Society

A great little movie about the internet (html, xml, hypertext, etc.) by Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology from Kansas State University.

Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results In January 2006 the European Commission published the Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe. The Study resulted from a detailed analysis of the current scholarly journal publication market, together with extensive consultation with all the major stakeholders within the scholarly communication process (researchers, funders, publishers, librarians, research policymakers, etc.). The Study noted that ‘dissemination and access to research results is a pillar in the development of the European Research Area’ and it made a number of balanced and reasonable recommendations to improve the visibility and usefulness of European research outputs....

What I find most fascinating about Apple’s new iPhone, is the shift from buttons to body. Getting away from the paradigm of pressing buttons to make a call or to navigate, the iPhone boasts a large multi-touch screen where the user will be able to interact by pointing at pictures and objects. Furthermore, the built-in rotation sensor will sense the direction of the device and rotate the screen accordingly, somehow similar to how new digital cameras rotate the pictures you take automatically....

John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity: REDUCE – The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction ORGANIZE – Organization makes a system of many appear fewer TIME – Savings in time feel like simplicity LEARN – Knowledge makes everything simpler DIFFERENCES – Simplicity and complexity need each other CONTEXT – What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral EMOTION – More emotions are better than less TRUST – In simplicity we trust FAILURE – Some things can never be made simple THE ONE – Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful

How to distribute things through Amazon. Get an ISBN (for a book), or a UPC (for a CD or DVD). For one book it costs $125, for one CD, $55, for one DVD, $89. Get a bar code based on the ISBN or UPC. Costs $10, or may be included in UPC. Sign up with Amazon, $30 per year. Duplicate your stuff; include the bar code on the outside. Ship two copies to Amazon Send cover scan Track sales Register it (optional)

Joel Spolsky writes about flow: We all know that knowledge workers work best by getting into “flow”, also known as being “in the zone”, where they are fully concentrated on their work and fully tuned out of their environment. They lose track of time and produce great stuff through absolute concentration…trouble is that it’s so easy to get knocked out of the zone. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers – especially interruptions by coworkers – all knock you out of the zone....

Last weekend we participated (again) with a stand at a big science fair down in the city centre of Oslo during the Norwegian Research Days. {.imagelink} The most interesting thing, and also what I have spent the most time on lately was a “music troll” I have been making together with Einar Sneve Martinussen and Arve Voldsund. The troll is basically a box with four speakers on the sides, and four arms sticking out with heads with included sensors....

The Eurovision Song Contest (or Melodi Grand Prix as it often called) is a bizarre annual music competition broadcasted over the whole of Europe. The music is rarely in focus, and most people tend to “love to hate” the concept. However, for many of the new countries in Europe the contest is important to show their own existence and bound with their allies this Norwegian commentator writes.

Katherine Wilson writes about how she underestimated blogging when she got started: At the start I underestimated what it could be used for. It’s a database, a diary, a place to jot down notes that don’t fit anywhere else, a place to stake out your research territory, a self-promotion tool, an information bank, an ideas exchange, a support community, a progress-log, a device for self-discipline, confidence-tracker, a complaints department, a file storage system....

Orbicule has some interesting computer theft software for Apple computers. If stolen the Undercover software will take pictures at regular intervals with the built in i-Sight and send to the user together with information about the network location of the computer. It can also cause a hardware “failure” so that the computer will have to be sent for repair where the theft will be noticed.