Betsy Devine

Brains use content-addressable memory, massively parallel processing, Processing and memory use the same brain components -- no clear distinction between hardware and software. And brains come attached to bodies in important ways, something I (Betsy Devine) choose to consider a feature and not a bug. Excellent short clear thought-provoking article. - Betsy Devine

Clever interface links to fascinating papers re-published in full, e.g. 1671: “A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; Containing His New Theory about Light and Colors” - Betsy Devine

Recommended by David Weinberger of _Everything is Miscellaneous_. Enjoyable and perhaps cautionary example of how "tagging" aka folksonomy increases the information available to a "crowd," in this case a bunch of kids who have separately evolved names for odd Lego bricks. And speaking of tagging, del.icio.us was the first place I ever saw it in action. - Betsy Devine

Interesting and usefully detailed analysis of where businesses go wrong trying to Web 2.0 themselves by hiring one new person to do social media. - Betsy Devine

Funny but deeply wise pushback by Dave Winer against the idea that "Changing the world" is a suitable goal. "Maybe instead of changing the world, relax, and Let The World Change You. That's closer to what actually happens in life, no matter how rich or famous (or not) you are." - Betsy Devine

I thought I was the only person noticing this surprise transition--like seeing my car displaced by a skateboard and helmet. But Steve Rubel is also seeing it. Probably the fastest transition from a tweet to delicious in my repertory at least -- one hour. - Betsy Devine

One of the great things about RSS search is that it lets you sort results chronologically. One of the few lame things about Google is that, many years after Feedster and PubSub showed how useful chronological sorting is, they don't give you that option. This hack somewhat gets around that problem -- great! - Betsy Devine

Zephoria (danah boyd): "the MOST significant factor in your sanity and success is your relationship with your advisor. I cannot say this loudly enough. In grad school, you're going to be in a fraught power-laden relationship with an eccentric academic over an extended period of time." Excellent advice. - Betsy Devine

Really great use of Flash animation to demonstrate relative sizes of small things from coffee bean down to amoeba, measles virus, etc. etc. - Betsy Devine

"Sims Mafia" protection racket, shaking down new users by threatening to give them negative reputation ratings. Betsy says: Simple to tweak software to prevent this abuse -- limit number of untrustworthy ratings one person can give, or look for patterns of sudden simultaneous ratings and block accounts of abusers. - Betsy Devine