is Stuxnet, Who Created It and How Does It Work? | CSO Online.” CSO Online, August 22, 2017. https://www.csoonline.com/article/3218104/what-is-stuxnet-who-created-it-and-how-does-it-work.html Explains Stuxnet, a computer virus designed to propagate among computers, check whether a computer is used to operate a specific type of industrial machinery (specifically, uranium centrifuges), then sabotage uranium production equipment while hiding the presence of the virus until it’s too late. This article was brought in by a fellow intern for one of our group discussions.
    • Gillis, Roger. “LibGuides: Digital Humanities: What Is Digital Humanities?” Dalhousie University: Dalhousie Libraries. Accessed January 13, 2020. //dal.ca.libguides.com/digitalhumanities/home.
    • Greenberg, Andy. “Inside Pwn2Own’s High-Stakes Industrial Hacking Contest | WIRED.” Wired, January 23, 2020. https://www.wired.com/story/pwn2own-industrial-hacking-contest/ Pwn2Own is an annual hacking convention; this year’s focused on industrial control software and revealed major security issues in programs that control hardware around the country.
    • Harris, Tristan. “How Technology Is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist.” Medium (blog), July 6, 2017. https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3 This article is a brief list of different ways websites and other technologies, especially smartphones, use people’s instincts, habits and desires to keep them engaging in the way that suits the company’s needs.
    • Hern, Alex.
      • “Microsoft Boss: Tech Firms Must Stop ‘if It’s Legal, It’s Acceptable’ Approach.” The Guardian, September 20, 2019, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/20/microsoft-boss-tech-firms-must-stop-if-its-legal-its-acceptable-approach This article details a statement from the president of Microsoft (Brad Smith) on responsible technology use. He believes that tech companies should practice responsible business strategies that involve not doing business with harmful companies just because it is legal to do so. However, he is against moratoriums on the development of certain technologies (such as facial recognition software) because he believes it is hard to learn the potential merits of a technology if it is outright banned; he also differentiates between not providing specific technology to specific people for specific purposes, and denying those people any Microsoft product (for example, not providing ICE with facial recognition technology, but not denying them Microsoft computers or word processing programs). ———.
      • “PayPal Pulls out of Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency.” The Guardian, October 7, 2019, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/07/paypal-pulls-out-facebook-libra-cryptocurrency PayPal dropped out of the 28 (27) companies backing Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, did not give specifics but politely stated the project wasn’t for them but they still have a good relationship with Facebook. Libra has been coming under fire for a lot of regulatory bodies, like the French govt, which has pledged to block it in the EU, and several other governments which are worried about money laundering and what standard the currency will be pinned to.
    • Hodak, Brittany. “Why Tech Startups Love to Use the IO Domain Name Extension.” Hover (blog), June 17, 2019. https://www.hover.com/blog/tech-startups-use-io-domain-name/ A short explanation of the .io domain extension for websites and why it’s popular for companies in the tech industry.
    • Hodge, Rae.
      • “Using Zoom While Working from Home? Here Are the Privacy Risks to Watch out For.” CNET, April 2, 2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/using-zoom-while-working-from-home-here-are-the-privacy-risks-to-watch-out-for/ A quick explanation of various security issues, privacy problems, and overall drawbacks to using Zoom to telecommute during the Coronavirus pandemic. Part of my research for a blog post talking about Zoom’s privacy issues and how they impact Carleton’s usage of Zoom in the switch to online learning. ———.
      • “Zoom Security Issues: Zoom Could Be Vulnerable to Foreign Surveillance, Intel Report Says.” CNET, May 8, 2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/zoom-security-issues-zoom-could-be-vulnerable-to-foreign-surveillance-intel-report-says/ An updating list of Zoom’s discovered privacy issues, public and legal reactions, and Zoom’s statements and actions to combat these flaws. Part of my research into Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s usage of Zoom for online teaching during the coronavirus pandemic (at the time of original access, the page had been updated through 4/28/2020; at this time it has been updated through 5/8/2020).
    • How to Bullet Journal. Bullet Journal, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm15cmYU0IM A tutorial by the inventor of bullet journaling on what the basic ideas behind the system are. Much more low-frills than most bullet journaling tutorials, more focused on how to organize information and schedule events. Used as part of my research on time management and organization.
    • Hussain, Suhauna. “Is Zoom Safe to Use? Here’s What You Need to Know.” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2020. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-04-13/is-zoom-safe-to-use-heres-what-you-need-to-know Answers to FAQ about Zoom’s security practices in the wake of its widespread adoption during the Coronavirus pandemic. The author’s general takeaway is that unless you are specifically dealing in very sensitive information, you can probably continue to use Zoom for personal and most work reasons. Part of my research for a blog post on Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s switch to online learning over Zoom.
    • College of Saint Benedict & Saint John’s University. “Instructional Design.” Accessed May 1, 2020. https://www.csbsju.edu/instructional-technology/instructional-design.
    • Kehe, Jason. “Going Dumb: My Year With a Flip Phone.” Wired, December 29, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/my-year-with-a-flip-phone/ Kehe talks about his time using a flip phone instead of a smart phone, and the social ramifications that came with it. He also discusses whether or not smart phones are really as bad as people say, and whether flip phones are really somehow “better”.
    • Kitty. “Eight (Free) Time Management Systems to Try in 2020 • Bitches Get Riches.” Bitches Get Riches (blog), January 27, 2020. http://www.bitchesgetriches.com/time-management-systems/ A summary of various time management systems, their pros and cons, digital and analog variants and advice on who each one might work for. I was doing a lot of research into time management and organization this week, so this was one of the sources that helped me clarify my methods.
    • Kolberg, Judith. “How to Get Organized with Adult ADHD: Organization with ADD.” Additude (blog), January 23, 2019. https://www.additudemag.com/how-to-get-organized-with-adhd/ A series of tips on organization and time management, geared towards people with ADHD but potentially useful for other people. Covers a variety of different situations. Used for my research on personal organization and time management.
