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Meryn Stol › Likes
What is Data’s Killer App? - http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pkeane...
Meryn Stol, Louis Gray, Jeffrey Canton and 3 other people liked this
"I think that for the most part we have all of the pieces that we need — we simply lack applications that use them. For protocols, I think that HTTP and related Open Web standards (AtomPub, OpenID, OAuth, OpenSearch, etc.) offer a fairly complete toolset. Too often, our systems either don’t interoperate, or offer services that are simply proprietary, application-specific protocols on top of HTTP (e.g., SOAP-based RPC-style web services), which misses the whole point of the Web: HTTP is not just a transport protocol, but IS the application protocol itself." -Peter Keane
- DeWitt Clinton
Good read -- Peter Keane talks about where the world of data (from the library's perspective) and the web could converge, but don't always do.
- DeWitt Clinton
Python is for Girls: http://www.23monkeys.com/designs...
Mine Ekim, Berk D. Demir, Carolyn Chan and 17 other people liked this
What a great shirt!
- Michael R. Bernstein
ahahaha
- Ceyhun Alyeşil
:)
- winckel
...because real men use braces and semicolons.
- raphaeL
Real men write code using an FP language.
- Akiva Moskovitz
Real men code with chisels and stone tablets, See:Hammurabi
- Spidra Webster
Akiva, is that FP for "FrontPage" ;) (I couldn't resist)
- Melanie Reed
Melanie, well the word functional *is* inside dysfunctional, so you have a point :D
- Micah Wittman
Micah roflol *cough, cough*
- Melanie Reed
100% YEP TO EVERYTHING
- Akiva Moskovitz
Confessions of a Converted Lecturer: Eric Mazur - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Meryn Stol, Vlado Handziski, Michael R. Bernstein and 6 other people liked this
Eric Mazur: "I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my students' performance significantly."
- Michael Nielsen
I got to hear Mazur talk about this at the New Faculty Workshop (for new physics profs) last year. It was very powerful. Perhaps the most useful thing I learned was that there are data (with error bars and reproducible) that can demonstrate how much more effective instruction can be, compared with traditional lecture. For example, figure 1 here (the "hake plot" that Mazur shows): http://physics.umd.edu/perg...
- Steve Koch
A sort of generalization that I came away from the workshop with: you can improve conceptual learning by doing almost anything that is different from traditional lecture and more interactive. For me and I think a lot of people, this was intuitive, but it's great to have data to look at. I also learned that I should do pre-tests in my courses if I really want to know if students are learning. But so far I've failed at doing that. Hoping to do it for Junior Lab next Fall.
- Steve Koch
Steve, pre-tests are becoming a real interest of mine, too, but I haven't figured out how to set one up yet for what I do. I was thinking along the lines of a series of tasks that I'd expect to be faster and more accurate by the end of a semester. I haven't listened to the talk yet, but it's on the calendar (I consider myself on vacation for 1 more day!), so I don't know what Mazur...
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- Mickey Schafer
I can report that a new assignment I developed last semester where students worked in groups to create CMEs (based on Medscape's freely available modules) worked very well even though I wasn't the one teaching them (umm. that didn't sound right -- it isn't whether I was doing the teaching, but that it was a first for developing a new, complex assignment that I didn't monitor/teach the...
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- Mickey Schafer
The powerlessness of pink : Pharyngula - http://scienceblogs.com/pharyng...
Meryn Stol and Michael R. Bernstein liked this
BLARGH
- Kårín Dalzĭel
DOUBLE BLARGH
- D0r0th34
When I was out shopping before Christmas, I heard a mother direct her son away from a certain toy aisle b/c it was a "girl" aisle (i.e., it was filled with pink stuff). It made me feel sick. I'm so tired of this stuff.
- Katy S
ugh.
- Jenica
Thing is, as a girl I hated pink. But it's impolite for a kid to say "hey, grandma and grandpa, could you stop getting me pink stuff and for that matter barbies?"
- Kårín Dalzĭel
<crankyrant>When I worked in a kids bookstore, people would ask for books for a girl or boy and I would steadfastly say, "I'm sorry, I don't know what that means. What does he or she like to do or read?" Even worse, people would ask me to wrap presents for a girl or boy. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!? For the record, I hate pale pink (on me, it is fine for other people, if they like it). </crankyrant>
- marthalib
Oh, yeah. I hated how books with a girl protagonist were "girl books" but if the protagonist was a boy is was suitable for all. :P
- Kårín Dalzĭel
Martha, there's a section in Alberto Manguel's _History of Reading_ where he talks about the gendered books of his childhood and how it was OK for girls to read "boy" books, but no boy could EVER read a "girl" book.
- DJF
Exactly, David. Absurd.
- marthalib
Had to go to Toys R Us for a work thing (salvation army gift tree) and was once again TOTALLY overwhelmed by the gendered divisions of aisles. It seems to me that it's gotten significantly worse since my (late 70s/early 80s) childhood, at least on the color (girl = TEH PINK!!!!!!) front. Also from that experience: if science is for boys (mostly), then art is for girls (mostly). Finding an art kit for a boy above age 8 or so was exceptionally challenging.
- Elaine Nelson
Finding art kits that are not gendered at all is much easier in stores dedicated to arts and/or crafts. When I worked at Blick we had many such kits every year.
- Kårín Dalzĭel
another observation: the smaller independent toy stores I have been in this year don't seem to pull this gender separation crap as much, another reason to shop there instead of the big box stores.
- Kårín Dalzĭel
I very much wish I had been able to go to an art store or an independent toy store...in this case, group activity FTL. :(
- Elaine Nelson
In addition to the points made in the post, it really annoys me that so many of the science kits aimed at girls (as in they're pink and have pics of girls on the box) focus on making lip balm or perfume or other things like that. Everything else is for boys. Now, I know that these things are real science - I have a female cousin chemist who works in the cosmetics industry - but the marketing of these things still bothers me.
