"When Harry S. Truman was sworn in to office, his poker buddies from the previous war were afraid he might stop playing now that he had been "promoted." They need not have worried. The new chief executive even requisitioned a set of chips embossed with the presidential seal for use in the White House, though he tried to avoid being photographed gambling on its premises. The prudes of America would put up with only so much. Truman had learned to play cards from his aunt Ida and uncle Harry on their Missouri farm back in the 1890s. In a letter to Bess Wallace, the woman he was courting, in February 1911, the sincere 26-year-old suitor wrote, "I like to play cards and dance . . . and go to shows and do all the things [religious people] say I shouldn't, but I don't feel badly about it.""
- RAPatton
from Bookmarklet
"hroughout his 88 years, Truman used poker as both a personal and political means of expression. His motto, "The buck stops here," refers to the dealer's button or placeholder, because during the 19th century hunting knives with buckhorn handles often served that function. It was the president's folksy way of letting Americans know he was responsible for what happened on his watch. That...
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- RAPatton
An early birthday present: The Gmail Javascript compiler was just open-sourced! http://code.google.com/closure... (it compiles JS into smaller, faster JS)
Unfortunately it looks like the internationalization features may be missing. I wonder why those were removed? (or if I'm just not seeing it)
- Paul Buchheit
@Paul the Closure project has three components: compiler, library, and template language. Looks like the Closure/library might be competing with jQuery.
- Shakeel Mahate
I think jQuery does a lot of stuff that might confuse the compiler, e.g. iterating over an array of string function names and creating new function wrappers (look at the way the parent/child/next/prev/etc functions get installed) The Closure library is also full of type annotations that help the compiler make better optimization choices, so you're likely to get a better compiled outcome using Closure than jQuery + fixes + compiler
- Ray Cromwell
@paul -- I know you've been wanting this opensourced for a long time. sorry it took such a long time. Nick Santos and the jscompiler team has finally done it! Cheers!
- Jing Lim
Congratulations to the team (and @Paul & Jing) -- I know everyone's been waiting a long time for this. For anyone considering whether to use jQuery vs Closure, consider that they're meant for largely different purposes. jQuery's good for enhancing static web pages; Closure's much better at building large apps. And as Ray points out above, Closure the library is going to get much better results from Closure the compiler than an arbitrary js library would, because of all the type annotations.
- Joel Webber
Paul Buchheit has been at the top of my best of pages all month. Rock on, Paul.
- Donald C. Lindsay
Hey HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL !!! Cool present!! <insert CAKE> :D
- Susan Beebe
Awesome Pic, "Hubble Unveils Stunning Star Birth in M83 WFC3 view of M83. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) – Universe Today" - http://www.universetoday.com/2009...
The Research 2.0 Concept Model above is an evolution of the Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models developed for my Master's Paper (http://mchabib.com/2006... ). While the original model primarily focused on academic library services for students, the new model focuses on services for researchers. Like in the original models, the top represents communication spaces grounded in physical space, while the bottom mirrors this in the online realm. Two ends of the spectrum are informal communications and formal communications. My argument is that Research 2.0 falls somewhere between these extremes. A full presentation is located here: http://www.slideshare.net/habibmi...
- Michael Habib
The above Scholarly Identity 2.0 Concept Model takes the series of concept models one step farther, but with a slightly different twist. The divide between online and offline scholarly communication is largely meaningless, so has been discarded. The spectrum in this case is more specific with one end being entirely user-generated content and the other traditional scholarly...
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- Michael Habib
Michael - interesting stuff. Do you have that paper you mentioned published by now (blog post is dated mid-2006). I would like to mention some of this in my thesis and cite your publication of course.
- 'Mummi' Thorisson
Thesis located here: http://hdl.handle.net/1901/356 and the title is "Toward Academic Library 2.0: Development and Application of a Library 2.0 Methodology"
- Michael Habib
Claudia - the overall theme is data publication and the role of data standards, federated database networks and digital identity in facilitating/encouraging data sharing. The context is research into correlation between genotype and phenotype, or medical genetics/genomics more generally. Have a look at this review published last year that i co-authored with my supervisor: "Genotype-phenotype databases: challenges and solutions for the post-genomic era" - http://dx.doi.org/10...
- 'Mummi' Thorisson
The second (right) model above on identity is the more interesting of the two. If you are going to look at just one....
- Michael Habib
Interesting social status implications here, especially with the second model. The more robust both sides of the scholar2.0 identity components (UGC + trad), the "deeper" the 2.0 identity (think tag clouds as the metaphor here). Or, perhaps color combos is a better metaphor, with schol.identity2.0 being a mix of UCG (say, "yellow"), trad (say "blue") and combo being "green" -- the shade...
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- Mickey Schafer
A great article. The cultural and political factors are a major reason why it'll be very hard for any other region to compete with Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley Doomsayers have no sense of history.
