General
Read in the NYT, google's secret weapon might be its manner to encourage its employee to act as researchers...
Mostly, Google has concentrated on recruiting those with a background in what you would expect: computer science. Founded by two near-Ph.D.'s who have purposely placed Ph.D.'s throughout the company, Google encourages all employees to act as researchers, by spending 20 percent of their time on new projects of their own choosing.
NotCon'04 conference was held yesterday. This wiki proposes stuff about this: IRC logs, worst blogposts... About lifehacks, notes taken by cubic garden:
Interetsing talk looking at peoples (supergeek) desktops. Got Paul fords, Google geek, Eric thingys, etc. Getting into why we should use command lines more over GUI's? Mainly people use cmds to talk or use another machine from one machine. People still use todo.txt? Wow no complex apps, what a revelation - not...Interesting enoght a guy from xml.com prefers txt to tagging. Incremental search useful feature for todo.txt, works in Vi, Emacs, Mozilla etc...Bleeding into OS to launch apps People trust notepad programs over large apps. Now were going into using one more app for everything. Cory likes email, some like excel (are they nuts?) one nutter (dom lancaneter) love postscript. Ok now were talking about the private blog? Using a blog to talk to themselves, hands up myself. Plod software for mass blog apps. I'm quite happy with my route of using wblogger at the moment. Interesting about private rss feeds. have to question why private?
Now Dan is looking at secret software. Things the geeks have, random sig generators, netscape killers, ssh foo and mail wrang ling. Syncing apps, people didnt trust isync, activesync, etc. most built around rsync unix standard. Boilerplates often used through-out the supergeeks. Interesting app on KDE which shows you the files which are using space futher down your tree. Interesting no one writing much cross appliication automation, no geeks writing it. People love webscaping, agree with that... Ah at long last, people like to make it public. Edd Dumbhill has a interesting quote about giving away ideas which i should copy here really.
Cory Dotorow's notes are here.
Via the register:
Simeda, based in Bucharest, has ported Rendezvous to the Pocket PC platform and bundled it with a web server. The software automatically discovers other devices on a WiFi network and allows people to stream or share music with just a couple of clicks. Simeda's CTO Razvan Dragomirescu tells us that the inspiration came from a series of speculative articles that ran here at The Register eighteen months ago in which we envisaged an Apple iPod enhanced with Bluetooth and Rendezvous, which is Apple's trademark for the ZeroConf LAN discovery protocol. We nicknamed this 'BluePod'. A "BluePod" we suggested, would be an iPod with built-in Bluetooth and Rendezvous. Think social!
Microsoft Playtest group proposes nice publications and talks on their website.
The MGS User-testing Group has been pioneering the adaptation of usability and psychological testing to the entertainment software field. Their mission is to improve games with consumer feedback using controlled research methods.
While reading anne, I was wondering about whether people who work on social software already transferred some ideas from the family tree domain... I like the idea she mentionned about her discussion concerning the "potential of social software for dead people." Family Tree visualization is also an interesting domain :)
Today, I met a guy who always carry a digital camera in order to take pictures on a regular basis: about what he is doing, what he is reading (if it is worth)... and then he has a personal knowledge manager.
Blog Survey: Expectations of Privacy and Accountability by Fernanda Viégas, 2004
Here we report the findings from an online survey conducted between January 14th and January 21st, 2004. During that time, 486 respondents answered questions about their blogging practices and their expectations of privacy and accountability for the entries they publish online:- the great majority of bloggers identify themselves on their sites: 55% of respondents provide their real names on their blogs; another 20% provide some variant of the real name (first name only, first name and initial of surname, a pseudonym friends would know, etc.) - 76% of bloggers do not limit access (i.e. readership) to their entries in any way - 36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs - 34% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in trouble with family and friends - 12% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in legal or professional problems because of things they wrote on their blogs - when blogging about people they know personally: 66% of respondents almost never asked permission to do so; whereas, only 9% said they never blogged about people they knew personally. - 83% of respondents characterized their entries as personal ramblings whereas 20% said they mostly publish lists of useful/interesting links (respondents could check multiple options for this answer). This indicates that the nature of blogs might be changing from being mostly lists of links to becoming sites that contain more personal stories and commentaries. - the frequency with which a blogger writes highly personal things is positively and significantly correlated to how often they get in trouble because of their postings; (r = 0.3, p below 0.01); generally speaking, people have gotten in trouble both with friends and family as well as employers. - there is no correlation between how often a blogger writes about highly personal things and how concerned they are about the persistence of their entries - checking one’s access log files isn’t correlated to how well a blogger feels they know their audience - despite believing that they are liable for what they publish online (58% of respondents believed they were highly liable), in general, bloggers do not believe people could sue them for what they have written on their blogs.
