Feb 19

Changing the Perception of Public Transportation

By Jordi Scrubbings Business, Culture, Ideas, Social Media, Tampa, Technology No Comments »

chp_busLast summer I read an interesting book by screenwriter/actor Brian Spaeth entitled Prelude to a Super Airplane. One of the many plotlines in Spaeth’s book involves a conflict between the “fast emerging pro-flying car contingent” and the “traditional pro-airplane members of the populace”. It is a battle for the future of aerial transportation – whether national production should focus on many private individual units or on a few massive public transports.

After reading Prelude, I started thinking about the transportation situation in Tampa. Like most of America, a large majority of the residents of Tampa prefer private automobile use over public transportation. Buses, although used, remain a secondary alternative, ridden primarily by those without cars or those looking to save money on gas.

I predict this is going to change in the very near future. I think we will soon see a major shift in transportation culture. A shift that will require change in the perception and utility of public transportation.

One of the most consistent news trends of the last few years has been reporting the dangerous relationship between communication devices and driving. Every few weeks it seems another story is written about an accident involving a phoning, texting, or tweeting victim. According to a recent Mashable.com post, “an estimated 6,000 people were killed and 500,000 were injured due to cell-phone related car accidents” in 2008.

There is no doubt people are having trouble pausing their desire to stay social. With the growth of the communication industry and ease of staying in touch, we are seeing a cultural shift from the importance of travel to the need for continuous communication. We value staying in touch more than we do those short moments in which our concentration is needed for driving.

So far, our society’s initial reaction has been to fight this cultural shift. Mashable, a blog dedicated to technology and social media, recommended “a combination of legislation, social awareness, and technological innovation to create a safe marriage between social media and driving“. CNN also recently reported on a product designed to disable cell phones from calling or texting while vehicles are in motion.

Unfortunately, the genie of communication and increased socialization cannot be put back in the bottle. On the contrary, we need to embrace our need to be social.

This is where public transportation must step up. They must take the lead in embracing this cultural shift. Instead of being seen as secondary, they need to rebrand, remarket, and refocus their message and be perceived as a safe alternative for those who want to stay in touch while they travel.

Here are some ideas how public transportation systems can promote themselves to those who are putting increased value on communications:

1) Engage their sense of adventure and participation – One of the major buzzphrases is the last year on the technology front has been “geolocation – the “the identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other“. Public transportation organizations should encourage riders to plug in and announce where they are. These organizations could promote “Tweet ‘N’ Ride” events, incorporate social applications such as Foursquare, or even do virtual treasure hunts or games of “I Spy“.

2) Increase routes through college and young professional residential areas – In order to encourage usage, buses need to be seen in areas where communication-savvy people live. This means putting routes in the residential areas of people 18 to 35. These routes need to stop by places this demographic frequents, such as campuses, downtown areas, malls, entertainment complexes, and sports stadiums.

3) Ensure routes have good signal – Whenever possible, public transportation organizations should make sure there are few, if any deadzones along the routes. They could also make all bus stops Wi-Fi zones. If possible, these organizations should also put Wi-Fi on the buses.

4) Embrace social media – Although many transportation organizations already have twitter and facebook accounts, these organizations need to better utilize these platforms. Not only should the administration be engaging potential riders, but the buses should as well. However possible, each bus should have access to the tweeter feed and “automatically” tweet its location when it reaches stops along its route. This information could be broadcast not only to individuals through twitter, but also possibly to a small screen installed in each stop.

5) Target parents – In order to encourage teens and other members of the millennial generation that buses are a viable option, public transportation organizations should create advertising campaigns targeted to parents and other decision makers. Parents should be informed that they do not have to discourage their teen from communicating, and that options do exist for teens to travel and stay in touch.

In Prelude to a Super Airplane, the great culture battle between individual and mass aerial transportation culminates in 2012. If public transportation organizations can capitalize on the current growing cultural shift between transportation and communication, we may see the battle on land much sooner.

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Feb 08

Rezball and Rasslin’: Regional cultural nuances in sports

By Jordi Scrubbings Baseball, Culture, Musings, Pro Wrestling, Sports 1 Comment »

Thoughts on sports and their different regional “flavors”:

I’ve always been interested in how different areas put their own twists on sports. A game played by the same rules can be played in totally different ways and interpreted in a completely different manner by different cultures.

