January 30th, 2006
January 25th, 2006
Just finished reading the Wisdom of Crowds
In order for a crowd to be smart, [Surowiecki] says it needs to satisfy four conditions: 1. Diversity, 2. Independence, 3. Decentralization, and 4. Aggregation.
Excellent.
January 18th, 2006
Seems as though I have been using del.icio.us for one year now - there are 358 items - oooh so close to one a day…..
Great resource. Didn’t know what to do when it went down for a day.
Only one issue with it, and not so much a fault of the site, more an issue with managing a large stock of resources. I have the same problem with gmail, desktop search, even my own blog. Namely, where do you start when you need something, sure searching or browsing by tag is great but you need to know what your searching for in the first place. In a similar way to looking for the spelling of a word and the paradox of where to start if you don’t know how to spell it.
I remember a concept I read about in the Peter F. Hamilton novels Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained where characters had brain inserts that allowed them to interface to the future internet (called the datasphere). They also had what was referred to as an e-Butler what essentially was a semi AI piece of software that would serve, filter, search and generally organise information. It would be tailored to your own preferences and would generally learn about your needs and would run sub-routines on large sets of data, only returning what was generally necessary. Web 2.0 (for want of a better term) is definitely better at allowing data to be organised in multiple ways.
Maybe I just want the moon on a stick, but I kinda like the idea of an e-Butler. Although mine would probably be lazy, like Homer’s monkey, and I’d be in a even worse state than I am now.
January 11th, 2006
I have been working in the Kings Cross area for some time now (and no, I am not a lady of the night). I have seen the area change quite considerably since working here, many a time was I welcomed to my building by somebody injecting brown muck into their arms or offering certain ’services’ on my short walk from the tube station to the sanctity of our building.
With the development of the new European terminal at Kings Cross station, the area is gradually being converted from a crumbling Victorian mess into a kinda cool, glass and brick warehouse place.
For some time it has been rumoured that the guardian are to move into the area from thier current location in Farringdon. I have just found out that they are infact moving next door to where I work into a rather new swanky building (where previously sat a 60s modernist cube of brick containing a various storage facilities with a faux Olde Worlde Pub attached to the side).
Image below to illustrate:
Sweet. More info here
