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FriendFeed User Locations - Google Shared Map - http://maps.google.com/maps...

November 19, 2008 - Comment - Like - Share

A.T., Jack DeWitt Smith, Daniel Rowley and 84 other people liked this

Roll call...this can be great if we all participate. Add yourself to this shared map. I created a placemark on the 2 major intersections near where I live. - Mark Krynsky

101 more comments

or just list location...I'll start...Chatsworth, CA - Mark Krynsky

I would but I won't - Outsanity

near Chicago - LogEx

How do I add myself? - Mo Kargas

Grayson, GA - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Puyallup, WA - Bren, Not Grinchy

Mo, I'm a newb to the shared maps stuff, but I turned on collaboration and allowed anyone to edit the map. There should be an edit button and then you can add a placemark. - Mark Krynsky

erm...Adelaide, SA, Australia - Mo Kargas

Sydney, Australia. - Andrew Trinh

Yeah, I don't see how to add anything to the map - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

But you already have Rahsheen. - Andrew Trinh

Well it's working because I see others are adding themselves...Make sure you are logged into your Google account. - Mark Krynsky

After most have put their placemarks on, don't let anyone edit it because there's always someone out there waiting to fuck shit up. - Andrew Trinh

This guide may help http://local.google.com/support... - Mark Krynsky

@Andrew...good point. I just changed it from public to unlisted which only makes the map available to those with the URL. - Mark Krynsky

Even so, last time we had the Confessions account details on FF it was tinkered with. - Andrew Trinh

I added mine, but in the process of learning I think I nudged the Sydney, Australia points off a little. Sorry. - Rob Haas

Ok, think I did it! - Bec Rowe @d0tski

Robert bought me a new house in the northern suburbs. - Andrew Trinh

@Bec...nice. You are the first brave female on here. - Mark Krynsky

Cool idea, Mark! I was thinking something like this would be fun the other day. Duly added myself - or at least the nearest big intersection. ;) - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Mousing over the usernames shows your Google profile info...cool. - Mark Krynsky

I marked a bus stop near my house. But not TOO near. :) - Nine

If you haven't yet...go add FriendFeed to your Google Profile...it will then auto-discover and allow you to add a ton of other profiles you have. - Mark Krynsky

Thanks for the profile tip - I hadn't updated it since I moved here! - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

Added myself. Verona, Italy - Stefano

Added. Sydney, Australia - Jay

Added. Doha, Qatar. - Mohamed J

Thanks guys. This is coming along nicely. It's great to have as a resource to see where everyone is from. Hopefully this can become a standard feature on FF one day. - Mark Krynsky

Canterbury, Melbourne, Victoria added - Duncan Riley

Athens, Greece added, too :) - George Tziralis

Added. - Atul Arora

Ace idea, I've added mine in Kent, England. - Kol Tregaskes

There's no spot for "Hell, Eternity" ... *sigh* I'll have to give in to my worldly location... - Kyle Brady

Added, Near Paris, France - Olivier Castets

Asia's letting the side down - Toby Graham

added, North London, UK - Rory

Current count: 13 US, 11 Europe, 3 Australia, 1 Middle East. Happy to see many others add themselves overnight. Hoping more will continue this. - Mark Krynsky

Done ! Waterloo Belgium - Jacopo Gio

Added myself! - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

Hey Robert Haas - We're apparently neighbors. - edit. Okay maybe not, unless you live at the airport. XD - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

I've read the instruction and still don't see the button thing to add myself. I'm feeling pretty stupid right now. -

@Jill, make sure you are logged into your Google account and then click on the edit button above the list of names already on the map. You will then see the pushpin in the upper left hand side of the map. - Mark Krynsky

Thanks Mark! I see it all now. -

Great idea! - Alan Le

Added. Seems like there are a lot of us in the Bay Area...we must do a get together at some point. - Neal Jansons

@Neal yea, we really need a FriendFeed meetup. I might be up there for Web 2.0 in March...or we can have one at SXSW if a large number of us are going. Let's plan and get the Upcoming page going. - Mark Krynsky

Am I the only FriendFeeder in VA? - Aram Zucker-Scharff

@Mark Not gonna make SXSW, but am definitely down for working on an FF get together. March is long enough away to make sure plenty of people have time to plan ahead. I added you on Upcoming so we can start coordinating it. Anyone else interested/want to help set this up? - Neal Jansons

Maybe we can talk Paul & Bret into letting us invade the FF offices for a meetup in conjunction with Web 2.0? That would be sooooo cool! - Mark Krynsky

Oooh, now that's a really great idea. - Neal Jansons

I'm there :) - Alejandro

Yay Alejandro...first South American..and my old stomping grounds in Argentina no less :) - Mark Krynsky

Added! - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Neat. Added. - Rodfather

Added. - michael sean wright

Alright Shey! We finally have a Canadian...let's see if your fellow compatriot Mark Wilson joins the fray. - Mark Krynsky

@NiceFishFilms, your pushpin seems a bit off up there in Russia. Dana Point is thousands of miles from there :) - Mark Krynsky

Oh, I see now...you added 2. You're a pushpin litterbug :) - Mark Krynsky

Added.. - CW™

Another snowflake pushpin *waves to Shey* - Micah Wittman

whoo hoo! Canadian snowflakes FTW! - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Added.Hi from Russia.:) - Igor Poltavskiy

How do I add myself again? How do I add my ff to my gmail account? - Amani

Done - ♥patricia♥

Cairo, Egypt - Hayk H.

reykjavik, iceland - siggimus

Cologne, Germany - Holger Eilhard

Carcavelos, Portugal - Ricardo Vidal

Added New Jersey but boy, it took a while to get the Pin logo on the screen, not so obvious - Sally Church

London EC1 UK - Joe Dawson

Added - Michelle Martinez

Added - Bwana ☠

Pinned! sheesh this just cost me 1/2 hour of time as I scrolled thru all the folks :) - bear (aka Mike Taylor)

Except for Bret, there are no FriendFeeders on the penninsula between San Jose and San Francisco. So much for Silicon Valley early adopters. - Ryan Kuder

Added! I'm the first in The Netherlands :-) - TobiasVerhoog.com

Added. First in Japan! - rawwell

London, Ontario, Canada. Represent!! - Mark Wilson

I think I added me. HOpe it worked - Amani

added! - matthew john ernisse

This is truly awesome! - Mathew™ one of a kind

Cluelessness alert! I'm not seeing how to add my pushpin! - Hutch Carpenter

For some reason whenever i use google maps in creation-mode, it defaults to some other maps I've used, not the one I'm trying to access - ah, figured it out. Had to de-activate some other collaborative maps - anna sauce

Added. What a great way to see who's on FF in Austin, TX! - Carter Rabasa

Added myself in Shenzhen,China. - Steve Chou

courtenay, canada - http://friendfeed.com/ernieya... - ernie yacub

added me. Coimbatore, South India - vijay

Added Bangalore, India. - Mahesh CR

Added - Glenn Slaven

Added - Youngmin Kim

I'm added now, too. - Kamilah Gill

Nice! I'm the only active FriendFeeder in Montreal: Quebec represents FF! I could be a French Canadian FF ambassador or something. =) - ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,

Added - ThenWang

Added - James Myatt

Added. I am now an icon :^) - Nick B.

Added =) - ChaCha Fance

Added. - Bonnie Foster

Looks great in Google Earth! (from Paris) - Liviu Barbat

Added - Michael Fidler

Added. Antananarivo, Madagascar - Thierry R. Andriamirado

Finally me too :) Greetings from Ankara Turkey :) - Burçak Çubukçu

Bump for the good times. - Mark Krynsky

Daniel Mietchen

Invitation to an experiment: Collaborative writing of a blog post - http://ways.org/en...

September 14 from daniel's blog - Comment - Like - Share

Jan Wessnitzer, suze, Mike Chelen and 14 other people liked this

I am currently writing up part II of the blog post "What would science look like if it were invented today?" Part I was focused on knowledge creation in the post-paper era and drafted in a wiki. Part II is focused on knowledge structuring, and as an experiment, I have ported the current draft from the wiki into an Etherpad document which anyone can edit, and embedded it here. Feel free to join in (just one condition: please do not break existing wiki or HTML syntax), or leave me a comment. If you do not want to edit yourself but prefer to watch how the document evolves, that is fine, and the Time Slider function makes it very convenient. - Daniel Mietchen

69 more comments

thanks, Daniel, re "uploadability of all kinds of media" (in revision 15, this is in line 38), I like your point that, e.g., videos "would be easily integrated" and just added my2cents on that. Why construct any file type as 'the newcomer', test it: why not say that text objects still need to stake their claims in a non-printable world? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Surely text will not vanish. My point there was to inform readers that videos can be embedded into wiki environments and that video journals exist. Rephrased. By the way, I keep a list of references-to-be-included at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki... and trim it down once a reference has been included. - Daniel Mietchen

good idea; and: it's fun, thx :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

Some sort of FlaggedRevisions in combination with WikiTrust should probably also go on this wishlist for scholarly wikis of the future. What else? See also http://ff.im/8ycL6 . - Daniel Mietchen

My blog's server is scheduled for maintenance over the weekend. So if it is down, please use the direct link to edit the document: http://etherpad.com/SxYOAaQDUd . - Daniel Mietchen

the ethernetpage does not seem to connect from here, Daniel, will try again tomorrow, more ideas to add, cheers from Petersburg - Claudia Koltzenburg

In case you can't access it either way, I just copied the current text to http://en.wikiversity.org/w... , so that you at least have the text as a basis for improvements. You can then put your comments into the ether_pad_ page once you have a more permissive connection. Приятного времени в Питере! - Daniel Mietchen

спасиба, даньель, before I left Hamburg, I had copied the text into my own wiki, too ;-) alas, now I can't see easily which changes were undertaken after my latest edit; am already missing the time slider :-) also, wikimedia is limited here (compared to e.g. moinmoin which gives not just paragraph changes but shows any amendments sign-by-sign), well, an interesting part of our... more... - Claudia Koltzenburg

Interesting... I'm following a similar collaborative writing experiment here: http://mixedink.com/Eups20... - François Dongier

thx, what's your take on the differerence re tool functionalities? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Hi Claudia, both tools (Etherpad and MixedInk) look pretty similar and seem to make good use of colour coding to identify each author's contribution. At this stage, I have just looked at both projects, trying to see whether collaborative writing actually works with them. My main concern so far: from what I have seen, neither of these two tools seems to provide mindmapping support, to help the co-writers collaborate on the document structure before getting down to writing actual sentences. - François Dongier

mindmapping, yes, this is exactly what I did this morning (currently having no access to the etherpad site from here) - was missing it before but had not acted on it yet, so, after all, there is some positive side to this lack of access ;-) also an interesting result for our experiment, maybe (less is more...) - Claudia Koltzenburg

my mindmap on the issues of the blog post as well as on the experiment itself, in freemind, see here (upcoming "The time from submission to publication may take up to 24 hours."): http://www.mindmappedia.com/... - another invitation to an experiment :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

Can't seem to get to the mindmap but agree very much with François' point about needing services that help with the drafting - often have issues getting documents started because everyone is waiting for a structure - and often feel uncomfortable with jumping into other peoples' pre-existing structures. Haven't yet had a good experience of that early stage of drafting in a collaborative authoring process. - Cameron Neylon

@Claudia: I'll look at your mindmap when it gets published. The "up to 24 hour delay" seems to indicate that the mindmappedia staff is doing it manually. Not sure that this will scale. I also wonder if there will be such a delay for the publication of each new version of the mindmap; that would make collaborative mindmapping pretty slow :-) @Cameron: collaborative mindmaps could be... more... - François Dongier

Yes, embedding mindmaps (or otherwise couple them with etherpad) would certainly be helpful. Mind42 (example at http://mind42.com/pub... ) comes close, though it currently does require an invitation to get permission to edit a document (much like most Google docs). - Daniel Mietchen

@ Claudia, an easier (and faster) way to share mindmaps in freemind may be to install http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki... for your wiki. - Daniel Mietchen

good points made, thanks & cheers, @Daniel good hint, yet mine is a moinmoin wiki, so maybe you can suggest a different location for this freemind file everyone can then jump into? (and I will not offer you a static view, too unexciting, much more fun if it is open for additions and changes straight away :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

A nice visualisation of collaborative writing: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - François Dongier

cool, now: do we feel encouraged? Cameron, re your experience: in hindsight, was this mainly due to missing suitable tools or mainly due to the habits of people participating (or not participating) - or mainly both? if habits were in the way, what kinds of habits do you guess these were? - Claudia Koltzenburg

@François agree - abstracting back out again at a later stage can be very useful for revision @Claudia I think it was a combination of over optimism about what could be done and habits that don't work for large scale collaboration, possibly also being overly polite. Good tools would be a great help in overcoming these. I think there is an issue over a sense of ownership (having it, not... more... - Cameron Neylon

agree: documents are rather poor collaborative draft generation environments - that is exactly why in the end I was quite happy not to be able to access Daniel's etherpad file from here (Питер) and actually start on the mindmap... and once that is up somewhere useful, the next test is on, too :-) my take is that linearity is actually a pretty closed business, syntax and all... - Claudia Koltzenburg

I agree that starting with a collaboratively constructed mindmap is probably a good idea for this kind of joint activity but I did not plan this experiment too long ahead, and I already had a document to build on, so I found it reasonable to start without a mind map. Plus, when I invited participation to part I ( http://ff.im/3Zk6I ), nobody jumped on the boat (perhaps because there was no Time Slider?), and so I wasn't even sure whether I would get anything more than a couple of yawns this time. - Daniel Mietchen

For my taste, MindMappedia take way too long to make your mindmap accessible, Claudia . As another alternative, Freemind seem to have their own wiki where individual mindmaps can be embedded: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki... . - Daniel Mietchen

I just suggested integration with mindmaps to Etherpad: http://uservoice.etherpad.com/pages... . Perhaps you can add your voices there? - Daniel Mietchen

thanks, Daniel, awesome, I really like that tool, see: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki... - Claudia Koltzenburg