- Katy S
Natural Language Processing with Python - http://www.nltk.org/book
Melita, Meryn Stol, Ho John Lee and 7 other people liked this
"This is a book about Natural Language Processing. By "natural language" we mean a language that is used for everyday communication by humans; languages like English, Hindi or Portuguese. In contrast to artificial languages such as programming languages and mathematical notations, natural languages have evolved as they pass from generation to generation, and are hard to pin down with explicit rules. We will take Natural Language Processing — or NLP for short — in a wide sense to cover any kind of computer manipulation of natural language. At one extreme, it could be as simple as counting word frequencies to compare different writing styles. At the other extreme, NLP involves "understanding" complete human utterances, at least to the extent of being able to give useful responses to them." -Steven Bird, Ewan Klein, and Edward Loper
- DeWitt Clinton
from Bookmarklet
The "right whale" book, published June 2009, is available online free under the CC BY-NC-ND (cool!). Or from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Natural.... O'Reilly link: http://oreilly.com/catalog.... Attn @amitp.
- DeWitt Clinton
This is a great book, very clearly and sistematically written. I have been exploring Natural Language Toolkit for a couple of weeks now and am finding the book to be rather useful - not only for nltk usage, but for nlp in general. Although nltk doesn't have a direct usage for the Croatian corpus which I am processing at the moment (or I still haven't found the stuff I need ^^), I have found many useful tips and ideas. And the fact the whole book is available online for free - how great is that :)
- Vedrana Janković
FriendFeed is for smart people
فرشید, Fatima, Susan Beebe and 82 other people liked this
There's no way I was going to post that to Twitter :-)
- Jesse Stay
oh no
- VAL D. Zone
RT: @jesse: FriendFeed is for smart people. :) Retweeted from FF.
- Jimminy Fuller
Thanks Jimminy :-)
- Jesse Stay
well then i will have to delete my account
- Allen Stern
Im out too ..
- johnpiercy
If you comment here you're a smart person - no worries ;-)
- Jesse Stay
yay! jesse - the more i comment, the smarter i am?
- Allen Stern
This is why I love the tubes.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
Im hanging around ,.,, but still cant get smarter .... heheheh Happy New Years Jesse !
- johnpiercy
Bye people..
- AJ Batac
Don't let Robert Scoble know about this ;-) He thinks he getting smarter over at Twitter...
- Jeff P. Henderson
Commenting because I want to be smart.
- Mellissa
And beautiful people too. I mean that in the good way, of course. ;)
- Martha
Martha, yes, lots of beautiful people - awesome people, too
- Jesse Stay
@Jeff He is thinks he is getting smarter there but he always needs to move the conversation off of that place because you can't really have a deep engaging brainshare there...
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
A Haiku: "To claim us all DEAD, To tell us we are all WRONG, makes one just look LAME"
- Johnny Worthington
Why not post it on Twitter? I'm all for saying what you think. Telling it how it is. (stirring things up.) ;) If you want a conversation, if you need to discuss anything, if you need to talk, it has to be FriendFeed.
- Sandra Large
Smarterer smarties choose FriendSmart =)
- Micah Wittman
Sandra, the problem with posting it on Twitter is people will take it the wrong way. Too hard to explain there.
- Jesse Stay
I wish to be smart, and thus I hang out in FriendFeed.
- imabonehead
Oh my god, I am so in the wrong place.
- Alix Whitmire
Cool. I hang out here too.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Robert, definitely one of the reasons to hang out on FriendFeed! I believe the first time we met we arranged it on FriendFeed.
- Jesse Stay
Isn't FF for the smart-est people or is that too dangerous to say?
- Thomas Power
People always talk about 'smart' people - what does that even mean, anyway?
- Mona Nomura
this guy ------>
- sofarsoShawn
People that talk about the subjects you like and give you bits of information that you can drop in later conversation...
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
Mona, it means you're smart enough to ask what it means :-)
- Jesse Stay
If it's for smart people I better leave. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Does liking count? :)
- zʍıɔ
Thank you, Mona. I was thinking the same thing.
- Michael Fidler
yeah !
- ★ Soner Gönül
Does being a smart ass qualify?
- Brian Sullivan
oh thanks Jesse for calling me that otherwise none care
- ffcode
Forget E-Books: The Future of the Book Is Far More Interesting - http://www.fastcompany.com/blog...
M F, Sharon Palchak, Musa Yılmaz and 6 other people liked this
"Coming soon ... It's the end of the book as we know it, and you'll be just fine. But it won't be replaced by the e-book, which is, at best, a stopgap measure. Sure, a bevy of companies are releasing e-book readers-there's Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and a half dozen other chunks of not-ready-for-primetime hardware. But technology marches on through predictable patterns of development, with the initial form of a new technology mirroring what came before, until innovation and consumer demand drive it far beyond initial incremental improvements. We are on the verge of re-imagining the book and transforming it something far beyond mere words."
- Derrick
from Bookmarklet
I see a future in which immersive reading coexists with other literary, visual and auditory modes of expression. You get the full book--all the words on the page or screen--but you also get so much more. And ask yourself: Which would you rather have, the hardcover book of today or this rich, multimedia treatment of the same title? Suddenly mere words on a page may feel a bit lifeless....
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- Derrick
I don't know. It sounds awesome for non-fiction, but part of reading fiction for me is letting my imagination paint the pictures/sounds/smells/feels. That's why it took so long for me to switch to watching a movie before reading a book - I didn't want to spoil that (now ads are so pervasive that I can't miss them and might as well watch the film first so I don't hate it for not being like the book.)
- Alix Whitmire
initial thought: "Suddenly mere words on a page may feel a bit lifeless." has me instantly agreeing with Alix and thinking fiction reading all about the imagination; even a poorly written novel is not lifeless by any stretch.
