Eric Martindale › Likes

I really like this post. My thoughts: does "god" have a gender? i don't think the semantic web will have one either...after...all. (shrug) - Briana Franco from FriendFeed MT Plugin

This is why librarianship - a traditionally gendered profession (female) - is so important to the creation and continued development of the Semantic Web. After all, it is librarians who continue to challenge the racist/sexist/xenophobic classifications that still exist in the Dewey Decimal System (and, to a lesser degree, the Library of Congress Classification System). - cecily

It's Pat! - Michael W. May

Great post Marshall! Hearkens me back to even deeper feminist thinking about representation itself as a gendered practice...making meaning has largely been a "male" endeavor, and yet, meaning has never been completely contained nor controlled by the masculine. As the commenter above alludes to in his intentional (mis)reading of novels, making meaning can flow outside the machines that... more... - Nate Angell from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Excellent post Marshall. Thanks for shedding light on this because I never really thought about it in terms of the development of the Semantic Web. This is an important issue and the work of Corinna Bath matters to ensure these discussions take place as the Semantic Web develops. The example of the phone book is a great example of gender bias as is the examples provided by Cecily... more... - Miiko Mentz from FriendFeed MT Plugin

@mediachick's fantastic StumbleUpon summary of this post: mediaChick71 - "So is it a boy or a girl?" As the best brains in the tech industry take us from html markups to a semantic web, one woman is making the rounds to remind them that gender assumptions have no place in domain knowledge. Corinna Bath is an academic researcher from Austria who brings up some critical issues about... more... - Marshall Kirkpatrick

On a more serious side... www.Cosmopolitan.com was most probably built by men, on software coded by men. Possibly fat, bald, geek men. Could you tell? I think this is a very good post only because it is thought provoking and brings a fresh perspective on the table, but the question itself is quite pointless. C'mon. Genre is determined by genes and is relevant to sexuality. I don't see... more... - Aldo Bucchi from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Aldo you have a point, but many websites - especially large ones that are built by agencies - have teams of user experience experts who work alongside developers. It's the UX and Information Architects who build out site navigation, and most (not all) UX/IA folks test taxonomies before committing final versions to the website. If you test with your intended audience, the taxonomies map to their brains better than if you didn't test and used your own perspective. - cecily

Interestingly enough, women are well represented in the Human Computer Interaction/IA/UX discipline. In fact, many computer science students call HCI "CS for Girls" because HCI programs don't usually include many of the "hard" CS courses (programming, application development) and focus more on psychology, cognitive behavior, and interaction design. - cecily

What a load of blather. Male geeks aren't very good at thinking like non-male non-geeks - this is not news. But declaring dramatically in this way that "the Semantic Web may end up being gender biased" is making a storm in a teacup. The phone book "example" is clearly not relevant to today's situation. By the way, regarding the phrase "Some argue that..." sorry, but over on Wikipedia we call those weasel words. - Earle Martin

Also, from the linked interview: "Alison Adam analyzed the well-known ontology CYC... She revealed that the knowing subject implicitly assumed by the system is a white, middle-class male professional." Oh really. Check out this excerpt of a review of where she said it: http://muse.jhu.edu/login... - Earle Martin

In fact, Google Books has a preview of Adam's book. (http://books.google.co.uk/books...) Quote: "...the AI idea of search and goal seeking... harks back to Aristotelian notions of goals, and can also be seen in terms of the phallocentric urge to a unitary goal described by postmodernist thought." Give me a break! - Earle Martin

I couldn't disagree more with the article :) but i'm months late. is it worth grumbling at this late date? - Dan Brickley

had a chance to try it out in Seattle last week, Can't wait for the release... - Dave Fletcher

I applied on all my accounts and got nothin. :/ - mjc

Sorry to sound like a noob but what is WotLK? - Jeff Garlick

Yeah, it's kind of funny. Some of them almost seem like they're being sarcastic, but of course that's not possible :) - Paul Buchheit

Chinese nationalism about clean air? Clean air just makes sense...side note: i posted entire SYTYCD Finale Dance show in room... - Pokai

btw, which plugin allows for friendfeed comments directly on the blog? Or is that a Movable Type blog you've got there... Oh, no it's not. Which plugin is that? - Zee.

Great post, you hit most of my recent peeves. - Heather Solos

@Zee - WordPress: http://blog.slaven.net.au/wordpre... - Chris Brogan

strange - sure i have that installed but I'm not getting the ability to add comments directly on the blog which is awesome. Will look into it - cheers. - Zee.