@Daniel: just added my voice to support your proposal at uservoice.etherpad. @Claudia: great, I got your map now, diving into it slowly :) - François Dongier

my vote added, too; Daniel, am eager to get to your previous outline again :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

As for "why only two aspects of paper vs. digital", see also a more detailed list of differences at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki... . - Daniel Mietchen

thx, mindmap now also up at http://www.mindmappedia.com/..., actually, I like the numerical sorting added underneath - Claudia Koltzenburg

Daniel, now we could also certainly do with an elegant sentence chopper :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

Yes, the numbering facilitates digestion of the structure. As for sentence choppers, any idea about their presently preferred habitat? - Daniel Mietchen

Just did some further brushing and issued an invitation to comment on the "suggested feature" list, via http://ff.im/8ycL6 . Also, one sentence chopper commented that he does not see a need for intervention. - Daniel Mietchen

I did two (very minor) edits in part 1 ("how did you did that?" => "how did you do that?") and in part 2 (variatinos => variations). - François Dongier

Other than that, I was probably a bit misled by the title of part 2 (knowledge structuring): I was expecting from this title to see more emphasis on the benefits of a shared knowledge structure, and not so much a discussion about the benefits of wikis. Part 2 seems to me to be about "collaborative writing" more than about "structuring knowledge". I do like very much the idea of a... more... - François Dongier

Claudia's mindmap at this stage seems a bit disconnected from Daniel's article. I see interesting ideas there (e.g., analysis of barriers to open accessibility), but I don't see exactly how they fit with the structure of Daniel's article. Ideally, the mindmap should help in making such a fit. - François Dongier

I just wrote in Freemind a quick map with parts 1 and 2 and merged Claudia's map into it (without attempting connections), as well as a link to the "Related posts not cited in article yet". Would be nice to extract the *ideas* from these related posts and fit them somewhere into the map. I uploaded the result to Mindmeister... more... - François Dongier

I agree that the focus should be on collaborative editing in general, not just on wikis that I happened to single out. Perhaps an integration between wikis, mindmaps and databases would be good - the mindmap gives the overall structure, and each of its nodes links to a wiki article or database entry. I also think that the final blog post would have both the etherpad and the mindmap embedded (possibly even this FF discussion). - Daniel Mietchen

splendid, Francois, & cool you should suggest and use yet another tool (mindmeister) -am waiting for my account activation. Daniel, good idea to embed this FF discussion, I think Cameron's remarks re "possibly also being overly polite" are certainly worth looking into for such an experiment. Has anyone (apart from Francois) tried Imindi or Debategraph? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Just poked around the mind map François has put up (thanks, by the way, for mapping part I too). It is certainly feasible to get its nodes linked to appropriate sections in the blog text version (if we add HTML anchors) or to other places or media anywhere online, and I am tempted to go for it, albeit this will require the part II map to be shrinked once we have finished incorporating its finer details into the text. I also added Cameron's comment and an outline of part III. - Daniel Mietchen

great, thanks for part III - am looking forward to developing this together. I would like to suggest Part 4: 'Open Science' revisited: Which kind of 'openness' and for whom? and link this (see arrow) to the branch 'Open Science' of Part I - well, all went pretty well before 9 o'clock here (St. Petersburg), but since then, access has been interruptive and too slow for such a... more... - Claudia Koltzenburg

Great idea. Were you one of the beta-testers of Google Wave? I was in thoughts to do RT, but I have no scientific oriented group. :-) It is not so good to invite everybody on line :-) I shared it with my small group in FB. Do you have a group on LinkedIn? - Slavomira Vladimirova

Bravo Claudia and Daniel, very happy to see the map growing nicely. I've just been looking at the "history view" (there is a toggle button for this at bottom right) that makes it easy to see how the map evolved. By the way, when you are in this "history view", there is a "Revert to this version" option (destructive) that could be a bit dangerous and should be used carefully :-). - François Dongier

I tried to export the Mindmeister map in Freemind format, but this needs a Premium subscription that I don't have yet. The export to PDF is free though and I find the PDF version useful to view the map. - François Dongier

When you look at the map properties, you can find the embed code that could be used to embed the map into the blog post (or the Etherpad document). Still in the map properties, there is a Notifications option ("You can enable email notifications for map changes. Our server will then alert you via email whenever one of the mind maps is modified (ignoring small changes such as text style... more... - François Dongier

Just did a test embed, so that now the etherpad document, the mindmap and this discussion thread can all be edited from within the same web page (the "invitation" blog post that started this thread). For the target blog post, we should probably display the time slider view instead of the edit view of the etherpad. Would be cool to have another embed of some real data - started a new thread on this one at http://ff.im/8Dyjq . - Daniel Mietchen

Interestingly, I see Mindmeister's ads in Firefox but not in Camino, Safari or Opera. - Daniel Mietchen

Embed in the etherpad seems fine. - François Dongier

When I load http://www.mindmeister.com/maps..., I see no ads in Firefox (probably filtered by the adblock extension), but I do see some ads (book recommendations) with Chrome - don't have adblock there :-( Anyways, even with Chrome I see no ads when looking at the map itself. That would be a pain :) - François Dongier

fixed some of the leftovers from this morning's broken session - I wonder why 'peer review' won't move, seems to have got stuck ;-) yes, and the history view is great. - Claudia Koltzenburg

I usually get an "unresponsive script" error when viewing the history, but it worked once, and this was great. Also re-enabled adblock, and the ads are gone in FF too. And I got the "peer review" branch moved away. - Daniel Mietchen

An update on the timing: The content of the Etherpad document will be transfered back to Wikiversity on Monday (Sep 28) around 11am CEST and from there to the Euroscience blog, where it should be up within a day or so (I cannot edit there myself). - Daniel Mietchen

ok, thanks for announcing this; re co-authoring attribution as part of our experiment: how will the file and its metadata show the microauthoring effects? in wikiversity and then in the Euroscience blog? - Claudia Koltzenburg

the 'Claudia's thoughts'/ 'Claudia Koltzenburg' branch is now in place, too, I guess, i.e., parts of it have either been moved to Part III (the attribution part, thanks, Daniel), or integrated into Part II or moved to become Part IV ('Open Science' revisited: Which kind of 'openness' and for whom?). Thanks, Francois, for having put my original mindmap into this one as was. I think this... more... - Claudia Koltzenburg

Just did some final brushing. What is still lacking is a few suitable subheadings, ideally linked from the corresponding mindmap nodes. Will give them a try later and also take another look at the still very long list of relevant blog posts not incorporated yet ( http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki... ). Anything else? - Daniel Mietchen

suggested tags: science 2.0, open science, collaborative science, knowledge structuring, wikis - Daniel Mietchen

yupp, thanks, good brushing and good formal additions. Further tag: open access - Claudia Koltzenburg

Final formatting done. http://etherpad.com/ep... is ready to be pasted into the blog. Links from the mind map to the subheadings will be added once we know the URL of the post. - Daniel Mietchen

:-) & thanks - Claudia Koltzenburg

What about turning Part IV into a collaboratively written contribution to Open Access Week (Oct 19-23)? Details via http://www.openaccessweek.org/ . - Daniel Mietchen

like :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

some items added in Part III - join in at http://www.mindmeister.com/3016825... - Claudia Koltzenburg

Part V: Commodification of academic research: http://friendfeed.com/claudia... (if invented today...) - Claudia Koltzenburg

Francois, for http://www.mindmeister.com/3016825..., can you still see the click counter (which was on 755 when I last saw it) - and I wonder if the history function has disappeared? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Claudia, this seems to be related to whether you are logged in or not: if I just click on the link without logging in (to Mindmeister), then I don't have access to the map history, but I see the click counter (now 771). If I log in, then I can access the history, but it looks like I no longer see the click counter. - François Dongier

thanks, but the history comes with premium membership only, right? sorry, wrong, you talked about it when you did not have a premium membership, either, so I wonder if this depends on the browser? wrong again, sorry, I see the toggle button (and can use it) when I am not logged in - Claudia Koltzenburg

I also saw the counter for now when logged out. - Daniel Mietchen

I just opened up a new thread for part iii in order to facilitate its discussion: http://ff.im/9SvED . I suggest to keep planning the rest here and to start new threads as things proceed. - Daniel Mietchen

Claudia, I still do not have a premium membership and don't think it has impact on viewing the map history. As far as browser goes, I'm using both Firefox and Chrome and haven't noticed a difference between them. Not sure about visibility about the history toggle button: you see it when not logged in, I don't (today at least)... - François Dongier

@Daniel, agreed, @Francois, thanks again - Claudia Koltzenburg

The Life Scientists: Chris Patil

I just realized there's no Wikipedia article for "Science 2.0". Seems like it's notable enough...

September 24 - Comment - Like - Share

novoseek, John Dupuis, Graham Steel and 4 other people liked this

I would start one today but my motivation is at an ebb, and I'll already be in lab until midnight. But still, I wanted to mention it. - Chris Patil

9 more comments

The whole science2.0 web-science open-data open-science thing is a mess on Wikipedia to be honest. I certainly don't have the energy for a cleanup but maybe we could try and schedule something sometime and get the editors onside for it? - Cameron Neylon

Wikipedia is a hassle to get into. I wanted to add just a single link to ScanGrants to the Research Funding page and was thwarted at every turn. I finally gave up and concentrated on other avenues of public education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... I’d be happy to help on a cleanup and would do so if asked by someone of Cameron’s stature as he could probably ensure that the whole thing was not an exercise in futility. But working on things only to see them obliterated is infuriating. - Hope Leman

Hope, the WP crowd is _definitely_ hypersensitive to any link with a .com domain name. I understand it since many commercial entities try to get visibility by posting a link to their website on WP, so WP has a specific policy on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...). Having said that, legitimate links just take a little persistence and substantiation to get in... - Andrew Su

Science 2.0... Hank Campbell's www.scientificblogginc.com - Fossil Huntress

Hope, after reading the talk page you linked to, hmm, you definitely did your due diligence. Did those links never get restored? did you never get a better explanation? - Andrew Su

Henry Gee's individualistic take on SideWiki on his End of the Pier Show blog is funny. Well, I thought so. Where is Graham when you need him to add the link? Ok, here it is: http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/2009... - Maxine

Crox, Cromer, Korma, Glasgow, Galapagos and chickens ?? One has no idea what you mean, Maxine :-) And BTW, has the Timo H wiki page been sorted out? Last time I looked, there was *still* some dought about his credability despite the responses left. Crazy. - Graham Steel

Andrew, is it worth considering a concerted effort here to do a clean up in this area? Might be good for everyone - get a few more people in as editors, and get past that initial scarey stage with the insiders that always seems to be end up being antagonistic with hopefully minimum fuss. - Cameron Neylon

Cameron, absolutely, if people here want to contribute the brain cycles, I'm happy to do what I can to make sure the effort sticks. As a general note on life sciences content, the "Molecular and Cellular Biology WikiProject" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) is a great place to go when you get knee-jerk reactions from the general editorship... - Andrew Su

Maybe a good start for science 2.0 article (and broader project of cleaning up "open science" "open data" etc. mess) would be to make a list of information sources somewhere? I was thinking where would be the best place to do that (google docs? wikipedia user page?) when it occurred to me that the best place to do that would be on the Science 2.0 article page. The only reason I didn't... more... - Steve Koch

Hilary to Hilary's feed, The Life Scientists

Why Data Sharing Policies Matter: http://www.pnas.org/content...

September 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Chelen, Wladimir Labeikovsky, Heather and 11 other people liked this

On the recent embargo breach involving GWAS data and a PNAS publication (which was recently retracted). - Hilary

16 more comments

Good to see people taking the ethical side of this seriously. I'm less convinced about the value of specific rules and more by the idea that this should just be seen as bad behaviour but very glad to see people coming down on it like a ton of bricks. That's what will make people feel safe - not rules, not regulations, and not compulsions either, but very strong and public responses to breaches. - Cameron Neylon

@Cameron +1 . But ideally some kind of consequences/punishment surely would be order as well, e.g. the authors responsible would not be kindly received next time they ask for ethical approval to access controlled-access data from NIH (or other) repositories. Some sort of blacklisting for 'repeat offenders'? - 'Mummi' Thorisson

Not greatly in favour of blacklisting per se. I would say that it was a disciplinary offence though that ought to consider dismissal from post. Which really amounts to the same thing. - Cameron Neylon

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the consequences ("punishment") was that their paper was retracted. - Hilary

The paper was published Aug 31, retracted Sep 9, when all the authors had to do was to ask PNAS to publish it no earlier than Sep 23 to comply with the GENEVA data embargo policy. The closeness of all the dates suggests to me that it was more a serious messup than a malicious breach of policy. http://www.pnas.org/content... - Iddo Friedberg

Hilary, I would say that the retraction is just the reversal of the act rather than punishment. Paper shouldn't have been published, therefore it was "unpublished". If (and there should definitely be a proper investigation) someone thought they could get away with playing outside the rules there should be punishment above and beyond simple reversal in my view. This is "conduct unbecoming..." etc. But as Iddo says, not clear from the dates whether it might just have been a screwup. - Cameron Neylon

Cameron: a retraction is a very bad thing to have on your record. It is for all intents and purposes synonymous with"fraud". - Iddo Friedberg from Android

Without *knowing* the intent was malicious, forcing a retraction seems a bit harsh. If data is online it should be intended for use by the public. IMO this is just another argument for mandatory DOI's and better dataset citations. On the other hand, calling out a group for not having the courtesy or awareness to contact the originating lab is a good thing. Like Cameron said, the social norms are probably the best way to play this. - Paul J. Davis

Also, don't physicists have a pretty good system for the whole idea of citing datasets? NCBI's ability to provide transparency in terms of what data came from where and when is pretty atrocious, so its a bit weird to consider for biology. But I thought I read that the LHC data was pretty much available for citation. - Paul J. Davis

Iddo - I disagree on two counts with that. There are plenty of retractions out there that are honest mistakes or re-assessments. Embarrassing yes, emblematic of sloppy work yes, synonomous with fraud, nah. But more importantly if we take that kind of attitude then people will be too scared to correct things in the future - when we will (hopefully) have much more fine grained approaches... more... - Cameron Neylon

