Free Textbook

This is a list of Current Papers and Brief Summaries, which includes a complete textbook written by a professor for use in his class. I remember the overpriced crap I had to buy when I was in college. This may not be better than the others, but it is certainly cheaper.

I bet Cisco sues him for copyright infringement . . .

Google Conquers E-Mail

Honestly, I think this hits it on the head. Gmail is really quite remarkable.

Results...

This is me.

congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

java.blogs

I just wanted to be sure that I kept this link somewhere handy. This blog is really becoming my personal knowledge store. And then there is this guy.

XP and RUP

I just found this paper that merges RUP and XP. Folks at my company generally believe that it has to be one or the other. Maybe not.

A Good overview of Content Management Systems

I always find this topic to be large and unwieldy, especially when talking to people that really have no background in it. This article provides a pretty good overview and, potentially, some context within which one may be able to have a useful discussion with those less immersed than others.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > For Some, the Blogging Never Stops

This is interesting. I think I know a few people like this and even one that shares a name, "They blog openly or sometimes, like Mr. Wiggins, quietly so as not to call attention to their habit." I think there is a distinct lack of readership of blogs. For me, I've mostly started to use mine as a place to store interesting links that I may need to come back to later on. The default taxonomy that blogs use is simply a calendar which you can then contextualize with comments and ramblings such as this. Instead of a forum for others to read, it becomes my public cognitive artifact.

I can (and do) use other taxonomies to store links and interesting peices of information, but none seem quite so portable as this.

Kerry Gets Google-Bombed

Wired News: Kerry Gets Google-Bombed
Superb. And Bush does too. And neither one has a single clue about what it means, what the effect is, or anything. Both sides have the position: "if they do it, that is wrong. If our folks do it, that is just the nature of democracy and the internet."

I think it is the latter. Next election, they will have really figured out what to do with this. Of course, everything will have changed by then.

I think the government should be run by blogs.

Yahoo! News - Universe Measured: We're 156 Billion Light-years Wide!

I love this tidbit of information. Stated with so much assurance and so much room for error. And I love this quote.
Yahoo! News - Universe Measured: We're 156 Billion Light-years Wide!: "'If the universe was finite, and had a size of about 4 billion to 5 billion light-years, then light would be able to wrap around the universe, and with a big enough telescope we could view the Earth just after it solidified and when the first life formed,' Cornish said. 'Unfortunately, our results rule out this tantalizing possibility.'"

Don't even think about speeding in Italy

They will catch you! I'd like to see the Cops episode where they use this car to bump some people off the road or throw the perp over the hood for frisking. Do NOT scratch the paint

Cold Turkey

Kurt Vonnegut is a most excellent writer and a very interesting thinker. I cannot truly vouch for the fact that this (Cold Turkey) article is his, since the whole commencement speech event, but it is very interesting. I'd like to argue against what seems a very pessimistic POV on humans, but then I'm not 81 with that perspective. Anyhow, read and think.

LauraJ's Weblog

I have been desperately looking for some information about getting the alerts to work correctly in Sharepoint and ran across LauraJ's Weblog. It didn't have the information that I was looking for, but it is a good blog with what looks like some good information.

Saint Anxieti of Malta

I think a very good friend of mine just might be the Patron Saint Anxieti of Malta.

E-mail Post

Thought I'd try the new feature, just to see how it feels. Here is a link about people hoping for an earthquake.

Marc's Outlook on Productivity: April 2004 Archives

Marc's Outlook on Productivity: April 2004 Archives

There are just a lot of interesting things here that I don't have time to read. There is talk of Onfolio and the book, Getting Things Done. All of it seems interesting, but I just don't have time to read it all now. So, I use my blog as a reminder, a cognitive artifact that places a link here for whatever I want to say.

I sorta thing things like onenote or onfolio are really just lightweight and portable blogs.

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings This is totally cool! I love this. I haven't blogged in a while, but I had to share this. Thanks to joho for having the best connections to the grooviest shit.

Mindjack - 12 Variables for Understanding Online Communites

This is what I meant. Sorta.Mindjack - 12 Variables for Understanding Online Communites

Responding from one medium to another

I think that part of what we are doing is trying to use something that seems best suited to an individual voice and using it to accomodate multiple voices. The dialog in most blogs is active, but second hand. Blogging is about trust and interest amongst individuals. Puck is active as can be within his own blog, but only a little active within the team (although more active than most . . .). I am active in neither, but can't let them die.

Except for eye yee em. Something about that one made me distinctly uncomfortable. Like we were on a reality show, but didn't know it, so didn't buy into the fact that the cameras would be in our faces all the time recording everything we do everything we say and then edited to twist what we meant lacking editorial control (not by outside agents, but by ourselves). Anyhow, I killed it.

Here is the new one.

It is gone. My blog remains as it was before. Infrequent. Scattered. Unfocused. Mine.

The Power of the Blog

Me. I think. The power of the blog is overestimated at this point. Howard Dean rules in cyberspace, but the majority of people (unsubstantiated opinion) don't care. Cyberfolk are a minorty,a very vocal and active minority, but you can't win an election there. I think Dean is finding that out.

The criticism that I heard is that he really didn't express a position (different than an opinion, but I'll let you figure the difference). His web presence certainly did.

blogging the market

Blogging the algorithm
So, I'm reading this section of this paper and thought of something. First, I think this is very interesting work, in and of itself. Some of the prose is a little overwrought, but there are many good ideas contained within it. I know many people in various management positions would see the blog and this paper as somehow, subversive. I think my boss would hate it, so I made sure to send a link. You never know. They might get it.

Here is my thought. This idea of blogging bubbles seems to be a reasonable analog basis for an optimization algorithm. Similar to a genetic algorithm, but instead of one fitness function there are multiple functions. As the bubble grows from thoughts, to results, to connections, to patterns, the fitness evaluation changes at different levels. Rough outlines, but I think that you could formalize this.

The outcome might be interesting. In much the same way that bubbles are often "false" (i.e., urban legends), the results of the algorithm may be less than optimal. You could calculate urban legends yourself. Is perception reality? Would a social blogging based algorithm result in a different perception? One that isn't true, but has some sort of social value? Do urban legends have social value? Are they cautionary tales for controlling the behavior of youths or the masses?