But why? What is it about certain cultures that drives changes in the game?

rezball2A few years ago I noticed several articles that discussed a style of basketball being played in the American southwest by young Native Americans. Dubbed “Rezball“, it was basketball played at an extremely fast pace. According to ESPN.com,

Rezball is a smashmouth game of speed, aggression and stamina. Full-court presses and man D are applied relentlessly, but the transition game is the game. Guards often start a break after receiving the inbounds pass; set plays are rare. Rezball makes the 2007 Suns look like the 1995 Knicks. Squads with three guys taller than 6′3″ are rare, so even the short guys know how to play big, and all five positions boast guardlike handles and shooting skills. Watching the best teams will rivet you to your seat—from the way players improvise at warp speed to their sheer endurance and the dialed-in-but-carefree way they ball.

For some reason, Native Americans decided to add an extreme element of speed to their game. Granted, height is not a usual trait in Native Americans, so few teams would have the option to slow down the game by throwing the ball to a lumbering big man underneath the basket. But from what I know about Rezball, it is faster than the Philippines Basketball Association, a league known to impose height requirements to give domestic players a chance.

So why did the Native Americans tweak basketball in that way? Is running or sprinting a typical habit of the people?

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum is the southern style of professional wrestling, known in some circles as “rasslin’”. According to Wikipedia,

Rasslin’ – refers to a southern style of professional wrestling which emphasizes kayfabe and stiffness, with fewer squash matches and generally longer feuds. It was synonymous with the NWA-affiliated promotions. Rasslin’ included TV tapings at smaller venues, as compared to the larger and more well-known arenas utilized by northern U.S. promotions such as the AWA and WWF/E. The term is derived from a phonetic spelling of how the word “wrestling” sounds when spoken with a heavy Southern accent. It is also commonly used in a derogatory manner by non-Southern wrestling fans to describe that style of wrestling.”

Southernxident(To be honest, although the description is correct, I have never heard anyone in Florida refer to it as “rasslin’”. Actually, due to the mixed population in Florida, I’ve been told the state is a very difficult place to wrestle in, because transplanted fans from different parts of the country look for different things in their wrestling performances.)

I’ve been told that “southern” professional wrestling is generally slower than its northern counterparts. In the definition above, “emphasizing kayfabe” means characters and stories have more of a role in southern pro wrestling matches. In order to build those stories and develop those characters, the action must be slower. No rapid, high-flyin’, biff-bang-boom-wham-bam-slam matches. In southern wrestling, each match tells a story and it is the story that is emphasized more so than the athletic performance.

So why is wrestling different in the South? What is it about southern culture that favors deliberate storylines over fast-paced action?

Having lived in the South for over 20 years, I can attempt to answer this. For the same reason country music is generally slower, and southern accents are not as fast as northern dialects, Southerners prefer a more laid back lifestyle. People are more spread out in the south and aren’t ingrained with the urgency of northern city folks.

There is also the notion that morals are more prevalent in the South. Whereas in the North, people are all jumbled together and no one knows which way is which, in the South, there are traditional codes of conduct – such as how a gentleman or lady should act. Pro wrestling storylines feed off of these ideas. Bad guys deliberately brake the codes of conduct and good guys get in the fans’ favor by giving these villains a helpin’ of fist-flyin’ justice.

Before I end, I would like to leave you with a few questions.

Questions: Could there have been at some point different nuances in baseball? Were there slight differences in baseball strategy when the game started its growth in America? Did southerners play a slower-paced game than northerners? Was the northern game the origin of homeruns and fastballs and the south the birthplace of off-speed pitches, setting up batters, and base-to-base offense? Could there have been a difference in regional pitching psychology? Also, was there a different style of game strategy in the Negro Leagues?

The best answers may win something from me, if I can think of a cool gift.

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Jan 13

Jay Electronica, 5% Influence, and Lyrical Jahiliyya

By Jordi Scrubbings Culture, Hip-Hop, Philosophical 1 Comment »

jay-electronicaThanks to the excellent recommendations of Mizzo and several others, I’ve been recently checking out underground hip-hop artist Jay Electronica (download his unofficial album here). Vastly different from the materialistic, pop-friendly, bling-heavy blather permeating hip-hop radio (how many songs about money can there possibly be?), Jay Electronica drops introspective, socially conscious hip-hop with a great flow and a knack for realistic storytelling.

