Grandma's reading list

Over the break, I visited my parents and my mother, becoming nostalgic, pulled this document out of a file cabinet: my grandmother's reading list.

Sorry about the blurry photo -- my cameraphone is not good at close quarters. The journal lists the books that my grandmother read over her lifetime, and the tabs index the books alphabetically.

When I say "lists the books," that's it: just titles. Not authors, publication information, the date she read them, or any notes on the contents. Still, I was struck that Grandma had her own reading list, and I suddenly felt as if I were carrying on a family tradition that I didn't know we had.

technorati tags:grandma, reading-list

Blogged with Flock

"Travis Taylor, et al, have written the definitive book on the defense of earth against a potential alien incursion."

Via Instapundit, the book An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion just sounds fun to read.

technorati tags:repelling-alien-invasions

Blogged with Flock

"In Word, Excel and PowerPoint, all of the menus are gone — every one."

Via Slashdot, a discussion of the new interface for Office 2007. Video at the link.

UPDATE: Lifehacker has screenshots.

technorati tags:microsoft, office2007, ui

Blogged with Flock

Slowly killing the iPod

Wired's Listening Post argues that Samsung's recent breakthrough in flash memory capacity will put another nail in the iPod's coffin.

As manufacturers start incorporating this memory into devices, a tiny musicphone will be able to hold more data than most desktop computers could only a few years ago. Aside from the interface, the only remaining question at that point is whether cell service carriers will allow these phones the same degree of freedom and versatility that made the computer such a success.

This seems sensible to me. It reminds me of one of the few episodes of The Apprentice that I have watched, in which the two teams competed to create a line of clothing that accommodates mobile technologies. Both teams came up with an item with a smallish pocket "for your iPod or phone." When the judges asked one team which tech would be more important, the team leader replied without hesitation: "The iPod." The judge's scorn was palpable -- appropriately.

technorati tags:mobile, phones, ipod-killer, apprentice

Blogged with Flock

Swearing in with the Koran

Facing criticism for his decision to be sworn into office by placing his hand on a Koran instead of a Bible, Senator-elect Keith Ellison has decided that the Koran in question should be
Thomas Jefferson's copy. That's mostly brilliant. I say "mostly" because, on reflection, the move does not place the Koran in the best theological light: remember how Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, edited the Bible by cutting out all of the supernatural and theological components, and imagine how he must have regarded the Koran as a cultural document rather than a holy book. Still, big points for Ellison's political agility.

technorati tags:keithellison, koran, thomasjefferson

Blogged with Flock

Joi Ito on WoW as project management

In this WoW presentation, Joi Ito argues that World of Warcraft requires and engenders new collaboration and project management skills. Bonnie Nardi has been arguing something similar (see her recent interview with Mark Zachry in Technical Communication Quarterly).

technorati tags:wow, projectmanagement

Blogged with Flock

Liquid methane on Titan

Images from Cassini-Huygens show lakes of liquid methane on Titan. What I like is that the long strip of imagery looks like the Ringworld.

technorati tags:titan, ringworld, cassini

Blogged with Flock

OLPC's Sugar isn't user-tested

Johndan notes that the One Laptop Per Child initiative has not bothered to user-test its new interface. Although the interface does look very cool (see below, from a random Flickr account), some sort of user testing really would have been a good idea.

technorati tags:olpc, sugar, usability

Blogged with Flock

Reading :: The Politics

The Politics
by Aristotle

I'm not a classical scholar by any means, but I'm enjoying reading some classical works lately. Aristotle's Politics is one of them. Although it's rather uneven in parts, what really struck me is how deeply it has influenced later authors, from Machiavelli to Marx. Aristotle's main concern here is constitutions: what kinds of constitutions there are, how to draft them, how to sustain them, and how to avoid common errors. Aristotle was well qualified for this work, having had a hand in several constitutions. He evidently thinks he's better qualified than Plato, since he takes aim at the Republic several times, perhaps unfairly. Nevertheless, it's an interesting read.

