Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 11

I am in another study now.

Some time has passed.

Tick, tick is the sound of time elapsing. I like the sound of "elapse".

The new study is my Health Diary. It goes on for two years.

It is in the Health Diary that I found out that The Traveler isn't lying: there is a Vast Machine.

That's because the Health Diary is not a blank slate. Each day I log in it knows stuff that has happened the day before if I was sick.

When I am well my ToDo List is empty. If I have been sick my ToDo List may know a great deal.

It knows if I have been to the pharmacy.

It knows if I went to the doctor or an emergency room.

It even knows when I go to the dentist.

Is that familiar or what? Shades of Santa:

He know when you are sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been good or bad
So be good for goodness sake!!!

Maybe instead of elves working for Santa, it was the Vast Machine.

Well, yes. At first my ToDo List freaked me out. Now I realize the Vast Machine has always been there only, because I wasn't a sampled person, I wasn't privy to it.

I thank my lucky stars that I am a sampled person. Because now it is my turn: I get to set the record straight.

Like is the cough that I had treated yesterday the same one I had a month ago?

Did I see the doctor yesterday or someone else?

Did I get a next appointment?

Of course maybe I should be UPSET by the Vast Machine. What do you think?

You think it is a force for good that cannot act unless and until I sign the permission forms?

You think it only fetches my information pour moi and that, if I have doubts about this, EFF and Lawrence Lessig are reassuring.

Maybe so. Because just when I think I should be UPSET, the Vast Machine ask me non-sequitors.

One day it asked me if I was satisfied. I wanted to know about what. It answered: your life in general.

I mean what the fuck. I can't remember the last time my wife asked me that.

I think this is the beginning of a strange relationship.

Technorati Tags: EFF, Lawrence Lessig, Vast Machine

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Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 3

I just started a food diary on my N800. I love my N800... The food diary is what you call interactive. Interactive indeed.

It starts with an on-line calendar and the N800.

The way it works is that I go on-line to my food diary while I am eating. I seem always to be able to go on-line because of mobile broadband. I love mobile broadband.

My food diary opens to the current day and waits for me. That my cue to, using the N800, take pictures of my meal. I won't show you all my meals for thirty days because I don't eat well. I know another SP though who went to Japan.



Maybe by now you have looked at the diary and saw the comments. The comments come from friends. My diary has a rolodex, and I add a card for each friend. Only my friends can make comments. That's a good thing.

In addition to the friendly fire, from time to time other comments will appear. The other comments take the form of Digital PostIts. Someone sticks one on top of a picture, and I reply.

Whoever said that a picture was worth a thousand word never met my nutritionist.

I call her a nutritionist and I call her a her. We have never met. I have only seen her avatar when we IM (instant message) from time to time.

She calls the PostIts food probes. They happen. Not every meal. Just sometimes. I don't really mind either because I've got probes.

Technorati Tags: mobile broadband, N800

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Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 2

A community that is based on random sampling is unusual to say the least.

DadaSP is cool because on the list of my surroundings I see locals and travelers.

Locals are people from the current PSU. PSU is short for Primary Sampling Unit. Travelers are people in the current PSU who come from other PSUs.

Sometimes I am a local and sometimes I am a traveler.

When I am a traveler sometimes I will ask the help of locals -- like to find the best restaurant or the location of a street if I am lost. That happens alot.

I won't ask just any local though. That isn't permitted. Instead locals can volunteer to become Harlequins. And Harlequins protect travelers.

At DadaSP I will pick a Harlequin based on reputation. The reputation of a Harlequin comes from previous encounters.

So DadaSP is a service -- definitely a perk for people who are members of the random sample.



There is something else. We get default personas.

A persona is what the other people in the community see of me virtually. See of me virtually... That is a mouthful.

Noone can change their default persona.

It's like Halloween every day of the year.

At the same time, based on usage, DadaSP will construct one or more additional personas at my direction.

Moi. Me. Me directing my own Identity. It's a bird. It's a plane. No. It's Identity 2.0.

I say the number of additional personas I want. Then DadaSP comes up with candidate interests based on the analysis of my usage. Then I get to accept or reject these interests into each persona via a text message that comes at the end of each day. I've got interests.

At any time when someone is helping me or if I am a Harlequin too, I get to pick my persona.

I pick a persona and people see its avatar and a cloud.

At DadaSP the cloud is the cloud of my interests. Each interest is a label and my labels are organized serendipitously. My main interests appear in large fonts. Lesser interests appear in little fonts.

Click on an interest -- say "science fiction" -- and you get a standard result set. The cloud is operated by Quintura. I have blogged Quintura before.

Technorati Tags: Dada, DodgeBall, Identity 2.0, imaginary friend, random sample

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Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 1

I just got my N800. I call her Naughty.

I got Naughty from the company because I am a sampled person.

When they first told me I was a sampled person the announcement came in a text message.

I never used to read text messages from unknown senders before. Except now senders have reputations that my spam filter sniffs. Sometimes a text message fails the filter. That's when the ring tone tells me that I've got incoming nasties.

My filter zaps the nasties. My filter blows nasties to bits. Pow! Nasties makes my day.



The text message said I would get the N800 if I agreed to have an imaginary friend. It said the N800 (today I call her Naughty) had personality, talked a blue stream and was very interested in my opinions. The text message also gave me a link to DadaSP. At DadaSP I would meet and get the scoop on this imaginary friend stuff from other sampled persons who were within walking distance right now. Shades of DodgeBall.

The people at DadaSP were a strange mix. But that is by design. Because we are a random sample.

Technorati Tags: Dada, DodgeBall, imaginary friend, random sample

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