Seb's Open Research
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Friday, August 29, 2003
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How to detect bogus science
This article proposes seven indicative signs of bogosity
in scientific claims, but I find the outlook generally conservative.
Applying it with too much zeal will result in false positives,
dismissing truly revolutionary
accomplishments. Einstein's work on special relativity comes off as
bogus when viewed through the
prism of #6 and #7, for instance:
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.
Moreover, it should be noted that the most successful (and perhaps most prevalent) bogus science
doesn't trigger any alarms or raise eyebrows. It does so simply by
virtue of avoiding making any extraordinary claims - thus staying below
the radar of suspicion.
I don't think there are any reliable shortcuts in identifying bogus
science. You have to look at things very carefully before you can
categorically dismiss them as nonsense. The thing is, this takes time,
which is is why everyone needs rules of thumb such as those proposed to
decide how to allocate their time in the most productive manner.
 6:42:41 PM
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If you're wondering what serious partying looks like in the third
millenium and can spare the bandwidth, you could watch these two videos
back-to-back:
(Never been to anything like this, thankfully...)
By the way, if you're looking for memorable music videos, Ivar Hagedoorn's music videos page is not something to miss.
6:03:09 PM
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Edges considered harmful
David Weinberger: The Tragedy of Coloring Books. "And
then you come to coloring books that train kids to see the world as
edges to be filled in. Put down your crayons, kids. I have bad news."
See also this early post by Liz: outlines and boundaries. "I wouldn't use an outline for a poem."
and Ton: Monsters again. "Basically, as soon as you draw lines somewhere (this is a tree, this is
a shrub) you get into trouble when you encounter things that are on the
border of such categories (is it a small tree, or a large shrub)."
5:39:01 PM
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Conferences: analyzing bang for the buck
Computer science researcher Werner Vogels cooked up an interesting way to put a value to a conference.
I think there are a number of
criteria to consider when selecting a conference:
- Innovation - will you hear new stuff that may challenge you
- Technical - will you learn about techniques/technologies you will
use
- Political - will you get a better of view at the strategic level
- Networking - will you hook up with (new) people
- Career - will this conference help you to advance your professional
goals
- Entertainment - Will you be able to have some fun
- Location - if the conference sucks can you go somewhere else
From there, he assigns numerical values and
computes ratios to rate a number of geeky conferences. As it turns out,
Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex comes out on top. Now how would you rate the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, Werner?
4:59:45 PM
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Bloglines aggregator
A few people I trust have written that the Bloglines Web-based news aggregator works well. It looks clean and might be an excellent way to get started if you've never used an aggregator, especially if you move around between computers, as your data is kept on the site instead of on your computer. Here's what Joe Hart had to say about bloglines:
I've found Bloglines the easiest to use among the free news readers.
I'm recommending it for students and instructors who want to get
started reading blogs and other rss feeds. Bloglines makes getting an
account easy and subscribing to feeds very easy (you don't even need to
know the full rss address).
4:47:41 PM
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Bye IE
On the recommendation of colleague Todd Bingham, I've switched from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird
a while ago and have been utterly enjoying it ever since. I had no
problems whatsoever installing, and it runs without a glitch. It will
even import your IE bookmarks upon startup. Give it a try - I don't
think you'll be disappointed.
Now I'm trying out Jake's spiffy Moz editor for Radio Userland, and so
far it looks superior to the one available under IE. What's this icon on the right?
Oh, does that mean I can make tables? And fool around with colors?
4:35:38 PM
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Monday, August 25, 2003
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It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972)
4:25:13 PM
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Knowledge cities
Celle-ci est dans ton rayon, Clément!
Gurteen Knowledge: The Knowledge City
Here are just a few of the attributes they list for Barcelona but they form a check-list for any city claiming to be a "knowledge city":
- A city that has instruments to make knowledge accessible to citizens.
- A network of public libraries that is compatible with the European standards.
- Access to the new communication technologies for all citizens.
- All cultural facilities and services with a central educational strategy.
- A city that has a newspaper- and book-reading level that is similar to the average European level.
- A city that has a network of schools connected with artistic instruction throughout its territory.
- A city that is respectful of the diversity of cultural practices of its citizens.
- A city that places the streets at the service of culture.
- A city that simplifies, through the provision of spaces and resources, the cultural activity of the community collectivities and associations.
- A city with civic centres that are open to diversity and that foster face-to-face relations.
- A city that makes available to citizens from other territories all the tools required for them to express themselves.
[via KMpings]
12:53:20 PM
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Copyleft
2006
Sebastien Paquet.
Last update:
4/22/2006; 12:13:17 PM.
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