Seb's Open Research
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Saturday, October 19, 2002
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A level-headed report on blogging
Caslon analytics profile: web logs and blogging.
It's rare to find someone who has researched weblogs thoroughly enough to really know what they're talking about, yet has managed not to succumb to the contagious enthusiasm surrounding the phenomenon. This three-page report features lots of links, with quite a few that were new to me. Plus, the authors grant me one of their weekly awards. Here's a quote to spark your interest:
we suspect that the blog phenomenon is about to peak and that most will soon be stored in the part of cyberspace dedicated to hula hoops, pogo sticks and other fashions that reached their use-by date.
I'll let you read and think about it for yourself before I comment.
 11:32:08 AM
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On Google's relative trustworthiness
"Standards of truth" Compares Google to Library of Alexandria
"This essay at the 'Disenchanted' website includes the following summary:
A robotic descendant of an ancient library's servants forces a new generation to learn some skills that they just don't teach in school, these days.
But that doesn't do the article justice. The author begins by comparing the Library of Alexandria's practice of stealing books from incoming vessels to Google's spiders caching webpages. Later, he or she talks about common fallacies reported in schools and other reputable sources, and shows that Google often has more and better material refuting these than supporting them.
I don't know if I'm doing the article justice either, but trust me. You want to read this." [LISNews.com] [The Shifted Librarian]
10:13:44 AM
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Upcoming social engineering book: The Art of Deception
Want to buy Mitnick's laptop?. Mitnick, 39, pleaded guilty in March 2000 to wire fraud, computer fraud and intercepting communications. Under supervised release, which ends January 21, 2003, he has permission to use a cell phone and computer, but not the Internet.
…
Officials gave him permission to write a book, titled "The Art of Deception," which features a foreword by Wozniak.
Due to go on sale October 25, the book describes how people can get sensitive information without even stepping near a computer through "social engineering" -- the use of manipulation or persuasion to deceive people by convincing them that you are someone else. [Smart Mobs]
10:07:29 AM
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Web-based learning conference camblogged
NAWeb 2002 Blog. This is a bit of an experiment, but the conference has wireless access, and it only took a half hour to set this up, so it's worth a try. I have created a blog, linked to here, for the NAWeb 2002 conference. Anybody at the conference will be able to post updates to the blog (I'll post the information or if I'm lucky Rik will announce it). I am also bringing my webcam and will be sending live pics to the blog every 30 seconds or so from my computer. If it works we should have a great running commentary of the conference. If it doesn't work, I'm sure I'll learn some lessons (and you'll still get my blogs, so it's not a total wash). What will be really interesting is blogging (and webcamming) my own presentation Sunday as I give the presentation. The preconference starts Saturday and the conference itself runs Monday and Tuesday; I will start the blog Saturday evening or so. [OLDaily]
Best of luck, Stephen!
9:57:14 AM
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Building a digital commons
Kevin Kelly on Copyrights©. As Jack Valenti, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, has pointed out, digitizing films is expensive. "Who is going to digitize these public domain movies?" he asks.
I have an answer: movie buffs. Not only have fans moved almost all of music into the digital era, they have been busy moving hundreds of millions of documents onto the Web and are producing millions of pages of daily reporting and news in Weblogs. And without the help of paralyzed publishers, avid readers have already converted nearly 20,000 books in the public domain. [Smart Mobs]
Wikipedia is another fine example of ordinary folks taking charge of building a digital commons.
9:49:03 AM
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Friday, October 18, 2002
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To assimilate information is to get the big picture
Gelertner on KM :: There's a very good interview with David Gelertner in CIO Insight, in which Gelertner talks about what knowledge management means in terms of computing experiences. [IASlash]
Gelertner (rightfully, in my opinion) points out that we should be less evolutionary and more revolutionary. I like that quote about information overload:
We're like asteroids getting showered by little space fragments. I think lots of people have the feeling that it's no gain to them to be hit by more little tidbits and fragments and jagged packages of information if they don't know the big picture, if they can't add it up, if they don't see where it's leading, if they don't understand the story line.
2:05:45 PM
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Shift happens. One person at a time.
Thom Hartman. "Change our culture, beginning with yourself.
Such a solution is among the most perplexing to grasp because culture, at its core, is invisible. Like the air we breathe and walk through, its presence is only felt when it’s resisted: at all other times it’s part of the nothing-around-us that we rarely consider and almost never question.