- Michael W. May
I have been reading a lot about the history and future of books lately--I'm teaching a class about it starting Monday--and I'm not very impressed with this. It's the same thing that people have been predicting forever, and it kind of already exists: it's called the World Wide Web. Yes, I think that e-books will get better in all kinds of ways, yes I believe that books on paper will soon...
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- s t e v e
I was going to add something (it's another remarkably ignorant "If B then Not A" death-of piece), but Steve's summed it up pretty well. And, as a couple of commenters on the piece said, telling writers that they're also required to be multimedia creators: Really? Do songwriters have to attach essays explaining their lyrics? Do painters have to write narratives as well? Maybe some professors think everything should be TV, but that's not the way the world works.
- Walt Crawford
Interesting to notice that I have over 57% as many subscribers on FriendFeed as I do on Twitter. Especially since there are hardly any bots or spam accounts on FriendFeed. Audience engagement here is still better, too.
A.T., Joel Lovato, rowlikeagirl and 52 other people liked this
And we appreciate you a lot more here.
- Louis Gray
What Mr. Gray said.
- imabonehead
Since July I've gotten 14,000 new followers on Twitter and 7,000 new ones here. Not sure why you aren't getting your fair share of Twitter followers. :-) But I think you are better engaged here than on Twitter, which brings you love in return, as Louis demonstrates.
- Robert Scoble
Aww, shucks, all. @Robert - I already have plenty of subscribers*, thanks. I'd much rather the current situation -- highly engaged people to chat with, many of whom have a gazillion subscribers themselves and can filter for me in the off chance I say something interesting -- than end up on something like the SUL with millions of people who couldn't care less being bombarded with my inanity.
- DeWitt Clinton
*Call me old school, but isn't "subscribers" just such a better word than "followers"?
- DeWitt Clinton
My first thought is that "subscribers" sounds so passive, one-directional. Like the recipients of a magazine. "Followers" doesn't sound any better, to be honest. I don't know if "followers" sounds passive, or like a stalker. "Trackers" sounds very disturbing. Is there a phrase that has a bi-directional quality, doesn't sound passive, and yet isn't creepy.
- Carl Setzer
By the way, I've never been on the SUL and if added would ask them to remove me. I agree it's a bad thing. Lists are a lot more interesting, because that's how you find an audience that actually cares what you have to say http://listorious.com
- Robert Scoble
Robert, you are on the SUL for Cliqset, though.
- April Russo (app103)
April: I just looked for an SUL on Cliqset and can't find one. Do you have a URL for it?
- Robert Scoble
I don't have a URL for it, but you are on the short SUL they show you when setting up a new account. Could make a new one just for the purpose of seeing who they suggest. ;-)
- April Russo (app103)
Robert: Here's a screenshot: http://dl.dropbox.com/u... And they are all checked, by default when you get to that page.
- April Russo (app103)
April: hmm, I didn't see that. So that's why I am getting added by a few people. Thanks for letting me know.
- Robert Scoble
Of course you wouldn't have seen it when you signed up, as you didn't have an account there yet and couldn't be on that list...lol. But if you were to make a new account now, you'd see that.
- April Russo (app103)
Re: subscribers vs followers... Meh. Now "minions," _that_ is a term I could endorse.
- DGentry
I have 384 subscribers on FF vs. 200 on Twitter. There's very little profound/useful stuff I can say in 140 or less, sorry
- LANjackal
it's good to see a lot of great people not great people but people with good content coming back to friendfeed again
- testbeta
LANjackal: that comment was 123 characters =D
- Mike Chelen
Hence the "very little" part of what I said, hahaha. That rarely happens. I don't consider most of what I tweet to be "profound", though it may be entertaining. It's certainly not informati- WHY IS THE CLOUD IN THE BACKGROUND MOVING ON THIS PAGE #shortattentionspan
- LANjackal
Can you recommend a good FriendFeed client? Would love something like TweetDeck for FF.
- Michael Brown
Michael, there's http://www.frienddeck.com/ , but I never much took to it. I should try it again. The native friendfeed.com web interface works well enough for me (well, I did write some hacks to effect a few enhancements http://friendfeed.com/ffhacks ).
- Micah Wittman
FriendFeed on the Kindle
dreikanter, 阿石, Sheila Taylor and 115 other people liked this
FriendFeed, Kindle, Bret Taylor, and even a hint of Obama. Pure "like" bait for sure. : )
- DeWitt Clinton
I have been baited :)
- Bret Taylor
No CSS on the Kindle?
- Paul Buchheit
The regular user pages weren't rendering at all, so I switched to /iphone/ and it worked. Wait, does no one in FFWHQ have a Kindle 2?
- DeWitt Clinton
I thought Tudor was getting one...
- EricaJoy
For browser compatibility testing purposes, of course.
- DeWitt Clinton
Turns out there was a Kindle 1 and a Kindle 2 in the office. All work has now ceased.
- Casey Muller
lol
- j1m
Get some colour and come graphics in there. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Does that case come with the Kindle? Looks nice.
- Benjamin Golub
Pure pleather-like goodness: http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-.... The case has a clever little hook mechanism that makes it easy to pop the Kindle in and out, but you can definitely use the Kindle with the case on. Feels and looks more like a book with the case on, plus it protects the screen. They say it is real leather, which is a shame, as it feels like pleather and frankly I'd rather it was fake.
- DeWitt Clinton
Can you please check if it shows UTF-8 characters? Like my name?
- Vinay | विनय
I am starting to get pretty excited about those... was pretty skeptical at first, but that is going to be a game changer.
- Susan Beebe
WOW
- zizukabi
Bump. Almost a year into the Kindle 2 and it is still going strong. Nothing worth replacing it with on the market yet.
- DeWitt Clinton
FriendFeed hasn't been one-upped yet either.
- DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt, any opinions on the upcoming Android-based enTourage eDGe (other than the idiotic capitalization)?: http://friendfeed.com/webmave...
