Berkman Buzz: October 26, 2012

What went wrong with “Yellow Rain”? Kao Kalia Yang sees her experience with Radiolab as a demonstration of racism, an unwillingness of a privileged white author to abandon his frame and consider another frame. I think it’s clear that Krulwich wasn’t willing to abandon his frame, whether from an unwillingness to value Eng Yang’s experience in the face of an apparent contradiction from scientific research, or from an interest in pursuing a story to its journalistic conclusion. His behavior was most embarrassing when he accused Ms. Yang of attempting to monopolize the frame because, of course, that’s precisely what he was trying to do. Krulwich had a story he wanted to tell about yellow rain, and didn’t want Kao Kalia Yang’s story to get in his way.

I’m unconvinced that there is a causal connection in the “play a female avatar -> heal more” direction, and my experience with the genre suggests to me that there might be a “play a healer -> play a female avatar” causal relationship that could also account for the data. Therefore, it’s difficult for me to see a conclusive success in showing the Proteus Effect, which dictates that given an identity conflict, players conform their behavior to that of the identity of their avatar.

So how do we test that? The answer, as it so often is in my life, is Guild Wars 2.

Fab animated comic from @phdcomics (voiceover by @phylogenomics & @R2RC) explaining #openaccess. - http://bit.ly/PTvDcy
—Stuart Shieber (@pmphlt)

I won the World Technology Award in the field of Media & Journalism for Too Big to Know last night in NYC. Awards are given from among a set of 5-7 nominees in each field, nominated by fellows of the World Technology Summit, which is to say, by previous nominees and winners. So, I’m proud ‘n’ happy. Thank you, WTA!

Adventures in metadata: drawings by Edward Lear; XML by Houghton Library; dataviz by @metalabharvard alumnus T. Bost http://t.co/1UPKXU5j
—Matthew Battles (@MatthewBattles)

A survey of jurors from 15 trials has found that jurors generally understand instructions not to use the Internet or social media to research or communicate about trials, but also that many jurors wish they could use technology to do some sort of research about the cases they sat on. Very few, however, reported that they had violated admonishments not to research or discuss the case with others prior to deliberations, and all of these involved pre-deliberation discussions with either fellow jurors or family members. None involved the internet or social media.

Back in 2009, when the news broke that Barbadian-born singing sensation Rihanna's then-boyfriend Chris Brown had allegedly assaulted her, Caribbean bloggers were outraged.

Just over three years later, the wound is still festering. Having got wind of an upcoming Chris Brown concert in Georgetown which is allegedly being financially supported (at least via tax breaks) by the Guyanese government, two blogs are voicing their discontent.