Today I attended a talk by Kati Makitalo about CSCL (computer support for collaborative learning). She investigates whether scaffolding the interactions through scripts impacts learning.Her starting point is that in online interactions, there is uncertainty at the cognitive and the socio-emotional level becasue immediate feedback and non-verbal cues are missing in online discourse. The uncertainty is due to the fact that participants are not sure about what is happening, about others' feelings, actions, reactions... Hence cscl is a highly uncertain communication situation.
She investigated whether providing scripts to reduce the uncertainty could have learning gains, which happen to be wrong.
Uncertainty reducing cooperation scripts in online learning environments Kati Mäkitalo1 2, Armin Weinberger2, Karsten Stegmann2, Sanna Järvelä3, Päivi Häkkinen1, & Frank Fischer2
1 University of Jyväskylä, Institute for Educational Research 2 Knowledge Media Research Center 3 University of Oulu
Abstract Online learning courses can create a new interaction situation for participants who had not previously worked with each other. There is typically some degree of uncertainty between participants in initial interaction situations. Berger and colleagues (Berger & Bradac, 1985; Berger & Calabrese, 1975) assume that low uncertainty increases the amount of discourse and decreases information seeking. Based on the theory, uncertainty can hinder or promote online discourse. Cooperation scripts may reduce uncertainty, and therefore enhance learning. A cooperation script, which aims to reduce uncertainty, was chosen for this study. The participants were 48 students in their first semester of Educational Sciences. The uncertainty reduction theory was applied in order to explore the amount of discourse, information seeking and the individual learning outcomes in two conditions (with uncertainty reducing script and without uncertainty reducing script). The results indicate that the uncertainty reducing script increased the amount of discourse and decreased information seeking. The results revealed, however, that unscripted and more uncertain condition led to better learning outcomes. The question arises in what extent uncertainty is beneficial to learning.
Le digital divide (fossé numérique) ne concerne pas seulement la séparation accès/pas accès au web. Il y a maintenant clairement deux types d'utilisateurs de l'Internet:- tout reste sur mon pc, dans mon email et dans ma tete: utilisant le email, lisant (un peu le web) mais pas les forums, ni les blogs/wiki, ne commentent pas les news. Le reflexe de poser de l'info sur le web n'est pas la. - ceux qui utilisent le web et tous ces outils, mettant tout sur le web, pas pour la show off mais parce que ces infos peuvent servir à d'autres.
Bien sur, il y a une question de temps mais le réflexe de poser des choses sur le web est parfois loin d'être acquis...
I am really pleased to discover the french Wiki community. I entered two very smart wikis:- craowiki - websemantique.org
The first one is a bit messy (I like chaos) whereas the other is more structured and focus on semantic web stuff.
Via, the registerA Nintendo executive claims that video-games are becoming too complex
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has warned that games are becoming too complex and the industry risks alienating consumers. (...) Nintendo's stance is that the industry has become obsessed with faster processors and better graphics. This trend, he reckons, represents a failing of innovation that will see people become "tired of games". (...9
Okay, I will start out, we are a bunch of msn users (not proud, but we do use it), which HATES ugly and insanely long msn nicks, it shouldnt even be called a nick, as its some qoute or whatever it is. Its almost a whole book some people are writing there, its unacceptable, STOP IT!!! Just write your nick, or your real name, so people actually can see who they are communicating with. Its really not that cool talking to "it was a cool vaccation i had, i hope my vaccation next year will be as cool", or: "the evil only wins if the good stands by and look". Please contribute to the against stupid msn nicks campain, and add this image:http://metanurb.dk/msn.campain.png
to your web page, or add this url: http://metanurb.dk/msn.htm to the end of your msn nick, AND make sure only to have your nick or real name too.
mmmh, I dont really have long msn nick but I do appeciate to express my mood in them...
I fully agree with David Weinberger about social software.