Paul - I think citing datasets at NCBI isn't so hard. I'm not sure that's really the problem in this case (if it is then it's a definite mark against the authors). The problem is the culture in biology that collecting the data isn't worth anything so having a highly cited dataset isn't useful on your CV - no matter how good or useful it is. Only the paper matters. I have to say I haven't actually had the time to look over this case in detail though. - Cameron Neylon

On citing datasets - that's the easy part. What people do not record properly is how they processed the data. Microarrays for instance - there are plenty of public datasets (NCBI GEO, EBI ArrayExpress). But when the associated description reads "Data were processed using the limma package in R" - and that's it - how are you to repeat the work? - Neil Saunders

This also raises issues of roles of journals, institution employing authors (often several, in different countries/legal systems, as papers now almost all multi-author), and funders in "policing" sci ethics. Lots of talk everywhere about this. Journals can publish policies and retract/correct (ensuring linking in A&I dbase searches etc) - but how can sci community deal with wider issues beyond the paper? (quite apart from the technical problems with enforcing eg "blacklisting") - Maxine

Neil - in response to your Q above - v hard in practice to be perfect but from journal's perspective: (1) consult with relevant community and state policies for standards all agree and (2) the peer-review process (advice from reviewers on repeatability). Also, of course, journals can in general encourage authors to disclose more rather than less. - Maxine

Thanks Maxine. I think that journals and data repositories should require, in addition to raw data, deposition of any code (e.g. scripts) used to process the data. Not at the journal or repository site, but somewhere on the web (Github, Google code, Sourceforge etc.) - Neil Saunders

+1 Neil and Maxine. There is too much of an expection for "the journals" to sort this out. Publishers have an important role to play but we need to clean our own house. Or someone will do it for us. Probably the public. And probably by saying that they're not so interested in funding science any more. - Cameron Neylon

Thanks, Cameron. I agree, journals can and should help but as part of a wider process that scientists themselves (as a profession) decide is "best practice". Neil - have had this "code" discussion with eds here before - one view is that the documentation better/more meaningful to scientists (who aren't programmers in the main) - also many programmes are not open-source. Probably other points which I don't immediately recall. Nature Biotech is running community consult at the moment on this, I think. - Maxine

Raoul Pop

Is the M3 is more economical than the Prius? - http://www.raoulpop.com/2009...

September 24 from Raoul Pop - Comment - Like - Share

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Shirley Wu

1 Million Spiders Make Golden Silk for Rare Cloth | Wired Science | Wired.com - http://www.wired.com/wiredsc...

September 23 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

dK, Mickey Kosloff, ashish and 7 other people liked this

"Part of the reason it’s so hard to generate spider silk in the lab is that it starts out as a liquid protein that’s produced by a special gland in the spider’s abdomen. Using their spinnerets, spiders apply a physical force to rearrange the protein’s molecular structure and turn it into solid silk." - Shirley Wu from Bookmarklet

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I wonder what that feels like to touch? - Bill Hooker

Golden orb weavers are common in Australia too. They can be huge, but quite harmless - although they will nip if you hassle them. - Neil Saunders

"will nip if [hassled]" -- so will I, mate. :-) - Bill Hooker

I've seen some pretty big (quarter sized) orb weavers around my house in NorCal but I don't think they had golden silk. But I believe golden orb weavers are prevalent in South America as well. Spiders.... so cool, but so ... <shudder>. Check out the "Life in the Undergrowth" segment on spiders with our friend David Attenborough some time... - Shirley Wu

Thomas Hawk

Adam Infanticide - a gallery on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

September 16 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

dK, ha3rvey, not a sweetheart, sean808080 and 4 other people liked this

"Some images created of graffiti by Bay Area graffiti artist Adam Infanticide" - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

Internet's Tad

Just read an interesting passage in The Illuminatus Trilogy, and thought I'd share. George Dorn and Hagbard Celine are having a conversation about the concepts of good and evil and its relationship to the concept of sin. Hagbard is a hardcore libertarian/anarchist/drug smuggler. I'll share the quote in a few comments below:

September 13 - Comment - Like - Share

Kol Tregaskes, embee, veo and 12 other people liked this

"All human beings consider themselves sinners. It's just about the deepest, oldest, and most universal human hangup there is. In fact, it's almost impossible to speak of it in terms that don't confirm it. To say that human beings have a universal hangup, as I just did, is to restate the belief that all men are sinners in different languages. In that sense, the Book of Genesis - which was written by early Semitic opponents of the Illuminati - is quite right." -cont - Internet's Tad

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"To arrive at a cultural turning point where you decide that all human conduct can be classified in one or two categories, good and evil, is what creates sin - plus anxiety, hatred, guilt, depression, all the peculiarly human emotions. And, of course, such a classification is the very antithesis of creativity" -cont - Internet's Tad

"To the creative mind, there is no right or wrong. Every action is an experiment, and every experiment yields its fruit in knowledge. To the moralist, every action can be judged as right or wrong - and mind you, _in advance_ - without knowing what its consequences are going to be - depending upon the mental disposition of the actor." -cont - Internet's Tad

"Thus, the men who burned Giordano Bruno at the stake _knew_ they were doing good, even though the consequence of their actions was to deprive the world of a great scientist." - Internet's Tad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Internet's Tad

This kind of summarizes the whole point of being a moral relativist. - Internet's Tad

You know, when Glenn Beck goes on and on about "Freedom" he doesn't have a clue what real Freedom is... real Freedom is Freedom of the mind. It's powerful and scary to those who prefer the safety of protection from other people's actions to real Freedom. - Lindsay

Most people have NO concept of Freedom or Liberty. I might even go so far as to say most people don't want it at all. - Internet's Tad

Most people don't want it because it makes you personally responsible for all your actions and their consequences and that is too big a responsiblity and effort for most people. No safety net, no blaming other people for what you did or failed to do... no one else taking care of you. But also no one telling you what you can and can't do... no obligation to others. - Lindsay

Edwin O. Wilson enunciates a similar perspective on human perception of good and evil as it pertains to and affects the natural world. Not sure why this passage reminded me of that but, there are certainly parallels in the thought exercise. - Eric Logan

As a guy who wants infinite choices, and for all their outcomes to be fantastic freedom is a high priority. Responsibility and consideration sometimes appear at odds with personal freedom. We're always making choices to be more or less free. How and when we make these decisions defines our character, or integrity whatever the heck those things are ;). The unexpected outcome is often the most inspirational. - Mark Essel from iPhone

For the record, I'm not sure that I want the sort of pure freedom that Hagbard and his crew enjoy in Illuminatus - that's as much fantasy as the stuff in Atlas Shrugged. - Internet's Tad

An old friend who could accurately be described as a moral relativist, and whom was very free while still possessing of conscience, had a way of putting it all very succinctly: "there are no absolutes". - Jason Wehmhoener

e-Prime is a good exploration of that concept, Jason. :) - Lindsay

In e-Prime: "e-Prime would seem to be a good exploration of that concept, Jason." :) - Internet's Tad

Why can't these concepts / actions / ideas exist in layers? You can be creative, yet you can still look at the results through the lens of good and evil, virtue and sin? Either before or after the fact of the creative output. In fact, why can't you inform your creativity with the concepts? Why does it have to be either / or? Seems far to black and white to me. Is the quote saying that you are either creative or moral but cannot be both? - Martha

I had never heard the term e-Prime before, but it is a fascinating exercise. "Avoid passive voice" was something one of my favorite english teachers, as well as my mother, drove home quite pointedly in my youth. I'm noting some seemingly NLP overtones in this wikipedia description... - Jason Wehmhoener

LOL - "In the context of this conversation, at this time, on this date, in the current state of mind and being of this one's consciousness, e-Prime seems to be a good exploration of the concept 'there are no absolutes'." <-- there, is that better? :D - Lindsay

Martha, I agree that we can apply many lenses to any subject, one after another, or simultaneously. - Jason Wehmhoener

I must admit I don't yet fully grasp the full import of the e-Prime concept. :-) - Jason Wehmhoener

Martha, the quote itself is a paradox, you're right. That's kind of the point. :D But I think it has a lot of truth in it as well. - Internet's Tad

e-Prime helps you frame your reality tunnel in a way that diminishes your certainty of things. It's NOT easy to do, but it's an interesting experiment. - Internet's Tad

My gut feeling is to agree with the quote, because I want to support the creatives against the forces that would put them to the fire. But, then my other gut feeling is that absolutes kind of turn me off as well. So, I do "feel" you on it. - Martha

Martha, again - I think the quote is on purpose using absolutes to show that absolutes are flawed, which in itself is an absolute. It's turtles turtles turtles all the way down. - Internet's Tad

I don't think anyone can take anything that Hagbard says at face value, though nearly everything he says has some value. Make sense? - Internet's Tad

As the daughter of an ethicist (a specific concentration in the field of Philosophy), I hate to say it but these questions were long ago debated and decided upon using nothing but pure, cold logic. It turns out that there is a true right and a true wrong. Those don't always match up with society's ideas. But they are out there. Whether you should adhere to them or not is not Philosophy's decision to make so they have steered clear of that one. - Miss Elle

Whereas Ayn Rand is absolutely certain about her concepts in Atlas Shrugged and wanted her readers to be absolutely sure as well, Shea and Wilson wrote Illuminatus to make people think and they're not certain about ANYTHING as you can tell by reading the book. That's why I find Illuminatus to be the perfect antidote to Atlas Shrugged. - Internet's Tad

I think one reason my educators were so adamant that I avoid passive voice was that I had a tendency to use it so vociferously. I would create the most convoluted snaking run-on sentence structures, almost as if I was going out of my way to avoid active voice. Rewriting to eliminate all of that always felt like magic to me, as if the words suddenly came alive. But the part that is... more... - Jason Wehmhoener

Anything anyone says has value, even if it makes you say "that has no value." - Martha

Atlas Shrugged appealed to my gut feelings as well, and then I thought about it, and then I wasn't sure. Then I was sure again, and then I wasn't sure again ........ - Martha

Miss Elle, you make me smile. :) - Internet's Tad

Miss Elle, I wish I understood the ethics definition of "true right" and "true wrong". I believe you but also feel direct apprehension of these concepts eludes me. - Jason Wehmhoener

Exactly Martha. Illuminatus will push you over the edge. You can still find it in most book stores or in PDF form online. - Internet's Tad

I totally disagree about their being a "true right" and "true wrong." Those seem to be religious concepts, which is fine, but I don't "believe" it. :D - Internet's Tad

@Jason - Despite nightly lectures from Mom at the dinner table, even I cannot remember what each is. I do remember that true wrong includes the rape of a corpse. (For its sheer sensationalist value, I remembered that one.) - Miss Elle

I will look for it. Books for the sheer joy of it are much harder for me these days with so many other things clamoring, but I do get to read for fun every so often. ;) - Martha

Miss Elle, that sounds like opinion rather than unarguable fact. Many of us aren't sure that there are any indisputable facts at all. You'd be hard pressed to convince me at all. - Internet's Tad

Hmm, and maybe "believe" was a wrong word choice. Perhaps "sense the truth of" would be more accurate (regarding my perspective on true right and wrong). - Jason Wehmhoener

@Tad - You start with how you know that you exist. Then you branch out to how you know the world exists. You cannot talk facts until you can prove existence. - Miss Elle

"rape of a corpse" is an odd example. Pretty much outside any frame of reference I have personal experience with. - Jason Wehmhoener

Jason, I have strong suspicions rather than a belief system (bs). I think too much bs causes lots of problems. - Internet's Tad

@Tad - Science assumes that the universe exists. Philosophy is still working on that one. Should it turn out that the universe does not exist, all science is meaningless. - Miss Elle

"all", "every", "never". absolute words. I avoid them. - Jason Wehmhoener

I'm not the best person to argue moral relativism vs. absolutism. I bow to my betters on that one. - Internet's Tad

Yeah Jason, that's in the realm of religion. - Internet's Tad

@Jason, I think e-Prime is kind of the opposite of active voice. Active voice declares things as absolutes, where as e-Prime frames things in a way where "truth" is only "truth" in a particular context that may only be from your viewpoint at that time, in this particular mood, in this particular environment and under these specific conditions. So to communicate in e-Prime you have to... more... - Lindsay

@Tad - No. Not religion. Philosophy. Religion coats crowd control in their moral relativism. - Miss Elle

Amartya Sen's new book "The Idea of Justice" has an excellent discussion of a point very close to the one in your quotes. It is not exactly relativism. Look for "niti" versus "nyaya", pages 22-24. This is a book well worth reading. - Dimitrios Diamantaras

Religion is not just for crowd control. The line can be easily blurred. Buddhism IS a religion and it's also a philosophy. - Internet's Tad

@Tad - According to the religious studies professors I had, Buddhism is not religion as there is not a god. Buddha was merely an enlightened many who achieved Nirvana. - Miss Elle

Lindsay, interesting. First paragraph of wikipedia article sent me in a different direction. I will have to ponder e-Prime further. - Jason Wehmhoener

Religion does not require god. God does not require religion. Heh, there's some absolute statements for you. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

@Jason - May I ask what your working definition of Religion is, then? (I have a feeling I'll like it.) - Miss Elle

Miss Elle, millions and millions of religious Buddhists would disagree with your professor. I'm thinking the people who've grown up as very religious Buddhists might have a different take. - Internet's Tad

@Tad - As a practitioner of Taoism (another "not a religion") I was relieved not to be lumped in with the same category as the religions. It seemed to make more sense that there should be a category for what I knew and understood that did not also lump me with, say, Southern Baptists. I can only hope that other Buddhists would feel the same. (Edit: Removed Catholics and replaced with Southern Baptists ... who are truly alien to my experience.) - Miss Elle

My working definition of religion is little more than me pointing fingers at the many wildly differing examples of it. To generalize is supremely challenging. I'll give it a shot anyway though. Religion to me is how we explain the unexplainable to ourselves and each other. It's how we experience The Mystery in culture. Everything else, all of the expressions of this, vary wildly. - Jason Wehmhoener

Speaking of "Buddhists" is a generalization in and of itself. There are Buddhists in India who are very different from Buddhists in Tibet, who are different from those in China, who are different from those in Japan, who are different from those in America, etc etc etc - Jason Wehmhoener