- Michael R. Bernstein
@Michael - I had never heard of it. But I'll admit that, off all the things I wished my Kindle could do, fold in half was not one of them. And this may sound like heresy, but I'm not sure the high-level OS stack is the limiting factor in of ebook readers. Give me more surface area (Kindle DX size), a thinner bezel, higher resolution and maybe color, ditch the keyboard (okay, so maybe an touchscreen IME would help), a brushed aluminum body, and keep the thickness and weight constant, and you have an upgrade.
- DeWitt Clinton
and the battery life
- Deepak Singh
Ugh. It's like 1993 all over again. Whoever can figure out how to make high resolution, eInk screens in color, not necessarily with a rapid refresh rate, will pretty much own this device space for a while.
- Bill Strathearn
I don't need color in my books so I don't miss it on the Kindle.
- m9m, Crone of FriendFeed
ok, i tried to load it on my Kindle and it won't log me in. suggestions?
- Karoli
Amazon Web Services Developer Community : Announcing Beta Support for Versioning in US West (Northern California) Region - http://developer.amazonwebserv...
Meryn Stol, Tracy, Vishy and Cliff Gerrish liked this
"We are pleased to announce the availability of the Versioning feature for beta use with buckets in our Northern California Region. Versioning allows you to preserve, retrieve, and restore every version of every object in an Amazon S3 bucket. Once enabled for a bucket, Amazon S3 preserves existing objects anytime you perform a PUT, POST, COPY, or DELETE operation on them. By default, GET requests will retrieve the most recently written version. Older versions of an overwritten or deleted object can be retrieved by specifying a version in the request. "
- DeWitt Clinton
from Bookmarklet
Design doc here: http://doc.s3.amazonaws.com/betades.... Good stuff.
- DeWitt Clinton
Stare at boobs for longer life (via silpol) - http://www.themedguru.com/2009120...
Ksana, Chatsohbet, PICCHU and 66 other people liked this
"According to Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist and author of the study, gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, almost at par with an intense exercise regime, that prolongs the lifespan of a man by five years. She added, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out.""
- winckel
from Bookmarklet
Cool. I can use this as an excuse next time I get caught.
- Cristo
Freaking hilarious! Like you all need a research-based reason!!!
- Miriella
Holy mother of jesus.....
- دکتر فی دل احمدینژاد
I whole-heartedly support this campaign... here's to better health!
- Mark "Mr Bolivious" J
Here's to more woman's boobs in my line of sight serendipity! I wonder if digital ones work too?
- Meryn Stol
Wait -- does this have to be real boobs or will a picture do?
- Brian Sullivan
Well, if it's for my health…
- Glen, Bespectacled Elder
from iPhone
What a fascinating article... According to the current Mrs. Terry, I'll live to be at least 150 if this is true! :-)
- Andrew Terry
"Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out." so thats why I'm always tired at the end of the day!
- tony bland
*forwards article to wife with the admonition to walk around topless when the kids are asleep*
- Joe Silence is Dr. Teeth!
Joe, you can "sweeten" the deal by offering to walk around bottomless when the kids are asleep. Women love that sh*t.
- Mark "Mr Bolivious" J
i somehow doubt that. women of FF, what say you?
- Joe Silence is Dr. Teeth!
i just had my life span shortened
- دکتر فی دل احمدینژاد
I'm gonna live to be 150.
- Will Higgins™
sono anni che lo dico...
- RoBji
and it's more enjoyable than aerobic
- Isola Virtuale
Do I get bonus points for looking at them _while_ doing cardio? :-p
- Rick Cogley
Oh my goodness! It's 9:30! I guess it's time to go start my morning health regimen!
- Mark "Mr Bolivious" J
So in return for all my extremely low cut tight shirts/blouses/sweaters/tanks I'm really helping a man to live longer? Amazing!
- H0llywoodWh0re
And we love you for it!
- Mark "Mr Bolivious" J
It's healthier than riding a bike, I can tell you after last weeks accident. Unless you do it while riding a bike. But then probably the road won't be that slippery.
- Ton Zijp
*Bumped* for the promotion of better health!
- Mark "Mr Bolivious" J
I feel more healthy already....
- Jeff P. Henderson
The way I stare, I should be immortal.
- Outsanity
"The researchers declared that sexual desire gives rise to better blood circulation that signifies an overall improved health."
- Richard A.
If "looking" is good, seems like "motor-boating" ought to be really health promoting! (It's aerobic n' such.)
- Mark "Mr Bolivious" J
This is the best thread ever.
- Will Higgins™
What happened to the blood pressure of all the ladies being ogled?
- Ruchira S. Datta
It went up for some, for the women that didn't feel it was appropriate.
- Richard A.
O_O
- sofarsoShawn
And what are women to look at that will increase our lives?
- WorldofHiglet
@WoH: I've heard that doing plenty of house chores could be healthy... ;)
- Jemm
Heh. Now, if this was a few years ago Jemm would have now been vapourised into a fine, worthless powder. But I've learned to rise above such obvious baiting :P
- WorldofHiglet
@WoH you don't like charming polishing in your house, do you?
- A.T.
I am willing to look at a suitably attractive male polishing my house for 30 mins a day for the good of my health, if that's what you meant.
- WorldofHiglet
Before anybody asks: I don't do New Year Resolutions
Meryn Stol, Penguin It's Cold Outside, Mary Carmen and VAL D. Zone liked this
if a change is worth doing, dont put it off till the new year :)
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
Andrew Dalke: Problems with TDD - http://www.dalkescientific.com/writing...
Meryn Stol, Tracy and Michael R. Bernstein liked this
Would you spend £800 on an office chair? - http://www.johnlewis.com/2306271...