- they attempt to recreate our social network by making us be explicit about it. But our social bonds are necessarily implicit. - they make us be precise about that which is necessarily messy and ambiguous. This not only leads to awkward social moments (Am I a friend yes-no of some person I met once and don't know if I like?). - they inculcate the stupid belief that relationships are commutative. LinkedIn is especially guilty of this. I have been C in a five-term series that A initiated in order to contact E, which means someone I don't know asked someone I marginally know to introduce him to someone I kind of know who maybe knows someone I don't know at all. The formal name for this is "using people." - he fact that they require explicitness in public about relationships guarantees that they will generate inordinate amounts of bullshit.I want to say to the Friendsters of the world, we already invented a social network for friends and strangers. It's called the Internet. Why are you privatizing it? Why do we need a proprietary sub-network to do what the Internet has already done in an open way?
Incorporated in a MUD or in a MMORPG it's ok but when it's just a social soft... That is why I like to see the blog (+ blogrolling + technorati to tell your the inbound link) as the true social software...
He also says:
I don't like Friendster because, well, I don't like it. I'm not dating. I'm not even looking for more friends. I love meeting new people not a statement I would have made before the Net but I like meeting them because we first engage in discussion about some topic. An email to me saying, "I disagree with your blog entry about X or Y, and let me tell you why" is much more likely to lead to a friendship than one that says, "Hey, I see we're both interested in video games and Peeps art!" That's just the way I am. And I do think it's generational.
I definitely agree with this: asking someone "i want to meet you because you like mario bros and dolls" is unnatural ! But asking someone that you want to discuss about something related with his activity (blogpost, research paper/project) is much more real: the interaction will be grounded ! I think grounding (see Herbert Clark's book about this) is the crux issue !
This boat has been designed by Leiji Matsumoto, creator of Captain Harlock (and then of many spaceships).
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These pictures depict the destruction of a huge statue which depicts the so called god a fake religion (mmmh a sect) in the south of France. This sect used to believe that some aliens invaded Earth few years ago. They tried to kill those aliens (figured as "lemurians with yellow asses") with strange weaponry. Now the battle is over. |
"The map is not the territory" is the second principles of the General Semantics. That means that words are not the things they represent. Some more...:
The scientific problems involved are very extensive and can be dealt with only in a large volume. Here I am able to give only a very sketchy summary without empirical data, omitting niceties and technicalities.(a) Paris Dresden Warsaw (b) Dresden Paris Warsaw
If we consider an actual territory (a) say, Paris, Dresden, Warsaw, and build up a map (b) in which the order of these cities would be represented as Dresden, Paris, Warsaw; to travel by such a map would be misguiding, wasteful of effort. In case of emergencies, it might be seriously harmful. We could say that such a map was 'not true,' or that the map had a structure not similar to the territory, structure to be defined in terms of relations and multi-dimensional order. We should notice that:
A) A map may have a structure similar or dissimilar to the structure of the territory. (1)
B) Two similar structures have similar 'logical' characteristics. Thus, if in a correct map, Dresden is given as between Paris and Warsaw, a similar relation is found in the actual territory. (2)
C) A map is not the territory. (3)
This statement resonates in my mind from time to time reminding me to focus on immediate personal experiece to know what is real.
D) An ideal map would contain the map of the map, the map of the map of the map, endlessly. This characteristic was first discovered by Royce. We may call it self-reflexiveness. (4)
This TV repair shop is definetly the best shop I've ever seen. The shop is so full of old tv that the guy is just behind the door, if you happen to open it, you will crush him on the wall !
Odd new job: hunter for a train company. That's what René Favre does for a living for the french train company SNCF. He has to hunt animals that may cross the TGV line and hence could awfully cause delay for train and bad accidents.
Métier insolite: chasseur professionnel à la SNCF (AFP) René Favre a un statut de cheminot, mais son activité consiste, en chasseur professionnel, à traquer, tout au long de l'année, le gibier sur le parcours de la ligne TGV traversant la Bourgogne.
Cette "profession", unique en France, a été créée en 2001 par la SNCF afin d'éviter des accidents et surtout des retards pour les nombreux trains à grande vitesse fréquentant la ligne Paris-Lyon.
VetaChat is a client that enables bluetooth chat on Mac OS X.
Veta Chat is an application for communicating with other Mac and soon Palm users via Bluetooth. It is super useful when you need to quickly exchange messages with somebody without drawing the attention of other people - like during those boring meetings that you have to attend. Or you can create a small chat room of up to 7 people on the fly by simply hosting the chat and letting the others join you.
Today we visited the HP Invent Center in Geneva. Here are my running notes.