Jason, the same can be said even for Catholics. - Internet's Tad

True. - Jason Wehmhoener

@Jason - refreshing on e-Prime looking at that article, I think I remembered things wrong as far as the personal stuff (I and me) but the other parts about context are right... you can't declare something as absolute about the present or future, but you can declare an absolute about the past because it's has already happened. But the main idea is to avoid the "be" verbs. From the... more... - Lindsay

Lindsay, this is fascinating, and somehow somewhere along the way I think I unconsciously picked up the habit of this. No idea why, but I think this kind of thinking does serve me well. Now I'm going to by hyper-conscious of it for a while. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

So I'v discovered I may be an eprime using morale relativist. I feel like such a conformist at this time, on this thread. By the way, is there a way we could make this group more formalized? I have to say this is my favorite friendfeed conversation. Ps I'm getting stuck on the "there are no absolutes" absolute contradiction :D - Mark Essel from iPhone

This thread is my new homepage. Booya ;) - Mark Essel from iPhone

Ohh I got it now, there are no absolutes, contradiction of being an absolute is inherent on the assumption of logic primitives. Whew. - Mark Essel from iPhone

:-) - Jason Wehmhoener

Does a pure morale relativist (hehe humor in philosophy) live in an uncausal chaos soup? Everything bends, reality, predictions, time. How'd I get myself into this mess - Mark Essel from iPhone

Sure, chaos, yes. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Chaos is not unpredictable, however. It is merely complex. - Jason Wehmhoener

Hehe, this post from Strange Maps has a bearing on earlier questions of "what is religion": http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007... - Jason Wehmhoener

Wouldn't prediction restrict interaction? It'd be pseudo chaos then. But without absolutes all things would be possible, and impossible - Mark Essel from iPhone

Better said, I could predict an outcome an infinite number of times and still be "lucky" in a chaos dominant existence, my confidence in my prediction would approach unity - Mark Essel from iPhone

In chaotic systems you cannot predict outcomes without knowledge of initial conditions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... In other words, prediction is possible, whereas generalizations are not so much. - Jason Wehmhoener

Kind of the way philosophy works. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

I could be forever wrong and never realize it, ignorance is bliss. So I couldn't disprove a chaotic universe. If I can't disprove it, the postulate doesn't require more thinking :) - Mark Essel from iPhone

Actually, there is quite bit of evidence that we live in a chaotic universe. It only requires thinking if you want to understand how it works. - Jason Wehmhoener

But I could be wrong about disproving it... Doh! - Mark Essel from iPhone

Chaos does not preclude the possibility for absolutes. I must admit that my friend wasn't thinking about physics when he said that. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

Ok if an absolute can exist in chaos, is it the equivalent of a fixed point or zero energy point in the field of potential states? - Mark Essel from iPhone

How could chaotic elements interact with such an absolute, are they like black holes that pull in any chaotic trajectories that veer too close? What happens to a chaotic state after collapsing? - Mark Essel from iPhone

Absolutes are things such as the properties of elementary particles. What happens inside a black hole? There are a lot of folks hanging around the Large Hadron Collider who would really like to know! - Jason Wehmhoener

If the analogy holds then particle antiparticle pairs detoriarate black hole mass/energy over time. Fixed points would likewise spin off new chaos elements and if the rate of expulsion to attraction is negative your fixed point or absolute degrades - Mark Essel from iPhone

Sounds like you are arguing in favor of the "there are no absolutes" hypothesis. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

I don't know which side I'm on, but it's entertaining to toss around the concepts. Really looking forward to LHC spinning up proper - Mark Essel from iPhone

I look at it this way </me sticks out his tongue and makes a funny face.> No seriously, what I meant to say is, any absolutes I'm capable of pondering are either so much larger or so much smaller than anything I can directly experience with the power of my own senses that for all practical purposes in day to day life, they are immaterial. Or something. - Jason Wehmhoener

But it just doesn't have the same ring to it as "there are no absolutes". - Jason Wehmhoener

Along these lines, if the energy density were sufficiently low enough would I be confident that my direction/momentum was constant because I never bumped into another particle? So because the energy density of the good ole verse is decreasing we percieve things (natures physical laws) as absolutes. - Mark Essel from iPhone

Mark, can an elementary particle be good? Can it be evil? How about an atomic reaction? (attempting on-topicness for a moment...) - Jason Wehmhoener

Time to grab a sandwich sit down and watch some ducks for a bit. Great chatting with you Jason - Mark Essel from iPhone

enjoy the ducks! - Jason Wehmhoener

Actually if you believe in free will particles can choose fundamental properties as long as we can (choice digs all the way down). So if decisions can be mapped to good and evil, so could particles (goofy fun). So that pesky spin down electron is most certainly evil! - Mark Essel from iPhone

"Moderation in all things, including moderation" is one of my favorite quotes. It's kind of the antithesis of "there are no absolutes". Who is to say a chaotic absolute is permanent? We're forgetting about Entropy. If an Absolute expresses itself in chaos, it forms a unit of structure/complexity which, according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, must break down over time. This doesn't... more... - veo

veo, very astute observations. I have always loved the "moderation in all things, including moderation" quote as well. It has the added advantage of not being self-contradicting. ;-) - Jason Wehmhoener

@veo, dude that was most excellent. You totally jived with the philoso-physics crossover discussion. - Mark Essel

Hahaha, thanks Jason & Mark. I've read Illuminatus Trilogy, Atlas Shrugged, 'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid', and dozens of armchair-physicist books on quantum theory. I've taken Ayahuasca in the Amazon and had thousands of hours of hours of debate on these topics. I'd hope I could contribute something. None of this has prepared me for the e-Prime thing, though. :) - veo

Internet's Tad

After reading so much Illuminatus lately, I really miss Robert Anton Wilson, my biggest hero. :( - http://www.altmanphoto.com/My...

September 13 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

james reilly, Mycaptain, Martha and 3 other people liked this

“If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit.” - Internet's Tad

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“Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.” - Internet's Tad

“It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.” - Internet's Tad

“Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.” - Internet's Tad

“The shock of discovering that most of the power in the world is held by ignorant and greedy people can really bum you out at first; but after you've lived with it a few decades, it becomes, like cancer and other plagues, just another problem that we will solve eventually if we keep working at it.” - Internet's Tad

"Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them weren't even mammals. " - Internet's Tad

…is there any author that put out shit as well as RAW? - dK

I agree, Tad. His writings were enlightening to me as a twenty-something skeptic. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Reading Prometheus Rising had a greater impact on my life than anything else. It completely changed how I viewed the world. I came in one way and came out different. Heavy, powerful magick. - Internet's Tad

I miss him too. - Lindsay

Anna Haro

September 12 from Flickr favorites - Comment - Like - Share

RAPatton, Carmen, Darren Heydon and 9 other people liked this

Anna Haro

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 347:365

September 6 from Flickr favorites - Comment - Like - Share

Wirehead, Emma, dK and 37 other people liked this

Ooo! Love this set, Anna. ;D - Brandon

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thanks, Brandon. :-)) - Anna Haro

sexy time .. - johnpiercy

Stunning - FFTornado

such a lovely set <3 - Nia from fftogo

sofarsoShawn to sofarsoShawn's feed, Get Fit - Be Active, Dance

"The Ultimate Belly Dancing Guide" ~ those hips don't lie - http://hubpages.com/hub...

August 18 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Hamid Reza, خان دایی سیا, Pilsonia and 7 other people liked this

"Belly Dancing Guide Belly Dancing is fun first of all. You can also lose weight with belly dancing while enjoying this great form of Art. Also; Did you know that Belly Dancing is the World's oldest dance? The whole purpose of this "Ultimate Belly Dancing Guide" is to explain belly dancing and offer resources for beginners who are interested in belly dancing and share some advanced resources for non-beginners. I hope the information I offer will help you in some way. I will be updating this ultimate guide regularly, so please leave your comments, and let me know if you want me to add any specific information." - sofarsoShawn

I've tried...I suck, but fun. My hips are like blocks of wood. - sofarsoShawn

haha. it's great. - Elif Crt

Pawel Szczesny

Visual CV attempt - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

November 17, 2008 from Flickr - Comment - Like - Share

Peter Murray, ''a_a@FF'', Deepak Singh and 16 other people liked this

Feedback request. I try to make a visual overview of my experience so far and my future plans. Any comments regarding both, visual side and scientific/career side really appreciated. - Pawel Szczesny

13 more comments

One quick suggestion: increase the font size and color differences. It might emphasize your primary interests a bit more. - tim from Alert Thingy

Thanks Timothy. That's a good suggestion. I work on another version that would incorporate some more details on the past projects, but so far it's even less readable than this one. - Pawel Szczesny

I really like the concept of this. I take it the colors correspond to particular positions you held? Have you tried using a color gradient for the categories (photography, science, programming, ...) and different fonts to distinguish each job/educational position? - Chris Lasher

Thanks Chris, that's a great suggestion! Having a "now" line makes current color code a little redundant. - Pawel Szczesny

Good idea. How would you show projects that are still on? Maybe you can change the text direction? - Marcin

Most people with color deficient vision (like mine) will not be able to tell your red from your green (I can't). Also it seems a little odd that there is only one thing in the photography category (a hobby?) and so the columns do not really line up. Maybe a third color for non-work-related? And seconding Chris' idea to use fonts to distinguish where you learned/worked on each item in the list. - Bill Hooker

@Bill Did you notice Pawel plots the words according to two axes: skillset along the X-axis, and time of gaining that experience along the Y-axis? I missed this at first and was wondering about the Photo category, too, but then I realized how "scientific animations" and "molecular visualizations" spanned both Science and Photography, and hence, they're in between them on the X-axis. That's neat, because you can see that Pawel's interest in visual things started off in night photography... - Chris Lasher

...and when combined with his exposure to science led him to do, say, visualization of biological networks. Really cool concept. Also, good call about reds and greens. - Chris Lasher

Marcin, things still going are around the "now" line (dashed line in the middle). I don't think exact start/end does matter, it's more about how things circulate in time. Bill, Chris explained already what is the idea behind three "columns" and placing things. In the first approximation phrases were connected (and it was easier to get the idea about various inspirations), but I removed them for the clarity. Colors will be changed. - Pawel Szczesny

Thank you all for comments. Updated version with more explanations and feedback request is here: http://freelancingscience.com/2008... - Pawel Szczesny

Can you describe the method and source data used? It is informative and looks nice :) - Mike Chelen

Mike, it was a manual work done in Inkscape. I work on something similar done in Processing, but it's still at a draft stage. - Pawel Szczesny

That would cool to see, definitely more challenges though. Thanks - Mike Chelen

it's a great idea, it looks great, and it's a great way to have a quick overview of your competences! congrats! - Adrien Joly

Robert Scoble

The "stolen" Twitter docs now being published by TechCrunch just make Twitter look freaking awesome. Agree or disagree? Tell me here:

July 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, Susan Beebe, Hutch Carpenter and 67 other people liked this

I think that this helps Twitter get to the next level. Why? Because it brings us deep inside Twitter where we see what they are thinking. It humanizes Twitter. It opens up Twitter in a way that Facebook simply won't be able to respond to. - Robert Scoble

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If they can pull off what has been shown, definitely, but I do have my doubts. - Jimminy

definitely agree. They seems pretty promising. - TheHenry

I called Arrington an Asshole yesterday & today I said I loved him! Im into women though - i get married next saturday - iTbay

billions - ZuDfunck

The pulse of the planet. You've gotta' love that. - Gregg Morris

James: me too, but at least it shows that there's leaders there. - Robert Scoble

It shows them to be very deliberate and thoughtful about a lot of things, that's for sure. - Bill Kinney

If I were at Facebook now I would have a hacker "steal" my internal plans and publish them too. This is great PR for Twitter. - Robert Scoble

ah crap techcrunch has lost it, stupid journalism and unwanted - Keith Dsouza

Whether it's good or not for Twitter the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth from TC perspective. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

Awesome? Asking for a "full license to the content (including commercial use)", doesn't sound very awesome to me. http://cliq.cc/asfxl - Darren

Should have turned the docs over to the authorities. Take the high road not the road to more page views. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

This came up in our discussion, this might actually help Twitter. This is the first time everyone's pretty much siding with them and giving twitter sympathy. We have a great discussion on the matter going on here: http://davidspinks.com/2009... - David Spinks

I agree. - Özgür D. Cyric from iPhone

It's still in bad taste. What would he say if his company's internal strategy were leaked and publicly scrutinized by competitors? This is a plus for Twitter because they sound like they have things together, but Arrington and TechCrunch just look petty and opportunistic. - ServInt

Although just about any news outlet would do the same thing, so it's hard to fault him entirely. - ServInt

it reads to me like Arrington is leveraging possession of these documents to make twitter say "thank you, sir! may i have another?". i just can't get behind that. Dave Winer points out people are interested and want to know about this. true - myself included - but it will all come to light soon enough. is anyone making book on whether there will be a glass houses moment for TechCrunch? - jeffscott

Robert , cant agree more, this is great PR for Twitter. Maybe this is whole incident is going according to Plan ? If the French site got these tonnes of doc's why did they not pub them too eh ?? after all its a scoop correct ? - Peter Dawson

I suspect in the end it will be a win win for both parties TC and Twitter. - JP Holecka - Jaypiddy

Just like paparazzi pics of Britney Spears topless make her look freaking awesome. TC is the new National Enquirer for nerds. - jcunwired

Twitter just looks like all the rest of us, innovating away, not really sure where they are going. It all looks very real and normal to me. - Graeme Sutherland

I'm with Molly Wood on this. Dick move Tech Crunch. - Tom McCoy

Twitter may look awesome but I think it makes TechCrunch look awful. When you use the word "stolen" it's like you don't think they were but they were. This is TechCrunch profiting off stolen goods which is illegal when it comes to tangible items. I think they should have turned them over to Twitter with a hey dude I think you might want these back..... - Jerranna

I guess what I'm wondering is why any of it was "secret" to begin with. If they want me to invest in them, this is the kind of thing they should be telling me. - Matthew DeVries