    • Lessig, Lawrence. “On Joi and MIT – Lessig – Medium.” Medium (blog), September 8, 2019. https://medium.com/@lessig/on-joi-and-mit-3cb422fe5ae7 Lawrence Lessig’s explanation of his support for Joi Ito after Ito accepted money anonymously given by Jeffrey Epstein, in order to fund MIT’s Media Lab. His general expression is that, if you do choose to take money from a pedophile, abuser or other offender – someone whose money does not come from their bad behavior, but whose behavior cannot be discounted – taking it anonymously is a much better choice than taking it as a named donation; he states that, despite the fact that people’s reaction to Ito’s acceptance of Epstein’s money was horrified in part because of the secrecy and anonymity around it, he believes that publicizing Epstein’s charitable donations would be more wrong, as it would serve as “laundering reputation”. Part of a brief inquest into open-source software and corruption into major players in technological development.
    • Levin, Sam. “Netflix Co-Founder: ‘Blockbuster Laughed at Us … Now There’s One Left.’” The Guardian, September 14, 2019, sec. Media. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/14/netflix-marc-randolph-founder-blockbuster A summary of the history of Netflix and its near-acquisition by Amazon, its rivalry with Blockbuster, and its eventual victory and place as a staple of the modern streaming era. Interesting to me as an insight into the business operations of the entertainment technology industry.
    • Lewis, Peter. “It’s Time for Tighter Regulation of How Facebook and Google Use Our Data | Peter Lewis.” The Guardian, August 7, 2019, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2019/aug/07/its-time-for-tighter-regulation-of-how-facebook-and-google-use-our-data A call for regulation of companies which trade in big data, like Facebook or Google, and a warning against political rhetoric which would claim that big data has useful implications for public safety. Lewis calls back to 9/11 and how developing tech companies were encouraged to gather as much data as possible in the name of national security. Important to my work both on consumer data privacy and the use of big data in American politics.
    • @Literature_Geek. “Dr. Amanda Visconti on Twitter: ‘.@jeremykboggs+I Blogged an Abstract We Submitted for a Collection—It Wasn’t Accepted, but We’re Going to Do the Work It Discusses Anyway, and Seek Publication Elsewhere Https://T.Co/Jt4le6XoWr’ / Twitter.” Twitter (blog), January 23, 2020. https://twitter.com/Literature_Geek/status/1220356495411306498 A twitter thread musing on the necessity of feminist & queer approaches to software licensing, especially after Richard Stallman’s resignation as the president and chairman of the Free Software Foundation. Links to an academic paper on the same topic, quote tweets a thread re: Stallman.
    • Markham, Annette. “OKCupid Data Release Fiasco: It’s Time to Rethink Ethics Education | Annette Markham.” Annette Markham (blog), May 19, 2016. https://annettemarkham.com/2016/05/okcupid-data-release-fiasco-its-time-to-rethink-ethics-education/ Discussion of the usage of data released through leaks or without the consent of the users to whom it belongs (in the context of the OKCupid data release, where information regarding 70,000 users was released onto Open Science Framework and then removed following OKCupid’s DMCA takedown notice). One researcher who used the data declined to anonymize it, stating that because the data had been released to the public, he did not have an ethical responsibility to do so. Relevant to my fall term work regarding data collection, aggregation and anonymization, and the ability to identify subjects using specific aspects of collected data even in sets that did not collect specific identifiers.
    • Martineau, Paris. “YouTube Will Police Political Videos More Closely.” Wired, February 3, 2020. https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-police-political-videos-more-closely/ An article writing up Youtube’s statement that they will no longer host manipulated videos, conspiracy theories, or micro-targeted political ads (put out around the time of the 2020 Iowa Caucus, the beginning of presidential election season). Important to my research about the role of technology in American politics.
    • Martines, Jamie. “Forget Big Data—Little Data Lets Students Learn at Their Own Pace.” Wired, November 4, 2016. https://www.wired.com/2016/11/forget-big-data-little-data-making-learning-personal/ Discusses the use of “little data”, or individualized data, to help personalize students’ learning experiences in the classroom. Little data doesn’t have to be technologically driven, though there are definitely high tech classrooms. The idea is that collecting individualized data makes it easier for teachers to understand their students’ needs.
    • McCarthy, Kieren. “Unbreakable Smart Lock Devastated to Discover Screwdrivers Exist • The Register.” The Register, June 15, 2018. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/15/taplock_broken_screwdriver/ A quick writeup of Tapplock, a supposedly unbreakable smartlock (unlockable by fingerprint) which can be dismantled using common household tools. Found for fun in one of our weekly discussion meetings.
    • McDaniel, Caleb. “Data Mining the Internet Archive Collection.” Programming Historian, March 3, 2014. https://programminghistorian.org/en/lessons/data-mining-the-internet-archive A tutorial on ways to data mine information from the Internet Archive. Discusses how to use Python to download and parse MARC records.
    • Morrison, Sara. “California’s New Privacy Law, Explained.” Vox, December 30, 2019. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/30/21030754/ccpa-2020-california-privacy-law-rights-explained A quick writeup of CCPA, what the law says, what that means practically speaking, and where the law applies & falls short.
    • Munroe, Randall. XKCD: Voting Software. August 8, 2018. Webcomic. https://xkcd.com/2030/ A short comic depicting computer scientists reacting to the idea of using software for elections. Resource used for my blog post on the 2020 Iowa Caucus and the issues resulting from using an app to report results.
    • Murdock, Jason. “Is Zoom Safe and Is Your Privacy at Risk? Video Calling App Explained after Hacking Vulnerabilities Exposed.” Newsweek, April 2, 2020. https://www.newsweek.com/zoom-safe-privacy-risks-explained-video-calling-app-hacking-vulnerabilities-coronavirus-1495728 A write up of public and political reactions to Zoom’s privacy and security concerns. Used as a source for a blog post regarding Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s use of Zoom for online learning.
    • Narea, Nicole. “Trump Has Expanded the Travel Ban to 6 More Countries.” Vox, January 31, 2020. https://www.vox.com/2020/1/31/21116736/trump-travel-ban-nigeria-immigrant An explanation of how the January travel ban works, which immigration visas it affects, and which countries were specifically listed as being restricted or blocked outright. Used as a resource for a blog post summarizing the travel ban and its impact on Carleton students and faculty (both international community members and academic abroad programs). Also relevant to my fall work on the Public Memory of Myanmar project.
    • Nathans-Kelly, Traci. “Helping Students Learn Via Online Delivery.” April 14, 2020. https://on24static.akamaized.net/event/22/63/27/6/rt/1/documents/resourceList1586809182391/ieeeap14webinarnathanskellyhelpingstudentslearnviaonlinedelivery1586809151587.pdf. Ng,
    • Kristen W. “President Trump Issues New Proclamation on Travel Ban, Adding Six Additional Countries.” The National Law Review, February 3, 2020. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/president-trump-issues-new-proclamation-travel-ban-adding-six-additional-countries A overview of Trump’s January 31st travel ban, explaining the legal ramifications of which immigrants would be restricted from which countries, which visas would be affected, and when it would take effect for foreign nationals. Used as a resource for a blog post on the travel ban and how it would affect Carleton’s community (international students and faculty as well as academic abroad programs).
