Virtual worlds roundup

We're becoming interested in virtual worlds at the CWRL, but SL at present seems too open for pedagogical purposes. So I'm going to have my people look at this list of similar environments.

Boing Boing: Roundup of Second Life-like games

technorati tags:secondlife, virtual-worlds

Blogged with Flock

Linux reduces waste

In a carbon offsets sort of way.

Boing Boing: Linux reduces e-waste by 50%

technorati tags:linux, landfills

Blogged with Flock

Breaking networks

A networked org structure has a lot of advantages for terrorists and insurgency groups. How do you fight it?

And what have they learned since network studies got serious in the wake of 9/11? That there are three major vulnerabilities in networks:
1) Density nodes: people with many immediate connections, e.g. leaders
2) Centrality nodes: people with fewer immediate connections but who serve as crossroads in many relationships, e.g. financiers
3) Boundary spanners: people with few (maybe just two) connections but who span long gaps between chunks of the network, e.g. liaisons or messengers

WIRED Blogs: Danger Room

technorati tags:netwar, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism

Blogged with Flock

WritersUA's tech writer salary survey

Ever wondered what TWs make? Johndan has the link. If you run a TC program, look at the high-value niches and ask whether your program prepares people to fill them.

work/space: Results of WritersUA's Tech Writer Salary Survey

technorati tags:technical-writing, salary

Blogged with Flock

SXSW: condoms for the film and music bags, not the Interactive ones

Here's a stunner:

I just finished a volunteer shift stuffing conference bags and thought it my civic duty to inform you that we will not be receiving any condoms in the Interactive Bags.

I guess it depends how you define "Interactive."

south by southwest festivals + conferences

technorati tags:sxsw, interactive

Blogged with Flock

M$ wants a piece of Google Apps and Zoho

According to a catch by TechCrunch, it looks like a light web-based Excel viewer/editor is in the works.

Confirmed: Microsoft Building Google Apps/Zoho Competitor

technorati tags:excel, google-apps, zoho

Blogged with Flock

Tomorrow's startups today

TechCrunch has a great roundup of startups funded by Y Combinator. Lots of interesting services. Rhet-comp people might be interested in WriteWith, a collaborative writing service that incorporates workflow.

Demo Day: Y Combinator’s Spring Chicks

technorati tags:startups, y-combinator, writewith

Blogged with Flock

captioning Flash

WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) is providing a new component that allows Flash developers to add captions to video in Flash. "cc for Flash" is a free download and is available at the NCAM web site.

Accessibility: New Captioning in Flash Component

technorati tags:accessibility, captioning, flash

Blogged with Flock

Spooky radar

Not exactly radar. Not exactly implementable at present either, but might as well put your stake in the ground:

Defense giant Lockheed Martin is applying Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" to a far-out concept for a "quantum radar" that would be a (forgive the pun) quantum leap over current radar technology. The company filed a patent on the idea in Europe, according to this article in the U.K. Guardian.

If it does pan out, it promises a breathtakingly wide and detailed view of a given theater of operations.

WIRED Blogs: Danger Room

technorati tags:spooky-action, topsight

Blogged with Flock

Shalom, puny humans

Danger Room has a feature on Israeli-developed killer robots:

Two-and-a-half years later, we're all still waiting. The reason: safety. Talons -- like all computers, like all machines -- have a tendency to act extremely weird every once in a while. That's acceptable, in the Talon's unarmed configuration. But when it's carrying a gun? No dice. We've all had Windows crash on us. Now imagine if your laptop had an automatic weapon.

WIRED Blogs: Danger Room

technorati tags:robocop, skynet

Blogged with Flock

Editing social news sites

The beauty of these sites is that they don't need an editor. It's the wisdom of crowds. Right?

But then, politics came into play. It seems that politics is a topic that people care about so much they’re ready to go all “Lord of the Flies” on each other and ruin the otherwise perfect system, their tropical paradise island of user-submitted news. It took a while for this to happen, but in the recent months it is impossible not to notice. Both Digg and Reddit are swarmed with leftist, rightist, anti-Islam, pro-Islam, anti-Bush and similar stories. Digg is cleaning up the mess, but at what expense?

Reddit learns about the importance of editors the hard way - franticindustries.

technorati tags:social-news, editing

Blogged with Flock

Shalom, puny humans

Danger Room has a feature on Israeli-developed killer robots:

Two-and-a-half years later, we're all still waiting. The reason: safety. Talons -- like all computers, like all machines -- have a tendency to act extremely weird every once in a while. That's acceptable, in the Talon's unarmed configuration. But when it's carrying a gun? No dice. We've all had Windows crash on us. Now imagine if your laptop had an automatic weapon.