Is this a PR tactic by twitter? - Ruchit Garg

I have to agree with Darren, I don't like the concept that Twitter wants "full license to the content (including commercial use)." Their "content," as I understand it, are the thoughts and musings of all us tweeps. Sure, lots of people, myself included, also use Twitter to promote an article or some other sort of publicity. But what about the more random thoughts that are posted? I... more... - Ian Paul

Not sure it makes them look awesome, but it certainly is not hurting them being talked about. I mean as a user, at the end of the day, do you feel good about the poor security job by a company trying to be a major media player? - Patrick Boegel

I feel conflicted. On one side, I do not agree with what Techcrunch did. I understand why, but the ethical issues have me filing this under my long in the tooth file called "I have personal issues with what journalists sometimes do, but appreciate the fact that they do it." (Watergate, anyone?) Moving on... I am also fascinated. Twitter have, literally, made a monster. For a while it... more... - Andy Bold

Phase 1 - Release documents showing what we'd like to do. Phase 2 - Do something else. Phase 3 - Profit - Keith Barrett from Android

Looks they know who they are but is it deliberate? - ashish

Re: my earlier comment about licensing content. I just got to the document where Twitter discusses content licensing options. I like the issues they're pondering and the consideration for the average user. Let's hope that kind of awareness remains. I'm impressed by the process Twitter is going through, and the thoughtfulness these documents express. But does it make them look awesome?... more... - Ian Paul

"Audience size: 1st to a Billion = Awesome" - I imagine the Twitter guys throwing up the horns and headbanging when they read this to themselves. - Bryan Zirkel

It's a link farm. There's no conversation going on there. But hey, we need one of those. Just like we need a World Wide Rolodex called Facebook. It's all good. - Stephen Pickering

i think it's a bull$hit story, for new bogus cyber laws, and also to distract from the Goldman Sachs/Quantum Trading Shakeup scandal ; see http://ff.im/5dh9T +++ and also btw: http://ff.im/5jNoC LaToyah Jackson Twitter-Follow autoUpdate delayed by Twitter - ewing2001akaNicomedy2010

Again, I think Twitter could have stolen the thunder away from TechCrunch here and just published it all ahead of time. They had a huge opportunity. - Jesse Stay

I think I would call this in favor of Twitter. They have been very close to the vest about their plans to the point that people have speculated (too long) that there are no plans or they are too scattered to have any plans. In the absence of communication / information, people have been filling in the "blanks" with their own information and most of it has not been good. So, by giving us... more... - Brenda Young

I will let you know my personal opinion after getting my “advisor shares” :))) - Nir Ben Yona

Actually, the "Twitter Papers" stolen and leaked make them look like a company in the thrall and haze of early momentum trying to figure out what do next...trying not to be stupid and squander what they, and many of us, sense is an historic commercial, consumer and social moment. Their apparent bouncing from suitor meeting to suitor meeting to acquisition analysis and back to competitor... more... - Thom Kennon

Feldman has gotten hold of all 320 pages it seems, heh - Mark

I love the idea, a lot of my hopes for twitter may not be (such) a pipe dream anymore. It would be great if they came through on 1/2 of the ideas "posted" by TC. - Adam

Twitter is now claiming on their blog that they do not agree with what arrington posted regarding their consent. - Bill Kinney

Bill: Actually, they seem to further equivocate, saying they didn't give "permission for these documents to be shared". That could simply refer to them giving the thief permission to "share" with TC... not denying they let Arrington publish them with, my guess is, agreed edits and redacts. Schonfeld is very quiet about all this. Would be interesting to sweat him out a bit... - Thom Kennon

Thom, see also: http://twitter.com/ev... - Bill Kinney

Thom, I guess I also drew that conclusion from this: http://twitter.com/ev... - Bill Kinney

In my opinion TC shouldnt public any of these docs ,,,,they are stolen and there is no way that this site or another will use them - Johni Fisher

what do you mean Johni? gawker have stated tonight they will post the whole set of documents if someone sends them to their inbox - Mark

TC is doing Twitter a favor. By controlling what gets out Twitter remains happy, it remains controversial, and Twitter gets more exposure than they could ask for. Otherwise you can bet they will end up on wikileaks somewhere (and they probably will anyway). - Jesse Stay

Jesse Stay: do you see an opportunity in the way that these docs landed on the TC table ... sorry they should protect Twitter and help them to find the one that made that, TC has an important space today in the tech world and they sould protect companies like Twitter - Johni Fisher

who's gonna lead the friendGate heist? - George Dearing from BuddyFeed

Johni, even more so, TC has a responsibility as a journalist to report the news, and protect their sources at the same time. I imagine the reporting here and discussions with Twitter were done in a very business-like manner, offering Twitter the opportunity for a ton of exposure if Twitter in turn would agree not to sue them. The other alternative would be the entire documents would end... more... - Jesse Stay

Jesse : if there is fire somewhere will you join ? or try to help ?TC has much more than just responsibility,I cant see any other way to publish these docs with out the 100% OK of Twitter ,and if some one will ask me ,I am sure that all this story is with the 100% ok from them ,TC will not take any risk on that ,,,its funny that most of us are belivers :-))) - Johni Fisher

Johni, I'm saying this leak is the best thing that could have happened to Twitter. There's no fire, and Tech Crunch is only helping to make it better. What would be worse is it appearing on Wikileaks with no exposure in any way by TechCrunch. Twitter's trying to downplay it right now because they have to or their investors will be all over them. Twitter couldn't ask for better exposure though. Controversy is what makes products. - Jesse Stay

Jesse:If Twitter are not ok with the action it should never be on the Air ,sorry that I cant agree about TC helping Twitter and not losing the big news to other bloger ,,,LOL TC has much more to lose than other bloger ,,, and if I was Twitter founder I would make 20-50 million usd just by asking TC to pay quickly with out the court ,,,,I am sure that this story if Twitter will act with... more... - Johni Fisher

"Stolen" indeed. These docs were written to be leaked. - Garin Kilpatrick

Yeah, no typos, no mistakes in grammar, no margin notes, revision notes, just pages and pages of pure gold. - Matthew DeVries

It look like Twitter is going public ... lets see - Johni Fisher

Anyone that previously thought the they don't have a plan to generate revenue is now proven wrong. They certainly spend a considerable amount of time thinking about that. - Joe Buhler

A little too much to think of twitter as "the pulse of the internet", but they do look awesome. Wonder if it wasnt all just a big PR stunt.. it came on a very good timing! - Leonardo Saraceni

and seem to have a clue as to how to get there too, Joe. - Bill Kinney

I have issues with TC's decision to publish this info but I'll admit that I read every word of that last post. I'm blown away by how much information was revealed. My head is spinning digesting all of the info and wondering how all of those potential partnerships will be impacted. - Mike Doeff

agree - Thomas Power

stolen is the key word. not leaked, but stolen. it pisses me off that @arrington is trying to make this whole thing look like he is doing twitter a favor by helping them with their security isuues and so on. the right thing to do would have been to email @ev or whomever and tell them they had been hacked. delete the documents off of his computer and report the story with twitters permission. if it were leaked info, i think @arrington could do whatever he wanted with the info. - Tobias Lewsadder

another issue is the burning of bridges... did @arrington shoot himself in the foot by doing this? will twitter ever grant him an interview? will twitter ever come to him with breaking news? will twitter investors like kevin rose ever trust arrington? and... after the whole @leolaporte issue where everyone was hating on @arrington and he stated that he feared for his personal safety, is... more... - Tobias Lewsadder

How does this conversation change in light of this from @ev? http://twitter.com/ev... In my eyes, it says "TC are either misleading their readers, incompetent, or full of BS." - Andy Bold

And I am reminded of all the -is vitriol too strong a word?- directed at last.fm reference their data sharing without, as far as I can see so far, any real evidence displayed by TC. How is it that TC will publish "secret" Twitter docs, but not post any docs supporting the last.fm allegations? Inconsistent and sloppy. - Andy Bold

Mostly it makes TC look like a bunch of assholes. - Bas

I am sure they are not assholes, but their editorial policy is spotty at best, and broken at worst. - Mark

The funny thing about Arrington, is when it all gets too much for him he goes on vacation. He is publishing stolen documents and getting slammed for it, but of course its all about him, so he proclaims he is running away to las vegas. - Mark

Of course he thinks he is a martyr now for publishing this. He tweeted something like "taking the sword in the back" for the good of the industry. You better believe if it was a blog with less influence than TC, or less power than Arrington there would have been cease and desists and other legal things from TWITTER. - Mark

I thought there was some kind of law against stealing and/or publishing internal business documents. Espionage. Maybe Twitter's business model just became suing TechCrunch? - beersage

they wouldn't dare sue techcrunch, right? - Mark

Holy crap, maybe they WOULD sue TechCrunch for "the damage caused" http://blog.twitter.com/2009... - Mark

@Mark - Twitter has more "Charisma" in my opinion... meaning more folks would come to Twitter's defense if they sued TechCrunch than consider them 'evil.' They'd probably have to show that the release of the documents has damaged their business. - beersage

Take a look at that Twitter blog post posted a few hours ago, it seems to suggest they might go after people who publish internal documents - Mark

They aren't suing anyone. They engineered this. They're posturing as part of the rouse. - Matthew DeVries

But why would they leak documents in which they say Marissa at google is a pain in the ass? - Mark

Because she does, in fact, induce rectal pain? - Matthew DeVries

lolz - Mark

I highly doubt Twitter set this up as a hoax. It makes them look incredibly dumb for lack of security. - Kevin Whalen from email

From what I've read it's all good press,all power to ya Twitter. - Richard Kawane Sr

Small minds talk about people, great minds discuss ideas. Can we move the conversation to open vs. Closed and transparency in modern businesses. What about the effect social media is having on this shift. - Mark Essel from iPhone

Indeed. If felt a bit like nosing around into someone's secret diary but it does make them look smart, deep thinking and a bit dreamy (which is not necessarily bad.) I am not sure I am ok with TechCrunch publishing it though. And I loved this: “unusually happy place to work in”. - Ina Ghita

ScottBourne: welcome to our legal system where if there are two conflicting interests things sometimes get warped. There's lots of legal precident here for stolen docs to be sharable publicly because of our First Amendment. Twitter would probably lose a suit, according to the legal analysis I've seen. This is why journalists and lawyers aren't liked, though. No one ever said this business is nice. - Robert Scoble

Wreaks of publicity stunt to this skeptic... - Dale

IMO, dealing in stolen good is just that. publishing them doesn't change anything. sure, there are times that some have purposefully stolen documents with the express purpose of publishing them - sometimes to expose crimes, etc. it's still stealing and some go to jail for such actions no matter the motive or outcome. finally publishing stolen Twitter docs doesn't come close to journalistic acts of publishing stolen government docs in an effort to thwart crimes so don't even go there. - MikeAmundsen

I side with Twitter on the whole thing (mostly since they admitted to being in the wrong), but to an extent, I question the validity and integrity of the documents, since nobody outside of Twitter has seen them (Barring whoever supposedly submitted them to TechCrunch, and the few people who read the related blog posts). - Tyson Key

Gotta agree with Dale... this seems pretty contrived. And coming off the heels of techcrunch, where real-time media is all the rage, it seems like a planned way to build buzz on the Twit - Mark Gordon

it is good PR for new hire: great ambitions - Jadito

The perception from the docs is that they are diligently planning and internalizing their growth. That said going from 25 million users to 1 Billion in just 4 years would be breathtaking -- and far beyond the faster than any communication paradigm ever in the history of the planet.....Is this planned? That seems unlikely. Should they have been posted by TechCrunch -- no. - Shane Pearson

They will achieve such ambition if they are bought by a bigger one. What is freaking.is if they change their privacy policy like Facebook did. - Eric Gourmet

Noah Gray to Noah's feed, The Life Scientists, Science 2.0

Okay. Are you serious? Out of almost 1,000 people in the Life Scientists room and 600 in the Science 2.0 room, we can't find a decent avatar for the room? This must change. Please place candidate links in the comments (linking to your stream or elsewhere so as not to clog the room) & indicate the room for which it is intended. kthxbai!

July 16 - Comment - Like - Share

dK and Alex Scoble liked this

I don't think the one for the LS is bad. - Paulo Nuin

12 more comments

Well, I guess that's why I am proposing a vote. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just not so "snappy"! - Noah Gray

The LS logo was approved by "popular" vote - https://friendfeed.com/the-lif.... Take it up with Chris :-) - Neil Saunders

Sounds like there wasn't a complete consensus there. I move to strike that vote and re-vote. Which must be seconded, of course. The glider/helix can remain a candidate, of course, but let's at least make it work to keep its office... - Noah Gray

I like the glider/helix (although I seem to remember voting to have the colors of the helix the other way 'round). I'll happily vote on an icon for the Science 2.0 room if people want to put forward candidates. - Bill Hooker

http://friendfeed-media.com/3dbfe59... ;) - Colby

+1 Colby :-) except it's from ACS, so probably not fair use. - Neil Saunders

is there some meaning for the unusual direction of the glider? - Mike Chelen

Glider + Helix = L + S = Life Scientists. - Neil Saunders

Mike: it's the "L" of LS, for Life Scientists. - Bill Hooker

oh haha, i understand now. it's difficult to look at the helix and only see one strand :D - Mike Chelen

I only just got the L + S thing too! Would be nice to have an icon for Science 2.0. - Euan

Okay, this is really taking off (kidding here). Current state of affairs for the LS group: 3 votes to keep the glider/helix, 1 vote to consider alternatives, 2 comments that discussed the logo w/o taking sides, 1 vote for the filthy chem abstract. That means old logo wins? So on to one we can all agree on, an image for Science 2.0. I'll close this thread (unless we are expecting a landslide of last-minute cries against the current LS logo) and start a Science 2.0 room call for candidates separately... - Noah Gray

New thread for the Science 2.0 image selection is here: http://ff.im/5md4w - Noah Gray

Paulo Nuin

Managing Hierarchical Data in MySQL (or really any database) - http://dev.mysql.com/tech-re...