    • Nield, David. “How to Keep Your Zoom Chats Private and Secure.” Wired, April 5, 2020. https://www.wired.com/story/keep-zoom-chats-private-secure/ Security advice regarding how to prevent privacy issues, Zoombombing, and uninvited users on Zoom. Used as a resource for a blog post on Zoom’s privacy issues and how they impact Carleton’s switch to online learning through Zoom.
    • O’Flaherty, Kate. “Zoom Security: Here’s What Zoom Is Doing To Make Its Service Safer.” Forbes, April 10, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/04/10/zoom-security-heres-what-zoom-is-doing-to-make-its-service-safer/ A summary of Zoom’s reaction to criticisms of their security and privacy problems, including hiring Facebook’s former Chief Security Officer as a consultant, freezing new features in order to focus on security, and introducing new privacy protocols to prevent people from joining a call without being approved or invited. Used as a source for a blog post on Zoom’s privacy issues and how they impact Carleton’s switch to online learning through Zoom.
    • O’Rourke, Ciara. “PolitiFact – Private Messages Sent to Zoom Meeting Hosts Could Appear in Their Transcript.” Politifact, April 13, 2020. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/13/viral-image/private-messages-sent-zoom-meeting-hosts-could-app/ Fact checking for the rumor that Zoom meeting hosts would receive a record of all private chats made over the course of a meeting; this is untrue, as meeting hosts receive a transcript of the public chat as well as any messages sent to them. Used as a resource for a blog post on Zoom’s privacy issues and how they impact Carleton’s switch to online learning over Zoom.
    • Osborne, Hilary, and Poppy Noor. “How to Avoid Amazon: The Definitive Guide to Online Shopping – without the Retail Titan.” The Guardian, April 27, 2020, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/27/how-to-avoid-amazon-the-definitive-guide-to-online-shopping-without-the-retail-titan Advice for how to avoid giving business to Amazon after a boom in online shopping due to self-isolation and social distancing in the pandemic. Relevant to how people practice ethics when society moves towards doing business online.
    • Paul, Kari.
      • “Uber, Lyft and Airbnb Cut Thousands of Jobs as Pandemic Batters Silicon Valley.” The Guardian, May 8, 2020, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/08/tech-layoffs-coronavirus-uber-airbnb Reading for DSI discussion, talking about the economic effects of the pandemic on gig-economy companies as well as tech companies (some travel-based gig companies are suffering, but food delivery companies have seen a spike in usage). ———.
      • “Worried about Zoom’s Privacy Problems? A Guide to Your Video-Conferencing Options.” The Guardian, April 9, 2020, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/08/zoom-privacy-video-chat-alternatives A summary of the pros and cons of Zoom and its competitors in the context of Zoom’s security concerns. Used as a resource for a blog post on Zoom’s privacy issues and how they impact Carleton’s switch to online learning over Zoom.
    • Paunescu, Delia. “There’s a Scam Running in at Least Nine States on Airbnb. Here’s How It Works.” Vox, November 14, 2019. https://www.vox.com/2019/11/14/20961972/airbnb-scam-how-to-stay-safe-reset-podcast Summary of an Airbnb scam discovered by reporter Allie Conti and an interview with NYT tech reporter Mike Isaac about how rapid scaling for tech startups leaves major opportunities for exploitative scams, security issues, and other predatory practices.
    • Payne, Kate, and Miles Parks. “Despite Election Security Fears, Iowa Caucuses Will Use New Smartphone App.” NPR, January 14, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/795906732/despite-election-security-fears-iowa-caucuses-will-use-new-smartphone-app Short writeup of the plan to use voting app technology to communicate the results of the Iowa Caucus. Security concerns from cybersecurity experts, but the Iowa Democratic Caucus chose to use smartphone technology anyway.
    • Privacy Shield.
      • “Benefits of Participation | Privacy Shield.” Privacy Shield Framework. Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=Benefits-of-Participation The benefits of participating in the EU Privacy Shield regulation program. Seem to sum up to: EU will do business more easily with you, and it’s cost-effective. ———.
    • Rayome, Alison DeNisco. “10 Free Zoom Alternative Apps for Video Chats.” CNET, April 6, 2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/10-free-zoom-alternative-apps-for-video-chats/ A list of Zoom’s competitors and their pros and cons for use during work from home and the Coronavirus pandemic. Used as a resource for a blog post on Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s switch to online learning over Zoom.
    • Reese, Hope. “Top 5 Video Conferencing Services to Use with Remote Employees.” TechRepublic, February 19, 2020. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/top-5-video-conferencing-services-to-use-with-remote-employees/ List of available software to host online meetings, published a month before everyone had to switch to telecommuting online. Used as a source for a blog post detailing Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s move to teaching online.
    • Romm, Tony. “California Adopted the Country’s First Major Consumer Privacy Law. Now, Silicon Valley Is Trying to Rewrite It.” Washington Post, September 3, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/02/california-adopted-countrys-first-major-consumer-privacy-law-now-silicon-valley-is-trying-rewrite-it/ Discussion of advertising campaigns sponsored by major social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, designed to combat the California Consumer Privacy Act. The CCPA would put certain controls on companies based in California regarding how they store and use their users’ data. The advertising campaigns were centered around making consumers believe that if the CCPA were passed, the internet would become more expensive/more censored.
    • Sabbagh, Dan. “UK Ministers Will No Longer Claim ‘no Successful Examples’ of Russian Interference.” The Guardian, March 15, 2020, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/15/uk-ministers-will-no-longer-claim-no-successful-examples-of-russian-interference Details the change in tone from UK government officials after evidence was found of Russia hacking into an NHS dossier and a special adviser’s personal email account, as well as interfering in the Brexit referendum. No information given on followup action.
    • @shadowinchq. “We Sincerely Regret the Delay in the Reporting of the Results of Last Night’s Iowa Caucuses and the Uncertainty It Has Caused to the Candidates, Their Campaigns, and Democratic Caucus-Goers.” Twitter (blog), February 4, 2020. https://twitter.com/shadowinchq/status/1224773796307050497 A response by Shadow, Inc., the company which created the app that caused major technical difficulties and delays for the 2020 Iowa Caucus. Part of my research for a blog post about the problems surrounding the Iowa Caucus, relating to cybersecurity and other issues with democracy through digital technology.
    • Shane, Janelle. “How to Begin a Novel.” AI Weirdness (blog), November 19, 2019. https://aiweirdness.com/post/189170306297/how-to-begin-a-novel Just a fun demonstration of how neural networks can be used in different contexts. In this case, the neural network was used to generate the first line of a nonexistent novel (sometimes successfully, sometimes… less so).