Meryn Stol, Toby Graham, Will Higgins™ and 9 other people liked this
I'd love to have it but waaaay too expensive. :-(
- Kol Tregaskes
from Bookmarklet
I have an Aeron chair that I bought from Amazon.com 1.5 years ago, right after my back surgery. I had it reshipped via myus and DHL. It's the best investment ever. Worth every "penny!" By the way, before buying from US, I tried all three at home for a week: Aeron, Mirra and Celle. I decided on the Aeron, this is by far the most functional and comfortable one. The incredible, unhuman, "don't buy from us" TR price tag made me consider ordering from US. The total cost was even lower than buying from UK.
- Cem ARGUN
Not for the Mirra, but I would have my company buy it :-)
- Todd Hoff
Hell to the naw
- Alex Scoble
Oh lord, there are so many: http://www.amazon.com/s...
- Kol Tregaskes
Would love an Aeron but not in the cards for a while.
- ronin
no
- अभिषेक(Abhishek) Das
It's still too expensive in the US. Ah well, when I'm a millionaire. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
I'd rather have a colonoscopy than sit in in an Aeron for even 5 minutes. Worst chair design ever. For $500-600 I can get an Office Master that is much more comfortable and adjustable.
- Alex Scoble
Alex-I totally agree with you on the comfort of the Aeron chair. Not only is it uncomfortable, it takes months to adjust to fit you right and yet it is held up as the most ergonomic chair ever. UI should also be considered in "ergonomics." The Aeron is ubiquitous and pedestrian. That being said, the Aeron does deserve a place in history as it was very innovative (ahem, in 1989) and...
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- Katie B
If I had the extra cash, yes.
- Will Higgins™
Sure would. Not the Mirra. But definitely the Aeron. I spend more time in my chair than in my bed these days.
- Graham English
Graham doesn't care for the comfort of his legs much.
- Alex Scoble
I can tell you from experience this is by far the most comfortable chair I have.
- MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)
from iPod
Shit, Alex. Wrong chair. Meant to say the Embody. I'm sitting in a chair now that is killing me and I spent way too much on. Next time I'm going all out.
- Graham English
Too bad it's not the late 90s again, you could pick up an Aeron (if that's your bag; it's not mine) for a song. A whole warehouse full, in fact.
- Andy Bakun
I sit in an Aeron everyday. Katie's right. it took me a month or so to get the fit "just right". but I don't have any complaints with it; except I'd like it to be taller.
- jbrotherlove
I think they're overrated. They became a status symbol during the dot com boom and I think there are chairs as good or better available for less money.
- Spidra Webster
I had an Aeron provided to me at my last job. It was "OK" but not terribly more comfortable then anything else. I'd find the nicest chair I could find for 1/3rd the price and call it good.
- veo
I sat in an Aeron for three years at the tail end of the dotcom boom. After several years spent in inferior Steelcase chairs I had to wait until this year to get the chance to use a Mirra. I can tell you the wave of relief and relaxation that washed over my back as soon as I sat down was palpable. Of course it all depends upon your body shape. Mine just suits a Mirra perfectly.
- Tim Ostler
I paid ~ $800 CDN for an Aeron 8 years ago and I still like it. (wow, £900 in the UK! prices really are a lot higher there.) I kinda want a Freedom too, though. (I figure I would use one at home and the other at work.)
- Andrew C
The complaints about Aerons I'd agree with are armrest adjustments (they improved that design now?), the annoyance of having to re-tighten the tilt resistance, and the hard metal (or is it plastic?) rim along the front edge of the seat pan. That last bit isn't annoying in the default sitting position if the seat is the right size for you, but you can't put a foot up under your knee - or...
more...
- Andrew C
i would - if i had £800 to spare at the moment... you sit in those chairs most of the day and these ergonomic chairs help your posture. OR, you have constant back pain like me...
- Asli G.
ıf ıt worths, yes y not?
- nef
No Way Jose!
- Tom Awtry
Yes!
- Durukan Duru
Yes yes!
- Durukan Duru
The Perfect Billboard - http://imgur.com/3hB19
Chuck Kahn, Susan Beebe, kuchin and 60 other people liked this
My God, it even has a watermark.
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
Impossible to read from the passing car, but perfect for blogging. Strange there is no contact information in the text, so people seeing it online would know where to find these creative guys. Couldn't imagine it's really a TV Show ad. Looks like an agency showing off. Paul, do you know where the billboard is located?
- earlyadopter
Looks photoshopped to me, i.e. nice idea but not real.
- Miriam
I'm guessing that this was in England, NZ, or Australia.
- Gabe
It's a shame that it doesn't use true small caps, instead using reduced-sized capitals.
- Glen, Bespectacled Elder
Mistletoe: I was thinking the same thing. :(
- Gabe
If anyone at Google is looking for something to open source, the core machine learning infrastructure (like Seti) would be very good for the world.
Meryn Stol, Federico Bolsoman, Mac Sharp and 51 other people liked this
I agree, SETI would be great. But whoa, it would be a huge amount of work to open-source it.
- Daniel Dulitz
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence?
- Gabe
Har har.... I assume there is ZERO chance of this ever happening.
- Jay
@Jay - I suspect Paul wouldn't ask if he thought there was zero chance. Last time I remember Paul asking for something from Google to be open sourced it was their JS compiler. That took a while, but http://code.google.com/closure...
- Nick Lothian
@Jay: Remember that Paul's referring to (relatively) generic infrastructure here, not search ranking code. But I think Daniel's right that it would be a *lot* of work, since most Google infrastructure is not "productized" and easy to wrap up in a bow for public release. Like any company with a lot of infrastructure, there are a lot of interdependencies that would be difficult to untangle. I think it would probably be better to simply publish papers on how it works, as with GFS, BigTable, etc.
- Joel Webber
Boy, that would be a bold move Paul. Agreed that it would help out many though!
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
How about just dumping the source to the web without all the dependencies, even if it doesn't even compile? If it looks useful enough there's a good chance someone would adopt it.