- Piaw Na
Silicon Valley will for sure not go away, however, alternatives are going to be created in Asia, these are going to compete. Money may be moving too. With the way US Govt treat foreigners you don't feel welcome. They now fingerprint all the "evil greencarders" again. Last I heard we're all stealing all their jobs. The last few nobel prizes also has gone to many not-born-in-amercia americans. Why aren't they complaining about that? Now, there is going to be a backlash regarding this at some point...
- Jonas S Karlsson
I'm one of those foreigners. Even with a green card, I had access to Pell Grants, work-study programs, and as a grad student, tuition waivers and stipends. I remember being amazed at how generous the US was to immigrants when I showed up at the financial aid office with my father's tax returns from Singapore. While things might have gotten worse since I became a citizen, it's still very likely that the same person is worth a lot more in Silicon Valley than he is in Singapore, India, or China.
- Piaw Na
@Piaw, @Jonas, more and more of my intelligent younger friends in India are choosing to study and work in India. The F1 visa process has become so painful to navigate and local opportunities are plentiful that people prefer to look for local pastures
- Thaths
@Jonas and what is with this new business of fingerprinting Permanent Residents? i did not see any coverage about it in the newspapers. I just returned from a trip and a gruff immigration officer asked me to place my fingers on this device without telling me why or whether I had a choice.
- Thaths
When I hang out in Silicon Valley, I see teams and groups from entirely different parts of the world. That's not true almost anywhere else in the world.
- Piaw Na
"In 26 out of 27 European Union countries, Mr Buffett’s plans [to leave most of his fortune to charity] would not just be shocking, but illegal. The exception is Britain."
- Simon
from Bookmarklet
"In continental Europe a big part of an estate (often around half) is reserved for the surviving children of the deceased and must be equally divided between them. ... Finally, “clawback” laws in many countries stop parents from dodging forced heirship by giving assets away while they are still alive. This applies to gifts made in the last years of life (two years in Austria, ten in Germany), or much longer: in some countries, no time limit applies."
- Paul Buchheit
I bet the Europeans think it's crazy that we reserve half for the IRS :)
- Private Sanjeev
I thought only millionaires had to reserve half for the IRS.
- Gabe
As of 2009, it's 45% for estates valued at over $3.5MM, with exemptions for small businesses and farmers. It affects less than 1% of the US population at present. It's set to revert to $1M in 2011, but there's pretty much no chance that Congress will let that actually happen.
- Joel Webber
@Sanjeev: In Europe the inheritance tax rates vary, but can be similar to the US, and the exemption limits are often much lower: "[2007] France if you are inheriting from a spouse you receive up to €76,000 tax free. Anything above this limit is taxed at between 5 and 40 per cent, depending on the size of the gift. But the rate for non-relatives is a hefty 60 per cent, with no...
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- Simon
@Simon: Interesting -- I had no idea it was that high. It's also telling that, as the Economist article suggests, (continental) European law seems to strongly favor blood relatives (especially children) over the wishes of the deceased. I'm not sure which is preferable, but it's an interesting dichotomy.
- Joel Webber
A co-worker mentioned to me yesterday that a colleague of his is thinking about starting an online journal club type website for scientists. The idea seems to be discussions about papers, data sets, and other web-publishable materials, from any source, in a central location. It would also have discussions about scientific culture, which made me...
It would be a place where people (students, junior faculty, etc) could learn the ropes of academia and science without the pain and misery that traditionally is required. The differences I can see from existing services is the focus on journal club-style discussions and maybe a low barrier to entry
- Shirley Wu
from twhirl
But obviously, whatever he ends up pursuing should learn from the trials and tribulations of the many related services out there (including services like FF, which is also discussion-oriented)
- Shirley Wu
from twhirl
It's easy to immediately discount any proposal that sounds like yet another facebook for scientists, but there are still some interesting and potentially good ideas out there. Unfortunately, people who aren't as familiar with the existence of these tools always think of facebook as the ideal and as a brand new idea if applied to the scientist community. Hopefully I convinced my co-worker otherwise, while still encouraging the more innovative aspects of the concept. <end rant>
- Shirley Wu
from twhirl
AcaWiki is built around a very similar concept, and John Wilbanks makes an argument for bringing journal clubs online (cf. http://ff.im/airoV ).
- Daniel Mietchen
Shirley, Besides AcaWiki (great place to have these discussions, but I'm biased! http://acawiki.org/ ) your colleague also might be interested in GradTurkey, a journal-club discussion wiki originally aimed at grad students: http://gradturkey.fastcoder.net/
- Jodi Schneider
can discussion on AcaWiki be linkable and embeddable for public like you can do on FF? If not, so why don't do journal club on FF? Can't get it
- Alexey
I tried a site like this a few years ago. ResearchFire, or something like that? Never heard of it again.