    • Shubber, Kadhim. “First Ever Web Page Put Back Online by Cern | WIRED UK.” Wired, April 30, 2013. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/first-web-page Talking about the development of the World Wide Web and the first ever webpage, put back online by Cern.
    • Staats, Beth. “Algorithm Literacy 101: A Study by Project Information Literacy | Minitex News.” Minitex News, January 21, 2020. https://news.minitex.umn.edu/node/4514 A brief writeup of a study conducted by Project Information Literacy, assessing information literacy online in college students. Relevant to how people spot fake news and regard their data privacy rights.
    • @steak_umm. “Friendly Reminder in Times of Uncertainty and Misinformation: Anecdotes Are Not Data. (Good) Data Is Carefully Measured and Collected Information Based on a Range of Subject-Dependent Factors, Including, but Not Limited to, Controlled Variables, Meta-Analysis, and Randomization.” Twitter (blog), April 6, 2020. https://twitter.com/steak_umm/status/1247343900475490304 A Twitter thread published by Steak-umm calling on people to check their sources and avoid conflating anecdotes with data in order to combat misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic. Generally relevant to the topics of digital misinformation and ethics.
    • Sterling, Michelle. “The Antisocial Network: How the 90s Internet Died Like Diaryland.” Vice, November 6, 2014. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jp5vdg/the-antisocial-network-how-the-90s-internet-died-like-diaryland An interview with the creator of Diaryland, an early form of social media that lost popularity and failed to monetize user data. Discussion of the cultures that arose there, why people liked it so much, and the business difficulties the creator faced. Used for research into a project on the history of social media and online culture.
    • Stewart, Emily.
    • Strauss, Daniel. “Trump Administration Unveils Expanded Travel Ban.” The Guardian, January 31, 2020, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/31/travel-ban-trump-countries-announcement A short explanation of the political context of Trump’s January 31st travel ban, and the current and likely reactions of politicians. Used as a source for a blog post on the travel ban and its impact on Carleton’s international community and abroad programs.
    • Sustaining DH. “Sustaining DH – An NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities.” Accessed January 24, 2020. https://sites.haa.pitt.edu/sustainabilityinstitute/ DH needs to be sustained both technologically and socially in its preservation; this site is for an institute that conducts workshops on the Socio-Technological Sustainability Roadmap in order to further these goals.
    • Swisher, Kara. “Opinion | The Immunity of the Tech Giants.” The New York Times, May 1, 2020, sec. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/tech-companies-coronavirus.html Swisher calls for criticism of big tech companies as the pandemic drives people more towards tech and online business, since the increasing size of those companies means they’ll be more able to do what they want and the fines levied against them are too small (against their comparative profit) to be an effective deterrent against bad action.
    • “The EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield Frameworks.” Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.privacyshield.gov/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=015t0000000QJdg. CERN. “The World Wide Web Project.” Accessed January 27, 2020. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html The first website, or at least the earliest copy of it that we have!
    • Tims, Anna. “Fraudsters Hijack EBay Parcels in a Postcode Lottery.” The Observer, September 22, 2019, sec. Money. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/sep/22/fraudsters-hijack-ebay-parcels-postcode-scam Tracking software used by the Royal Mail only tracks whether packages are delivered to the right postcode, not the right address, which means that people used this information to commit fraud on Ebay by “returning” packages they claimed were defective.
    • Wageinseil, Paul. “Zoom Privacy and Security Issues: Here’s Everything That’s Wrong (so Far).” Tom’s Guide, June 1, 2020. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes An updating summary of the privacy issues, security problems and tech troubles affecting Zoom (originally accessed 5/6/2020; the article’s most recent update was 6/1/2020). Used as a resource for a blog post detailing Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s move to online learning.
    • Usenet. “What Is Usenet? Question About Usenet – Usenet.Com.” Accessed February 3, 2020. https://www.usenet.com/what-is-usenet/. “What We Know About The App That Delayed Iowa’s Caucus Results.” NPR.Org, February 4, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/04/802583844/what-we-know-about-the-app-that-delayed-iowas-caucus-results A piece explaining cybersecurity concerns surrounding the app used in the 2020 Iowa Caucus to report results, the leadup to the Caucus, tension between the Iowa Democratic Party and the DNC, and the credentials and response of Shadow, Inc., the company which made the app. Used as a source for a blog post on the 2020 Iowa Caucus.
    • Whittaker, Zack. “Iowa’s Caucus App Was a Disaster Waiting to Happen.” TechCrunch (blog), February 4, 2020. http://social.techcrunch.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-disaster/ A rundown of the Iowa Caucus smartphone app debacle from the perspective of experts in the cybersecurity industry. Used as a resource for a blog post about the 2020 Iowa Caucus.
    • Wong, Julia Carrie. “Amazon Is Using Coronavirus to Expand Its Power – and Not for the Greater Good | Julia Carrie Wong.” The Guardian, March 24, 2020, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/the-us-of-amazon-how-the-coronavirus-has-created-a-governance-vacuum-the-tech-giant-is-quickly-filling Criticism of Amazon’s newfound grasp on the economy as more people move to shopping online as a result of self-isolation in the Coronavirus pandemic. Wong specifically mentions the superficial similarities between Amazon’s hiring 100,000 workers and giving a $2-per-hour pay raise and the WPA, but notes that as a publicly traded company, Amazon’s duty is not to their employees or to their customers, but to their stockholders.
    • Wong, Julia Carrie, and Mario Koran. “Google Contract Workers in Pittsburgh Vote to Form Union.” The Guardian, September 24, 2019, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/24/google-contract-workers-in-pittsburgh-vote-to-form-union Employees at HCL America, a company used by Google to outsource some work, have voted to unionize with the United Steel Workers (USW) under the union name Pittsburgh Association of Tech Professionals (PATP).
    • YouTube. “How YouTube Supports Elections.” Official YouTube Blog (blog), February 3, 2020. https://youtube.googleblog.com/2020/02/how-youtube-supports-elections.html Youtube’s public statement of commitment to fighting election-related misinformation campaigns, screening and featuring actual political leaders, and shut down deceptive or doctored content on their site. Related to the use of technology in American politics.
    • Zoom. “Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing.” Zoom Video. Accessed May 6, 2020. https://zoom.us/ Zoom’s home site. Used as a source for a blog post detailing Zoom’s privacy issues and their impact on Carleton’s move to online learning.

