Today's fake: Speculators pursue the Bitcoin, but ... whaaaat?

Last decade's virtual-goods mindfuck was the gold farming industry, in which American entrepreneurs went to China, hired educated but out-of-work tech grads, and put them to work for 12 to 16 hours at a time on repetitive tasks which generated virtual goods in the World of Warcraft game -- goods which could be sold for real money to game players who didn't want to put in the time and effort it took to accumulate those goods within the game. (These goods, such as a "magic sword" object, enable players to play the game at higher levels more successfully.) China made the practice illegal, but that hasn't stopped provincial prison officials from employing prisoners as gold farm slave laborers. So that's still going on.

Then there's the Zynga empire, which essentially turns all its games' players into slave laborers for the company's profit. In a way it's much simpler than the gold farming scheme, which is essentially a parasitical practice on a much larger operation (the WoW platform); Zynga simply creates an addictive product ¹ with no raw ingredients and a potentially worldwide customer base. Zynga is equivalent to a tobacco company which claims cigarette smoking isn't addictive, except it doesn't have to go to the trouble of buying raw materials, manufacturing cigarettes, and shipping them to wholesalers. It simply creates a compelling internet experience and collects an almost unlimited profit stream. It's like putting a video slot machine in everyone's home, only it's a slot machine that never pays out but simply provides its user with the mind-numbing experience of playing.

So it's one thing to create something of value out of nothing, or rather, out of electrons and human sweat. How could you go one better? How about creating nothing out of nothing, putting a value on it, and then having the unlimited greed of speculators do all the work for you? Well, it's happened. Behold the Bitcoin, a virtual currency with no meaning, no tie to any governmental or corporate entity, much less a game or virtual world. It is simply a computer algorithm (no doubt copyrighted) which permits licensees to generate units of valuation.

Bitcoins are snippets of code that use encryption to prevent counterfeiting and double-spending. Complex algorithms control the money supply, in theory replacing the need for banks or a central regulator. Right now Bitcoins can be generated -- or "mined" -- by running a program on a powerful computer. This task requires exponentially more time and processing power as the number of Bitcoins grows, and the absolute number of Bitcoins is capped at 21 million, mimicking the scarcity of gold.

Yes, you too can buy the code and generate your own Bitcoin, but notice that caveat about the "exponentially more time and processing power" needed to do so at a meaningful scale. Indeed:

One college student sustained permanent minor brain damage due to heatstroke after he dozed off in his room next to four computers furiously mining Bitcoins. "I wish I was joking," he said in a forum post that was reposted on the website BitcoinMiningAccidents.com.

Yes, there is a website devoted to "Bitcoin mining accidents"!! It's at this point you wonder what the world is coming to.

Certain cynics and libertarian critics of the monetary system -- the kind who yearn for a return to the gold standard -- would say this isn't much different from the current state of affairs in which we endow pieces of paper, some printed with "1" and others printed with "100," with value simply because we agree to. And they would also point out the similarities of limiting the total number of units of exchange and the ability to produce it. (Only the government can print money, and it controls the supply; in the same way only those holding the code for Bitcoin can generate it, and the code contains a self-limiting feature which will prevent more than a certain amount of Bitcoin to be "mined.") To them, our whole monetary system is a similar hoax.

I see this trend continuing. Last week lots of people were transfixed by the "fake lesbian bloggers," and there are still postings and articles being written on its implications for identity politics, online activism, and the whole question of online identity. At root of this issue is the question of whether or not there is substance behind what we value. The fact that Bitcoin exists and that apparently rational people are investing in it calls this into question even further.

Meanwhile, on Gawker just now: A virus that scans computers for Bitcoin and steals it.


¹ The piece on "my Farmville addiction" is not that informative, but notice the article's raison d'etre: the writer is explaining to his readers why he disappeared for two weeks. In other words, he went into a k-hole, or rather an internet hole, and didn't come out for weeks. Because he was playing Farmville. And couldn't stop.

Today's fake: Another 'lesbian' blogger revealed as straight male

Over the weekend a blogger who pretended to be a Syrian lesbian was revealed to be a fiction. Among the bloggers who looked into the hoax was Liz Henry, who in her investigation of "Amina" discovered that the supposedly Syrian woman was first brought to the attention of a wide audience on a blog called Lez Get Real. Digging in to this part of the story, Henry was the first to suggest that Paula Brooks, the author of the Lez Get Real blog, also might not be what she seemed.

