Back Up; Don’t Smash Up – Mozy asks how much your home computer is worth
via youtube.com
Interesting thought behind this PR stunt.
Is your computer backed up to the point you’d smash it without notice to get a new laptop?
[via email & posterous]
July 22, 2010
July 17, 2010
Context Redux
Doc Searls Weblog · Context is King
“What matters is context. I’m tired of having companies guess at what my context is. I know what my contexts are. I know how they change. I want my own ways of changing contexts, and of informing services of what those contexts are. In some cases I don’t mind their guessing. In a few I even appreciate it. But in too many cases their guesses only get in the way. The Google search case is just one of them.”
What underlines Doc’s experience is this issue of control.
Anyway, seeing Doc write about this got me thinking about what I was hung up on when I wrote back in 2005:
“These different modes we operate in. This is our context and this is what is getting me hung up about attention. Attention only measures what we look at not why we are.”
http://dnwallace.com/blog/2005/11/11/im-hung-up-on-the-concept-of-context/
Assumptions sap our ability to control what is ours.
Dave
July 7, 2010
Networked Non-Profits arrive
Got into work this morning to find the books written by our friend Beth Kanter that @fang and I ordered had arrived.
Here’s me with them on my desk along with a Adelaide view out the window.
May 29, 2010
NYT on finding ourself in the cloud
Interesting bit from an article in the New York Times about self-tracking – this bit rang a bell in my head around humanity / culture driving technology creation to fulfil its desires.
NYT Article
One of the reasons that self-tracking is spreading widely beyond the technical culture that gave birth to it is that we all have at least an inkling of what’s going on out there in the cloud. Our search history, friend networks and status updates allow us to be analyzed by machines in ways we can’t always anticipate or control. It’s natural that we would want to reclaim some of this power: to look outward to the cloud, as well as inward toward the psyche, in our quest to figure ourselves out.
April 9, 2010
Random Train pic
Was thinking I could take a pic each train ride to/from work. However I suspect it’d get very boring very fast.
Waiting scenes
Another appointment another waiting room another attempt to take a semi-decent photo with my old wm5 PDA camera.
#waiting scenes
April 1, 2010
Inside 4 stroke engine real time video
As an ex Motor Mechanic, this is neat. Real time video of inside a combustion chamber.
Dave
March 23, 2010
iTunes menu makes no sense – Is Apple paying attention?
Okay. That’s it. I’ve had enough of seeing this message in iTunes that makes no sense every time I’m in my Podcasts area.
It seems a couple versions ago someone decided at Apple that we never actually listen to audio podcasts anymore. No folks, that’s just not allowed. How uncouth. Don’t you know that since youtube we all watch videos. And podcasts are only ever video. I mean, come on, get with it.
So now when you’re in iTunes and go to mark a podcast feed to indicate you’ve listened to them all you’re greeted with the menu selection “Mark as Watched“.
Excuse me? Since when do you watch an audio podcast? Why doesn’t it say “Mark all as Listened”?
What happened to Apple finesse?
For years Apple prided itself on the little finishing touches that made us feel that things were just okay with the world. Often unseen things were simply just right, like dates changing format with column widths and context etc. But now it seems things just get changed on a whim.
Come on Cupertino. Don’t just settle for flashy wow innovation on new devices. Wow us with the finesse and continuity of thought and attention to detail we are used to.
March 15, 2010
Network learning – Social Media helps us learn
Some interesting thoughts in an article titled “Social Media’s Effect on Learning” over on a WSJ Blog.
Some snippets:
“Bilingual people aren’t cognitively smarter, but they are more cognitively flexible,”
“Practice at constant switching improves an aspect of their cognitive abilities.”
“This is much like what people do when they’re updating their Twitter status, instant-messaging friends, or answering text messages and emails while they’re doing something else. Dr. Kuhl said this multitasking, where people are stimulating new patterns of sequential processing, could then reap the same benefits as bilingualism.”
“If not .. then networking online is at least acting as a brain innovator.., promoting new paths of discovery and interactivity in the brain.”
apana-award.jpg
Going through some old papers turned up this ‘pseudo-award’ the APANA (SA) people gave me back in 1994 when I was hosting their server at work feeding APANA with newsgroups from Adelaide uni via SLIP. Was probably Leigh Hart, Mark Newton, Adrian Corston or John Lindsay inspired. Heady days.
