Posts from — April 2007

TV Turnoff Week:

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Radical Vixen points us to TV Turnoff Week, which if we were allowed to post things on walls and door outside of certain areas… would be posted on my door at work.

Ted Leung on the Air » Macintosh Tips and Tricks:
Macintosh Tips and Tricks

This is a list of hardware, software and information that has been useful to me as I’ve moved over to Mac OS X. I hope that you find it useful as well. This version is now up to date for Mac OS 10.4 Tiger and Intel Macs.

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ted’s tools and tips…. worth a glance or more.

Map of Science:
The Map of Science is a network map showing the relationships between 1.6 million scientific articles. The algorithm for the map was put together by Richard Klavans and Kevin Boyack. At the site you can click through to other maps showing analysis by geography, industry, institutions, and topics.
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Pretty cool, but does history guide policy in this way. does prior performance of scientific networks determine how we should encourage them in the future? I’m not really certain, but my opinion is that the data that comprises systems like this is at best representative of certain scientific misconceptions and at worst only related to individual subjects in a way that makes real systemic understanding impossible.

Medicating Aliah:
When she was transferred from Austin State Hospital to a residential facility on March 18, 2004, Aliah was on five different medications, putting her on the extreme end of a growing practice known as polypharmacy that worries many doctors. “This is a complicated regimen using powerful psychotropic medications in a barely adolescent girl, so I would be quite concerned about it,” says Dr. Joseph Woolston, a Yale University professor and chief of child psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital. “It isn’t grossly, acutely dangerous, but it is sedating and would make it difficult for a child to experience the world in a normal way. If you or I were on that regimen we would have a lot of trouble attending to work or school. We don’t have any idea what that combination of medications does to a developing child. It may have a number of long-term side effects.” He also suspects that the drugs may have been used as much to control the angry reactions of a girl who was hospitalized against her will as to treat any mental and emotional problems.

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this is a sad story of medicalization going too far into schools and drug treatments going too far in arresting a teenagers natural life of the mind.

Call for Papers/Participation

Please join us in a workshop on learning and research in Second Life
(R) on October 17, 2007 in Vancouver at Internet Research 8.0 (http://
wiki.aoir.org/index.php?title=About_IR8.0)

Paper Deadline August 15th.

Second Life(R) is a 3d virtual environment created by Linden Lab
which has captured the attentions of researchers and teachers from
around the world from a variety of disciplines.

This workshop aims to improve the understanding of Second Life as a
Learning and Research environment. It will bring 35 researchers
together to collaborate, discuss and workshop diverse topics related
to research and learning in Second Life. We will pursue a full-day
schedule in which participants will discuss their work and interests
on four different topics: learning in Second Life, integrated
learning, the contributions of research to the community and ethical
research methods. How can we better enable learning in this sphere?
How can we better enable research?

As a highlight, Robin Linden will give a talk to the group, and
members of Linden Lab will likely participate throughout the day.

We encourage researchers to submit papers and short biography to
slworkshop@tmttlt.com which will be selected and distributed amongst
participants before the workshop. First invitations will be offered
to those who provide full papers for consideration.

These papers have two purposes: first is to provide a common platform
for understanding our research and teaching and second submitted
papers may be considered for publication in an edited volume being
produced in relation to the workshop, or possibly in peer reviewed
publication derived from the workshop (these are currently under
discussion).

Subsequent invitation will be made based upon research/teaching
statement and biography. If you are interested in participating,
please send an email containing your information to
slworkshop@tmttlt.com.

Decisions will be made by September 1st, barring incident. There is
a limit of 35 participants at the physical meeting; the event will be
simulcast into Second Life.

We welcome professionals, faculty and graduate students to
participate.

This workshop is sponsored by Linden Lab creators of Second Life and
is organized by Jeremy Hunsinger and Aleks Krotoski. Free lunch,
coffee breaks and the room is included in participation.

TheHacketyManifesto on Hackety Hack:
Nearly four years ago, I wrote an essay called The Little Coder’s Predicament. It’s not too unusual. Lots of others like it have been written. The point is: programming just isn’t available to people like it was with the Commodore 64. I also outlined my requirements for a new cross-platform programming environment for beginners.

The essay was widely linked on Slashdot, Reddit, Lambda, etc. I got lots of mail from people who both agreed and disagreed. Great. Nice. Good people all of them! And yet, nothing has changed. Not really!

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This could be the basis of a course for librarians….

Understanding the Birthday Paradox | BetterExplained:
Understanding the Birthday Paradox

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now you know..

CRACKED.com – From N00B to Nerd: The 4 Stages of Life on the Internet:
Internet Old Age is different, as we’re capable of remembering things that actually used to be better: like the glory days of Napster, where it went around teaching people how fun and easy it could be to steal things in a relatively anonymous, consequence-free environment. This epic revelation led directly to the ongoing titanic Caged Deathmatch Litigation Battle Extreme, “the RIAA vs Sanity and Progress.”

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ahhh old age…..

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will | The A.V. Club:
15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will

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A solid list of things to remember.

Think Progress » Exclusive: Army Sgt. Questions Why American Flags Lowered For VA Tech Students, But Not Troops:
But I find it ironic that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. servicemember.

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i wondered this too… I support both.