A day later: She was right. The author of Lez Get Real, who said "she" was deaf and therefore had to communicate on the phone through her "father," was actually the man pretending to be the "father," 58-year-old Bill Graber.

"Holy CRAP," Henry tweeted. "I'm going to end up writing "Internet Lesbians for Dummies" aren't I? .. Or maybe do a video with Olivia Newton John singing 'Lez Get Fictional.'"

Graber: "I didn't start [Lez Get Real] with my name because... I thought people wouldn't take it seriously, me being a straight man." You think?!

But best of all:

In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with ["Amina" author] Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.

Good times!
 

Today's fake: 'Gay Girl in Damascus' actually a straight American man

This won't be news to anybody -- it's been the focus of a fairly intense internet flap for several days -- and I'm just documenting it here in the interest of logging yet another hoax and making a comment or two. Briefly:

1. A blog entitled "Gay Girl in Damascus" attracted attention for some time ("for years," says the Washington Post) [permalink].
2. Several days ago, the pseudononymous author of the blog, one "Amina," was said to have been detained by security forces in Syria, where of course a rebellion is raging.
3. In attempting to verify the alleged arrest and support its victim, some bloggers began to have what Liz Henry* called "painful doubts" about the real existence of "Amina."
4. Investigation by Henry and by Ali Abunimah of the blog "The Electronic Intifada," as well as by mainstream reporters, revealed a number a clues suggesting that "Amina" was actually an American named Tom MacMaster.
5. Today MacMaster has admitted being the author of "Gay Girl in Damascus".

The Washington Post has the whole story [permalink] and a photo of the bearish MacMaster. Meanwhile, Henry has suggested that another blogger, Paula Brooks, who was interviewed by journalists regarding the case may also be a fake persona, perhaps concocted by the same man.

What the hell, everyone says.

First, everyone should read Henry's initial "painful doubts" post, because she raises several interesting issues about online identity and the degree to which what she calls fictional blogging can be a valid form in some cases. And then you should read a 2008 post of hers in which she uncovers an entire blog in which the blogger and most of the commenters are nothing but sockpuppets. That post is especially valuable if: 1) you want insight into how an online citizen journalist goes about investigating online identity, and 2) you want to understand why it matters.

Now that the facts are coming out, it's hard not to see l'affaire Amina as being very much like the J.T. LeRoy hoax, featuring the same attributes of gender crossing, impersonation of a genderqueer person, appropriation of an oppressed minority identity by someone more privileged, and readers' similar emotional feelings of investment and betrayal. (I've blogged several times about the JT LeRoy hoax and about fakes in general -- see below.)

To repeat what I've said before: words matter. Stories matter. I'm sure this MacMaster fellow is going to say he did this to draw attention to the plight of women and homosexuals in the Middle East, or for some other apparently good reason. But when you pretend to be one of an oppressed minority and make people feel sympathy for you, when the truth comes out those people are going to feel you've manipulated them, no matter how noble your motives were. And they're going to be angry.

Update: A comment from a real LGBT blogger in Syria:

To Mr. MacMaster, I say shame on you!!! There are bloggers in Syria who are trying as hard as they can to report news and stories from the country. We have to deal with too many difficulties than you can imagine. What you have done has harmed many, put us all in danger, and made us worry about our LGBT activism. Add to that, that it might have caused doubts about the authenticity of our blogs, stories, and us. Your apology is not accepted, since I have myself started to investigate Amina's arrest. I could have put myself in a grave danger inquiring about a fictitious figure. Really... Shame on you!!!

Previously:

On JT LeRoy:

People Continue To Take 'JT LeRoy' Writer Seriously
The Fake Patrol
Suckers Line Up to claim they were duped by LeRoy hoax
'Other Writers Latched Onto JT as Career Move'

Other hoaxes and fakes:

Is there a 'larger, better truth' than just the facts?
"Really though, at this point, who's to say what's real anymore?"
Author made up quotes, degree, many other false claims
Crazy people make up the best stories
GOP volunteer charged with making false report
Hoaxers as superheroes

* Disclosure: Liz Henry is a friend of mine.

