or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
January 23, 2008
Blurgh Informatics
Some graduates students at the University of California-Irvine are researching the readers of political blurghs, for an academic specialty called Informatics. (I myself work in the field of Disinformatics.) If you'd consider being a research subject, details are below. As an incentive, you get entered in a drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card.
NOTE: There is no truth to the rumor this is to be the purported "Third Volume" of the Kinsey Report.
Join Research about Readers of Political Blogs - Chance for $100 Amazon Gift Card
Requirements:
- regular reader of political blogs - 4 or more different blogs a few times per week
- owns a personal computer
- age 18 or over
The purpose of this research is to investigate the role that readers play in shaping blogs. Participation in this research will involve one or more phone interviews and optional logging of blog-reading activity. There is no risk to participants and involvement can be ended at any time. Participants will be entered in a drawing for a $100 Amazon.com gift card at the end of the research period. Participants’ privacy and rights will be completely protected. Participation is completely voluntary and you may discontinue participation at any time.
If interested contact:
Lead Researcher
Eric Baumer: ebaumer@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
Department of Informatics
Faculty Sponsor
William Tomlinson
University of California, Irvine
Department of Informatics
Co-Researchers
Mark Sueyoshi: msueyosh@uci.edu
Rodrigo Lois: rlois@uci.edu
Before I signed up for something like this I'd want to know who is paying for it, and why. Could it be, by any chance, some arm of the military industrial congressional financial corporate media conspiracy?
Posted by: mistah'MICFiC' charley, ph.d. at January 23, 2008 02:43 PMA chance for a $100 Amazon gift card? Be still my beating heart.
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden at January 23, 2008 03:10 PM...I'd want to know who is paying for it...
Hah! Those internet taps know what you've been reading (and writing) anyway. I'd be surprised if it wasn't the MICFiCs, and you know it would wind up in their hands in the end anyway, all the better to manipulate you.
I once did a FOIA request on myself; just a lark about 10 years ago. Jeez, the shit some people said -- it was mostly a disappointment that I could have lived better without knowing. So now I just assume that whatever nicety people tell me to my face, they're saying something ugly and villainous to the government (for dramatic effect I assume).
Posted by: Ted at January 23, 2008 07:05 PMWhy don't they just set up an on-line poll like any normal person?
Sheesh. Academics.
Posted by: RobW at January 23, 2008 08:18 PMI'm JUST now getting off the Extend Your New Car Warrantee and The Negotiate Your Credit Card Debt lists. (No new car, no credit cards-ever and STILL have a ways to go on the Take Out a Mortgage people, it seems)
Posted by: Mike Meyer at January 23, 2008 08:33 PMInformatics? WTF is that? I have a degree in Computer SCIENCE from the UC biatches.
SCIENCE.
Represent.
Posted by: Jimbo at January 23, 2008 08:50 PMI'm JUST now getting off the Extend Your New Car Warrantee and The Negotiate Your Credit Card Debt lists.
Yeah, I subscribed to The Nation one year. Worst decision ever; for years got junk mail from everyone wanting a handout along with letters from Katrina. That's a real chump list/profile right there. TNR ain't got nothing on them.
You're not a subscriber, are you? :-)
Posted by: Ted at January 23, 2008 10:15 PMEric, -- don't be humorless man.
But really, why here? Aren't the Kossaks more mainstream? What kind of outlier data contamination would you get in this dank corner of the internets?
The purpose of this research is to investigate the role that readers play in shaping blogs.
I for one would be disappointed to learn that readers actually shape ATR because Jonathan runs the place with an iron fist.
You got a link to that previous research or is it behind a paywall somewhere?
Posted by: Ted at January 23, 2008 11:13 PMi invented the internet
Posted by: hapa at January 24, 2008 12:58 AMEric would also like Jon to know that he is in no way affiliated with Alfred Kinsey, despite the insinuations. Also, the standard contraction for "weblog" is "blog," not "blurgh," and you cannot work in Disinformatics, because there are no Disinformatics departments in the U.S. You should be aware of theses errors.
"they're paying for it because we want to better understand the impact that blogs have."
I don't know... sounds like a MiCFiC to me!
Posted by: StO at January 24, 2008 01:24 AMOoh, terrible timing.
Posted by: StO at January 24, 2008 01:26 AM
