Lifestream
-
[Lifestream] Twittersource: Laptop-friendly cafes near Oxford Street
Thursday February 11, 2010 @ 02:35 PM (UTC)Many cafes are losing their previous tolerance of people who squat for hours in their premises, sucking their wifi and electricity whilst nursing one or two cups of joe. I try not to be one of those people. Unfortunately, yesterday I found myself in central London in need of power and a caffeine hit. What to do? Why, harness the Twitter brain, of course!
-
[Lifestream] '1984' in photographs, one word, one day at a time
Wednesday January 06, 2010 @ 08:55 PM (UTC)
Last year I spent much of my time taking photos of myself every day I worked on my thesis. I’m kinda hooked on the 365 photo sets. And now, I have a wonderful new toy that performs very well in low light.
-
[Lifestream] Twittersource: Places to visit in London
Tuesday December 29, 2009 @ 11:55 AM (UTC)London is full of nooks and crannies of new and exciting things to see and do. I have my own long list of favourite places to visit when I’m not on the clock in the capital, but, for fear of London-complacency, and thanks to the overwhelming success of the Twittersource Whitley Bay experiment, I thought I’d reach out and discover a few new things. I asked the Twitterverse for their 140-character suggestions for their favourite things to do in London, and here are a few of the choice suggestions (eating, drinking and general sightseeing) that came back:
-
[Lifestream] Twittersource: Places to visit in Whitley Bay, Tyneside
Sunday December 20, 2009 @ 10:15 PM (UTC)Today, and for the next 72 hours, I find myself in Whitley Bay, Tyneside. I mostly know this seaside resort on the North Sea from the POV of my in-laws’ living room, but I’d like to know more. I shouted my intentions to the Twitterverse, and a surprising number of suggestions came back: I had no idea so many contacts were connected to Whitley Bay. Oh the power of weak ties.
-
[Lifestream] Particle physics jokes (in 140 characters or less)
Friday November 27, 2009 @ 10:17 AM (UTC)I didn’t mean to start anything, but in re-tweeting ereuben’s joke about a Higgs Boson and Catholicism, my Twitter account became an enormous repository for particle physics jokes. Here are some of the best:
-
Finding Ada at Open Tech
Friday July 10, 2009 @ 11:38 PM (UTC)What an awesome list of women in technology. I’m truly humbled to be amongst them.
List compiled at Open Tech 2009 inspired by Ada Lovelace Day, which was created by the marvellous Suw Charman-Anderson.
-
Social Networks Cause Death To Our Children - let the (un-substantiated) backlash begin
Wednesday February 25, 2009 @ 11:08 PM (UTC)This post was originally published on socialsim.
I’m only going to comment on this story to say four things:
1) Hitwise_UK has demonstrated that the average age of a Facebook user is 26 and a Twitter (and other microblogging application) user is 31. Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site in the UK. Where are the children?
2) Web-use is not binary: you can go online and you can come offline too. Engaging with the internet does not mean you drop out of society. On the contrary, there is substantial evidence that Web users are more politically and socially engaged that non-users because the medium facilitates connection and collaboration. Further, the trend of Web2.0 is to connect people online for interaction offline.
3) Television is a passive medium. The Web is a participatory medium. Television makes us drones, the internet and other participatory media encourage active learning. We use our brains more online, not less.
4) Read The Internet Paradox Revisited (pdf). It’s a re-analysis of the 1998 paper The Internet Paradox (pdf), which argued that people become more depressed, isolated and lonely when they go online. In the later study – conducted by the same team and with the same sample as the original – the effects of the original disappeared. Instead, it indicated that social circles increase by an average of six people, rather than decrease. The researchers argued that the first study suffered because the Web was relatively new; its use wasn’t widespread. Now it is.
I’m done. I’ve said it on various social networks, and now I’ve documented my feelings here. If you want more, read Ben Goldacre’s piece. -
Particle Physics Track Listing
Tuesday February 24, 2009 @ 11:10 PM (UTC)This post was originally published on socialsim.
I’m in love with a string theory fancier. So, when it came to a Valentine’s/Anniversary gift-o, I was stumped. Apart from buying a star (no), and extra redundant copies of Sagan/Feynman/Greene/etc/etc/etc (no), I couldn’t think of anything suitable.
-
[PhD] To open publish or not to open publish? That's my current question.
Monday February 23, 2009 @ 11:14 PM (UTC)This post was first published on socialsim
I’m not sure how I feel about open publishing. I’ve been wrestling with this idea since a conversation several years ago with a friend who is very open about his content (to the extent that he feels comfortable releasing Creative Commons versions of his published works). He asked if I would release my PhD online once it was done. I might, I said. Maybe.
I’ve come to realise that I’m not totally comfortable with the idea. I haven’t published any of my findings, nor have I distributed any of my chapter drafts as they’ve been pulled, kicking and screaming, out of my fingertips. I’ve thought about it, and then the traditionalist in me worries that the content I have generated through 4 years of long, hard slog would be stolen – yes, stolen – and I wouldn’t be able to leverage it to my advantage.
This topic has unsurprisingly come under scientific scrutiny. I’m not the only one thinking about this, after all. Scientific American published (in print and in their Edit This series) an article called Science 2.0, in which they debated whether the (admittedly rare) practice of releasing raw experimental results ushered in a new era of science or opened researchers to potential exploitation. They lay out the arguments:
I desperately want the latter, but fear the former. And so I have yet to do anything.Of course, many scientists remain wary of such openness—especially in the hypercompetitive biomedical fields, where patents, promotion and tenure can hinge on being the first to publish a new discovery. For these practitioners, Science 2.0 seems dangerous: putting your serious work out on blogs and social networks feels like an open invitation to have your lab notebooks vandalized—or, worse, your best ideas stolen and published by a rival.
To advocates, however, an atmosphere of openness makes science more productive. “When you do your work online, out in the open,” Hooker says, “you quickly find that you’re not competing with other scientists anymore but cooperating with them.”
There is yet another argument against open sourcing academic content, one which was recently described by the Science Blog: by releasing it for free, the value of the knowledge is reduced because anyone can access it. It is perceived as being less worthy than something that is exclusive. It is no longer rare:On average, when a given publication was made available online after being in print for a year, being published in an open source format increased the use of that article by about 8 percent. When articles are made available online in a commercial format a year after publication, however, usage increases by about 12 percent.
“Across the scientific community,” [James A.] Evans [from University of Chicago] said in an interview, “it turns out that open access does have a positive impact on the attention that’s given to the journal articles, but it’s a small impact.”
That’s why weird artefacts from World of Warcraft cost so much more in real money transfer amongst players in the black digital market than the stuff anyone can have.
And so I am still torn. I would like to release my content for feedback. In the past few months, I have developed the confidence for public scrutiny of my work. But I worry that it will be remixed, mashed up and published elsewhere (as happened to my Aunt when she was in the writing up phase of her doctorate), thus a) undermining my hard work and b) giving someone else credit.
I’m very curious – how have others resolved this for themselves?
-
[Countryphile] How could I forget about Ween?
Wednesday July 09, 2008 @ 11:35 PM (UTC)This post was originally published on countryphile
I just landed on Ween’s Last.fm radio and the first song that came on was ‘When I’m Holdin’ You’ from 12 Golden Country Greats, their stupendous country music album. You must, you really must.
Displaying posts 1 - 11 of 15
Recent comments