Not reading

My new favorite blog is Was Jack Kerouac a Punjabi?, by Bhanu Kapil, who teaches at Naropa:

I am writing this blog post very early in the morning because my son's tooth fell out; once again, pre-elk. So the "tooth fairy" had to wait for its moment (2 a.m.) before slipping the five bucks under his pillow. Is five bucks too much? I'm so sleepy. I grew up in the same house as my parents. There was never any money, no matter how many teeth fell out. I asked my dad about it, once I'd figured out the tooth fairy was meant to be him. He said: "Nobody came to pick her up from Heathrow, so she went back to Delhi."

Actually, he said Ludhiana, but the thought of the neo-industrial North with its bright white winter-time fogs and dead bodies in the canal makes me queasy. I thought about that a long time, the idea of a person failing to fully arrive: and it is one of the few things that probably made me into a person: the idea of a person, for example, exiting the airport, then immediately, after a few gulps of light blue, freezing cold air, going back in. A cup of Nescafe from a machine, with extra milk. A country as seen through the glass. Then home, with only a description of rain to show for it, for her troubles, which were extensive, though recently have sloped off. Why not? Why shouldn't things come to an abrupt end? Just look at Mr. Elk rubbing his basket of strict attention on the dirt of the riverbank, until it sheds. Until he's no longer a random attractant. Elk porn: all the cars with Nebraska plates on the verge. Thirty-seven year old men in khaki shorts clutching their cameras close to their necks, just in case.

In other news, I haven't officially given up on Handke's "Crossing the Sierra de Gredos," but I haven't exactly been hankering to get back to it. Instead I am reading a short story -- published by itself in a chapbook, by New Directions -- by Javier Marías, "Bad Nature; or, with Elvis in Mexico." It's a lot more fun, for sure. I like reading things that are fun, who doesn't?

Support a small press

Salt -- not to be confused with the Angelia Jolie vehicle about to be released -- is a British literary publisher. Blogger Shigekuni posts:

Salt, the amazing British publisher of prose and poetry, is almost broke. Last year, they launched a campaign called Just one Book to save themselves, and they are doing it this year as well. It’s a plea to buy Just One Book published by Salt. You can buy it directly from them or from your retailer of choice. Spread the word.

I visited their website, which has a US store, and bought a book!

San Francisco: dirty, credulous, overcrowded?

I had to giggle when I read this guy's blog post about San Francisco being dirty, credulous, and overcrowded (cross-linked using ShareThis). It's not that he's wrong, it's that he's so afraid that someone will disagree with him and -- shudder -- email him, and then -- horrors -- he'll be forced to ignore the email.

Then you read his bio and see: Aha, he's in his late-mid-20s. Just the time when illusions are popped, including the illusion that just because one is really smart (see his bio, where the bragging is perfectly pitched to be just more than humble, just less than arrogant: "I've been working at Twitter since the beginning of 2007, several months before the service began to grow in popularity. It's been an education ...") one somehow deserves to be relieved of the bother of living in a real environment with "generally poor urban/civic planning" and "unreliable and inadequate public transit."

I must have missed the part where he's announcing that he's devoting his dead Saturday afternoons ("I've found precious little to do here") to organizing the citizenry for the repeal of Proposition 13 and other neo-con initiatives that have limited the scope and reach of what government can do to address such problems. In the meantime, I strongly suggest taking up kayaking or crack.

That's Jenny with an X

The appearance of Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin on the Rachel Maddow Show (thanks, @tara) educated me for the first time on, among other things: that the A-list (for the internet) celebrity's name is pronounced "zhenny zhardan," and that she seems to have excellent diction, even the traces of an East Coast posh accent.

It's a funny story and worth watching, and what a giant plug for BoingBoing. Of course Maddow's audience is likely already familiar with BoingBoing (the most-viewed blog in history) but such a feature can only serve to remind everyone that it's still relevant and not merely the repository of some writers' obsessions with squids, steampunk, and Disney World.

Today's fake: a troubled pregnancy

A Chicago area blogger who kept readers spellbound with reports on her "pregnancy with a terminally ill baby" was faking the whole thing, local media reported yesterday. Faced with the problem of finally coming up with a baby, the 26-year-old woman, Beccah Beushausen of Oak Park, furnished a picture of herself cradling a swaddled doll. Readers quickly noticed the deception:

"I have that exact doll in my house," said Elizabeth Russell, a dollmaker from Buffalo who had been following the blog. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam."

By Monday, outraged followers on dozens of Christian parenting Web sites unmasked "April's Mom" as a hoaxer, and hundreds more vented their anger.