On his song “Exhibit C”, a song widely considered one of the best of 2009, Jay Electronica brings an old theme back into hip-hop, the thoughts and theories of the 5% Nation of Islam. Although I am not sure if Jay Electronica is an official 5%’er, throughout Exhibit C, Electronica mentions that he is supposed to “educate and 85′er”, “Allah through your monitor”, and that he is “bringing ancient mathematics back to modern man”. All of these phrases were the norm during what many call the “golden years of hip-hop”, the era between 1989 and 1995 when New York ruled the hip-hop scene and artists from Rakim to Nas to the Wu-Tang Clan ruled the airwaves.

In Islamic culture, the term ” Jahiliyya” is used to describe a state of ignorance, especially in regards to worship and acknowledgment of God. According to Islamic history, the people of Arabia were in a state of jahiliyya before they were presented with the Word of God. They drank, fought, had no higher belief, and lived generally directionless, God-less lives. Then, according to the Qur’an, Muhammad came with the Word of God and helped them shed their barbaric ways.

Like the ancient Arabians, hip-hop before the late 1980s was somewhat directionless. There were some established groups, such as Run DMC, and there were a lot of groups and rappers known throughout the urban underground music scenes, but hip-hop was struggling to make an impact on mainstream culture. Then came the Golden Age of Hip Hop.

Few would disagree that this era of NY hip-hop was influenced by the tenets of the 5% Nation of Islam (see this article: Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the 5%). The Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabet of the 5% mantra provided a guide to many rappers, from solo artists such as Rakim to collective groups such as the Wu-Tang Clan and the Native Tongues (the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and a Tribe Called Quest). These rappers frequently made mention of “suns and earths”; “arm, leg, leg, arm, head” (ALLAH); and the “uneducated 85%”. For these rappers and their fans, rap was not the black CNN that Chuck D of Public Enemy famously said it was. It was the black Al Jazeera, a news network catering to a community with a specific religious lifestyle.

As the 90s drew to a close, hip-hop quickly became more mainstream. As it did, artists who did not use religious context grew more prominent. From 1995 to 2000, the religious doctrine of the 5%ers all but faded from the airwaves and mainstream hip-hop. In its place emerged more commercially friendly, less socially challenging tales of crime and violence, glitz and glamour propagated  by rappers such as Puff Daddy, Notorious B.I.G., Fat Joe, and Jay-Z.

Led by these secular rappers, hip-hop in late 1990s would grow into a billion-dollar business. Soon rap scenes throughout the country would stake their claim in the hip-hop landscape. Although the LA rap scene had always been strong, rappers were making names for themselves from cities such as Atlanta (Outkast), New Orleans (Master P), and St. Louis (Nelly). Much to the dismay of hip-hop nostalgists, this new wave of mainstream hip-hop (which continues to today) did not concern itself with the social consciousness and philosophic undertones of its predecessors. New hip-hop was either pop friendly or soaked in the idolation of materialism. Although the Wu-Tang Clan maintained prominence, they were one of the few, as a new era of jahiliyya descended onto hip-hop .

There is no question the 5% dogma had an impact on late 80s-early 90s hip-hop. The question of what happened next, however, is the age-old “chicken or the egg” dilemma.  Did commercialism, complete with the simplicity and ignorance of catering to the lowest common denominator, kill off hip-hop’s religious references? Did money make it more advantageous to quote movies such as The King of New York than to cite religious doctrine?

Or did the hip-hop community merely run out of philosophical-minded rappers? Was their message not as influential as they believed? Did 5% Nation of Islam membership decline as the national economy grew and America prospered? Was all that needed to be said said between 1989 and 1995?

If the latter, could a dogma once again influence hip-hop enough to make a genre-wide difference? Or would political correctness allow the bog of corporate materialism to suffocate hip-hop? Could there be a reluctance to embrace philosophical lyrics in mainstream rap, especially those mentioning Allah? Could the continued lyrical jahiliyya be the combined result of a paranoid post-9/11 buying public, the formulaic processing of corporate America, and collective community disinterest?

There is no doubt mainstream hip-hop has been mired in lyrical jahiliyya for over a decade.  According to Adisa Banjoko, in his book Lyrical Swords: Hip Hop and Politics in the Mix, “Unless we rid Hip Hop of all its Jahiliyya elements, we can only expect more sharp minded but misguided youth to perish over territorialism, materialism, and the pursuit of the sensual path.“

Perhaps Jay Electronica is the beginning of a new trend. A new social and lyrical awakening. Perhaps he is the one who will bring insight, knowledge, and thought out of the underground and back into mainstream hip-hop.

If only he would release an official album.

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Jan 07

Using culture and patterns to stop cybercrime

By Jordi Scrubbings Culture, FSU, Technology No Comments »

While perusing through one of my Florida State University magazines, I found an interesting article on how FSU is one of the leading universities in researching cybercrime prevention and investigating tools.