  • The Persistence Project: What It Was, How It Went

    The title’s a little misleading, I suppose, but it’s accurate for me — my part in the Persistence Project has come to a close. Hopefully it’ll do as its name suggests, and persist into next year and beyond.

    Basically, the Persistence Project was an effort to think critically about how digital projects at Carleton are structured while live and archived long-term. Live projects aren’t often made with their archival practices in mind (why think about the future when you can think about the now), and unlike books or papers, it’s often hard to determine what the archivable components of a live project are.

    I mean, if you think about it, a digital project can be interactive; it can be reactive; it can, and often is, structured through hyperlinks. These affordances don’t translate well to having a single, stable work in the archives. And technology marches on. What’s cutting edge now may very well be outdated in five years, and it may not even be capable of running in ten. Assuming, of course, that your links don’t break and your sources don’t move and your hosting service doesn’t fold and your servers don’t crash and your data isn’t lost…

    So the early stages of the Persistence Project — my particular role — was to succinctly explain these dangers in a way that even people who aren’t tech-oriented can understand, and to provide advice. Digital projects are great! They can lead to amazing ways of demonstrating information or engaging audiences, and no one should be scared of them just because they’re scared of how to manage their project’s longevity.

    The end result of my work was a PDF, emailable and transmittable, which can be shared with Carleton professors (and maybe even beyond) even after I’m gone. I won’t transcribe the whole thing here. Just click through to the attached document, and enjoy.

    Archiving Your Digital ProjectsDownload

  • Online Learning – How’s It Treating Us?

    So as we begin to wrap up our term online, we can start looking towards the future. That bright, shining future which right now is as clearly visible as a tarnished penny dropped in a glass of chocolate milk.

    Basically, now seems like a pretty good time to be looking back on what we’ve been doing. What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks?