WIRED Blogs: Danger Room

technorati tags:robocop, skynet

Blogged with Flock

Relics of the empire

Boing Boing: Frozen bust of Lenin presides over the South Pole

technorati tags:lenin, ussr

Blogged with Flock

More griefer bait

The Obama campaign opens a campaign headquarters in SecondLife, and YearlyKos will also have an outpost there.

techPresident – How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them.

technorati tags:secondlife, campaign2008

Blogged with Flock

Google Transit and SXSW

I'm a big public transportation fan, and will be taking the bus to SXSW every day. Google Transit might help; I'll provide a report.

Official Google Blog: Music, Movies, Mayhem, and the Metro

technorati tags:sxsw, google-transit

Blogged with Flock

Flat panel display at SXSW

SXSW's panels aren't listed by speaker, but a Good Samaritan has provided a flat list that contains just topics and speaker names. I'm going to use this!

Searchable SXSW Interactive 2007 schedule

technorati tags:sxsw, information-design

Blogged with Flock

UPA needs volunteers

If you're in Austin, the 2007 Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) conference will
be held here June 11-15, 2007. Follow the link to volunteer.

Volunteer Opportunities - UPA 2007

technorati tags:upa, usability, conference

Blogged with Flock

A roundup on civil-military relations

Civil-military relations are important in the current age of netwar, in which governments, NGOs, press, paramilitaries, and other organizations leverage arguments as well as weapons. This roundup looks like a good place to start if you're interested in reviewing the literature.

Civil-Military Relations (Smart Power Blog)

technorati tags:netwar

Blogged with Flock

Freebase aims at the semantic web

Lots of people are posting about Freebase, which aims to semantically link user-generated content from different sites.

This is cool, unless it achieves consciousness and kills us all

technorati tags:freebase, semantic-web, skynet

Blogged with Flock

Blues Traveling Beyond Thunderdome

Blues Traveler frontman John Popper has been arrested for a stash -- of weapons.

What's more interesting is the stash of contraband discovered inside the vehicle, which was outfitted with a siren, a public address system, and several hidden interior compartments. Besides a "small amount" of weed, officers found: four rifles, nine handguns, a switchblade knife, a Taser, and night vision goggles.

Austinist: Blues Traveler Singer, Austin Man Busted For Huge Stash

technorati tags:john-popper, blues-traveler, thunderdome

Blogged with Flock

Accessibility and graphic design CAN be friends

A pointer to articles explaining how.

Graphic designers misunderstanding Web standards | 456 Berea Street

technorati tags:accessibility, graphic-design

Blogged with Flock

The vomit beam

On Danger Room, they sound giddy about this (no pun intended):

You never know what's going to land in your mailbox.  Last night, I found a weapon that shoots an invisible wall-penetrating beam that makes people so dizzy they fall over. (It can make them puke, too, but I'll get to that in a moment.)

Okay, okay... it was only a description of the device that I came across, going through my (mostly junk) mail. The less-lethal weapon was one of many novelties described in an invitation to the "Navy's 07 'Opportunity Forum" for small businesses.

WIRED Blogs: Danger Room

technorati tags:nonlethal, weaponry, vomit-beam

Blogged with Flock

Nokia's new ad service: consumption as a networked practice

We are witnessing the shift from individualised and pesonalised media consumption towards consumption as a networked practice. You see networks are sticky in ways that mass media never was, it requires a very different approach to what we create, how we create it and how we market it. And, the change wrought by the networked information environment is structural.

Communities Dominate Brands: The 7th Mass Media gets a new service

technorati tags:nokia, ads, consumption, net-work

Blogged with Flock

Conferenceer and SXSW

SXSW's panels listing isn't great; I really wanted a flat display of all panels. But you know what's almost as good? An iCal feed:

Conferenceer

technorati tags:sxsw, conferenceer

Blogged with Flock

Sun rises in the east

Slashdot | Microsoft Wanted To Drop Mac Office To Hurt Apple

technorati tags:and-the-world-is-round

Blogged with Flock

Scribd

I'm trying to figure out if this service makes sense or not. Comments?