I would not even think of it. - Daniel Schildt

You could always decapitate him. - Dave Winer

if he's still asleep you could win, if he's agitated stay away - clarke thomas

Ask him if he wants to see a magic trick. Tell him you're gonna make a pencil disappear... - Johnny Worthington

Leave and go to Startbucks, or Costas. - Roberto Bonini

As a Canadian - bus homicides currently not funny. As a caffeine addict - justifiable homicide. - Stephen Pierzchala

Is he flagged for PVP? - Northorn

Probably just get real bitchy, and get you thrown off. - Jacob

Probably looked shocked for a moment, then start crying profusely - StephenTorrence from twhirl

Do the same. - Henk de Kruyff from twhirl

no blue flagging! Please state your intentions before intiatiing combat! - Jeff L. from twhirl

Nice idea: life capture the flag (i.e. coffee) on the bus, train, plane. - Henk de Kruyff from twhirl

You could ask nicely. - John Flinchbaugh

Or go the splinter cell way and distract him with an emoty bottle... then grab the coffe and hide in the shadows till he goes away. - Henk de Kruyff from twhirl

damn you were up early today - Socom

just get a straw and suck some out of the cup when he's not looking. Even if you get caught it has to be so silly looking a person couldn't stay mad for long. - Bryan

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE - medic

This wins the twitter of the day award!!110! - Percival

actually he probably wouldn't do anything. People hate getting into fights and will put up with a lot just to avoid it - Josue Salazar

I'm already using Digg more in anticipation of this - MG Siegler

Forgetting about the traffic ramifications, why would anyone think Digg is a better recommendation engine than FriendFeed? - Robert Seidman

well having not seen it in action yet, it's hard to know, but it's hard to look past this http://trends.google.com/website... if digg can get it right, it could be very, very useful. - MG Siegler

Yup, I'm going to Digg some stuff now. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

How long before FriendFeed or someone cleverly using its API builds a recommendation for everything? - Dan Kaplan

Digg is doomed. I think Digg, and Slashdot and the ilk have shown us the reality that crowds do not bring wisdom but tyranny and gamesmanship. Digg is a anti-MS, pro-Obama and conspiracy theory filled zone of the lowest common denominator. Slashdot jumped the same shark years ago and Wikipedia is the highest profile example of the sort of silliness that happens. FriendFeed / Twitter / Reader is better for me because it is a selected group of people I have chosen... not a mob. - Soulhuntre

@soulhuntre, so you don't think something like this will help digg combat staleness/repetitiveness? - MG Siegler

Yeah, cuz recommendation engines work so well on Netflix and Amazon. - Leo Laporte

What do you mean Leo? Netflix was wrong in recommending me A Fish called Wanda when I watched Lady in the Water? I mean, I do like movies about women in water, right? RIGHT? - Andru Edwards

I have never used a recommendation engine that actually worked - Grant

Digg is still useful imo. I love it. - john conroy

Of course... I only saw this on FriendFeed because I unsubscribed from Valleywag. - Louis Gray

the problem for me is that I have way too many "friends" on Facebook that I don't care about... but I guess Facebook could somehow implement a compatibility rating or something to weight recommendations - Rex Pechler from Alert Thingy

the problem with the article is that in in the end, it is nothing more than a "Facebook is better than FriendFeed" article. The author brings up some good points, but in the end fails to recognize the conversation that happens on FriendFeed. You can do conversation on the items that Facebook lets you import. - Michael Koby

And where is the assumption that someone with thousands of friends is any more into "socializing" than the person with 50 friends? - Judi Sohn

hei. fake woman back in line. chocolate and coffee goes here first, basta. - Nicole Simon

robert, yeah, we want to see them! :) - Timo Heuer

@judi yes, that is stupid. it does not take into account that people act on different levels. at the same time, somebody with 1k friends can be more socializing and happy than somebody with 50. @Ran ;) - Nicole Simon

I would tend to think there is a large distinction in this based on age. I find as I get older, I am working to establish and re-establish links with the community I have know over the years. Most of these are now mostly social rather than professional. - 2WheelTech

Stereotypes on a grand scale like this are lame. Everyone's different and unique. I've seen very social men and "all business" women as well... so this assessment is a fallacy as it's premise is completely unfounded (and doesn't match reality!) ha, there I said it - that writer needs to get out more!! - Susan Beebe

I'm a man, and I don't see how these things can be used for business. I'd have to convince all of my business contacts to join these sites first, which is more of a hassle than just dealing with them the "old fashioned" way. - Henrik W Lund from twhirl

Personally, I don't get how their numbers support their assumption. It seems like a big leap in logic, i.e. if you're a super connector, it must be for business rather than social reasons, or that women are less likely to connect for business. Who's to say a guy with more connections than Robert (is that possible?) isn't big into Battlestar Galatica fanfiction, the online art scene, or looking for love? - Amie Gillingham

not true at all, - Vijay Veerachandran from Alert Thingy

Avery sweeping stereotypical statement really - Sally Church from Alert Thingy

I wouldn't say that I was all business, I don't socialise as much as I would if I were single but I still get involved when I can! - Joe Dawson from Alert Thingy

I just polluted the heck out of my "business" feed on Plaxo with blog posts, Flickr, Digg, Google Reader shared items, etc. That should force the issue. - Louis Gray

I see an awful lot of male marketers chatting like old ladies on Twitter - Prokofy Neva

I guess you're in the rare "really large group of friends" category, eh, Robert? You may be the charter member of that group! But I'm not sure I get that article... Isn't participation in a social network by definition "socialization"? It seems that it's the relationships you have with the people in the network that would determine whether its "social" or "business", not the number of relationships... - Lindsay