Monthly Archives: September 2011

Food, Security

Restaurants That Stalk Online Commenters

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Interesting quote from the owner of a San Francisco restaurant.

Weinberg says in her blog that: “With a bazillion places online to tell us how badly we sucked, we do take it very personally”. “We scour the sites, cyber-stalking our customers.” She isn’t joking about the cyber-stalking.

When they see a negative comment, Weinberg and her team will track the customer through cyber-space to see what other restaurants they frequent and how they have rated them, before determining whether the complaint should be taken seriously. If they get the feeling that something should change, they change it. “Both online comments and in-house feedback usually reflect if the menu needs tweaking,” she says.

It sounds like they take the comment seriously because they take the trouble to track the customer. Then they determine whether it is a false positive. What restaurants need like a behavioral index tool. In other words they could save a lot of time if they had a simple reputation engine that gave them a score for an identity based on a list of other restaurants with comments from the same identity. Then they wouldn’t have to take every negative comment seriously, only the ones from identities they “respect”.

Then again this indicates a serious logical fallacy as a filter. It begs the question of how they respond to comments from identities they can recognize even without tracking them. Do they think it’s wise to judge the person before they listen to the message?

What if they designed a filter instead to be based on details of an event? When a commenter gives specific feedback about a taste, a detail that only a real patron could know, then they would know to take the comment seriously. A generic comment would be ignored. The flip side of this is that the restaurant would have to accommodate change in their menu and/or service to allow comments to be unique.

If they serve up a hot dish of key management, so to speak, then they can easily track the day and time the customer ate, and they can focus on the facts of the comment rather than the person writing a comment. A win-win; valuable feedback for restaurants and freedom (from stalkers) for their customers.

And just for reference, here is the restaurant owner’s FAQ, which might give you some insight into what she really thinks when people comment…

Q. Wow, Anna did you notice how big this space is? That’s a ton of seats to fill…

A. Yes a#$%##e I noticed how big it is.

Q: It really doesn’t look like you will be done by September. Or even this year.

A. Yes a###%^^e I noticed we are a little behind.

Q: Isn’t it like, impossible to find this many good staff?

A. Yes a$%$&&hole. It’s very hard to find good staff these days.

Q: Is that where the bar is going?

A. Yes a$$%%@e, that’s where the obviously brand spanking new bar is going. It’s right there in front of you.

Security

Cisco Sued for Aiding Chinese Authorities

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The New York Times reports that a human rights advocacy group has filed a complaint in reference to Cisco network surveillance product marketing material.

The group’s evidence includes documents that the group says were part of Cisco’s marketing pitch to Chinese organizations and government agencies, including a page from a PowerPoint presentation boasting that Cisco’s technology can “recognize over 90% of Falun Gong pictures” in e-mail traffic. Another document, which the group says was used by Cisco’s sales teams, described a broad public security database that would contain information on Chinese citizens, including “key personnel of ‘Falun Gong’ evil cult organization.” That database would in turn be connected to a system of firewalls and monitoring systems that could be used to filter content that the Chinese government considers to be sensitive.

There are many odd details in this case. Why would Cisco make a direct reference to Falun Gong instead of an indirect reference, for example. Did they have to say Falun Gong pictures could be recognized? That seems unusually tailored for a customer pitch. And why would Cisco be headed into this market/sales pitch when they are at the end-of-life for their entire security product line (MARS, ASA, etc) everywhere else? But the much larger question this case raises, beyond any specific presentation or sales pitch, is whether any tech company could be sued on the same basis for selling to the Chinese.

Poetry

Hallo (featuring Tout Puissant Mukalo and Nelly Liyemge)

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An album of Congolese artists is being produced by DRC Music, led by UK musician Damon Albarn. It seems to be in the vein of similar efforts such as Paul Simon’s Running with the Saints or David Byrne’s O Samba.

The question is thus whether Tout Puissant Mukalo, Jupiter and the Okwess International, Bokatola System, Evala Litongo, Nelly Liyemge and others will achieve greater international recognition, or is this really about Albarn? He did not use remote collaboration or cloud for the work and instead traveled in person with a huge crew to sit face-to-face and record and produce local sound in the Congo.

Hallo (featuring Tout Puissant Mukalo and Nelly Liyemge) by DRC Music

One of the strangest things I find is that Albarn lays down his fairly simplistic beats before Congolese sounds are layered over them. This is like an American executive from McDonalds traveling to France and telling a chef that they are going to “collaborate” on a meal by using the chef’s sauce on two all beef patties with a sesame seed bun. Albarn’s production crew could work on producing sounds and poetry on top but why take away the most important elements of Congolese music?

So the boring Gorillaz style of beat is what turns me away from the example above. Nelly Liyemge sounds awesome but totally out of place with the low-energy slow beat. Here’s another sample:

Lingala (featuring Bokatola System and Evala Litongo) by DRC Music

Boom, chick, boom, chick? The timeline should fade into the beat, not be the beat. It gets better after 30 seconds but still sounds watered down from the beats straight out of the DRC.

The above songs will be released on an album called Kinshasa One Two by Warp Records next month (October 3rd). They are said to be a benefit for Oxfam. Too bad Oxfam could not just release Congolese music directly to the world as a benefit. I wonder if they have to cover the costs of “production” by a large group traveling in person to Kinshasa, DRC.

Here’s a wonderfully complex soukous beat that Albarn misses completely in the above examples:

…not to mention street beats. Just about every song in the following compilation video, recorded live, puts Albarn’s production to shame. 5:18 is perhaps the most comparable style but on a whole different level:

Maybe Albarn just didn’t know what to do when he heard Congolese rhythms like the following drum line or maybe the project is really just about him being only slightly influenced by them:

Poetry, Sailing

Limbe

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by the Italian group S-Tone Inc. from their 2002 album Sobrenatural (featuring Italian jazz vocalist Laura Fedele)

Translation by me.

Le ciel c’est comme un voile The sky it’s like a veil
c’est immobile le soir all quiet in the evening
on entend pas le bruit so there is no noise
de tes pas sur le sol as you pass over the ground
 
Pas de destination Without a destination
ni meme d’intention but no intent for
total absence de joie lack of joy
et de peine or suffering
 
Tu viens vers tu n’sais quoi You come to what you don’t know
unique la direction single direction
Tu n’as pas de reponses You have no answers
ni meme de demandes nor any requests
 
Tu viens You go…
 
Le but c’est inconnue Purpose unknown
il s’agit de l’instinct it is from instinct
tu ne t’interroge pas Do not ask
si c’est bien ou si c’est mal if it’s right or wrong
 
Comme un fantome qui glisse Like a ghost that glides
qui n’a plus de sexe who has more ecstasy
entre la realite between the realities
l’inconscience et le reve the unconsciousness and dreams
 
Tu viens vers tu n’sais quoi You come to what you don’t know
unique la direction single direction
Tu n’as pas de reponses You have no answers
ni meme de demandes nor any requests
 
Tu viens You go…
 
Comme ca tu simplement tu viens You enjoy how you simply
suspendu sous un ciel indefini hover below an undefined sky
 
pas de couleurs no color
pas de sons no sound
pas de souvenirs no memories
 
hier yesterday
demain tomorrow
rien nothing
 
seulement le present only the present
le moment qui passe, qui glisse the moment passing, gliding
qui revient, exactament egale a lui meme returning, exactly equal to itself
 
Tu viens You go…
 

I also noticed a Stone Roses style remix by Fred Ventura