Scribd, a site for sharing documents, is coming out of private beta this morning with a fresh Angel investment of $300K on top of their original Y Combinator nest egg of $12,000. Scribd is most easily described as a text version of YouTube. It is a social network that lets you tag, share, and comment on uploaded documents (.doc, .pdf, .txt, .ppt, .xls, .ps, .lit).

Scribd “YouTube for Documents” Gets $300K

technorati tags:scribd

Blogged with Flock

Presence

Presence is a communications app that allows you to signal whether you're available for a phone call: a way to avoid telephone tag. Think of it as an extension of the status tag in your instant messenger:

Presence helps solve this problem by letting you know the availability of the other party to take your call, before the call gets made.

It's free:

Fast forward to today… our business plan is to deliver, for free, a great mobile presence application to handsets beginning with BlackBerry but ultimately extending to any Symbian or Windows Mobile handset. We’ll make money from additional presence enabled applications that depend on that infrastructure.

GigaOM » Does Presence really matter?

technorati tags:presence, mobile, phones, voice2.0

Blogged with Flock

Exit strategy?

From the New York Times: Questions About Cheney Remain. "In legal terms, the jury has spoken in the Libby case. In political terms, Dick Cheney is still awaiting a judgment."

From This is London: Will a blood clot force Cheney to step down? "Dick Cheney has been diagnosed with a blood clot in his left leg, leading to speculation he will be forced to resign as U.S. Vice-President."

"They communicate with condiments"

Bill Hart-Davidson pointed out this great post about condiment codes of Waffle House kitchens, along with a Flickr set. From the post, the author tells how he realized that the waitress and short-order cook placed condiments in order to record and communicate orders.

"I noticed how the pack of jelly was in different locations on the plates in the queue and then realized the waitresses hadn't said a word to the chef all morning. After a little digging around, I found this flickr image of the grill cheat sheet explaining exactly what condiment means what and how to arrange them on a plate to indicate a specific order."

GooglePhone rumors

The post includes a link to another post with purported photos.

More Google Phone talk | News.blog | CNET News.com

technorati tags:googlephone, iphone

Blogged with Flock

Hillary/1984 mashup

You really have to see this video that Obama supporters made by mashing up Apple's famous 1984 video with video from Sen. Clinton's website. It's a brilliant ad hominem attack.

techPresident – How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them.

technorati tags:campaign2008, obama, clinton, 1984, ad-hominem

Blogged with Flock

Edwards' vandals were nonpartisan ...

... not Bush supporters, as was assumed.

techPresident – How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them.

technorati tags:edwards, campaign2008, secondlife

Blogged with Flock

Live like a project manager

This lengthy list is a grab bag of advice from a project management standpoint. Like similar lists, this one has a lot of obvious stuff, a lot of underspecified stuff, and the occasional brilliant gem.

A project manager's guide to organization - Lifehacker

technorati tags:lifehacking, project-management

Blogged with Flock

Claims, warrants, evidence

Andrew Samwick points to a disjuncture between claim and evidence in a recent speech of Hillary Clinton's, and dissects the warrant. I don't carry a brief for or against Sen. Clinton (or any specific candidate), but I appreciate the incisive examination and I hope we'll see more of this applied to all candidates' speeches as 2008 approaches.

Vox Baby: Senator Clinton's Letter and Speech

technorati tags:campaign2008, claims, reasons, warrants, toulmin

Blogged with Flock

Workstreaming

From Web Worker Daily:

There is a web worker replacement for face time: workstreaming, the publishing of work-related activities and events to your remote colleagues, usually via RSS but sometimes in other formats and ways.Workstreaming is the next generation of the 11 pm email you send to your team to show them that you’ve been working all evening. Workstreaming is related to lifestreaming, producing an RSS feed of all the bits and pieces of your online self in date-time order. But lifestreaming incorporates everything from the personal to the professional to the trivial, while workstreaming is only about showing what you’ve just accomplished, what you’re working on now, and what you’re planning to do in the future.

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Workstreaming: The New Face Time «

technorati tags:workstreaming, net_work

Blogged with Flock

USA Today roundup

USA Today is going to a social networking format.

To our readers
- Ken Paulson, Editor; Kinsey Wilson and John Hillkirk, Executive Editors

Quick Guide to New USA Today Features
- USA Today

Bravo to USA Today
- Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

USAToday.com Goes Social, Sorta
- Stowe Boyd, /Message

USAToday.com Refashions Itself as a Social Network
- Steve Rubel, MicroPersuasion