"Interesting" doesn't always mean "good." For instance, Aristotle's spirited defense of slavery is not an example of strong reasoning; it seemed like he was just trying to put the issue to bed so that he could get on to other matters. On the other hand, Aristotle's catalogue of types of constitutions, and how each one declines, clearly sets the stage for Machiavelli's parallel discussion in the Discourses; his summary of what each type of constitution values (aristocracy - virtue, oligarchy - wealth, democracy - freedom) is wonderfully concise (p.260). His discussion of how to sustain a tyranny is somewhat similar to Machiavelli's in The Prince. Similarly, his exhaustive discussion of labor and its role in a constitution influenced Marx.

One thing that really struck me was Aristotle's long list of features of democracy -- features that almost all made it into the US Constitution (p.363). And his bias in favor of agrarian people in a democracy (p.368) is echoed in Jefferson's writings. Fascinating!

Aristotle, however, was no democrat per se. In fact, he had a lot of ideas about how to run a state that involved controlling the minutiae of public life, down to the age that men and women should wed (men at 37, women at 18, so they will pass out of childbearing age at about the same time) (pp.441-442). He also wanted to ban "unseemly talk" and porn (p.446).

"Forgot your login? Time for a change."

Via Slashdot, we get these observations from apophenia about ephemeral profiles in social networking among teenagers:

Teens are not dreaming of portability (like so many adults i meet). They are happy to make new accounts on new sites; they enjoy building out profiles. (Part of this could be that they have a lot more time on their hands.) The idea of taking MySpace material to Facebook when they transition is completely foreign. They're going to a new site, they want to start over.

The author speculates that tying social networking to mobile numbers might change things -- but right now, social networking profiles are like clothes, temporary ways to craft temporaryThis attitude contrasts sharply with those of adults, who are more interested in creating coherent online identities.

Although I doubt they meant it in this way, it strikes me that teen behavior here could function as a protective adaptation, alllowing them to avoid the consequences of earlier identity choices. When people try to maintain a coherent online identity, they become accountable to the statements and positions that they take over the course of their life. But if they change accounts -- and identities -- several times in the course of their life, there's no clear trail to follow and it's obvious that their statements are things they are simply trying on.

technorati tags:socialnetworking

Blogged with Flock

Starbucks: Claims and counterclaims on YouTube

Slashdot is reporting on a set of claims and counterclaims between Oxfam and Starbucks currently taking place on YouTube. We hear a lot about the "citizens' media," but this is a fascinating example of how sites like YouTube are becoming the new infrastructure for public relations.

End-user programming: The Web 2.0 version

A while back, I predicted that the next "Printshop moment" -- the next wave of production to move from the hands of specialists to casual users -- would be end-user programming. One early indication of this movement is in the article Assembling great software: A round-up of eight mashup tools, which describes several tools that casual users can mobilize to build apps from existing web services.

technorati tags:enduserprogramming, web2.0

Blogged with Flock

New tools for the new year

So I've been trying out two new tools for this new year. One, as you can see, is Blogger. My first blog was on Blogger, but I moved it to the CWRL servers because I wanted to have more control over it. But now I'm contemplating moving back to Blogger for various reasons, including the fact that it makes less sense to maintain my own blogging software than it does to let the professionals do it. We'll see how this works.

The other new tool is Flock, the browser based on Firefox. Flock's hook is its integration with web services. So for instance, I can use Flock's interface to manage my bookmarks in del.icio.us, my photos in Flickr, and my blog posts in Blogger, rather than having to (a) manage local versions of each or (b) use the interfaces for each service. I tried Flock about a year ago and it wasn't ready for prime time, but it seems to be doing quite well now.

Blogged with Flock

Tracks

I've mentioned that Basecamp, currently the pace-setter for web-based collaborative project management, is facing some tough competition from open-source workalike activeCollab as well as potential trouble from Google's acquisition of JotSpot. Here's another possible competitor: Tracks is a GPL'd web application that implements David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology for groups.

technorati tags:projectmanagement

Blogged with Flock

"Social software and learning"

From the UK, an interesting-looking paper on how social software might impact learning. The emphasis on collaboration is appropriate, but they don't cover the vital issues of project and task management that are raised by an increase in collaboration.

Social software and learning: An Opening Education report from Futurelab
By Martin Owen, Lyndsay Grant, Steve Sayers and Keri Facer

Futurelab - Research - Publications - Social software and learning

technorati tags:knowledgework, education

Blogged with Flock