The idea of cultural change is also often unpalatable because any sort of real, individual, personal change in beliefs and behaviors is so difficult as to be one of the rarest events we ever experience in our own lives or witness among those we know. It’s easy to send ten dollars off to the Sierra Club; it’s infinitely more difficult to reconsider beliefs and behaviors held since childhood, and then change your way of life to one based on that new understanding, new viewpoint, or new story.
But if such deep change is what we really need, I see no point in pretending that something simpler will do it."
[Leaders.net]
9:26:11 AM
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Connecting individual people is the killer app
 Wetware. Britt Blaser describes the next killer app:
I need an index of "amateur" experts with proven track records who are available immediately for high per-minute rates which I only pay when I'm satisfied, which means they have to be confident that I'll be reasonably satisfied. So we also need a reputation engine in addition to an expert index. They need to be "amateurs" for the same reason that the best bloggers are amateurs....
Britt is involved with Xpertweb, which looks quite interesting. [Kumquat's Musings]
The picture on the right comes from the Xpertweb site. Simplicity itself speaking. Although I'd have drawn the arrows in the opposite direction. It starts from you. You sense a need, you think about it, you articulate it, then you pretty much know what you need. But you don't know how to do it. You find a trusted expert who'll do it. The result comes back to you. Everyone is happy.
I think we need to develop tools both for figuring out needs and for finding experts. Such tools are likely to coevolve.
9:02:28 AM
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Collaborative hieroglyphics
Back again bemoaning the limitations of text.
Walk into any workplace that is bubbling with innovation and you will find walls strewn with whiteboards covered with collaborative hieroglyphics. The ability for collaborators to sketch diagrams as a way to create and communicate ideas has considerable advantages over collaborating using a discussion forum approach that relies predominantly on text. The key difference lies in the fact that a diagram is co-created and its meaning is developed through the interchange between the collabotators. The meaning of words, however, are generally predefined and significant effort is required to convey accurately what you mean.
Most of the collaboration software programs provide an online whiteboarding facility but in my experience this is rarely used because most computers are not equipped with the peripherals required to effectively collaborate online. The standard mouse, for example, is a deficient drawing device. To draw on an online whiteboard, collaborators need a tablet that mimics pen and paper. To co-create a diagram online collaborators also need to talk to one another and ideally see each other. Discussion can be facilitated with a teleconference but if you have the bandwidth, online video and voice is the ideal solution.
As I sit here using my voice recognition system I have my headset on, mouse and keyboard in front of me, tablet to one side, printer nearby and scanner behind me. I am surrounded by add-ons. I think the all-important personal computer is overdue for a massive redesign. My work environment shouldn't need to be so complicated.
[Shawn Callahan's Radio Weblog]
Good observations. Shawn writes that "The meaning of words, however, are generally predefined and significant effort is required to convey accurately what you mean". Actually, nothing prevents us from inventing new words and/or meanings. But text-only interaction does not let us convey tacit knowledge the way face-to-face whiteboard sessions allow it.
There are both a downside and an upside to this state of affairs. As Shawn observes, more effort is required to reach (and recognize) agreement. However, this effort carries its own rewards because it leaves better traces. The agreed-upon concepts are much more approachable by people who did not participate in the discussion, and they are easier to revisit. Think about it: is it easier to understand a text-only discussion thread or to decipher whiteboard hieroglyphics after the protagonists have left the scene?
I believe there's also a personal benefit. I have found that putting ideas into text instead of drawing vague diagrams and waving my hands helps make my thinking clearer and unravel my previously unspoken assumptions.
8:13:35 AM
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Sticky lizards
Gecko feet in-hair-ently sticky. Geckos have the ability to run straight up a polished glass wall with no more effort than they use when running straight up a rough tree trunk or upside down on a ceiling, and we finally know why: their feet bond on a molecular level to the surface using van der Waals forces, the weak electrostatic attraction between molecules. This hypothesis was first suggested in the 1960s, when a German researcher discovered that geckos stick better to surfaces with higher surface energy. When the electrons on an overall neutrally charged molecule move at random around the molecule, one end can be briefly more negative and the other more positive. In close proximity to other molecules, these charge fluctuations become synchronized and produce a steady electrostatic attraction between the molecules. [kuro5hin.org]
I find this is a stunningly well-written lead paragraph. The rest of the story is very good as well. If I were a chemistry teacher who needs to illustrate van der Waals forces, I'd try to show my students a video of geckos climbing up glass walls. I'm sure the image would stick.
Now that artificial setae tips have been successfully made and proven to stick as effectively as natural ones, the door is open for the development of a "gecko tape" that would have potential applications in nearly every industry, as well as in the home. [...]