    I reached out to a couple of people for their experience doing online learning this term, and had two trusted and reputable individuals agree to answer a few questions of mine. One, Justin Soll, is a senior Math major, and the other, Jonathan Lafky, is a professor in the Econ department. Both agreed to be named in this post, and neither were compensated for their time, though they do have my eternal gratitude.

    While (as I said) I’m extremely grateful to both of them for taking the time to answer, it’s important to note (and I’m sure they would agree) that a sample size of two is pretty small, so most of this information will be anecdotal. Still, it’s an important perspective to have.

    The Student Side

    Soll’s main takeaway was that “Online learning has been better than I expected it to be… [but] I definitely prefer in person classes over online regardless of what’s going on”. He mentions breakout groups as an unintentional benefit of having class over Zoom, as the ability to actually separate from an otherwise noisy classroom helps him keep on task with his groupmates. The flexibility of asynchronous classes is also a perk; he prefers to ‘attend’ class during its usual timeslot, but can see how others would benefit from the flexible scheduling.

    Asynchronous classes also come with some drawbacks — Soll notes that in one of his classes, which meets asynchronously but assigns weekly group work, “After the first meeting one of my partners just never showed up or contributed ever again.” (He continues “Hm… actually when I put it like that it sounds a little concerning”.)

    For synchronous classes, he mentions feeling a pressure to look “immaculate” on camera in case someone is checking out his video screen, as well as the distractions that come with the ability to tab out and do something else during lecture. The mental energy it takes not to give into distraction also prevents him from engaging fully in class.

    On the tech side, Soll mentions that technological problems have definitely impeded his learning. Most particularly, high internet traffic which happens during the work and school day slows down or even stops his internet for minutes at a time, which results in Zoom actively removing him from the classroom.

    As a senior, Soll feels particularly disappointed, since he set up his class schedule in anticipation of a fun senior spring term. All the classes he signed up for were interesting electives where he would be working with friends, and one class in particular (now made asynchronous) indicated that it would be a lot of group work and no lectures. Meanwhile, the mandatory S/CR/NC policy means that while he’s putting in a lot of effort because he’s excited about his classes, he doesn’t feel the same pressure to deliver polished work which might earn a higher grade.

    But overall? “From my perspective Carleton has made the best of an awful situation,” says Soll. “As far as the transition to online learning has gone, Carleton has done fantastic. I feel like the CSA is taking a greater lead than the administration in terms of emotional support and stuff to students, but I see that as the system working as intended.”

    The Professor’s Side

    Lafky’s perspective on the classroom experience related more to how he understands his students, saying that “I’ve found it to be more difficult to gauge student comprehension on the fly… It’s much harder to read those subtle cues on a video call.” This lack of visible feedback would be extra impactful for professors teaching asynchronously, like Lafky, since only in-person office hours would provide the chance to talk to students one on one.

    However, he also notes that asynchronous teaching has benefits in addition to its drawbacks: “…Teaching asynchronously has made me think more carefully about the different topics that I cover, how all of the concepts fit together, and how they can be disassembled into short stand-alone lectures. I think this will sharpen the way I think about structuring my classes even when we’re all back in person.”

    Technologically, he feels that Carleton’s support for the transition to remote teaching has been “really excellent”, citing the new hardware necessary to teach, the resources to create and edit video lectures, and familiarity with unusual Moodle features that help structure the online course. “ITS and the LTC have provided amazing support on all three fronts, for which I’m very grateful.”

    The Results of Online Learning

    The general consensus seems to be that online learning is doable — not great, but doable. If this is how we have to proceed next year, we’re better prepared and better practiced, and we know what to expect.

    I’d be interested to see a comparison between professors who teach synchronously and who teach asynchronously (and if there are any professors who do both). What are the impacts on one’s schedule, and what risks (technological, environmental, etc.) come about as a result of either practice? It might also be interesting to survey students to see how workloads differ by department and synchronous/asynchronous classes, particularly under the mandatory S/CR/NC policy. (And will such a policy continue, if online learning persists into the future?) Alas, I won’t have time to conduct those investigations myself — much like Justin Soll, I’m a graduating senior this term!

    Once again, I want to extend my thanks to Justin Soll and Jonathan Lafky for taking time out of their schedules to answer my questions. This is a busy and stressful period for everyone, and it was immensely kind of them to do so.

    And hey. If there’s one thing Carleton’s known for, it’s our strong community and supportive culture. That doesn’t go away just because it’s happening over Zoom these days.

  • What I Learned (and Didn’t Learn) from Ruby

    So, in case you haven’t obsessively backread every blog post I’ve ever made here, here’s the main thing you need to know for this post: at the beginning of the year, all of the interns had to set three goals, and three methods on how we were going to achieve those goals. Over the course of the year, we had to work towards those goals, with the intent of getting them done by year’s end.

    Now, my goals were as follows:

    1. Work on personal time management skills by testing published time management systems, evaluating what worked and didn’t work, and then writing up my findings.
      Results: I did it! You can find the writeup here.
    2. Develop my project proposal skills by writing up a proposal to a) learn the programming language Ruby and b) create a digital portfolio and/or website using Ruby.
      Results: … uh. I definitely developed my proposal skills — I’ve written three or four by now, for various things including the winter intern project, a plan to learn Ruby over winter break, and the digital portfolio I’m working on this term. But the latter two… aren’t connected. So. Hm.
    3. Use the project proposal written in goal #2 to create a digital portfolio reflecting on my time at Carleton, studying and working in both the humanities and STEM fields.
      Results: Well, the funny thing about the fact that I only kind of sort of met goal #2, is that without that project proposal, I can’t meet goal #3. That’s what’s known as a dependency. I’m still making my portfolio, just… without Ruby, in a different way.

