Unfortunately, I didn't know that the first real opportunity to check it out would be as an "inmate." Well, strictly speaking I'm not an inmate. I'm a prospective juror for a 4-5 week felony criminal case. And they're calling everyone it turns out. Budget's too tight to call tons of jurors and let loads go free for another year. So the bulk of the pool were released for the day roughly an hour ago and those of us who are claiming hardship have to wait to see the judge for a decision about whether we can be excused or not.
So I will have given an entire day to the Marin County Courts regardless. That's fine. I expect to do that periodically. I just don't want to lose the day AND have to lose 4-5 weeks on top of it.
After we watched an "inspiring" film that was "designed to get us excited about doing jury duty," one with music, the Head Jury Coordinator opined, that is "heroic yet tugs at your heartstrings," we were read a list of legally defined standards for "extreme hardship." Full-time studies is one, part-time is not. Pre-paid travel is one, pre-paid tuition is not.
I'm pleading my case and hoping for the best. At worst, I think I'll be excused during jury selection. Don't think defense counsel will be eager to have a pissed off citizen who resents the fact that some punk who wawnts what they want when they want it can rob me too of $1,300 of hard-earned cash and 4-5 weeks of my time -- not to mention the 5 weeks of hard work I've already put in for this term that will be wasted. I'm almost positive that will get me excused.
But we'll see.
In the meantime, 1300 receipts scanned!
2 comments:
Magee, I can only imagine you sitting there waiting to be called, scanning receipt after receipt after receipt...
What are some of the the possible questions you are thinking of answering with your database?
I really see this as fertile ground for a lot of learning and exploration artistically but also as it informs my work with databases. So there are loads and loads of questions bouncing around.
Aside from answering questions, I'm really interested in the ones that emerge as I work with this data. Interesting ones have already emerged that have no bearing on what I was originally thinking about.
Basically, I think there are two areas of questioning that I want to tackle during this effort. The first is related to process -- how do I manage this data and define or find standard types of relationships among them.
The second focuses and what I learn from doing the manipulation of the data -- what kinds of patterns of behavior pop up when I examine purchases in relation to geography or to time, or to one another for that matter. Do patterns become self-evident when I represent the data aesthetically? That is, can I use the data to create an aesthetic piece or experience that actually reveals meaning in the data? Or is the result just something "pretty" or interesting.
In the long term, once I have a larger body of data, I want to examine questions about identity and privacy. For example, if I created a "game" with the data that reveals information about purchases in whole or in part, what guesses to players make about the nature of the purchaser? Are they on track, off-base? I could explore issues about market research with this kind of piece.
Another area of questioning has to do with electronic collection and management about purchasing information. Given what can be revealed about someone by reviewing their purchasing data, in particular because of the growing emphasis on creating highly mobile, system agnostic data that can be shared, sold or lost, what can people learn about me without my intervention. Does that narrative that is created from data in isolation from me (the whole signified/signifier thing, I think), does it violate common notions of privacy, cultural norms with respect to managing the release of information about myself and to whom it is released (controlling the message about who you are, basically). What questions does this raise about possible implications of public behavior in future if data are collected about and from us? What happens when we can't influence the narrative that is created about us on such a large scale? Does the whole world become a small town?
That's to start, anyway.
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