- Jim Norris
I suspect you're right about that, Jim. But Google would probably catch more crap about a "throwing it over the wall and letting it stagnate" open-sourcing than it's worth. But maybe I'm just down on it because Google catches crap no matter what these days...
- Joel Webber
It's hard to open source distributed algorithms -- there's no obvious public standard to use, and the reasonable choices (TCP sockets? MPI?) are nothing like Google's internal infrastructure. I think a paper would be more useful than source code, the way MapReduce papers lead to Hadoop. Paul, have you looked at Vowpal Wabbit (http://hunch.net/~vw/)? It has experimental support for cluster parallelism, and I hear good things about it.
- ⓞnor
Well, it doesn't have to be an either/or issue.
- Jim Norris
If the code is too hard to separate from the infrastructure, then maybe a compute service like EC2 that provides an application interface specifically for solving problems with SETI could be good for both the world and good for the Google.
- Bill Strathearn
@Bill: Now *that* sounds like a good idea to me, especially if accompanied by a paper describing the algorithms in use.
- Joel Webber
Although technically really interesting and usefully, I do think that Google will not open source or even give inside information about such a key differentiating technology in the hands of their competitors. But I agree that it would be really great for the world.
- yusuf arslan
I saw mention of JS open sourcing, did you folks see CoffeeScript yet? great stuff from Jashkenas, http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-...
- Mark Essel
The value of "differentiating technology" is not in novel algorithms, but in the thousands of places where implementations of these algorithms have been fixed and customized and tuned to solve the problem at hand -- which wouldn't have to be described in a whitepaper.
- Tudor Bosman
@Tudor Bosman: I do not agree that the competitive advantage is the knowledge of fine tuning and implementing the algorithms. The concept/design of Google's machine learning infrastructure is very important. Don't get me wrong, I do think that Google SHOULD open source this. But I think they WILL not because of business considerations.
- yusuf arslan
btw, ML+AI papers by Google - http://research.google.com/pubs... - http://research.google.com/pubs...
- Amund Tveit
I think even just a paper would be very useful and fruitful.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Ruchira, do you have particular biological datasets in mind? Are they too large even for a single machine version of Vowpal Wabbit to comfortably cope with (say, several tens or hundreds of billions of labeled instances)?
- Simon
Simon, my comment was just general. Now that you mention it, I could use Vowpal Wabbit on some of my projects, which are not anywhere close to that big. Thanks for the tip!
- Ruchira S. Datta
"The need for opensource in machine learning" http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers... (author affiliations of relevance)
- Amund Tveit
Gov2.0 transparency: An enabler for collaborative sense-making - http://blog.jonudell.net/2009...
Meryn Stol and Michael R. Bernstein liked this
Applying Anthropology - http://applyinganthropology.blogspot.com/
Meryn Stol liked this
"[D]ebates that happen consistently within the academic anthropology realm, [that] have very real applications to the marketing world"
- Michael R. Bernstein
"In fact, the tendency of people with many connections to be connected to other people with many connections distinguishes social networks from neural, metabolic, mechanical, or other nonhuman networks." _Connected_ http://www.amazon.com/gp...
Mickey Schafer, Ami Iida, winckel and 3 other people liked this
Is this really true? There's no footnote. I would have thought rather that it distinguishes evolved networks from non-evolved networks. Or perhaps networks of adaptive agents from other networks.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Hey Ruchira, as an aside, I've just started reading this book based on your earlier recommendations. (I guess books are a "contagion" in his parlance :-))
- Doug Beeferman
Doug, hope you like it! I'm really enjoying the book, my questioning of this particular assertion notwithstanding. Glad to be a vector of this particular type of contagion. :-)
- Ruchira S. Datta
Ruchira, how does this compare to (or complement) other related books like 'Linked'?
- Michael R. Bernstein
I've had _Linked_ http://www.amazon.com/gp... for a while but haven't actually finished reading it. So, my take on it may not be that well-founded. But in short, Barabási is a physicist and he brings a physicist's perspective. He's interested in how well many real-world networks fit his model of scale-free networks.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Another book that I'm enjoying reading is _Six Degrees_ http://www.amazon.com/gp... by Duncan Watts. Watts has a background in math, like myself. (I particularly enjoy his remarks about physicists. :-) ) _Six Degrees_ is rather autobiographical and gives a history of the field. It inspires me to want to go into network science.
- Ruchira S. Datta
On the other hand, _Connected_ actually presents you with many, many different kinds of findings in the science of social networks. It's very data-driven and is telling you what the data show. I think any random person is likely to find something interesting in it, because of how social networks impact everyone's lives. So I'd say _Connected_ is a bit more of a popularization than _Six Degrees_.
- Ruchira S. Datta
Fwd: Rare In Utero Images Glimpse Animals Inside the Womb - http://io9.com/5431824... (via http://friendfeed.com/creativ...)
Meryn Stol, Eivind, Joel Webber and 4 other people liked this
The $75 Future Computer - Forbes.com - http://www.forbes.com/2009...
Rick Kaiser, Ken Morley, Leif Hansen and 3 other people liked this
""I wanted to bring the One Laptop Per Child identity to life in this new form," says Yves Behar, founder of FuseProject, which designed the both the original and the XO-3. "That meant taking the visual complexity away, bringing tactility and friendliness, touch and color." **** It aims to make its tablet PC highly durable, all plastic, waterproof, half the thickness of an iPhone and use less than a watt of power, despite an 8-gigaherz processor. The price: an unprecedented $75."
- William Harryman
from Bookmarklet
work seems to be the only perpetually self-rewarding activity... everything else gets stale at some point, isn't it?..
Meryn Stol liked this
Is Our Data Too Vulnerable in the Cloud? "provider might mishandle data - or give up in response to a subpoena" [NYT] - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...