    So, reading between the lines, the main thing that’s missing from this year’s goals is that I started learning Ruby over winter break, but didn’t have enough time to achieve or maintain proficiency in the language, which meant I couldn’t technically achieve my goals.

    And that’s fine! The best laid plans of mice and men, etcetera, etcetera. I am a senior, who spent the past eight months focused first and foremost on my comps project/thesis. I tried to do everything else as best I could, but I am a creature of non-infinite capacity, and there’s no sense beating myself up about it.

    Besides, I met my goals in other ways. Despite the way I set things up, Ruby isn’t actually directly relevant to my job. Being somewhat knowledgeable about computers and/or tech is, dare I say, a requirement for working in the digital ethics sphere. But learning one specific programming language isn’t. Ruby was a personal project that I was planning to use to augment my job.

    So, coming at it from a different angle: I didn’t fail. I succeeded in an unexpected way.

    Goal #2 wasn’t to learn Ruby. It was to develop my project proposal and planning skills. But if I’d said “develop my skills by, uh, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out”, that would have been a terrible goal! Imagine trying to meet that goal. I gave myself a goal, then gave myself a framework I could use to do it. And instead, I did it a different way.

    Similarly, right now, I am working on a digital portfolio. I made a project proposal for it and everything. I’m just not using Ruby. And that’s okay.

    What You Can Learn from My Failure Success

    If I had to sum up what I learned, and what you should do… I mean, it’s going to sound simple. Painfully simple. But it’s a really hard lesson to accept sometimes.

    Is it, “The ends justify the means?” No. “The means justify the ends?” What does that even mean? Of course it’s not that! It’s just…

    Figure out what’s the ends, and what’s the means.

    Ruby was a method to stave off the madness that comes from having no plan at all. But it wasn’t the only way to achieve what I wanted, and based on the time I had available and what else I had to do, it wasn’t even the best way to achieve what I wanted. I figured out ways to work my goals in using stuff I actually needed to do or opportunities I already had available, rather than make extra work for myself when I had very little time to do way too much.

    Figure out the thing that you actually want to get done, and don’t hold yourself to a method that isn’t working.

  • Zoom’s Downsides in Regards to Privacy

    I’ll admit I’m a bit late in writing this blog post – classes have been going for three and a half weeks, we’re almost at the midterm point, and we’ve been on Zoom the entire time. But better late than never, I suppose.

    You may or may not have heard about people’s concerns when it comes to Zoom. There have been issues of hacking, security flaws, and sloppy design that have led to major privacy issues, causing many people to lose trust in the service. Zoom has put out some updates meant to address these issues, as well as made several public apologies. Additionally, their privacy policy looks extraordinarily transparent, at least at first glance (though it’s worth noticing that it seems to have last been updated in March). But what does all this mean for Carleton?

    Zoom’s fixed some stuff. There’s other things they need to look at. But what does this all mean for Carleton?

    What’s in the Past

    Meeting rooms have a number associated with them that people can use to join those rooms. If you have the number, you can use it. This is a problem if the number gets out, especially if you use the same number for every meeting of a certain type (which happens a lot for repeatedly scheduled meetings).

    There’s not a ton that can be done to stop this, since it’s the core concept, and people do need to know the number sometimes — but Zoom did fix a previous issue, where the meeting room number was displayed prominently in the video screen. This meant that any screenshot of the video chat would contain it, which made it way easier to get out. That’s over now. You can find the meeting number if you try, but it’s not visible by default anymore.

    The controversial attention tracker is also gone. Basically, Zoom had a feature where, when enabled, if the Zoom window was not your primary window for more than 30 seconds, it would alert the meeting’s host. This was bad from a general privacy standpoint, but also not particularly accurate for people who have multiple windows open at a time — say, to take notes during a work meeting.

    They’ve also included a note in the banner that says when a video call is being recorded by the host. It’s a small red light in the top right corner, next to the word “Recording” (though as far as I know, the only current ways to opt out of being recorded are to mute your audio and video, or to leave the call).

    Two new features introduced specifically to combat ‘Zoombombing’ (the sudden entrance of bad actors into a Zoom call through a leaked meeting ID or link) are automatic waiting rooms and the ability to prevent banned users from rejoining. Zoom waiting rooms make people wait to be admitted to the meeting, rather than letting them join whenever, and if a user is kicked out for bad behavior, there’s an option to prevent them rejoining entirely.

    Concerns about data being shared with Facebook are now addressed as well. Previously, Zoom sent analytics data to Facebook, even for users who had not logged in using their Facebook account. They made a comment addressing this, saying, “Zoom takes its users’ privacy extremely seriously. We originally implemented the ‘Login with Facebook’ feature using the Facebook SDK in order to provide our users with another convenient way to access our platform. However, we were recently made aware that the Facebook SDK was collecting unnecessary device data.” Since I can’t find updates about this in the past month, when other concerns such as the ones above have arisen, I’m going to give Zoom the benefit of the doubt and assume they’ve fixed the issue.

    Current Concerns

    At present, there are other issues. Some are my personal concerns, others could be major red flags.

    Personally, I don’t love the fact that hosts get to keep full logs of each meeting’s chat by default. There was misinformation going around that saved chatlogs include all private chats as well as public ones, but Politifact debunked that, saying, “If you send a private message to the person recording the meeting, it could end up on a transcript. If you send a private message to another person in the meeting — someone who isn’t able to record the meeting — those messages won’t end up in the transcript.” Still, while I get that it’s practical, it feels like something that should be opt-in rather than opt-out, and something which people should be notified about while in the call.

    Similarly, the notification Zoom has added to indicate when a call is being recorded is small and easy to miss. Since it’s part of the top bar (next to the encryption lock, sound controls and information button), it blends in with other settings if you’re not looking for it, and it fades away after a few seconds without moving the mouse or interacting with the screen.

