Wings Over the Pyre

09:52 am - Singularly Well-Done

I called up just a few minutes ago to cancel my Cingular account on my old cell.

Now, normally, I'd expect it to be a massive hassle. Get connected, go through a lot of phone tree, deal with annoying mis-routing, then wrestle with the Save Team before finally getting what I want. It's what telcom companies have been famous for doing since the beginning of time, right?

Not this time. I called, went through a very basic phone tree, got a very friendly, helpful rep who just asked why I wanted to go (and accepted my reasons with more than equanimity, with understanding), set me up for severance on Mar 2nd, and I was done.

Painless and fast.

While I'm no longer with them (the LG-eNV and VZ Navigator sold me on switching), I can definitely give them egoboo for today's service.

Current Mood: chipper

06:22 am - Egoboo

Eric the .5b is the coolest, ever.

OK, among the coolest ever.

Since his Christmas gifts weren't specially marked, I've gone ahead and opened them, and they are full of yummy graphic novel goodness! The man knows my tastes well.

• Global Frequency, 1-6
• Global Frequency, 7-12
• Fables, 1-5
• Fables, 5-10

This is the goodest of the good stuff. I do dearly love my graphic novels. Kudos to you, mang.

Current Mood: pleased

06:31 am - Egoboo

I know I've made reference to the idea of egoboo more than once in the past several months, and my readership likely needs to know how, exactly, I'm using this strange and unusual word, to better understand my mad rambling. Luckily, this seems to be the day for basic definitions of axiomatic concepts, so please, buckle in tight and prepare for an odd excursion.

Wikipedia actually has a definition of egoboo that makes a good starting point:

Egoboo is a colloquial expression for the pleasure received from public recognition of voluntary work.

The term originated in science fiction fandom, originally simply used to describe the "ego boost" someone feels on seeing their name in print. As a reliable way for someone to get their name in print was to do something worth mentioning, it became caught up with the idea of voluntary community participation. As a result of this, in later years, the term grew to mean something akin to an ephemeral currency - "I got a lot of egoboo for editing that newsletter".

The term later spread into the open source programming movement, where the concept of non-monetary reward from community response is a key motive for many of the participants.

As a result of its prevalence in this context, it is often attributed to Eric S. Raymond. However, it has been in use in science fiction fandom since the 1950s, being referenced in the 1959 collection of fandom-related jargon Fancyclopedia II [1]. It did not, however, occur in the 1944 predecessor to that work, Fancyclopedia I [2], suggesting the term came into common use sometime in the intervening years. The first print citation available electronically is Bob Tucker's 1954 Neo-Fan's Guide, where it is spelled "ego-boo" and a derivation is given from "ego-boosting activity"; later usage dropped the hyphen and blended the two words, a common feature of fannish jargon.

The earliest online citation recorded is a reference to it being used in 1982, describing a sf convention in Indiana [3]; the high proportion of sf fans on Usenet - and the internet generally - in early years no doubt helped spread it into the wider computing community.

As far as it goes, this is actually a pretty useful definition, but I find it a little limited for my personal usage. That said, it makes a fine jumping-off point, and place to start the ruminations about that most elusive of ideas, the concept of social credit.

As I use the term egoboo, it is the very quantum of social credit in my personal space. When you enter my personal sphere, if you have a good introduction, someone to vouch for your power, skill, intelligence, or usefulness, an account is created in the First Repository of Teuthis, and a certain amount of egoboo is placed within. Egoboo doesn't actually occur in separable quanta; there is no singular egoboo, but quantities can be compared much like setting one object against another on a balance and judging which has the higher mass. Egoboo's presence or absence is a binary, but its measure is an undifferentiated scalar.

Egoboo can be earned, by engaging in acts I, personally, find conducive to good social evolution. A short list would include direct service to me, looking after my needs, bringing new and interesting things to my attention, removing obstacles for me, educating others in social mechanisms I find desirable, and so on. (It is no accident that egoboo is predicated on the existence of ego as a root.) Egoboo can be burned or lost by doing things which oppose me, or the things I intend to succeed at, or social norms that I find desirable. Egoboo's gain and loss is relative, and the gain or penalty for each action involved can vary widely, largely depending on the volume of egoboo already accumulated; the larger the egoboo account, the faster that actions can transition it up or down.

I am hardest on those closest to me. This is, in fact, not a surprise.

Egoboo is a partially transitive quantity. That is, if you possess egoboo and another person is somehow socially attached to you, they gain a portion of the egoboo associated with you when you express the presence of that linkage. That value can be inverted by expressing a negative linkage ("This guy really won't leave me alone," as spoken by someone I would rather were left alone, for instance), in scale with the original egoboo pool. This transitivity can be a great boon if someone, knowingly or unknowingly, inherits a portion from a number of linked donors. Note linkages go both ways, and egoboo burn by someone at a once-removed link can impact the original account holder. This effect fades with time as the egoboo of the new agent is burned by natural effects and is replaced by un-coloured egoboo, that is, egoboo earned from their own actions and not inherited.

Egoboo as a resource naturally decays, though at different rates based on the colour and resonance of the egoboo pooled. The natural level of egoboo granted to a random entity is actually negative, and so, an agent which does not continue putting egoboo in their tank will eventually be held in some disdain, undifferentiated from the teaming masses of wretched humanity. Particularly valorous service or attention can pool egoboo which decays very slowly, however. Ultimately, however, maintenance must occur, or there will be no positive relationship remaining.

In the end analysis, egoboo is an abstraction, but an extremely helpful one, and as a term of art, worth integrating into your everyday vocabulary.

Current Mood: contemplative