I recently ran into a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in awhile. Among other things, I noticed she had a new tattoo. I honestly didn’t care for it much, and it made me want to say, “you do know that’s permanent, right?” But it also got me thinking what I would want, if anything, on my body.

So far, I don’t have anything, and don’t really have plans on putting anything there, either. But if I *had* to get something, it’d be the symbol for “double insulated“–used on electrical appliances and tools. It’s simple, technical, related to standards, and a pun of sorts. Hey man, it’s cool!

I finally figured out how the various bank/credit card company “point” systems work. Not the systems themselves, but how the companies economically justify continuing the programs. So most (all?) bank-branded point programs, such as National City’s “Points” system, are actually managed by a credit card company (e.g. Visa). That same company also handles the debiting of your bank account when you use your ATM card as a credit card. Pretty straight forward.

It’s also common knowledge that credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard charge merchants a percent of the amount of charged transactions they accept. Probably something around 3 or 4 percent; the number is irrelevant. It’s also pretty common knowledge that more and more retail outlets are accepting debit cards. Not only does this give the customer an opportunity to get “cash back” (a convenience, especially with ATM transaction fees), but then the customer doesn’t have to sign a receipt. Handy.

Also notice that credit card companies are in the process of changing their “signing policy” to only require a signature on purchases over $25 (or some set amount). Clearly, this is to put credit card use on-par usability-wise with debit cards. Easier in fact–there’s no PIN with a credit card, as there is with a debit card.

Okay, that’s all fine, but where am I going with this? Where does the point system come in? It’s a tool for the credit card companies to “incentivize” you to hit “credit” instead of “debit” (which is the default choice, mind you) when you swipe your combo debit/credit ATM card at a POS. Why? Because if you don’t, the credit card companies don’t get a processing fee. The credit card companies figure if you think you’re getting something for every dollar you spend, you’re more likely to “remember” to hit “credit”, as you are told when you enroll in the points program.

If you’ve actually looked at the “rewards” in these point systems, they can be pretty lame. Usually pretty cheap, too, given the amount you have to spend to get them. But remember they are giving these out to millions of cardholders, and that adds up quickly. That should prove to you how much money they really make from processing fees… the same fees they can keep raising with the explanation, “fraud is higher due to Internet transactions” or the like.

Credit cards: now there’s a racket–on so many levels, too.

While I was at Banff, I attended a workshop were we discussed “the ethics of collaboration”. I understood the terms at face value, of course, but didn’t really realize the concept’s implications and relevance to my own work until a recent event with some former collaborators. It was this event that caused me to re-examine what it means to work together, and what the ethics of collaboration/collectives are (at least to me).

Searching the Internet for “ethics of collaboration”(!), I found an *excellent* paper, which I want to highlight because of its relevance. The paper is called, “The The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by the relatively-famous scholar Jo Freeman.

In the paper, the author writes about formal/informal organizational structures and communication channels, and asserts explicit structure is the best way to avoid hegemony by an “elite”. It seems to almost touch upon parts of Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory of social networks, particularly his idea of a “obligatory point of passage”, though she never uses those terms (they didn’t exist, I suppose–Latour wrote in the ’80s; she in 1970).

Not only does her description of outside-the-organization friends as an “elite” hit the nail right on the head, but so does her notion of looking at “whose approval is the stamp of acceptance” to understand who really has power in an organization. She also hits the mark when she says those who are on the “outside” often suffer from “paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware”. I might argue with her as to whether they are always delusions, but maybe that makes me delusional?!

Anyway, this should be required reading for all collaborators and collectives of any kind.

It what seems like a good omen, the world keeps giving me new ways to explain to people why they should care about infrastructure. Today, the addition is a broken Pittsburgh water main. The ~20″ main broke around noon, and sent water running down the street in such quantities that on-lookers said it looked like a river. Video of the water can be seen at a page on KDKA’s website. My favorite shot is when the stairs literally look like a waterfall. That’s a *lot* of water!

After work, I headed over to the scene to see what was going on. There were roughly six or so bystanders that looked like they weren’t there to work–there were also dozens of construction workers, supervisors, reporters, engineers, PWSA people, PEMA/Department of Homeland Security(!) and police. As you can see in the photos below, it made for a pretty “populated” intersection.

One of my favorite exchanges I witnessed was one of the bystanders telling the PWSA guys “thanks”. The guys said “they needed that”, and thanked the bystander back. Maybe another worker “thanks” project, vis-a-viz “The New York Sanitation Department Project” is in order?

When I went into Sephora (a cosmetics store, for those unfamiliar with it) with Alex, I had a realization: they sell what amounts to dust. Maybe contained in another medium (i.e. a cream), but it’s all essentially “dust”. And they sell it for a lot of money. Thinking further, I thought of laser printer toner, and the similarities between cosmetics and toner: both are special “dust”, and both cost upwards of $100 for one unit/container of it. Is there something about producing this “dust” that makes it expensive, or is it just the markup the manufacturers can achieve because of our ignorance or addiction to style (in the case of toner, addiction to the name brand of the OEM)? And why isn’t there generic cosmetics, analogous to generic toner cartridges?