Category: it could be called work

Economist.com | MONITOR

FOR all its woes, nowhere beats Silicon Valley for finding the next big thing in information technology. Unfortunately, the region’s entrepreneurs and engineers often fail to take into account how well their inventions mesh with social institutions. Vicky Reich and David Rosenthal, respectively a librarian and a researcher at Stanford University, are exceptions. Rather than invent a better mousetrap, they are using existing technology to imitate an important function of libraries. They want to ensure that readers will still be able to access electronic academic journals even centuries after they have been published.

Interesting: it’s not often we think of libraries as the logical progression of the old scriptoria . . .

Earlier today, I was browsing through my aggregator and found that Jenny was asking: Of course, the bigger question for me is how do libraries fit into a future where music is mostly digital and these types of services are the norm?

Is the LOCKSS project an answer? Will the music oligopoly let anyone but themselves keep archival copies? Are books — freely loaned at your local branch library — so different from music-bearing media? Yes, the duplication potential of the two forms is totally dissimilar. I still think that the solution to unlawful copying is a reasonable revenues model and sales of value-added stuff you can’t get elsewhere.

Group for User Interface Research – DENIM

DENIM is a system that helps web site designers in the early stages of design. DENIM supports sketching input, allows design at different refinement levels, and unifies the levels through zooming.

At first glance, this looks really interesting, but I’ve found it a little clunky. It would be better if I had a tablet interface, I expect: it seems to be geared toward that.

Here’s a sample site

I have been riding my bike into work all the week, and had a great ride in this morning, hit every light, never stopped once. Locked it up, went into work, and that was the last I saw of it.

I came out to ride home and the rack was empty, no lock, no nothing.

Just as well I hadn’t bought a bib number for the STP this weekend: it would be tough to ride to Portland without a bike.

So I’ll be looking to replace it. I found a good candidate on Ebay and the shop I bought mine from said they’d give a good deal on a replacement. And who knows, maybe someone is trying to sell it to a local shop right now. Personally, I hope they end up under a Metro bus . . . . . good thing my kids can’t read this.

There’s a Paypal link at the bottom if you feel like helping me get back on the road.

All the new kids on the blog

“Microsoft is like an anthill, and I’m an ant,” explained Scoble, the employee who always thinks about justifying his posts to CEO Ballmer. “I’m allowed to give the ant’s perspective on the world, but I’m not allowed to give the anthill’s perspective on the world.”

There are a lot of MSFT bloggers: they’re too sincere to be taken as a charm offensive, so I just take ’em for what they’re worth. Some of them are good reading.

The internet is shit

Give an infinite number of monkeys typewriters and they’ll produce the works of Shakespeare. Unfortunately, I feel like I’m reading all the books where they didn’t.

Haystack Rock, in misty morning

Sunset

Seth’s Blog

[Seth] believe[s] that there’s an inverse relationship between data and information–the more data we have, the less we know. Consumers can find out just about anything about just about any product or service, but we actually have less insight than we used to.

Some very successful politicians, organizations and corporations have broken through the clutter and succeeded by limiting the amount of data they offer. The result is that people end up with the information the marketer wants them to have.

The difference between data and information, as I have explained it, is that data is oil in the ground and information is gas at the pump: one is unrefined, not all that useful stuff, and the other, is useful for having been refined, sometimes essential.

Seth’s point seems to restate the old saw about specialists and generalists: the former knows a lot about ad one subject, while the latter knows a little about many. I don’t see how this informs his conclusion that “[s]ome very successful politicians, organizations and corporations have broken through the clutter and succeeded by limiting the amount of data they offer.”

The triumphs of marketing he alludes seem to be driven by cognitive dissonance, a lack of curiousity, or simple ignorance.

eBay item 2737322136 (Ends Jun-25-03 23:56:02 PDT ) – Syquest 270 Mb drive with 5 cartridges

Anyone need a reliable, fast, but not too large or expensive backup system?

First $50 takes it, carts, cables, and all.

I keep hearing “Shipbuilding” by Elvis Costello when I think about this . . . . is it worth it, indeed?

—–Original Message—–
From: paulbeard [ at ] mac.com
[mailto:paulbeard [ at ] mac.com ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 12:42 AM
To: letters [ at ] seattletimes.com
Subject: Is it worth it?

The more I read about the “importance” of making conditions attractive enough for Boeing to build the 7E7 here in Washington, I keep finding reasons that undermine the urgency.

For one thing, the airlines who are expected to buy the plane are ambivalent at best, and that doesn’t suggest a compelling market research effort by Boeing itself.

For another, I read in this Sunday’s Times that the assembly time for the 7E7 will be 3 days. So where are all the jobs we hope to keep? It looks to me like the bulk of the labor will be done elsewhere — Japan, China and other states — while a small crew assembles the finished components. This is good news for Boeing, but “deskilling” the manufacturing process doesn’t make for valuable jobs: the skill and craft that went with the high-paying jobs of the past might be just that — past.

I’m skeptical it makes sense for a state in the poor financial shape Washington is in to extend a lot of largesse to Boeing or anyone else, especially if it’s more about luster than lucre.

I was forwarded this article and it was chockful o’ good stuff: I’m citing fair use in my copy and paste of it below, but that’s only because the website doesn’t offer any public access to this article.

I’m not going to cite any of the content: it’s worth reading in its entirety, I think.

It is interesting to see how many different views there are. Where some see this as a valuable way to get additional comments on a pending article (“Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.), others see it as too great a risk to their professional standing. Some revel in the levelling of the hierarchy, while others are not so comfortable yielding any of their status.
Continue reading “Is this a revolution in academic discourse, or is it CB radio?”