July 17 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

dK and Frank liked this

Bill Hooker

Learning R - http://learnr.wordpress.com

July 16 from Cwhooker's Favorite Links... - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Mietchen, dK, Vlado Handziski and 2 other people liked this

Doing what it says on the tin. Tags: R learn Posted by: cwhooker - Bill Hooker

The Life Scientists: Shirley Wu

The All Results Journals - "Because all your results are good results" - http://arjournals.com/ojs...

March 4 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Chelen, Bruno C. Vellutini, Chris and 28 other people liked this

Just got an email from them to be on the SAB for the Biology journal. Do they typically ask people without Ph.D.s (yet)? I like the concept but have concerns about legitimacy, etc... - Shirley Wu

40 more comments

If it were me, it would boil down to who else is on the SAB, and could I see myself publishing there. If it's not something I'd normally want to be associated with, then I don't think the cool title is worth it. my two cents... - Andrew Su

Shirley: erm... no, that doesn't sound typical. looking at the few members of the board who have joined up and are displayed on the site, they look to be all prof or assoc prof level (no names i recognise, but...), which seems pretty standard... - Joe Dunckley

It actually looks pretty good to me -- OJS, LOCKSS, CC-BY and a founding concept (publish all data) that I agree with. It's a definite plus in my book if they don't care about formal degrees and just want to get the best people. I'd like to know more about the business model/support framework, esp since there's no mention of author-side charges. I've registered as a reader/potential author/available reviewer. - Bill Hooker

If I could double-like this, I would. - Chris Miller

Let us know what you find out, Shirley. I'm a grad student who wouldn't mind reviewing either, if it's kosher. - Chris Miller

I replied with some questions, we'll see what they say - Shirley Wu

Quoting Feynman: "If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish BOTH kinds of results." [http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti...] - Eric Jain

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. My main concern is that it is a lot of work to write a paper based on failed experiments and I don't know how many researchers would be willing to do that. I don't have a problem with sharing my failed results from within my lab notebook, which I have to maintain anyway. But if scientists do contribute I think it is fantastic. - Jean-Claude Bradley

Key questions are business model and what they are offering beyond what is already available. Also not confidence inspiring that two of the web pages provides for SAB members seem to lead to dead ends which don't have their name listed. Happy to give benefit of the doubt but presentation of these things is important. - Cameron Neylon

@Jean-Claude: I see two kinds of papers ending up in these journals: 1, "this didn't work" papers reporting pretty much only failed expts; and 2, regular papers that simply include extra information on the stuff that failed, as well as the stuff that didn't. Even when the failed stuff is useful information, trad. journals usually tell you to leave it out. So this model seems to be a sort of compromise between ONS and normal science -- a "gateway drug" for ONS, perhaps? - Bill Hooker

@Bill: A bit of an aside, I'm currently reviewing a paper for Neuropharmacology, a journal which is a tad out of my usual reading. Scanning the author instructions, I was struck by this line:Results. The results should be fully illustrated. Negative findings should also be noted to avoid unnecessary replication by others. - NatBlair

Bill - I appreciate the motivation and the utility if they get submissions - I am just wondering if they can get enough people to put in the effort. It will be interesting information about the scientific community either way. - Jean-Claude Bradley

Haven't heard back from them yet. The morning after I sent my response with questions, however, I got a verbatim copy of their original email sent to me again by the same person. So I don't know what's going on but like Cameron said, not exactly confidence inspiring - Shirley Wu

Does anyone have an opinion on the Journal of Negative Results? - Mr. Gunn

@Jean-Claude - I think your concern is well founded. We get good feedback for JNR-EEB (http://www.jnr-eeb.org/index...), but few submissions. - Bob O'Hara

I got a reply from the section editor that contacted me. They do want Ph.D. scientists, and he didn't know I was still a graduate student (not that hard to click on the "about me" page of my blog, especially if you mention that you've seen my blog and that's why you're contacting me...). Anyway, the other things he mentioned were that there are no author fees (in addition to no access fees), and everything is done in a volunteer fashion because the people involved want to improve science. - Shirley Wu

I'd still be concerned about whether it's possible to sustain high quality without a business model but then again, that's what this open stuff is all about, right? So it would be great if it worked long enough to get something behind it to maintain it. Of course, J-C's concern is also a big one - who will write and submit papers to it? - Shirley Wu

I'd be very worried - getting papers is a big enough problem - but to do it with no business model just isn't sustainable. The business model can be volunteer but then you've got to explicitly worry about how to support and retain your volunteers. But in general I think I'm coming to JC's point. No-one has the time to write full papers on material that isn't up to the grade for existing journals - I don't think they are going to start just because the journals are there. The barrier has to be much lower. - Cameron Neylon

People who start writing their papers before doing the actual work and keep them in sync with the latest progress should be glad to be able to submit them somewhere (even if a few more days of effort are required to clean up the paper and answer reviewer questions etc)? This approach also seems more effective than spending weeks after the fact going through unreadable lab notebooks and... more... - Eric Jain

Which one of the two Eric? I think the latter is more common...but even with a good record the hassle of going through a peer review process is a big disincentive - Cameron Neylon

Kind of journal of negative data. More likely to fail, or at least what people claim as "all results" will be the tip of iceberg. - Dean Johns

"They do want Ph.D. scientists" -- that grates my cheese. Suppose you read Shirley's blog and think "smart person, want her on board my project" -- well, what has changed when you find out she's a grad student? This feeble reliance on a piece of paper is why universities are less and less focused on actual education, and more and more on certification -- a product, bought and sold. [/rant] - Bill Hooker

I certainly agree with you, Bill, but I think there was some validity to what they said; they went on to ask me what my plans were after graduating, whether i was going to remain in the sciences. I would assume that they wouldn't be recruiting folks with Ph.D.s in mol bio that were now working as management consultants on wall street, for example. But they didn't exactly do a great job of vetting if they didn't know I was still a student. - Shirley Wu

@Cam: I think this is basically another "journal of negative results", not so much about material that isn't up to scratch. Eric's comment about people who keep notes in sync with benchwork makes me think that journals that are willing to take negative results are likely to be a boon to anyone who keeps an open or semi-open notebook. (I disagree that peer review is a hassle or a disincentive. Sure, some reviewers are jerks, but overall the process is fun.) - Bill Hooker

I've never looked at the journal of negative results. But it strikes me as quite weird to think about peer-reviewed negative results. I think it's sufficient to just publish your notebook and an informal summary ("we were hoping this would happen, but instead this happened and we don't feel like publishing it in a peer-reviewed journal. Hope these results are helpful!") It's tough to see what peer-review would add w/o asking the researchers to do extra experiments? - Steve Koch

I'm also unclear on whether there is a definition of "negative result." Does the term originate from pharma stuff? I.e., drugs that didn't work? In other fields is "negative result" a synonym for "less-interesting result?" That's sort of what I was thinking and why peer review would seem weird. - Steve Koch

Steve, I think there does need to be some degree or review, or they could end up with a bunch of "Bigfoot was not discovered in Alaska" kinds of submissions. Negative, in the sense of isn't something that will support a grant application, is how I imagine it to be used. - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn, yeah I agree with that. I was really saying I don't see the point of having a journal like that. It seems like a waste of peer-review resources. Self-publishing seems to make more sense to me...but I'm probably not thinking about the right examples of negative results. - Steve Koch

What the journal adds over self-publishing is editing, review, and discovery. Pretty much the same as other journals. I see what you mean about a waste of resources, though. Some people consider Friendfeed to be a waste of resources, too, so there's that. - Mr. Gunn

This is all fascinating. Mr. Gunn says, "What the journal adds over self-publishing is editing, review, and discovery. Pretty much the same as other journals..." But it is the same as other journals? This one would be specifically devoted to secondary findings—that would set it apart, wouldn’t it? If this journal were well run (which doesn’t seem to be the case, based on Shirley’s... more... - Hope Leman

Hope, my comments were directed towards Steve's question of what value publishing negative results in a journal would have over simply self-publishing them. Of course the journal would be set apart from others in terms of content. - Mr. Gunn

I can't make much comment about how organized they are other than that they didn't know I wasn't a Ph.D. despite having been to my blog. Even if they do have a committed and organized core of people, the bigger concern is whether they can sustain a purely volunteer effort. If they can't, they need an actual business model, and the arguments here (and elsewhere: http://tinyurl.com/c2b3xm) are of the mind that a full-fledged journal of negative results isn't cost effective. - Shirley Wu

Thank you for your patience, Mr. Gunn. Thank you for the link to Cameron's post on the topic. That is an outstanding, asute bit of analysis. - Hope Leman

Another possible use for the open journal system model would be using it for well-done student publication -- another venue of practice before hitting the bigger journals -- individual schools/labs could put OJS to use, students learn not simply to write for publication but also how to act as reviewers -- provides a neat continuing reinforcement of how to read science (stats, design, etc) -- basically a more finished open notebook product -- also useful for initiating new people into the lab - Mickey Schafer

Hey all -- I got an email invite from All Results Journal:Physics today for the scientific advisory board. I reread my comments above and still agree with my own skepticism. On the other hand, wouldn't mind supporting it to see if it can fly. Did any of you end up getting invovled? Jean-Claude, I see your name on the SAB for ARJ:Chem ... any opinions? - Steve Koch

(As an aside: is this thread sufficiently public that the majority of reasonable people wouldn't mind if I linked it to the editor who sent me the invite? I think definitely yes, but given the hoopla that ensued several weeks ago, figured I'd ask first.) - Steve Koch

I'm still skeptical - I don't see evidence of awareness of the magnitude of the job they're taking on. But then anything that starts from the assumption "publication should basically be free" sets my alarm bells ringing. Happy to see this made public but then I would be I guess :-) - Cameron Neylon

It'd be good if it did take a role as a dumpster for drug research -- stuff failing at any stage might be usefull from discovery on. - Chris from twhirl

Pity is that it's not what I thought at first, which is a journal that publishes just data sets with structured annotation (rather than a full paper being needed, shortcutting the idea of the paper-writing robot) to really get people to clear out their lockers. Just a tab-format form answering the kinds of questions listed in projects linked to by MBBI (ref.... more... - Chris from twhirl

Call it ' Kudos Convertors -- "Free you data. Boost your citations*." ' [* Subject to funders counting it]. How about some kind of data copyright statement while we're at it, to assist with enforcement. - Chris from twhirl

Yeah, I agree, Chris. It'd be much better w/o need for formal paper and "rigorous peer review" as they state now. Editorial or peer review should just make sure that necessary info has been included. Wonder if SAB members can change any of these decisions before they go "live?" - Steve Koch

Kevin Fox

Oh Microsoft, when will you understand? - http://www.flickr.com/photos...

May 29 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Cem Ozkaynak, Matt Cutts, Artem K and 31 other people liked this

First, I read that Microsoft was going to spend $100 million advertising Bing, their new search^H^H^H^H^H decision engine. Then I saw an ad for Bing in my Gmail clip bar, so I clicked on it. This took me to a page saying Bing wasn't out yet, but would I like to take a tour? That button took me to this page, where it asked me if I wanted to install/update Silverlight. Microsoft, you *are* good at helping me make my decisions! - Kevin Fox from Bookmarklet

15 more comments

Do you run Flash in your browser? How would Silverlight be any worse? - Internet's Tad

Bug fixes, Kevin, it's full of bug fixes. - Casey Muller

I have regularly the same problem! - Stanislas Jourdan

Because Flash comes with most browsers while Silverlight does not. Because I dislike redundant software, and dislike companies that require me to install their flavor of redundant software in order to convince me to use their product. The mentality that says I should install their software (which they know statistically I'm less likely to have than the industry standard software) in... more... - Kevin Fox

Of course, I don't know for certain what the page would have done if I didn't have an old version of Silverlight installed. Would it have used flash instead? Would it have given me a good experience while trying to upsell me to a better experience by installing silverlight? I suspect that it would not, but I admit that I don't know for certain. - Kevin Fox

I went to http://www.decisionengine.com/ in Chrome (which for me only has Flash installed currently), and I had no issues. The page didn't mention Silverlight at all. - Stephen Mack

Every time I've installed a new version of FF, I've had to install Flash. Each time Adobe upgrades Flash I have to install it. I understand not wanting redundant software, but it's a 5MB download - I'm not sure what you're losing by installing it. Do you have more than 1 browser on your computer? - Internet's Tad

Then I take it all back except for blaming Silverlight for asking me to update at exactly the wrong time. Offer an update after the streaming task is complete, not before it starts, unless you need it to display the content. - Kevin Fox

Totally agree with that Kevin. MS is a bit over-eager to push SL down everyone's throats. They have a lot of catching up to do, but they oughta stick to pushing it when users NEED it, not just whenever the hell they feel like it. - Internet's Tad

Of course, I'm windoze, so maybe the Mac version of the page doesn't support flash or something? - Stephen Mack

what browser does flash come with? I've never used this browser, ever. - Richard Lawler

I've never had to update flash in order to watch a commercial. Ever. - Andrew

that's not exactly what I asked - Richard Lawler

Flash does not come packaged with any browser. There are a few reasons why you make think this. Flash, if you didn't build it yourself, is often pre-installed on your computer by HP or Dell or from whomever you purchased your machine, but it doesn't come as a part of the browser. Additionally, the version of Flash for any non-Internet Explorer browser, at least on Windows, is the same download. But still, Flash is not included as a part of any browser. - Peter

Yeah, it does use flash if you don't have silverlight. - Rich

I got the same pop-up as Kevin. Showed up a couple seconds after the video started playing, which was annoying, and has always been my issue with things Microsoft. I'm currently doing something now, I don't want you to notify me and interrupt that with your pop-ups, warnings, notifications, and whatever else you've misprioritized as urgent. In comparison with Flash, Adobe doesn't ask... more... - Mark Trapp

Shirley Wu

LaTeX question: the default style for appendices is "Appendix A .." with sections A.1, A.2 ... and figure/tables A.1, A.2, etc, but what if you want "Supplementary material" and sections and figures numbered as S1, S1.1, S2, etc? Is there a way to restart numbering?

