Phil Wolff: The Science Craving Channel

Tue, 18 Feb 2003 06:51:35 GMT

Tipping Point Crib Sheet and News Diffusion.

Sun, 02 Feb 2003 09:34:33 GMT

A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog
> Michael Helfrich's Radio Weblog

A very good book and a nice synopsis.

For those of us that only manage to read the first 100 pages of important books, Robert Paterson's weblog has a FANTASTIC overview of the Tipping Point.

I agree. And the applications are many, so this is an important work.

For example, Marc Canter asks why newsQuakes don't show any Asian news.

Aside from operational questions, like the scale and reach of the news crawler or mis-weighting of algorithms, I can think of a few reasons.

Too few original sources. How many news sources are online in Africa? What density creates a network bursting with news?
Too few cross-language bridges. Language barriers are huge. Largely independent social networks have just a fringe of overlap. A fractional percent of the population bridges these communities, translating, filtering news. When was the last time you read a news story about something in Poland? Some language/culture-pairs are more open to each other, often driven by proximity and population exchange; think Western Europe. Why no Asian news? Probably quantity.
Network Diffusion. Unless a meme is reinforced with each telling, stories die out. A fire killing 50 school children in Beijing may be local or even regional news. It may not have the staying power to survive translation.
Delay. Translation delays cools off hot stories, stopping their propagation.

Do you want more news from other worlds? From Africa, Latin America, the subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China?

Promote literacy, so more people write.
Second and third language training: English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi reach billions.
Get your sources online and syndicate their content.

[a klog apart community]

Sat, 14 Sep 2002 15:55:09 GMT

War Car Offers Wi-Fi

Jon Udell: The blogging CxO.

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 23:05:06 GMT

[aka klogs]

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 02:20:29 GMT

Tiny Gene Variant Gives Humans Speech.

Thu, 15 Aug 2002 20:24:08 GMT

Which is the gene for blogging?

NSC Statistics - What are the Odds of Dying?

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 14:36:43 GMT

"What Are the Odds of Dying?"

100%.

The National Safety Council prepared this list of odds by manner of dying.

The odds of dying from an injury in 1998 were 1 in 1,796.
The lifetime odds of dying from an injury for a person born in 1998 were 1 in 23.

Be safe.

[aka obituaries a la blog]

72.3% OF PVR viewers skip commercials.

Sat, 06 Jul 2002 19:16:11 GMT

One of the first TiVo viewer behavior studies: People skip commercials after they recognize the product. So skipping doesn't mean your message isn't getting out; skipping means the ones who see your commercial choose to see it, and the ones who skip it weren't receptive to begin with. The study also compares skipping to "ignoring" or doing other things like going to the kitchen or bathroom during a commercial break. Ad Age.

Tue, 02 Jul 2002 01:03:37 GMT

This above all, to thy cell phone be true.

Please Stand By

Sat, 29 Jun 2002 18:22:11 GMT

The Science Craving Channel
is experiencing
Some Technical Difficulty

Please Stay Tuned

Bush: Bring Back Library Filters.

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 12:10:51 GMT

Wired > Bush: Bring Back Library Filters. The Bush administration plans to appeal to the Supreme Court a lower-court ruling striking down CIPA, the act that would require libraries to install computer filters to keep children from viewing porn. More shrubbery.

Musicians Have More Gray Matter in Brain

Thu, 20 Jun 2002 12:12:04 GMT

Cosmiverse reports it. This explains my brilliant brother (electric bass), my novelist father (trumpet), my cousin the opera singer, her brother the cantor, his son the pianist.

I have a big elbow.

Circuit City Phases Out VHS. Are you next?

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 20:12:17 GMT

End of a technology life cycle.

IT systems change all the time. It's like upgrading an airplane engine in flight. Part of the fun, the challenge, the opportunity.

What does your IT department have? What gear, software, data? How do they fit together? When can we retire this old stuff? How will this system change affect the rest of the infrastructure?

CIOs turn to their IT architects for the inventory and the answers.

IT architects monitor life cycles, among other things, to anticipate changes to the IT environment.

Technology Life Cycles

Product Family Life Cycles

Make-Model Life Cycles

There is too much to track, even with Gartner and similar services.

So this becomes a collective effort. All of IT and concerned power users.

Sysadmins take leadership for tracking Operating Systems, Postmasters for messaging systems, NetAdmins for connectivity. There are plenty of IT components to go around.

IT architects can distribute this role with tools for:

Managing lists of things to track.
Automation of the data update task.
Sharing, organizing, finding, and prioritizing news.
Letting experts compose their observations and commentary, in both structured and narrative ways.
Subscription to updates on specific technologies, vendors, product families, and product models.
Succession and transition planning.

The IT architect becomes:

evangelist for the life cycle management process and
editor in chief for contributing experts.

Hmmm. IT architect v.3.5.6 is on its way out, to be replaced by v.3.5.7. Let's get the word out and start shopping for vendors...

IBM labs unveil super-dense storage.

Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:10:36 GMT

IBM researchers have created a storage device that holds up to a trillion bits of information, or about 25 million textbook pages in a postage stamp-size area, as the push to find new storage technologies rolls on. [CNET]

IBM's nanotech punch cards hit terabit density. 3 million bits in one chad.

IBM's news release.

Power requirements?

Commercialized by 2005?

What would you do with fast, cheap, unlimited storage in your mobile phone? PDA? VCR? MP3 player? Shoes? Syringe?

Tue, 11 Jun 2002 06:08:15 GMT

It's Alive! It's Alive!

Wed, 08 May 2002 04:51:11 GMT

There is an unacknowledged current running through the debate over cloning: a fear of science, and a corresponding desire to rein it in. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg. [New York Times]

I believe in the potential of science to benefit humankind. For those who fear unwisely, education. For those who fear with just cause, dialog and action.