Monday, November 15, 2004
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Still catching up after Chicago...
I had a fun trip to CSCW in Chicago, especially since I snuck in some time to go on an awesome architecture tour and see jazz.
My talk apparently went well (thanks danah!) although a mid-talk crash led me to forget to show off the topic clustering and similarity coloring that constituted the text analytics. We also got some good questions about the possibility of shared read wear and user profiling.
I'm still sorting through my notes on what I saw and reading through papers. There wasn't anything that really blew me out of the water, although the session on backchannels was interesting and exhausting (I like the idea of augmented classrooms), Barry Wellman was entertaining, and the brief discussion of IDiag was intriguing. The idea of Wikilens was also interesting, and the sessions on software develoment, cultural issues in face-to-face collaboration, and organizational issues rang true. Cliff explained how e2 was supposed to work to me (and gave me some explanations of Slashdot's moderation system). He also pointed me to Susan Herring's work comparing e2 to wikipedia.
Some interesting ways of organizing things: McGrath on ROI, Quentin Jones on wireless. Good explanations of acquiring common ground in different environments. Cool demo of CoWord.
Frankly, commiseration over the election really impeded discussions about collaboration. Larry Lessig, in an awesome-if-generic closing plenary fused the two with his mention of opt-in communities, but didn't really offer any solutions. He did repeatedly mention the book republic.com. Maybe I should read it.
My talk apparently went well (thanks danah!) although a mid-talk crash led me to forget to show off the topic clustering and similarity coloring that constituted the text analytics. We also got some good questions about the possibility of shared read wear and user profiling.
I'm still sorting through my notes on what I saw and reading through papers. There wasn't anything that really blew me out of the water, although the session on backchannels was interesting and exhausting (I like the idea of augmented classrooms), Barry Wellman was entertaining, and the brief discussion of IDiag was intriguing. The idea of Wikilens was also interesting, and the sessions on software develoment, cultural issues in face-to-face collaboration, and organizational issues rang true. Cliff explained how e2 was supposed to work to me (and gave me some explanations of Slashdot's moderation system). He also pointed me to Susan Herring's work comparing e2 to wikipedia.
Some interesting ways of organizing things: McGrath on ROI, Quentin Jones on wireless. Good explanations of acquiring common ground in different environments. Cool demo of CoWord.
Frankly, commiseration over the election really impeded discussions about collaboration. Larry Lessig, in an awesome-if-generic closing plenary fused the two with his mention of opt-in communities, but didn't really offer any solutions. He did repeatedly mention the book republic.com. Maybe I should read it.
Friday, November 5, 2004
Can't stop thinking about the stupid election
We've seen the proprtional maps and the purple maps, but where are the purple proprtional maps?
Did Kerry really win?
Did Kerry really win?
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
An embarassing day to be an American
It's a sad, sad day when a country can re-elect a fear-exploiting, liberty-squelching, fact-ignoring, world-angering President like Bush. I mean, seriously, if you want to live in a religious state, go start one in the Middle East. And I sure don't feel safer.
(As an aside, how absurd is it that people have to wait hours to vote? That's equivalent to disenfranchising whole portions of the population. Internet voting is so clearly the wave of the future...)
(As an aside, how absurd is it that people have to wait hours to vote? That's equivalent to disenfranchising whole portions of the population. Internet voting is so clearly the wave of the future...)
Monday, November 1, 2004
Visual design and the campaigns
Every time I see footage of rallies, I'm shocked that Bush (and, to a lesser extent, Kerry) can use such ugly, almost farcical fonts for their signs. They project power in a 1984, Starship Troopers kind of way. I was trying to see if anybody was analyzing this on the web, but didn't have much luck. The best I could do was a blog about social design which had a recent post about a Times article comparing the two campaigns' logos and a post about this amusing painting. I also found the Design Observer blog, which has some interesting stuff.
Friday, October 15, 2004
On hold
I've been waiting on hold with Time Warner Cable to ask a billing question for over fifteen minutes. Pretty lame. Stupid regulated monopolies. All to remove a charge for TV Guide which I didn't ask for in the first place. And then the person keeps me on the line to try to sell me on their phone service. Yeah, fat chance. (All that said, their DVR is pretty slick, if a little buggy and feature-limited compared to Tivo.)
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Politics on my mind
I put up a new Annotated Debate, and I also just had dinner with Will, who's pro-Bush. This, plus some other things, has me wondering about politics.
I still wonder if it's possible to create a place for reasoned, evidence-based, point-by-point political discussion online. Something like REALM (results here - I wish I could maintain this better!). Perhaps not. Nobody seems to change their mind or act on the basis of reason, anyway. Then again, maybe voters are just stupid or incompatible.
Or maybe part of the problem is that, unlike ketchup or soda, voters don't have enough choice. Spoiled by segmentation and the long tail, we demand Diet Kerry or Caffeine Free Bush With Lime. On Leno the other night, the audience clapped loudly at the suggestion they deserved more choices. Leno egged them on, noting both candidates were rich white Yalies, while Chris Matthews noted (rightly, I'd think) that the candidates offer the starkest political choice than in recent memory.
I still wonder if it's possible to create a place for reasoned, evidence-based, point-by-point political discussion online. Something like REALM (results here - I wish I could maintain this better!). Perhaps not. Nobody seems to change their mind or act on the basis of reason, anyway. Then again, maybe voters are just stupid or incompatible.
Or maybe part of the problem is that, unlike ketchup or soda, voters don't have enough choice. Spoiled by segmentation and the long tail, we demand Diet Kerry or Caffeine Free Bush With Lime. On Leno the other night, the audience clapped loudly at the suggestion they deserved more choices. Leno egged them on, noting both candidates were rich white Yalies, while Chris Matthews noted (rightly, I'd think) that the candidates offer the starkest political choice than in recent memory.
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