May 14 - Comment - Like - Share

Matthijs Van Der Meer, Daniel Mietchen, Chris Lasher and dK liked this

http://www.latex-community.org/forum... - Paulo Nuin

9 more comments

Thanks, Paulo, but I guess my question is - how to restart numbering without using \appendix, OR how to make the appendix style be "Supplementary Chapter 1" with numbering "S1, S1.1, etc" rather than "Appendix A". The default appendix style just goes alphabetically starting at A. - Shirley Wu

\appendix{Supplementary information} \section*{S.1} - Paulo Nuin

would that work? Using the * after section removes the automatic numbering/letter and you can give the title you want. - Paulo Nuin

Yes, that sort of works :). For just figures and tables, you can also change the caption setup manually. Either way, it seems like a manual hack. Oh well! - Shirley Wu

After the appendix header: \setcounter{figure}{S.0} \setcounter{table}{S.0} - Iddo Friedberg

The way I normally make supplementary figure numbers in LaTeX is this: \makeatletter \renewcommand{\thefigure}{S\@arabic\c@figure} \renewcommand{\thetable}{S\@arabic\c@table} \makeatother - Lars Juhl Jensen

In addition you will need to reset the figure and table counters \setcounter commands similar to what Iddo wrote (just not including the S in the numbers). - Lars Juhl Jensen

Ah, thanks Lars and Iddo, much better than manually hacking! - Shirley Wu

Liking for the LaTeX Fu displayed in this thread. - Chris Lasher

Nice, but has anyone made this work with endfloat also? - Matthijs Van Der Meer

Iddo Friedberg to Iddo's feed, The Life Scientists

Wow. Biophotons for signalling. Anyone knows anything about this? How credible is this? http://www.plosone.org/article...

May 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Rich Apodaca, Matthew Todd, Lucas Brouwers and 13 other people liked this

"Mutual exposure of cell populations occurred under conditions of darkness and separation with cuvettes (vials) allowing photon but not molecule transfer. The cell populations were separated either with glass allowing photon transmission from 340 nm to longer waves, or quartz being transmittable from 150 nm, i.e. from UV-light to longer waves. Even through glass, the cells affected cell division and energy uptake in neighboring cell populations. Depending on the cuvette material and the number of cells involved, these effects were positive or negative. Also, while paired populations with lower growth rates grew uncorrelated, growth of the better growing populations was correlated. As there were significant differences when separating the populations with glass or quartz, it is suggested that the cell populations use two (or more) frequencies for cellular information transfer, which influences at least energy uptake, cell division rate and growth correlation. Altogether the study... more... - Iddo Friedberg

63 more comments

I think the key line is, "Depending on the cuvette material and the number of cells involved, these effects were positive or negative." In other words, "we saw fluctuations and, after the fact, declared that whatever we saw supported our prediction." I don't think the finding is impossible, but I'm not going to spend any mental energy on it until it's replicated by several independent labs. - Ian York

@Ian. You should read the paper. It dosnt' seem like they drew the circles after throwing the darts. - Iddo Friedberg

The description of the setup does not make sense. How does a 2.3 x 2.3 x 40 mm cuvette (volume ~211mm^3) contain 1ml of medium -- particularly when we are told it also contains a second cuvette 1.5 x 1.5 x 45 mm (vol 101 mm^3), which in turn is supposed to contain 1ml of medium? Given that the author probably has a telephone which would take an adequate picture of the setup with a ruler... more... - Bill Hooker

Why don't you guys discuss this article at the journal comments section? The whole idea of PlosOne is about this. Your discussion at FF will be buried by other posts in several days, while comments associated with the article at the journal's site might help someone even several years later... I would really appreciate to know the arguments, why people are safely discussing articles at FF, and afraid to post comments at the journal web site. - genereg

I'm more comfortable making a fool of myself here than on the journal site. I figured if any substantive issues arose in discussion here we could cut and paste 'em easy enough. - Bill Hooker

... and I hit the results section and there are no data -- not that I can analyse for myself, just a bunch of pre-digested info in tables and figures. At this point I no longer trust the author, plus I'm pretty sure I have the flu, so that's it for me for now. Gonna go sleep. - Bill Hooker

"I'm more comfortable making a fool of myself here than on the journal site" - well, that is one of the reasons why online commenting does not work properly. In fact, as long as you use your real name at FF, you already kind of expose your opinion to the whole world. On the other hand, if you write these comments on the journal web site under a nickname, you are not damaging your real... more... - genereg

@genereg, why not add a link to this FF discussion on the PLoSOne site? It seems like that would solve the issue you're referring to. Using an iframe as Iddo has done here would make it almost seamless, but that may not be possible for you. - Ruchira S. Datta

@genereg: People also tend to post where the reward (comment views and responses) is perceived to be the highest. Too bad FF doesn't do pingbacks to the original article (I believe PLoS ONE would make use of that)? - Eric Jain

True, a discussion probably belongs on the article's site. But things happened differently. Anyhow, i'd rather we discuss the actual idea of photonic signal transduction than discuss where to discuss it. - Iddo Friedberg

"why not add a link to this FF discussion on the PLoSOne site?" - I thought about this. Indeed, that would work. However, I suppose, after doing this, some people would remove/edit their comments here. Indeed, what was posted in FF under real names was not supposed to be shown to the whole world by these people. I am sorry for interfering with the discussion of this concrete article, I... more... - genereg

Better go and edit your comments: I've linked this thread at the paper. I think the authors deserve an easy way to find out that they're talked about :-) Now go ahead, shoot me :-) - Björn Brembs

Bjoern, egosearching on Google is pretty damn easy. But I don't mind -- I guess genereg's "some people" means me above, but I'm not going to edit or delete anything and I'm not afraid of public comments. I was even wrong in my first reply to him, since if you look at my online presence I'm quite happy to make a fool of myself anywhere. :-) I was, and am, much happier to talk here than in the comments at P1, and "why?" is a damn good question. - Bill Hooker

[an aside: FF should have a "comment" button at the bottom as well as the top of each thread longer than about ten replies...] - Bill Hooker

I had, as I said, every intention of passing on any substantive criticisms. I have no hesitation in doing so under my real name (though I agree with genereg that strong anonymity should be available to those who want/need it). I'm a diehard OA supporter and have made no secret of my very high opinion of PLoS ONE. So -- what is my problem?! Apart from the fact that I do indeed have the fucking flu, I guess it's sheer laziness. - Bill Hooker

There's a community here of people I like and trust and respect, where I am confident that I'll be corrected when I get something wrong (and even patted on the back a little if I do something right -- I think that matters too, to most of us). It's *comfortable* here. Whereas at PLoS ONE, much as I esteem the journal, it's... nothing. Just another website, with no community. And given... more... - Bill Hooker

Finally, I disagree with genereg about the "point" of PLoS ONE. To me, the community aspect (if one ever forms) is icing on the cake. The *point* is to publish good science in an OA vehicle without paying any attention to whether it's "hot" or "significant" or any of that crap that the Prestige Journals trade on. - Bill Hooker

@Bill, I wanted to make some general comments, which were probably misinterpreted. My comment was not about these particular comments in this FF thread, not about this particular article, and not about this particular journal which published this article. I agree with you that this FF room is very nice for community building. However, I believe that reviewing, whether it is a... more... - genereg

+1 Bill. Just before the launch of PLoS ONE, Chris Surridge, the then Managing Editor of P1 gave this talk which is rather informative:- http://video.google.com/videopl... - Graham Steel

@Bill, "The *point* is to publish good science in an OA vehicle without paying any attention to whether it's "hot" or "significant" or any of that crap that the Prestige Journals trade on" -- I absolutely agree with this, and don't see how this contradicts to what I said previously. The *point* is, then, that the articles are judged by the community after the publication, and feedback... more... - genereg

My point is that I don't think feedback by comment is working, and may never work. Even if we had this entire conversation in the article comments (minus of course the off-topic stuff about where to have the conversation!), it would be a little island on the web, a separate enclosed destination -- whereas this thread is part of an ongoing FF community conversation. I'm even a little... more... - Bill Hooker

Also, even in the absence of a "harvesting" method or feedback-by-comment, I think citation analysis should be an adequate mechanism whereby the community can render its collective judgement. Get the work out there, easily findable, and then decide in retrospect (rather than trying to guess in advance) which of it was most useful to other researchers. - Bill Hooker

@genereg, sorry, missed your comment there about your points being general (man, we really need numbers or anchors on these comments!). I think this specific case serves as a reasonable test-bed for your general ideas though. Mostly I think we agree, but I don't believe that honest critique "can only damage personal relations". Are we not supposed to be scientists? We can't be... more... - Bill Hooker

P.S. Thanks for the well-wishes. I'm full of drugs right now and feel pretty good. :-) - Bill Hooker

A couple comments, Bill. 1)http://ff.im/2qvTp - bottom comment link userscript 2)You're dead right, IMO about the community for comments. No one wants to be the first to show up to a party, and no one wants to be the only one to comment on something. Humans are social animals. 3) I think technological problems deserve technological solutions. Couldn't PLoS spider the web for links to their articles, and pull in comments thereby? Most blogs have comment feeds, Disqus and friendfeed and twitter have APIs. - Mr. Gunn

@Mr.Gunn "No one wants to be the first to show up to a party, and no one wants to be the only one to comment on something" -- unless this is an anonymous comment, in which case I would not care, whether I am the first one to comment on something. And, as I said, I believe that most of the comments on the journal articles should be anonymous. Completely anonymous - hiding not only the name, but also the computer IP from tracking. - genereg

I understand the idea behind anonymous comments, but I think that doesn't take into consideration the psychology behind why people comment, and why communities form in the first place. It's not so much about altruistically setting the record straight or adding interpretive commentary, but rather to interact and be interacted with. If you post something here that you think is really... more... - Mr. Gunn

Sorry, Iddo, BTW, for the thread hijacking. I was originally hoping for more comments on the science itself too. This is one reason why the "related items" feature is good, because it allows you to get differently initialized discussions on the same object. - Mr. Gunn

"It's not so much about altruistically setting the record straight or adding interpretive commentary, but rather to interact and be interacted with" -- well, then why people anonymously participate in the internet forums? Why questions are being asked and answered by anonymous people in all kinds of internet communities? Why, from the beginning of Internet (which was for scientists from... more... - genereg

Whoa, interesting discussion, but way off topic for what I originally intended for it. I guess no one has anything interesting to say about the study itself... - Iddo Friedberg

Maybe you should try posting the article again, Iddo, since we derailed the conversation on this item? Ian and Bill did have science-related comments at the beginning. - Mr. Gunn

genereg - It's not about using your real name, it's about having an identity. Whether you're kewlscientist2010 or Dr. Bob Jones, PhD, you still want interaction with other people who share your interests, and leaving an isolated comment on a low traffic page isn't interaction. regarding your other point, certainly friendfeed can be many things to many people, but the real-time discussion isn't really happening for me. The discussions I've been part of have occurred over the span of a couple days. - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn - Science is not about interaction and having fun actually. When several years will pass, what is important is that someone finds this Biophotonics article on the journal web site, and the comments left by the others will help him to identify the problems associated with this study. It is not important who has left these comments and when. Obviously, most people will not want... more... - genereg

I'm not going to remove my throwaway comment, but I do think it was pretty rude to repost without asking permission. I realize it's public already, searchable and so on, and so it doesn't make a technical difference, but the fact remains you've dragged other people along for your personal ideology. What if people have a specific reason for not posting at PLoS? - Ian York

... You've overridden their preferences for your ideology. Would you feel just as smug about reposting this thread on a porn site? Or conservativopedia? It's not wrong, but it's really impolite. Ask for permission next time. - Ian York

Ian, can I ask a question about this because I'm interested in your perspective which seems a little different to mine. Would it be ok if e.g. PLoS started to automatically harvest these comments? Doesn't seem likely that they would be able to ask permission on each thread and it is publically accessible and searchable. Is your objection that _someone_ republished, or that it was re-published? - Cameron Neylon

+1 Cameron: what if the author had linked to the thread? I've linked to other papers on my PLoS One paper, I could also link to a thread on FF. Indeed, I have linked to all activity I could find anywhere on my blog which connects paper and discussions. Should I have personally asked all the hundreds and hundreds of commenters on the various sites who have commented on my paper? - Björn Brembs

If you post in public, it's not uncommon to be reposted somewhere else. This is just a part of how we distribute and aggregate conversation. Guess what I'm saying is - if you don't want to be reshared, don't share. - Neil Saunders

I agree Neil, but I think this is part of the education process - people tend not to be aware that something is as "public" as it is and there are issues with people wanting to control the way their content is re-shared (or shared at all). Both technical and social issues here. Hence the reason I am interested in unpacking Ian's view - otherwise we just end up reinforcing our own. - Cameron Neylon

I'd say that any of those possibilities are rude. I'm well aware that everything is public nowadays (I've been online since 1988, I have probably thousands of comments and posts that are easily found), but there's still an issue of courtesy. I frame comments in the context of an audience. The things I say about a paper, when sitting around chatting with a friend, are not the same things... more... - Ian York

And Neil, thanks for your pronouncement that "if you don't want to be reshared, don't share". I'm unsubscribing from friendfeed now. - Ian York

Ian, so the idea of for instance someone writing up an article on a conference presentation would be similar? Or is it more that you think the context of a comment should be carried with it? I guess I am failing to understand the distinction you make between "possible" - clearly it is easy to push stuff around, "wrong" and "impolite" - I don't quite understand how something can be "not... more... - Cameron Neylon

Bah, one last comment before I follow Neil's suggestion and stop sharing. Do you really not understand how something can be "not wrong" but "impolite"? That's the fundamental point of society. You don't tell a new mother how ugly her baby is, not matter how accurate the description is. If you don't understand the difference, then you don't belong in society. If that's the friendfeed... more... - Ian York

Perhaps I completely misunderstood your point but I thought you were saying that linking from an external site into a conversation without asking first was "not wrong" but "impolite". Not an issue of factual correctness but one of ethics. I personally don't see any particular ideology in creating a link, merely a wish to provide a connection between related pieces of information. I... more... - Cameron Neylon from twhirl

It's not technically "wrong", because obviously it's already a public conversation. It is rude to do it without asking permission. It's technically trivial for someone to unilaterally move the conversation. You may not agree with someone's reasons for preferring the move isn't made, but it's impolite to ignore those preferences. If you want a specific reason -- as I've already explained... more... - Ian York