Notice who got upset. The only problem with this was that it was not intentionally designed to punk the anti-abortionists, but was merely a symptom of a sick mind.

"I've always liked writing. It was addictive to find out I had a voice that people wanted to hear," Beushausen said.

"Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand," she said. "I didn't know how to stop. ... One lie led to another."

There goes the book deal!

technorati: Beushausen, April's mom, abortion

Chinese blogger stabbed after talk at Beijing bookstore

A popular Chinese blogger whose work was censored last year was stabbed at a Beijing bookstore where he had just given a talk. Two men dragged him into the bathroom, saying something about how he should watch whom he offends. Sounds more like Mafia intimidation than something the government would do, doesn't it? Of course, in corrupt societies like China and today's Russia, the distinction between the actions of the government, of gangsters, and of industrial criminals is hard to make.

Xi Lai is reported to be recovering after emergency surgery. A picture is here. There are some reports saying he died after the attack but apparently that is not true. A report by a blogger familiar with his work is here.

technorati: China, bloggers

Publishing and pain

A very good article in the Village Voice looks at the state of publishing from the perspective of a successful mid-list author. The hook for the story is how the guy, exhausted and disillusioned on a book tour from hell, managed to piss off some anonymous bloggers who proceeded to french-fry him online until he backed down. But the larger, more interesting issues addressed by the piece have to do with the desperate, almost flailing actions of book publicists, who don't understand the general uselessness of book tours for novelists, and the sad delusions of the novelists themselves, who think their book tour will be like a victory lap in front of informed crowds of fans and then find it amounts to appearing to empty rows of chairs in small towns where... but read for yourself:

Then comes the Friday night in Winnetka, Illinois, when you pull up to a street where the only light is coming from the bookstore, and you realize this won't be good. There's one customer inside, and the reading is canceled, but you talk him into buying a book anyway... There's the afternoon in a small, depressed Arkansas town when... the promised crowd and the television film crew have all been canceled, preempted by a big football game. Three middle-aged women walk in, escorting their senile grandmother, who they've brought back to town after an absence of 70 years to see what she remembers, which is nothing. The bookstore owner flips a thumb at you: "Why don't you do your little show for them?" And you do, dear reader, you do.

The piece captures the reality of what being a "successful" author -- one with good reviews and middling best-sellers to their name -- must really be like. For all those (like me) with unpublished novels who imagine (as I used to) that their lives will change when they're published, it's a good reality check.

Still, I know getting published means something. I have books on the shelves with my name on the spine. That doesn't mean I never have to work again, but it's something.

technorati: publishing

Focus on the Fundies: Give money so he can 'minister without hindrance'

For a few months I've been monitoring the ravings of a Pentacostal preacher who is madly trying to establish a nationwide "ministry" dedicated to ridding American cities of Satanic influence. I first noticed him when he made some passing comment about how the Colorado mountain tourist town of Manitou Springs is well-known as a Satanic base camp.* Since then, I've seen him move spastically around the country, from Kansas City to Detroit, attempting to gather followers.

Recently he's been begging openly for money, and a blog posting yesterday really takes the cake for shameless solicitation. Emphasis mine.

Biblically it's clear that believers live in a different economic system, and I'm convinced that the church is called to be financial forerunners -- we are called to lead the way by giving our way out of this recession.

We pray you would consider this to be fertile and good soil for your seed in 2009. In fact, we have many challenges right this very moment, and we'd like to invite you to give before the end of 2008. Your gifts are tax-deductible... Would you invest in this ministry of teaching, planting and revival? Your donation will help us as we... (m)inister in the cities of the earth without any financial hindrance. God has moved powerfully in Detroit and other places through the ministry in 2008. Due to a timely rumbling in this city, we will be ministering in Detroit 6 times (at least) in the first half of 2009 alone.

So he goes to economically devastated Detroit and invites followers to "Give our way out of this recession." And how will he use that money? To help the poor of Detroit? To retrain auto workers being thrown out of their jobs?

Your donation will help us as we... (d)evote ourselves to the time consuming yet deeply important ministries of prayer and study. It's common for full-time prayer missionaries to devote 6 hours or more to prayer each day. (And to)
Focus on our call to author prophetic materials. I've had a book burning in my spirit for over two years, yet have not had the time to start it.

Nice! He wants to spend hours of day in prayer, and the rest of the time writing a book. Me too, dude!