(Do other schools send their valued, cherish, and celebrated alumni a library of magazines and newsletters? I think it is awesome.)

As part of the write-up on the FSU cybercrime program, there was a side story (sorry, I forgot the official name of these mini-articles) on a super password finder hacker program the university has created. According to the article, the FSU password cracker is nearly twice as good at deciphering passwords than popular open-source programs.

What makes the FSU password cracker different and more effective is that it uses culture, patterns, and probabilities to calculate solutions. According to the article,

Basically, what sets Aggarwal’s program apart from all other password crackers is that its algorithms are based on what people actually do when they create a password, rather than what they could do-namely, create a password that is genuinely unique and thereby almost impossible to break.

Aggarwal’s team was able to determine the grammatical patterns and a variety of other user habits (e.g. adding a “1,” a “2″ or a “3″ at the end of a four-letter name) that they gleaned from analyzing over 100,000 old passwords amassed from a number of sources. One of the biggest batches they got their hands on was a list of 67,000 passwords that hackers stole from MySpace.com, for example.

I think this is fascinating – using our everyday culture in the algorithms used to predict the codes of criminals. To be honest, I don’t think I have ever created a password that didn’t follow some sort of grammatical convention.

Hopefully, this technology doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, I’d be screwed.

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Dec 20

Conforming at the Drive-Thru

By Jordi Scrubbings Culture, Food, Questions No Comments »

DRIVE-THRUSometimes I surprise even myself with some of my off-the-wall notions and ideas. What surprises me even more, however, is when I read other people whose ideas are similar to mine.

Last week, after buying lunch at a local fast food drive-thru, I wondered if anyone actually gives in to the suggestion of the drive-thru order-taker-person. You know, those people who ask you if you would like to try a new value meal or a chicken sandwich or any other deal of the day. How effective do you think their suggestions really are? Personally, I think I am of the habit of turning them down, even if moments later I order exactly what they suggest. Rejecting their sale pitch  is second nature.

Anthropologist Grant McCracken touches on this phenomenon in a post entitled, “Culturematics, Choice, and Identity Construction Now“. McCracken states that, “By our choices, consumer, spiritual, political, shall you know us.  It is the way we find, fashion, express and constantly tune selfhood. A good deal of our ideology of selfhood is tied up in the possession of preference and the exercise of choice.”

We don’t want to accept that someone behind a microphone at a drive-thru might know what we want. We want to come to our own choices independently.

(Interestingly, McCracken makes these comments in response to the business practices of another restaurant. Accordingly to McCracken, there was Japanese cafe that “serves you what the last patron ordered“. McCracken analysizes what such randomness does to the idea of choice and identity.)

But what if there was a financial incentive to listen to suggestions? What if you received a significant discount if you said “yes” to the offer of the drive-thru attendant? What if they offered 50% off the meal they suggested? If you only wanted a cup of coffee and they suggested a triple deluxe bacon cheeseburger, of course you might not be interested, but what if your choice was relatively close? Would you sacrifice your choice for theirs?

To make the notion even more interesting, what if the drive-thru attendant asked you if you would like the exact order of the person who drove through prior to you? At what discount would you be willing to conform to the tastes of a total stranger?

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Dec 18

Thoughts on Paying for Stuff

By Jordi Scrubbings Business, Culture, Musings, Philosophical No Comments »

Today I noticed there are a bunch of different places that you can pay for a service or a capability and a bunch of different ways to pay. I counted three. I don’t know why I never noticed this before. I mean, I noticed, I just never put them together. Here is what I concluded:

First, we have places that you pay for membership and get unlimited usage. A gym membership, for example. I can walk into my neighborhood gym, sign up, and be there all day and use as many machines as I want for as long as I want.

Second, there are pay per use places. These places include laundromats, carnivals, and do-it-yourself car washes. At these places, I must pay upfront for each item I use. And then I can only use it once.

Third, there are capabilities I have to pay for in accordance with the block of time I used them. I can either pay upfront for a set time, such as with prostitution (or so I’ve heard), or pay the time of your usage multiplied by a certain rate, such as at pool halls.

But what if we flipped the script and shuffled what we do, where we do it, and how we pay for it? What if we set a standard method of paying for a service or capability?

Imagine if you had to join a membership to do your laundry. Would you do it? What if it meant you could use whatever washer for as long as you want and as often as you want?