Roldano and Meryn Stol liked this
ravi karandeekar, Mycaptain, Michelle Martinez and 33 other people liked this
Merry Christmas AJ. :)
- aden
Merry Christmas, buddy.
- Derrick
Merry merry Christmas... that is my walk from the bus stop to the office today. (I missed the 1st stop, had to walk 1 extra block.)
- AJ Batac
Ho ho ho
- Shevonne
Ah, but that extra block helps if there are sweets and treats at work today ;-) Merry Christmas to you, AJ.
- Polly Potter
Snow!! Happy holidays, AJ. :)
- Rochelle
Shevonne, Polly, Rochelle - Happy holidays! ;-)
- AJ Batac
AJ sighting!
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
from iPhone
I knoooow! :D
- AJ Batac
Merry Christmas, AJ.
- Meryn Stol
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays AJ!
- Nicholas Kreidberg
Merry Christmas AJ
- VAL D. Zone
Meryn, Nicholas, Val - Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas! :-)
- AJ Batac
Merry Christmas!
- Iván Abrego
To you as well Ivan!
- AJ Batac
Merry Happy, AJ!
- Spidra Webster
Thanks Spidra, you too!
- AJ Batac
Merry Christmas from Italy :))
- Ale♫nastrorosa
Merry Xmas, AJ! :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Same to you Kol! :)
- AJ Batac
Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom - http://www.ted.com/talks...
Mahesh CR, Felicia Yue, "Serhat Ozan" and 36 other people liked this
"Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for "practical wisdom" as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
barry's book the paradox of choice is worth reading as well.
- karl dotter
from iPhone
wisdom is the natural result of a quiet mind ..
- Gregory Lent
I watched this on christmas eve and wow...
- Andrew Euell
Sweet! Senate passes health reform bill Ending rejection for pre-existing conditions.
Meryn Stol, Helen Sventitsky, Judy Jones and Michael R. Bernstein liked this
Fwd: YouTube - Vienna Teng - The Atheist Christmas Carol - http://www.youtube.com/watch... (via http://friendfeed.com/meryn...)
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Meryn Stol liked this
Prediction for 2010: FriendFeed is going to see a resurgence.
ravi karandeekar, Adrian, Flavio and 80 other people liked this
What's the rationale?
- Pavan
Really?!
- Michael Liss
I think this prediction's outcome might fall into the hands of Facebook. We'll see what they do with the property this year.
- Andrew Dobrow
Funny that this comes from Twitter. =D
- Junebug (aka Sarah Jill)
ROFL.
- Derrick
So is RSS if we're going to follow Robert's logic.
- Jimminy Fuller
HOW TO SPOT COMMENT BAIT IN 100 EASY STEPS — STEP 1: DID IT COME FROM ROBERT SCOBLE? STEPS 2-100: REPEAT STEP 1.
- Akiva Moskovitz
already happening, yo
- Josh Haley
it started surging (again) after ppl let the knowledge of fb purchase fall into the bits of history pages
- chaz2b
Lets cross our fingers
- polou/indigo_bow
This is SO an experiment on Scoble's part.
- Jeremy (on vacation)
WTF is FriendFeed?
- David Cohn
Rational, Twitter usage is flattening, people are finally figuring out that Twitter sucks for having a conversation. People though Friendfeed was hard to use, try having to install several software 'crutches' to be able to use Twitter productively without even half the functionality as Freindfeed.
- Jeff P. Henderson
if you say so...
- MobilAdam
Either this is tounge in cheek or Robert really hasn't gotten over our breakup... Robert, I hope we can still be friends but we have to move on and grow... FriendFeed will always love you, but we need some 'us' time to find out who 'we' are... *cues The Bodygaurd soundtrack*... *walks out into the rain, adjusts collar, walks off down the road*... *fade to black, credits*
- Johnny Worthington
from iPhone
LOL Johnny!
- Jeff P. Henderson
Best Christmas present ever!
- Jemm
Comment bait. Even Robert can't generate interest these days.
- Russellreno
I agree. Friendfeed is for those who need more from a 2d interface. Until there spatial interface is there, Friendfeed is on top of the pyramid (especially when one knows how to use it best).
- Kirill Bolgarov
Up
- Luca Perugini
from iPhone
*slow-mo head shake*
- Micah Wittman
from iPhone
Too funny! Johnny and Akiva -- you guys crack me up.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
I would agree with a few here and say that FriendFeed is already resurging, Robert. #friendfeed
- Kol Tregaskes
AMEN!
- zʍıɔ
The stats don't agree though: http://thenextweb.com/2009...
- Kol Tregaskes
it's like drunk dialing an ex-girlfriend...
- Aron Michalski
from BuddyFeed
i guess so too..
- Daniele - Viralavatar
so too :)
- ★ Soner Gönül
Agreed wholeheartedly Robert
- Roberto Bonini
Akiva: lol, Kol: that article only looks at unique visitors, and doesn't consider user hours.
- Mike Chelen
:) @ Aron - sums it up perfectly...
- 1x29
Lets hope so ... Miss some of my old peeps :)
- Charlie Anzman
I'm surprised Robert made this statement but I find it very interesting in the change of view and wonder what has changed his mind or if he knows more info.
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
The unpredictably erratic Scobot is at it again...
- Ciro
Well, after glancing at his Twitter timeline, he's just making a bunch of joke predictions. I'd like to think that there's some truth in this one though...
- manielse (Mark Nielsen)
Sniffs... Do you smell that? It's what we used to call a troll. Robert is getting dangerously close to becoming irrelevent.
- Jason Williams
from iPhone
Robert is waiting until 2010 to respond to this thread. :)
- Louis Gray
I told you so
- Jesse Stay
Kol: the *stat* doesn't agree (note the singular)
- Jesse Stay
Well, since I'm ready organizing the elections for the best Dutch blogs I can say the resurgence already started last week. ;-)
- Ton Zijp
Kol: Here are many more stats that imply the contrary: http://staynalive.com/article...