To top it all off, he illustrates his plea with a picture of his family. Is it a nice soft-toned picture of them wearing sweaters around a Christmas tree? No, they're all looking glumly into the camera with tape over their mouths with the word "LIFE" written on the tape. (A one-year-old baby is spared this discomfort; they stuck the LIFE label on its chest.) I guess the point is, If you don't send him money, it's the same thing as gagging him and his whole family.

If only it were so.

* cached web page

technorati: fundamentalists, Christianists, far-right, evangelicals, bipolar

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- Illicit pie-eating edition

I adore this priceless anecdote:

When I was a little girl, my best friend was Mrs. Brown, a 65-year-old widow who lived on the corner across the street. Several times a week, I joined Mrs. Brown for lunch. She always ate the same thing: a hamburger patty, a scoop of cottage cheese, two slices of tomato with pepper, and a cup of hot tea with lemon.

One day, Mrs. Brown veered from course and also ate a slice of pecan pie. No sooner had she taken her last bite than her telephone rang. It was Mrs. MacQueen, another widow who lived on the opposite corner: "I saw you eat that piece of pie," she said.

Mrs. Brown and I were both horrified, even though I knew Mrs. Brown also watched Mrs. MacQueen's every move from her own dining room window. They gossiped incessantly about one another. Heaven forbid one should have had a night visitor.

Or that either had been a blogger.

That's by columnist Kathleen Parker, printed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about the larger issue of gossip and why it isn't news. Not only does this anecdote reinforce the whole Lake Woebegone ethos that everyone expects expects from Minnesota, but it curiously echoes the zeitgeist reflected in the latest cringeworthy NYT Magazine article on internet culture, just posted on the NYT site.

Why should the devil have all the good music?

Brilliant writer Janice Erlbaum posted an amusing tale about combatting an annoying subway preacher by singing as loudly as he was ranting. Her selections included "Let's Do It," "You Do Something To Me," "When They Begin the Beguine," and "It's All Right With Me." It didn't stop the guy's ranting but did raise her spirits.

The title of this post refers to a song by a Jesus rocker, Larry Norman.

technorati: Bad Behavior, subway+preachers,Janice Erlbaum

BoingBoing - Violet Blue - memory hole kerfuffle

I've resisted commenting on the kerfuffle in which all mentions of San Francisco blogger Violet Blue were suddenly erased last month from A-list blog BoingBoing. But today's Valleywag post by Melissa Gira Grant pretty much blows it wide open, reducing what initially seemed like a sinister case of Big Brother-type memory-holing into a jealous snit by an alleged former paramour.

The point most bloggers seem to be making -- that if this had happened anywhere else, it would have been reported with the usual mixture of glee and outrage on BoingBoing -- is hard to dispute. Pretty much every other aspect, such as Grant's parsing of BoingBoing's too-little-too-late excuse that it is entitled to be as "personal" and petty as it wants to be, is splitting the finest of hairs. There's a lot of harsh rhetoric blowing around the internets about this, including an anti-BoingBoing backlash [for example], and Grant's post will only inflame matters. What amuses me is how much it matters to everyone, making it clear that a high school hallway ethos pervades the internet and those who have become "famous" because of it. If anyone comes out ahead, it's Violet Blue, whose own comments and postings on the affair have shown admirable restraint. One thing I admire about Violet is that she always seems to remember that a few pixels one way or the other don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

technorati: Violet Blue, BoingBoing, internet censorship

Women bathing

Check out a new blog by a friend of mine, Whores of Bath, in which they review bath products and also take "fantasy baths" with celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Robert Downey, Jr.

technorati: bath products, bloggers

Rampant geekery

Min Jung Kim, one of the more luminous SF bloggers and definitely one of the most gorgeous, posted this week about having gotten engaged -- over instant messenger. While this will break the hearts of countless lurkers, stalkers, losers and twinkies, Ms. Kim has insisted for many years on her core geekery and it's only to be expected. Congrats, M.J. -- whom I've never met, but who saw me read once.

And I continue to be fascinated with the Radio Forum, an outpost of Bay Area radio geeks obsessed with format changes, announcers, programming and so on. In another life I would have been on of these guys -- and I'm sure they're all guys -- with jobs in and out of radio, and obsessing about it when I'm not working in it.

technorati: radio, Min Jung Kim, geeks