Year: 2010

Spreadsheets for Machines

Interesting analysis from John Udell of Excel and Google Spreadsheets from a web publishing perspective.

Still hard to beat the spreadsheet for human readable organization of data (*), but the flexibility of format and use makes automation problematic. (*) And not just presenting and organizing data, also as a mark-up and mapping UI, adding adjacent columns is so natural. I’ve been heard to voice the idea (based on no evidence) that the Egyptians probably used the approach on slates of tabula when building the pyramids.

Abandoned Beauty

There are lots of sites with photos of abandoned inhabitation, but this was clearly a beautiful resort location. I’m guessing despite the spelling it’s here, in Georgia on the Black Sea ?

(Friday evening dose of Rivets.)

And a little too much IKEA for my liking but some of these are excellent. The Lays potatoes and the Funeral service for example. Brilliant.

Unlearning

Unlearning (or relearning) communication habits through the experience of social media is the topic of this brief observation from Euan Semple. (I happen to agree – I believe that is a major effect of the overload of communications we all seem to participate in these days – basic social rules are really tied to the pace of evolution of human nature, not the technology cycle – the good news is that if we’re alert, the speed of light participation can help us find the rules very quickly.)

” … wearing a tie and talking funny. Spouting stuff about “process” and “strategy” and “empowerment”. Thankfully I grabbed hold of myself, pulled myself back from that slippery slope and ditched the tie.”

I happen to believe in process and strategy (and governance) …. the real challenge is to rescue them from buzzword devaluation by the funny tie brigade. (See this earlier Dilbert link.)

Freedom of Information

I’ve blogged a few comments recently about non-freedom of information in the communication (verb) sense of information … in the public domain in connection with government, economy, science, business, etc. Not all information should be publicly communicated just because it can be. A moral issue affecting the quality of decision-making that affects us all.

Here is a piece in The Atlantic on the freedom of information … in the free-of-cost sense. Also a moral issue. A reaction to naive internet ideology that “Information wants to be free” and “attempts to constrain it are immoral”, because information also really needs to be expensive … ie valued, if it is to have any real quality. Will comment further. Thanks to Johan for the link on Facebook.

It is mostly about Apple vs Google vs Murdoch media pricing and licensing, but the moral ideology is central

“the core gospel of an open Web was upheld with such rigor that when one of its more prolific members, Time magazine’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt, published a scare-the-old-folks cover story in 1995, which carried the implication that some measure of online censorship might not be a bad thing, he and his apostasy were torn to pieces with breathtaking relentlessness. At the time, the episode was notable for being one of the first examples of the Web’s ability to fact-check, and keep in check, the mainstream media—it turned out that the study on whichTime’s exclusive report was based was inaccurate, and its results were wildly overstated. In retrospect, what seems notable is the fervor with which digital correctness—the idea that the unencumbered flow of everything must be defended—was being enforced.”

[Post Note – spooky that this article should turn up today too – The Internet Kill Switch.]

Short Cuts

Interesting set of links spinning out of a Ben Goldacre piece on “judging quality” in scientific “evidence”.

Cialdini’s “Influence”.
Complementary & Alternative Medicine.
Ben’s piece with
My original comment, plus comments by
JDC at Stuff & Nonesense, and
Keith Douglas the philosopher-animal.

The cognitive “short-cuts” people use – heuristics – to make complex decisions pragmatically, and importantly use to justify and persuade others of decisions. Wise practitioners know they are using them and why they need to use them – memetic arms race again. Judgement is embedded in the choice of logic, not in the logic itself, and one can be seen to be using logic, being scientific, without apparently being judgemental. It’s a necessary (?) game of rhetoric in science.

Disguises, outwardly denies, the place of judgement in science, whilst actually sneaking it in under the radar. Use with caution, hence wisdom.