Picture a gym that was free to join, but had token operated equipment. What if for every 20 reps you had to put in another token? What if you had to carry around a bag of tokens in order to do a full workout?

Is there a reason why we have three different methods of paying for utility and services? Is it cultural or strictly economic? Laundromat owners probably don’t want people paying a flat fee for usage as it would wear out their machines, but what about the others?

I don’t know why I think about these things. I think I am bored.

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Nov 25

Sometimes the ignorant are worth thinking about

By Jordi Scrubbings Culture, Music 3 Comments »

HipHopCultureI was reading this article on Lil Wayne on CNN today when, against my better judgement, I browsed the comments. I’ll admit this was a mistake, as comment sections are usually the sick ignorant underbelly of the Internet (except on this site, of course, where all my commentors are fine, upstanding pillars of community).

What shocked me in the comments was the people who claimed “rap isn’t music”? Are we really still having these kind of discussions? 30 years after rock entered the mainstream, did we question whether it was music? What about jazz? Gospel? Blues? Even heavy metal gets more respect by the close-minded than hip-hop.

As much as I should disregard the incoherent babblings of ignorant CNN commentor, I do think that his or her opinion is far from unordinary. Here is a question: how many white middle class over-30 friends do you know who admit hip-hop is their favorite type of music? How many of them won’t admit it for fear that they might get the “that’s not white people music” look? How many of them fold like the dude in Office Space and claim they like radio-friendly alternative rock or country?

What do you think? Are we at a point yet in America where it is socially acceptable for middle class or even upper class white folks to be legitimate rap fans? Or are those people still seen as “wannabes” and “posers”?

(Image found at http://www.kjmz.com.)

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Feb 21

Why Disney is the key to economic recovery

By Jordi Scrubbings Business, Culture No Comments »

The stock market is down nearly 50% since 2007. Hundreds of thousands of people are out of work. Doom and gloom have permeated every crevice of our national psyche.

We need something to pick us up.

We need a symbol.

We need the mouse.

As we all know, Mickey Mouse made his not-so-grand arrival in 1928 in the cartoon Steamboat Willie. Before Mickey’s first birthday, America spiraled in the Great Depression. Disney, the mouse, and the economy have been linked ever since.

In the 1950s and 1960s, growth was abound in America and the Disney Empire was riding the wave to prosperity. People were happy, jobs were plentiful, and the Mickey Mouse Show was a staple. Life in America was good and Disney was one of the most trusted and successful names in the nation.

At the height of this boon, the Disney Corporation opened Disneyland, a place where people could live the fantasy and hang out with Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the gang. Disney World followed in the 1970s, and other parks were opened throughout the 1980s and 90s. Eventually, the Disney parks would grow to become part and parcel of the American Dream. They would become an American Mecca, a place all families had to make a pilgrimage to at least once.

It’s time to bring those days back. It’s time for Disney to again a play a central role in American culture. Although the media environment is much more competitive, our dire circumstances require that Disney again sit at the top of the multi-media magic kingdom.

The Perpetual Princess Principle

One of the most effective aspects of the Disney Corporation has been their ability to manipulate the minds of young children, especially young girls. Young girls are taught through the Disney Princess model that the finer things in life, the royal lifestyle, are all that matters. They are taught that the days they dress like Cinderella and other princesses, their high school prom and their wedding day, are among the most important days of their lives. Before, between, and after these dates, as the girls develop into women, they are instilled with the ideal that life must still be a princess fantasy. They have to attract Prince Charming, that tall, dark, and handsome mate. They must have a modern-day horse-drawn chariot, that high-end sports car or gigantic SUV. They have to live in a magic castle, a huge home in the most luxurious part of town.

Yet no matter how materialistic or shallow this princess ideal might be, it is essential to the American economy that Disney keep following this business model. As a matter of fact, it should be promoted and endorsed, perhaps with the help of government assistance or of celebrities and debutantes such as Paris Hilton or other notorious “party girls”. With any hope, a new generation of young princesses influenced by Disney will become shallow teenagers and then materialistic women. Hopefully, they will buy, buy, buy. They will shop, charge purchases on credit, and exercise the best in American gluttony.

During a down economy, everyone saves, even the princesses. Reality impedes their dreams and they are forced to live within their means. We have to change this mindset if our economy is to get back on its feet. We need to push the Princess Principle. We need more princess-based movies. We need to advocate the materialistic lifestyle. We need our women to hit the malls, the high-end stores, and the boutiques. We need mass consumption.

We need Disney.

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