Coursework, notes, and progress while attending NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)

Category Archives: Data in Conflict

A History of NYC Recycling & Labor

Link to timeline. Conflict I want to figure out what the forces are driving both the independent collectors of recyclables and those pushing for greater enforcement of rules around theft, because I think it will shed light on larger questions around recycling streams in dense urban areas and waste management policy. Stakeholders The Department of […]

Baidu Security Holes

A recent article and report on privacy security issues with the Baidu browser raised questions around government influence that encourages the release of unsafe software into the hands of consumers, and the related issues of encryption, and data collected by search engines more broadly. In the U.S., the debate around encryption has put producers, who are generally pro-encryption, and government […]

Information problems: Connectivity in Somalia

This week’s focus was on information problems in conflicts: How do actors establish ground truth and assess biases in sampling and among sources when there are competing narratives? Conflicts in Somalia and Hawaii served as case studies, although our solution is specific to Somalia. Slides after slide 12 demonstrate some of our thinking before further […]

Designing a data collection form

For this week’s assignment I designed a form to collect data on people’s sense of personal control, their political leanings, and their faith in institutions. The idea occurred to me as I reflected on Ethan Zuckerman’s talk at ITP where he introduced us to an institutionalist vs. anti-institutionalist schema and discussed how to bring about change in […]

Maintaining autonomy in mobs

This week in class we analyzed the process through which crowds turn into mobs with the Iranian Green Revolution as our main case study. We developed a conceptual solution for a peaceful protester, whose main interest is safe political expression.