- Neil Saunders
this topic came up during a discussion today with Mike Eisen of PLoS, re: why commenting hasn't really taken off - his thought is that people are more likely to comment if there's a central place to do it rather than individually at each journal website for each paper (how many of us access papers directly through journal websites except through PubMed anyway?). The whole time I was...
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- Shirley Wu
from twhirl
can somebody point to the platform for journal club online better then blog post? It's combine everything - presentation (ppt embedded from SlideShare or Gdocs, video embedded from YouTube/Vimeo...) presenter's opinion, discussion section under the post, embedded comments from FF, ranking of the presentation and number of views. Importantly you don't need to register or get account for commenting, it's public and linkable, moderatable . Whole world can participate. What can be better?
- Alexey
I liked this part: ---Users specify high-level desires: *“99%ile latency for accessing this data should be <50ms” *“Store this data on at least 2 disks in EU, 2 in U.S. & 1 in Asia”
- Ahmet Alp Balkan
Congratulations to Cornell/Florida/Vivo on their NCRR grant: "The University of Florida, Cornell University and a handful of other schools have been awarded $12.2 million to build a social/collaborative network for scientists and researchers. The idea is to make it easier to find research and like-minded researchers in an effort to speed new discoveries."
- Michael Habib
Um, good for them... but whither the current science social nets?
- Richard Akerman
Very much beginning to think that the "FB for scientists" moniker is not useful going forward.
- carolh
Facebook for science isn't useful. This is the first major initiative that I know of that is backed by the NIH and a boatload of funding. There is another one of these grants being awarded, but I am not sure which team got it yet. It is a huge amount of cash to throw directly at the problem.
- Michael Habib
How many people get research grants funded for $12M for something that's been repeatedly shown not to work? What a waste! Do you think they even know what the problem is that they're throwing money at?
- Mr. Gunn
@MrGunnMy guess would be no. Especially since they're still using the (derogatory) term Facebook for scientists. Someone dropped the ball big time in reviewing the history of these types of sites. Unless they have a model that's completely different and focuses on content, content producers and tools, I don't see it going much further than the current crop of unused sites. Here's to hoping this isn't another 12 million in wasted tax dollars.
- Brian Krueger - LabSpaces
I still think there's room for something like this to work -- it needs to be content-centric as we've learned here on FF/TLS, and I think it also needs some kind of imprimatur to get past the "oh noes 4chan and pr0n do not want" reaction that most scientists seem to have to anything online. Perhaps with the stamp of approval that comes with the Cornell name and solid funding will help. (Obadmission: I wouldn't have spent $12 mil on this either.)
- Bill Hooker
Its like any big funding initiative in these areas. it comes about three years too late. I consulted on a couple of these applications and the ones I saw people seemed to be grappling with the important issues. Remains to be seen whether it turns out anything more than bloatware. Certainly the referees seemed somewhat clueless in a few cases,
- Cameron Neylon
from twhirl
This was one of two grants to be given out for national networking as part of the stimulus package. My guess is it was an arbitrary amount of money because the government had printed a bunch and needed it spent. Whether other projects have been successful or not, begs the question whether this needed stimulating. There was already a health, if not wildly successful, startup industry in...
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- Michael Habib
"Academic abstention is the doctrine (never formally promulgated) that courts should defer to colleges and universities when it comes to matters like promotions, curricula, admission policies, grading, tenure, etc. The reasoning is that courts lack the competence to monitor academic behavior; they should get out of the way and let the professionals do the job....In 2009, courts still pay lip service to this doctrine but in practice, Amy Gajda tells us in her terrific new book, “The Trials of Academe,” they now boldly go where their predecessors feared to tread... “litigation and ‘rights talk’ have permeated every crease and wrinkle of academic life.”"
- Hilary
Has the increasing willingness of courts to rule on cases involving the ivory tower/s led to an increasing reliance by academics on a legal framework to navigate and frame academic disputes (e.g. use of contracts in academic work and the rise of explicit university IP policies), perhaps as an attempt to preempt legal problems? Or has the increasing use of contracts encouraged court...
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- Hilary
Unfortunately there's nowhere to go. Nothing has FF's functionality, and the stuff being added to Twitter isn't going to close the gap significantly. Wave has some potential in time.
- Kevin Gamble
I still feel that Wave is orthogonal to FF in terms of its native functionality. You could build something in Wave but not sure that it would work neatly. The key success here in FF has been the way that communities have come together and that people can come in from the outside via search. We may simply have to build or adapt something for ourselves.
- Cameron Neylon
from twhirl
Again: I'm not saying that FriendFeed will go away. Just that its growth will stagnate for a period and then it'll either see growth because of new microcommunities like yours that find it useful or something else will come along that enables new communities and you all will go there. Either way, FriendFeed's "death" is due to the fact that they aren't working on it anymore.
- Robert Scoble
I agree with Micah. I've been here, but not using/posting much to my main feed.
- Tendonitis' Bitch
Bora: To Robert's point, seems to me a mature Wave might end up being better for that than FF.
- Christopher A Carr