    The biggest issue, though, is encryption. In its marketing campaigns, Zoom claimed its calls were all end-to-end encrypted. What that means, practically speaking, is that the information from your call is encoded, passed from you to Zoom, passed from Zoom to the other parties on the line, and then de-encoded. Zoom has no way of decrypting your messages or finding out what you’re saying — in theory.

    In practice, Zoom does not use end-to-end encryption, and its own custom encryption software has been criticized for not being up to industry standards. This means Zoom could decrypt your calls and, theoretically, so could other parties. Additionally, they’ve been taken to task for using insecure servers overseas in China to route personal call data, making it possible for foreign governments to access the Zoom meetings.

    These security issues are among the many reasons why Zoom is no longer used by companies such as SpaceX and Google (which hosts a competitor, Hangouts), and governing bodies like the New York Department of Education, all Taiwanese government agencies, Singapore’s Ministry of Education, and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The United States Senate and Pentagon have restricted or cautioned against the use of Zoom, though not banned it outright. The United Kingdom Parliament has elected to keep using Zoom to pass legislation (though only bills that are expected to receive near-unanimous support).

    In its privacy policy, Zoom claims to be compliant with the CCPA, the GDPR, and the US-EU Privacy Shield Act (check out my article on the CCPA here). As various countries start to distance themselves from Zoom, that’s looking more and more questionable.

    Carleton Usage

    Let’s start off with the obvious: Carleton is not a governing body. It is, however, an educational institute. Most of the concerns surrounding education have not come from questions of data privacy, but issues like Zoombombing, where people have joined virtual classrooms in order to expose themselves to children and teens, or shout and display racist or hateful messages.

    I have no idea how I would begin to assess the risk that this might happen to Carleton classrooms, particularly since the public reaction has sent Zoom scrambling to keep this from happening again. Additionally, Zoom has a number of features that make it very well-suited for Carleton’s usage: a Licensed account (available to all Carleton community members) can host meetings with up to 100 people for an unlimited length of time, customize meeting IDs or links, and other perks. This would suit pretty much any class Carleton offers, and allow for some more specific security options.

    The biggest question to ask (as a number of articles point out) is: is what I am doing over Zoom worth hacking? Government bodies, which deal in state secrets, are right to be worried, as are major corporations; educational departments dealing with minors are reacting to threats that have already been demonstrated. Telehealth and medical information is not advisable to be transmitted over Zoom, though many (including SHAC!) are doing it already. But for personal meetings or college classes, it would be better to ask, why would someone try this? Would it be worth the effort?

    So, basically: if any of what you’ve read above worries you, try investigating some alternatives (available in the sources). If you don’t think what you’re doing would tempt any bad actors, then it’s your call.

    Sources & Resources

    “Privacy Policy”. Zoom, 3/29/2020. https://zoom.us/privacy

    “Zoom Security: Here’s What Zoom Is Doing To Make Its Service Safer”, O’Flaherty, Katie. Forbes, 4/10/2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/04/10/zoom-security-heres-what-zoom-is-doing-to-make-its-service-safer/#6329003630fc

    “Private messages sent to Zoom meeting hosts could appear in their transcript”, O’Rourke, Ciara. Politifact, 4/13/2020. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/13/viral-image/private-messages-sent-zoom-meeting-hosts-could-app/

    “Is It Safe to Use Zoom?”, Feldman, Brian. New York Magazine, 4/9/2020. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/the-zoom-app-has-a-lot-of-security-problems.html

    “Zoom privacy and security issues: Here’s everything that’s wrong (so far)”, Wagenseil, Paul. Tom’s Guide, 4/28/2020. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes

    “10 free Zoom alternative apps for video chats”, CNet, 4/6/2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/10-free-zoom-alternative-apps-for-video-chats/

    “Top 5 video conferencing services to use with remote employees”, Reese, Hope. Tech Republic, 2/19/2020. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/top-5-video-conferencing-services-to-use-with-remote-employees/

    “Zoom security issues: Zoom could be vulnerable to foreign surveillance, intel report says”, Hodge, Rae. CNet, 4/28/2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/zoom-security-issues-zoom-could-be-vulnerable-to-foreign-surveillance-intel-report-says/

    “Using Zoom while working from home? Here are the privacy risks to watch out for”, Hodge, Rae. CNet, 4/2/2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/using-zoom-while-working-from-home-here-are-the-privacy-risks-to-watch-out-for/

    “Worried about Zoom’s privacy problems? A guide to your video-conferencing options”, Paul, Kari. The Guardian, 4/9/2020. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/08/zoom-privacy-video-chat-alternatives

    “How to Keep Your Zoom Chats Private and Secure”, Nield, David. Wired, 4/5/2020. https://www.wired.com/story/keep-zoom-chats-private-secure/

    “Is Zoom Safe and Is Your Privacy at Risk? Video Calling App Explained After Hacking Vulnerabilities Exposed”, Murdock, Jason. Newsweek, 4/2/20. https://www.newsweek.com/zoom-safe-privacy-risks-explained-video-calling-app-hacking-vulnerabilities-coronavirus-1495728

    “Is Zoom safe to use? Here’s what you need to know”, Hussain, Suhauna. The Los Angeles Times, 4/13/2020. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-04-13/is-zoom-safe-to-use-heres-what-you-need-to-know

    “Ethics Week 3: What’s the CCPA?”, Irwin, Pilot. Carleton DS Interns, 1/24/2020. https://ds.interns.sites.carleton.edu/digital-ethics/ethics-week-3-whats-the-ccpa/

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