A "gecko tape", like gecko feet, would be strongly adhesive yet easy to remove; would leave no residue; would be self-cleaning and reusable; and would stick to any surface (except teflon, which has such a low surface energy even van der Waals forces don't work on it), no matter how smooth or rough and under any conditions, including under water and in vacuum.
For some reason I find this incredibly cool.
7:43:53 AM
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This is how it begins...
Kuro5hin: An alternative to fighting music piracy. Three days ago, someone has reported to Slashdot that Bon Jovi Tries New Approach To Fight Piracy by selling CD's which allow to register to the Bon Jovi's website in order to receive such exclusives as prioritized concert ticket purchases and unreleased music. I think the german band Einstürzende Neubauten...has a better approach:
"You don't have to buy CD's. You just have to go to the band's official website and make a one-time donation of US$35 in order to get things..." [LoveBlog]
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather drop $10 in a PayPal tip jar for a band I like, knowing that most of it is going directly to the artists, than visit a store, pay $20, and know that less than a buck will end up in the artists' hands and the rest of it will go to support a system full of people who mostly hate their job.
7:25:55 AM
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Online communities: remembering things past
Teal Sunglasses: Weblog Communities viewed from the perspective of a long-time USENET user who is fascinated by community building.
"I think bloggers ought to realize there's nothing really new under the sun -- and some of what they're inventing has existed in very similar forms for 70 years. Which isn't bad -- but I think it gives the community an opportunity to understand those predecessors and perhaps avoid some of the mistakes or problems."
I always feel it's important to think about the parallels between what we're doing now and what people did then. Much of it boils down to the same thing, if you look beneath the surface. The basic needs we're trying to satisfy are the same. Come to think of it, community building probably dates back to the invention of language.
12:43:18 AM
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Thursday, October 17, 2002
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Simplicity versus power?
An Apology For Simple Software. There is a trend among armchair commentators to criticize software for perceived oversimplicity or lack of features. I would like to propose an analogy with carpentry which I hope will foster greater understanding of the merits of simple software. [kuro5hin.org]
The best pieces of software I have used provided an easy interface for beginners. However, as I got more experience and dug a little, I progressively uncovered more complicated and powerful interfaces. Good games are just like that. Simple enough at first that you are drawn in; then, as you get addicted, more features come in.
I guess my point is that simplicity doesn't preclude power, so long as the issue of user learning is well understood. However it's probably easier to design separate pieces of software, each for a specific range of uses.
7:39:10 AM
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What he said.... Sainteros has written a fabulous sentence, at the end of an inspiring entry:
Those who treat self-knowledge as though it were self-indulgence not only walk in darkness, they spread their own darkness against the light.
I wish I'd written that, but since I don't have the presence of mind for it, I'm very glad he did. [both2and: beyond binary]
7:23:37 AM
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A special interest group on knowledge management research
[This is a follow-up of KM Summer School]
Hard work and a lot of e-mails of last two weeks had paid off: Special Interest Group on KM Research - Quaerere was created at Knowledge Board.
From Quaerere: goals and objectives
«Quaerere - Research and Action on the Learning Society - constructing meaning and knowledge through interaction»
"Quaerere" - from Latin (pronounced Kuerere), means to inquire, to search, to investigate and also to want.
Motto: "Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion" (Originally from Francis Bacon, Novum Organum)
Purpose: to promote the building blocks of the Learning Society
Goal: Theory building and practice improvement on knowledge management and organisational learning through reflexive interaction
Objectives:
- To work on-line and to meet regularly face-to-face
- To develop peer support and personal commitment to research goals
- To report on the process while we go through our work and interaction
- To work in an interdisciplinary way
- To invite other researchers in Knowledge Management related areas
[Mathemagenic]
6:42:25 AM
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Moby Launches Book Club
"Moby has started a book club as part of his current World tour.
He wants fans to bring along second-hand books to swap....
He told The Sun: 'When someone finishes a book they put it in a little box and when someone else wants a new book they look into the box and find one.'
'Ozzy Osbourne used to snort ants. Led Zeppelin had sex with hookers on private planes. And I start a book club. Because one can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a book.' " [Ananova, via LISNews.com, via The Shifted Librarian]
In case you're interested, the musician also keeps an online diary.
6:38:23 AM
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More on post-9/11 censorship....The removal of sensitive information from web sites is undermining scientific research in many fields. Quoting Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy: web censorship "either creates unnecessary labor to identify and track down a copy of the missing document or it yields an inferior or incomplete product." [FOS News]
6:32:49 AM
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Wednesday, October 16, 2002
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