- Jesse Stay
Excellent idea.
- Richard A.
from FreshFeed
Scoble - I disagree ONLY because I think that FriendFeed activity is already migrating to Facebook via deeper integration over there but I'm wiling to hear you out (as are the other 40+ people commenting here). Do share why you think this is true?
- Aaron Strout
I wrote this tweet for Twitter, not for FriendFeed. But nice to see you all! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Jason: I'm definitely irrelevant if the people calling me irrelevant don't even have 1,000 subscribers. Sigh.
- Robert Scoble
I actually see FriendFeed growing instead of slowing and there will also be new enhancements. A testing ground for Facebook. Just to expand, Robert's still the man!
- amarquart
Akiva wins the internets with this mathematical formula for spotting comment bait.
- Nicholas Kreidberg
You think we're fighting, I think we're finally talking! -all in one page
- Tim Jones
Funny, when I write, I write for everyone, everywhere
- Johnny Worthington
Beat ya to it Robert: http://friendfeed.com/jhuebel... And the resurgence is already happening.
- Jason, Incognito
@Jason Williams, wow that's the pot calling the kettle black, doncha think? Robert's not a troll.
- Jason, Incognito
@Kol, somebody mentioned that those stats often only consider US visitors (why that would be, I don't know). FF's non-US contingent has grown tremendously, so that graph may not show the whole picture.
- Jason, Incognito
Akiva wins the thread.
- Mark Davidson
from BuddyFeed
let's hope so - I love the darn thing
- Arthur Coleman
I'm finding that FriendFeed is fiendishly sticky. On Twitter lists do help, they make twitter better and all but but but-but I think a lot of users are getting more sophisticated in their web usage faster than Twitter can evolve their tech. Louis Grey recently postulated that even if there is no interaction on FriendFeed it makes complete sense to stay riding this horse. That got me...
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- JSLeFanu
Dude..... I totally hope you're right, but not too sure about this! LOL Explain your rationale please :)
- Susan Beebe
i agree with the original prediction. by the way, what's a resurgence? is it different than insurgents? :-)
- Morgan Haley
Morgan - the insurgents never left ... ;-p
- Robyn Hawk
Jason, OK. Good. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
I'll stay one faithful user, for those "outside the US" stats. Still feature plenty, still enjoyable. Still effective. Thanks for rallying the troops again Robert. Bring the hopes, and forget the ropes! 8)
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
like Elijah
- maxilprof
I like this whole thread. ++Akiva, Johnny, JSLeFanu, Jason Heubel, Mike Chelen . . . Robert, Twitter may have geeks and famous people, but you can actually do things here. Oh, wait - I'm not here. I'm in a widget on a blog in someone's Posterous whom I don't even know, that I'm searching through to find FF peeps to subscribe to over here. Now, that's just mind-blowing!
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
Orderly - JSON - http://orderly-json.org/
Adewale Oshineye, Daniel Rowley, ǝuǝƃnǝ and 9 other people liked this
"Orderly is a textual format for describing JSON. Orderly can be compiled into JSONSchema. It is designed to be easy to read and write."
- DeWitt Clinton
This is making the rounds. Clean syntax. Wondering if it makes sense for us to publish Orderly descriptions of our various JSON-based protocols.
- DeWitt Clinton
I forwarded this around earlier and within minutes one of our engineers had documented a rather complex protocol with Orderly. Very positive sign.
- DeWitt Clinton
More concise and descriptive than protobuf and thrift, IMHO. Looks nice. It does miss out on the useful set and map types which I've found useful in protocol descriptions that interface with web applications (unfortunately protobuf misses these as well).
- Matt Mastracci
@Matt - not quite apples to apples, though. Protobufs not only define the description format (which I like), but also the wire format and idiomatic codegen mechanisms in several languages. Thrift also defines an RPC mechanism. As it turns out, the engineer who wrote up the Orderly description based it on the protobuf descriptions that were used to store and pass around the underlying data that ultimately gets turned into the JSON.
- DeWitt Clinton
And speaking of RPC, did you know that Kenton is working on an unofficial RPC implementation for protobufs? Still in the early phases, but check out: http://code.google.com/p...
- DeWitt Clinton
Re: RPC for protobuf, nice. I've used both protobuf and Thrift and each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses. Protobuf wins on ease of construction via the builder pattern and on speed. Thrift wins on providing extra collection types (map/set) and optional integration of services in the IDL. The Thrift Java libraries are poorly written and the whole thing is a bit shaky. Both of them lose by forcing me to compile their C++ parsers just to compile my IDL. :)
- Matt Mastracci
Looking at it further, this is going to be a really useful format for describing pure-JSON RPC. I'll look at generating this sort of schema automatically for the JSON RPC endpoints that we'll be publishing.
- Matt Mastracci
Amazon Kindle's Publishing Program - http://www.amazon.com/gp...
Meryn Stol, Roberto Bonini, Bill Strathearn and 3 other people liked this
"KindleGen is a command line tool used to build eBooks that can be sold through Amazon's Kindle platform. This tool is best for publishers and individuals who are familiar with HTML and want to convert their HTML, XHTML, XML (OPF/IDPF format), or ePub source into a Kindle Book."
- DeWitt Clinton
from Bookmarklet
Nice! Amazon released a tool to convert epub to .mobi for the Kindle. This means that every epub book on Google Books (http://books.google.com/) can be converted easily to the Kindle. Via @obra.
- DeWitt Clinton
For example, go to http://books.google.com/books... (Treasure Island) and download the epub. Or a list of all public domain books with epub downloads that contain the letter 'a': http://books.google.com/books...
- DeWitt Clinton
Ah, nice that mobigen now runs on Linux. This will be useful. I'm sure http://manybooks.net can reduce their server load a bit as a result.
- Michael R. Bernstein
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