Applied social network analysis. Somehow Eric Promislow's Amazing Baconizer escaped my attention until Eric mentioned it to me recently. Eric was co-creator of OmniMark, an ahead-of-its-time XML-oriented programming language, and is a senior developer at ActiveState. “The Baconizer,” he says, “is where I go to play in your basic LABP world (I'm too lazy to replace Berkeley DB with My SQL).” I've seen a few other applications that automate the traversal of Amazon's “Customers who bought this book also bought…” links, but Eric's does so in a goal-directed way. Here, for example, is the 12-hop path from my book to my wife's book:
… [Jon's Radio]

interesitn bit of equipment that….

MS $180M 'Crush-Linux' fund: Good NYT piece by Thomas Fuller this A.M. about the kinder, gentler Microsoft that has emerged since its deal with the Bush Administration.

MS set up a $180 million fund to enable salesmen to offer MS server products and services to governments at steep discounts or free (”Under NO circumstances lose against Linux”) according to an email obtained by Fuller.

The story goes on to describe MS employees attending Linuxworld, posing as independent consultants and OEMs. One described Linuxworld as “an even mix of local Union Hall teamster gathering, Christian Scientist revival and Amway sales conference.” Steve Ballmer is quoted, calling Linux “a cancer”. Good to see they really got the message up in Redmond, especially about predatory pricing… meanwhile Linux has 26% of the server market, according to IDG, against MS' 44%, and is growing… [www.gulker.com - words and pictures from Silicon Valley]

i would think that this would be an anti-competitive strategy.

The missing Web.

Allen has mounted a passionate argument on behalf of the inspired idea behind GlobeAlive: That we have fine search engines for documents, but not for people.

When he first told me about it, and tossed off the line World Live Web, my mind was blown. In a World of Ends, we should all be able to find each other and talk, or corresond, live. (And not just on computers.)

He explains:

What I'm talking about is something entirely different. What I'm talking about is using the Qeb to find actual people in the world at large that you can talk to right now, about whatever youÕre specifically searching for. There's nothing like that yet. Nothing. People aren't searchable. TheyÕre the most important resource in the world, and theyÕre not searchable, theyÕre scattered to the wind. ThereÕs no “people” tab at Google (and “groups” isnÕt the idea at all). That person you want to talk to right now (and that wants to hear from you right now) that needle in the haystack of 6 billion, is out there, I promise, but youÕll never find them, because the magnet you need to do so doesnÕt exist. I want to build it.

To a significant degree, he has. With GlobeAlive, Allen is prototyping the idea very nicely. The hundreds who have joined in, and are also passionate about it, bear witness to something.

Allen has bootstrapped this thing on a shoestring. Somebody needs to come in with some money and take it to the next level. If I had it, I would (even if he wasn't my son). But maybe one of ya'll do. If so, jump ahead to Allen's closing paragraph:

The bottom line is that when we restrict our interactions to people we already know or the people that happen to be in the chat room or community we join, it's like restricting our information-gathering to the books in our personal libraries at home, it's a mathematical certainty that weÕre selling ourselves utterly short. The island mentality is the root of this problem. ThereÕs an infinitely better way of going about our interpersonal interactions. It would change the web by making it live; it would change the economy by making it personal; it would change the world by making it smaller; and it would change you and I… by helping us meet.

[ href="http://doc.weblogs.com/">The Doc Searls Weblog]

hmm, this is a good idea, as more and more people are hooked in minute by minute into their information technology, things could be enlivened…. the secret will be decentralization.

Don't read my blog!. I suggest that you consider reading this blog, or perhaps this one.  You know there are lots of great blogs out there.  Scout around. [Ernie the Attorney]

but I like yours, in part because of the mnemonics of the name, but also because it provides such interesting pointers to others, plus you were one of the first to link to my blog.

Put the “public” back in the public domain
Lawrence Lessig is looking for a few good congressmen:

It seems that there was one member of congress willing to introduce this bill, but the lobbyists got to him/her. So Prof. Lessig is calling on people to write their representatives and ask them to do something relatively small and achievable to redress the copyright imbalance that prevails today.

This, it seems to me, is a good fight, worth giving some long-haul energy. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

I think this is a great idea, and I want to know about that stanford library 1000 page an hour thing, cause i know that i have books that are out of copyright that could be scanned, and then i could use material from those books much more easily in my courses.

2nd IEEE Intl Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education (WMTE 2003)
JungLi, Taiwan December 8-10, 2003
http://lttf.ieee.org/wmte2003/

Theme: “Mobile Support for Learning Communities”

** Important dates:

Submissions due: June 16, 2003
Notification of acceptance: August 1, 2003
Final articles due: September 1, 2003
Author registration deadline: September 1, 2003
Workshop: December 8-10, 2003

** Proceedings

The WMTE 2003 proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press.

** Topics of Interest

We invite full papers, works-in-progress, and posters. The program committee will seek to
achieve a balance of empirical investigations and design studies, including relevant
methodologies from computer science and engineering research as well as cognitive science
and educational research. All submitted papers should address mobile and/or wireless
technologies and provide new insights relating to their use in teaching and learning.

Topics include (but are not limited to):

- Innovative designs and uses of tools to overcome barriers of learning
- Principles and patterns for learner-centered design
- Design of learning activities supported by mobile devices
- Advances in teaching conceptually difficult topics in school
- Interface designs optimized for small screens or other modes of interaction that
fit on mobile devices
- Architectures that support rapid prototyping, reuse, or large-scale test beds
- Techniques of instrumentation devices and networks for research data gathering
- Case studies of teaching and learning
- Surveys of learners that reveal important trends and opportunities
- Analysis of the topology of learning communities
- Evaluation of effectiveness
- Comparisons of alternative designs
- Issues of scaling up to reach large numbers of learners
- Mobile agents for learning

** Paper submission:

- Full papers (maximum 8 pages)
- Works-in-progress (maximum 5 pages)
- Posters (maximum 2 pages)

Details of submission procedure are available at the conference website:
http://lttf.ieee.org/wmte2003/