I get the point you're making about context, Ian. There's a strong tendency online to co-opt communities and spread stuff around, but that does work against context. The particular tack I've taken is just to never say anything I wouldn't want to come up in a search, and correspondingly to not get offended by a throwaway comment regarding me that someone else makes, but I understand there's a tradeoff. - Mr. Gunn

Ian, speaking for myself, I'm not baffled, I just don't agree with you. By your standards (which aren't in any case consistent -- you're all bent out of shape about Neil's "pronouncement", then you go and tell us that if we don't understand your point we "don't belong in society") -- I need to ask permission for every link I make. You claim that FF "encourages short throwaway comments";... more... - Bill Hooker

Bill, you're more than welcome to disagree with me, that's certainly your privilege. I'm not particularly "bent out of shape", but it's pretty clear that you and others aren't interested in respecting my wishes, and that you and others think if I'm not willing to abide by your wishes I'm not welcome here, so the simplest thing is for me not to share here. - Ian York

Posting a comment is more public than shouting the comment on the market square with a big posterboard and all. On a market square, ow many people are going to be able to see and hear you? If you're lucky, maybe a few hundred. On FF and any other unprotected part of the net, it's millions. The quotient gets even worse for an offhand remark at a conference, where maybe only one person can hear you. To claim that a comment on FF is as private as a remark to a single person is just ludicrous. - Björn Brembs

If you post on the innerwebz for millions to see, don't be surprised if millions actually do see what you posted. - Björn Brembs

Ian, you are welcome here, at least on my account; I'm just not going to ask your permission to make links to FF threads, or include the FF widget on my blog, or whatever else might put your comments somewhere you haven't pre-authorized. Is that refusal on my part really so unreasonable? - Bill Hooker

Are we dealing with evolving etiquette here? When I was a kid, keeping one earphone in and only removing one while you talk to a teacher would have got you physically beaten; now I see kids doing it all the time. And they're not being rude, it's how they talk to each other as well. And teachers, even the semi-fossilized ones my age, seem to have understood that and adapted. Perhaps at... more... - Bill Hooker

OK, so as much as I agree with Bill Bjorn, et al, I think they're wrong to take that attitude. While I certainly don't care what someone does with my comments, Ian does. We can go two ways with this: Ask Ian to change his feelings because the technology suggests he should, or make the technology adapt to different people's ways of sharing. While I agree with Bjorn and Bill that online... more... - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn -- this has turned more interesting than I'd expected, I had to give that some thought ... (I have to transfect cells, split others, and fix liquid nitrogen storage, so this is a quick response): I have no issue at all with most of the uses of links, because they retain context. I see the PLoS comments as a fundamentally different context than the conversation that's part of a... more... - Ian York

*whew* You're still here! ;-) I have a blog post coming up where I'm trying to dissect out some of these issues, because this is exactly the sort of thing that's not easily handled in real-time. I'm interested in how we can make it clear that aggregated content is from a distinctly different context than the actual comment sections of the journals. - Mr. Gunn

@Mr. Gunn: "asking someone to change their opinion to suit the technology is totally going the wrong way around". Interesting comment. We use technology to change behavior all the time (cameras in UK anyone?). Technology also inadvertently changes behavior (basically since the invention of weapons). New technology always forces us to consider carefully of the old ways of behaving will... more... - Björn Brembs

It's absolutely logically correct that people should understand that anything they post publicly is free for the taking, but that doesn't mean that everyone does feel this way. Are you going to wait around for those people to change their mind or are you going to try to find a way to include everyone and respect the context in which things are said? - Mr. Gunn

I think I understand what you're getting at here, Mr Gunn, but I don't know how far you can go with it. I'm not sure that a technical fix is possible that will suit Ian's requirements; and if we can find one, what do we do about the next person to be offended by a standard online behaviour like creating a hyperlink? How far backwards do we bend to accomodate people's feelings, and when... more... - Bill Hooker

That's not quite right, Bill. I don't think anyone here is complaining about links, because when you follow the link, you see the comment in its original context. The issue was keeping things in context. For example, it might preserve context better to have a sidebar on the article containing snippets and links to aggregated content, while leaving the comment thread under the article only for comments directly left at the site. - Mr. Gunn

That's what I was struggling to understand I think. I can see an objection to cutting and pasting the whole thread across, or worse, parts of it out of context, but if we accept the idea of requiring permission to link then the whole web will collapse. Like I said on the other thread there is a point to think about which is comment licensing - I guess Ian would want a "no derivatives"... more... - Cameron Neylon

I think the complaint was about a link - follow through to the article comment itself and Bjorn has simple placed a link saying "this paper is being discussed elsewhere" so the context is maintained. This is the root of my difficulty. At one level I feel it would be rude _not_ to make that link (ignoring for the moment the fact that we are still not talking about photons (-: ). That is... more... - Cameron Neylon

Wait a second. Ian said he was "reposted". I took that to mean that the text of his comments were in fact reposted, and I didn't even check - it's obvious to me what "reposting" means and that it would certainly be rude. When I look now, I see the source of the confusion - there is only a link to this whole discussion. I do still understand how someone could object to that, however, so... more... - Mr. Gunn

Well said Mr Gunn, I think there's a lot in that. (professional vs. personal on the web) On the professional side of things I agree with Cameron (maybe you do too, really!) that we can't be asking permission the whole time, particularly for multi-person threads. [Thinks: where is FF's 'call a vote' function?] Biophotons for signalling sounds awesome. - Matthew Todd

We certainly can't be asking permission all the time, but that's a technical consideration, and we can't put people's wishes, however irrational, aside because it makes the technology easier. There should be an expectation that anything you post online is re-shareable, but there also need to be consideration of context, just out of politeness. In most cases where that would be an issue,... more... - Mr. Gunn

Brad Williamson to Brad's feed, Media News and Analysis, Social Media, Social Media Club, RWW: The Future of Tech, TheNextWeb Forum

Remember that collage of web 2.0 companies? Well, it's been updated... - http://meish.org/2009...

May 14 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Gordon Montgomery, Cesar Sanchez, Nicholas James and 34 other people liked this

"This collage of web 2.0 logos should be pretty familiar to many people by now. It’s been knocking about for a few years, ever since the whole Web 2.0 Koolaid (what’s the British equivalent? Ribena?) started flowing. During that time, I’ve seen it printed out and stuck up on the walls of companies and individuals, appearing in about a million blogs, and it should almost go without saying that this image gets used endlessly in presentations at events about the social web, or web 2.0 technologies, or the changing face of business in the last few years, or design and UX in the new web. So having recently been confronted with this image in a presentation (used as being indicative of current reality), I thought it was time that it was updated. I present these updates without reference to or predicting the demise of web 2.0 or social technologies or anything like that. Just to be a bit more accurate. - Brad Williamson from Bookmarklet

NOTE: If you like this article, make sure to join the "Media News And Analysis" group... http://friendfeed.com/media-n... - Brad Williamson

How many years with Web 2.0 last? - Cristo

Jeremiah Owyang

Just learned a new acronym about "Hippo": Highest Paid Person's Opinion. Bad for website decisions.

June 30, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Gilbert Yap, Type Micah, Steve Matthews and 27 other people liked this

HiPPO is often used in the context of website optimization. Take a typical SEM scenario- Google AdWords keyword driving users to a landing page. How do you determine the best combination of imagery, messaging, call to action buttons, etc. to present on the landing page to drive conversion. For many customers, the HiPPO makes these decisions. Unfortunately, the HiPPO rarely gets it right. Website optimization is about using data to determine the best combination of factors on a page to drive conversions. - Tom Wentworth

9 more comments

I'll have to use this. - Louis Gray

yeah I just learned that a couple of months ago. - Stefan Hayden

and the best part is the visual image that goes with it... HIPPO throwing its weight around... - Lucretia Pruitt

bad for ANY decisions - Tom Guarriello

Louis you probably ARE the Hippo at your company - Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah, that's not true. I wish. - Louis Gray

Two stages to corporate purchasing: 1) The poor sap that does the research, due diligence, builds a relationship, negotiates, prints out an email 2) The guy that writes the check to his brother-in-law's company - Andy Murdoch

Smack in the middle of HiPPO pool at my work. Very frustrating - John Frost

I attended an Analytics workship where Avinash Kaushik recommended landing page testing as the most effective way to neutralize a HIPPO. They tested several LP designs, one that reflected the opinions of the HIPPO, marketing manger and janitor. The janitor's page won. - Lorna Li

I am sure to use this acronym. Like probably Tomorrow. - Eric Logan

The Life Scientists: Attila Csordas

A suggestion: FriendFeed type of Q&A (uninterview) with cool life scientists (non-celebs, celebs) here using the initiative & weight of this community? Algorithm: i., picking names ii., set up a timeline iii., sending out invites iv., posting a message (body of the Q&A) v., discussion 1 example is how I invited Steven Brenner to contribute...

May 3 - Comment - Like - Share

dK, Anthony Phan, Alexey and 11 other people liked this

http://friendfeed.com/the-lif... by now we probably have the strength to reach & invite most of the people we'd like - Attila Csordas

19 more comments

Good idea, Attila! I agree that FF would be a suitable platform for iii. For i and ii, I think a blog or wiki would do better. What about http://openwetware.org/wiki... ? - Daniel Mietchen

Daniel, the idea is to have an uninterview w/ a life scientist here (every step included) harnessing the energy of this community. (iii., sending out invites means inviting the uninterviewee to FF in order to do the Q&A here), testing FF as a platform for such activities - Attila Csordas

That's actually a pretty good idea, Attila! - Mr. Gunn

I think you'd have to give your interviewee a reasonable timespan -- say, two or three days? -- during which he/she agrees to check the FF thread and post replies as often as time permits. Otherwise you might as well be doing it by skype/irc; I think the advantage of FF is the small but useful time lag, which allows time to think about answers and time to fit the uninterview into a busy schedule. - Bill Hooker

Bill: you're right, we have to agree on the proper timespan of the Q&A. I think 2 or 3 days sounds perfect. We should ask interviewees to allocate, say 1 hour time/day to engage in the discussion here & answer at least, say 3 questions/day. How does that sound? Maybe a bit overregulated? - Attila Csordas

Thanks, Mr. Gunn, hope others will like it too. - Attila Csordas

Attila: maybe a bit over-regulated; I figure if we ask interesting questions the interviewee will end up spending way too much time here, like we all do. :-) - Bill Hooker

Let's pick some scientists (academia, industry), who would you like to (un)interview here? - Attila Csordas

Atul Butte, Paulien Hogeweg, Genentech's Art Levinsohn, Craig Venter (reached his PR agent once) - Attila Csordas

that's awesome! great idea! - Alexey

Declan Butler (Nature/France), Jean Weissenbach (CNS/France), Catherine Letondal (Pasteur/France), Pierre Tambourin (Genopole/France), someone at NCBI, other fields of science (humanities, physics, etc...) - Pierre Lindenbaum

Declan (a colleague) is a journo, though, not a life scientist ;-) Do you want to broaden it to hangers-on (camp-followers) or keep it to proper scientists? - Maxine

there's no need for a 'proper scientist' vs. journo distinction, everybody who's doing interesting stuff in the bio/bioinfo/biotech/biomedical field qualifies as an (un)interviewee - Attila Csordas

Thx Pierre for the suggestions, other cool biopeople you'd like to invite here for a 3 day interview period open for any kind of questions? - Attila Csordas

How about James Watson? - Jim Hardy

How about turning the tables on Richard Poynder? (http://www.richardpoynder.co.uk/The%20B...) I suspect all the blogs-vs-msm people would have plenty to ask Richard. - Bill Hooker

Great call, Bill. - Graham Steel

Cosma Shalizi (http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~cshali...) makes occasional forays into biology and would probably have lots to talk about with programmers and statisticians hereabouts. Data mining, social and other networks, machine learning, signal transduction, collective cognition and dozens of other things I don't understand: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshal... - Bill Hooker

That's another good one, Bill. Also, maybe Wolfram? He seems to be doing a bit of a PR tour ATM. - Mr. Gunn

Georgy Daley is a great speaker, and Rudy Jaenisch would be another recommendation. - Mr. Gunn

R for Bioinformatics: Yann Abraham

Statistical Computing with R | Twine - http://www.twine.com/twine...

August 30, 2008 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

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R for Bioinformatics: Yann Abraham

LinkedIn: Discussion: The R Project for Statistical Computing - http://www.linkedin.com/groupAn...

April 1 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

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Using R to query online databases - Yann Abraham from Bookmarklet

AnswerFeed: Nilesh

“would u register domain / twitter / facebook and other web 2.0 service for your new born ? i would...” - http://friendfeed.com/e...

April 24 - Comment - Like - Share

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Using feedly

Is there a way to look at the most frequently recommended articles in Feedly? - http://getsatisfaction.com/feedly...

May 5 from [Satisfaction]: All topics... - Comment - Like - Share

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Meryn Stol

"What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting." - Larry Page http://www.google.com/intl...

May 6 - Comment - Like - Share

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FriendFeed Feedback: Farshad

Does FriendFeed stores all the user's feeds from the beginning ? Or they will be deleted from time to time ?

May 5 - Comment - Like - Share

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if the former can I periodcially get copies of my feed on dat tape? - matthew john ernisse from IM

4 more comments

Someone looked at this - I think the archives go back about a month. Not very long at all. - Mr. Gunn

We do not delete anything "from time to time". You can only page pack a certain number of entries due to performance concerns. We have been raising this number as we become more and more efficient. You can always search for any entry. - Benjamin Golub

Thank you, Benjamin, I could expect no less but it feels reassuring to be able to read it. That said, I hope you are making provisions for future options of exporting one's entire accumulated feed in hypertextual XML/ zipped form. In fact, I am surprised that there isn't now an option to email one's daily updates in a digest, akin to the Best-of-Day one. - ianf ⌘

Benjamin, hence the 21-page 'bug or whatever number it is now. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

@matthew you just stumbled onto something that could be the beginning of a beautiful and consumer-friendly FF business model (current temporary, while they're looking for a viable one, has not been disclosed): periodical sale of accumulated user submissions on DAT tape. - ianf ⌘

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