Ethnoclassification and vernacular vocabularies
The latest meme to catch fire in the IA community deals with the folk classification tools found on systems like del.icio.us and Flickr. Users are able to freely tag content with whatever metadata comes to mind.
Headshift provides a good overview of the issues at hand, and Alex does his thing when making sure we [...]
Organizational Lessons from Burning Man – Spreading Memes
Chatting with some friends who have been going to Burning Man for years, we marveled at how, even with it’s astonishing growth, the event has been able to retain it’s essence year after year. It’s remarkable that, while the experience necessarily changed (25,000 people is just too different from 250), the spirit, and what draws [...]
People Are The Same The World Over
I’ve just completed the first section of Lawrence Weschler’s delightful collection of essays, Vermeer in Bosnia. One essay, “Aristotle in Belgrade”, follows protests in the face of rigged elections. He describes the Serbian political mindset as being able to support seeming opposites — “they could simultaneously feel that their neighbors were affording them no threat [...]
Jumping through hoops
A while back I posted about how product designs are getting too difficult, and how the greater the number of steps it takes for someone to set up a product, or to use a service, the less successful they will be. In it, I mentioned the Six Sigma concept of Rolled Throughput Yield: “the probability [...]
I’ve Got The United States Ranked 30th In Olympics Medal Count
Typically, we see medal counts ranking countries by raw medal numbers. Something like this, where the total score is derived by having the Gold worth 3, Silver worth 2, and Bronze worth 1. (This isn’t a complete count — I got sick of cleaning tabular data.)
Country
Gold
Silver
Bronze
"Total"
1
United States
20
17
12
106
2
China
20
13
10
96
3
Russia
7
13
14
61
4
Germany
10
9
11
59
5
Australia
11
7
11
58
6
Japan
12
5
5
51
7
France
6
8
7
41
8
Korea
5
10
5
40
9
Italy
6
6
6
36
9
Great Britain
5
7
7
36
11
Netherlands
3
6
7
28
12
Ukraine
6
2
5
27
13
Romania
5
0
2
17
13
Belarus
2
3
5
17
15
Greece
3
1
3
14
16
Hungary
2
3
1
13
16
Poland
2
2
3
13
18
Slovakia
2
2
1
11
18
Spain
0
5
1
11
20
Turkey
3
0
1
10
21
Cuba
0
2
5
9
22
Georgia
2
1
0
8
22
Thailand
2
0
2
8
24
Indonesia
1
1
2
7
24
South Africa
1
1
2
7
24
Bulgaria
1
0
4
7
24
Denmark
1
0
4
7
24
Austria
0
3
1
7
24
DPR Korea
0
3
1
7
30
Zimbabwe
1
1
1
6
30
Croatia
0
2
2
6
30
Czech [...]
Pour Some Concrete On Me
When in D.C., I always make an attempt to visit the National Building Museum. I got the chance to do so today (wrapping up our workshop here), and the NBM has done it again with their fantastic Liquid Stone exhibit, all about concrete, its history, its engineering, contemporary uses, and where its headed.
Soccer doesn’t really explain much more than soccer
When I was in Europe, I found myself swept up in Euro 2004 fever. I found it odd that a sport I never before followed took so much of my attention. When I saw reviews of Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explain the World, I got a copy of it from my local library.
I [...]
Search, And Ye Shall Maybe Find
A little bit o’ company promotion here.
Jeff and Darcy recently published “Site Content Search: A User Experience Analysis”, an in-depth review of search engine interfaces, what works, what doesn’t. Boatloads of examples, screenshots, etc.
Use the coupon code SEARCHDEAL to get 15% off your whole order, as long as the search report is in [...]
Seeing Through the Mists of Marketing
In today’s Chronicle, an article on Humboldt Fog cheese begins with this passage:
Few American artisan cheeses created in recent years have penetrated the national market like Humboldt Fog. Whether because of its striking appearance or superior flavor, consumers have embraced this unusual goat cheese with ash in the middle.
In supermarkets that make no pretense of [...]
Design is Easy; Organizational Politics is Hard
[This is a draft (and an early one at that) of an essay I'm working on for the Adaptive Path site. Wanted to get some thoughts out there while still raw.]
At the DIS2004 Conference, I attended a panel on how innovation seems to be on the wane, with the potential culprit being user-centered design methods [...]
Linkblog
- And the angel said unto him, stop hitting yourself!
March 4, 2010 | 8:34 amFunny.
- A new global visual language for the BBC’s digital services
February 22, 2010 | 2:24 pmTruly impressive work, and an impressive post detailing it!
- Talking Heads in Rome 1980
February 21, 2010 | 8:26 pmA series of 11 videos on YouTube of a 1980 concert. Sweet.
- Hot Pockets Ingredients
February 21, 2010 | 8:22 pmUm. An elegant poster of a disgustingly over-ingrediented “food”.
- The Birth of Cheap Communication (and Junk Mail)
February 21, 2010 | 12:07 pmFun, breezy take on the original “Victorian internet” – the British Postal System.
- Roger Ebert: The Essential Man
February 16, 2010 | 8:06 amHe might have no jaw, but Ebert has been as eloquent as ever of late (and quite the liberal activist!)
- Bing Maps Explore is pretty sweet
February 11, 2010 | 6:21 pmSadly, it requires Silverlight, but the functionality is fly. Check out the “Map Apps” (bottom of the screen). The Streetside Photos app draws geotagged photos from Flickr and applies them into the Street View. Pretty awesome.
- Ravens Coach Brian Billick Tackles Super Bowl XLIV : NPR
February 6, 2010 | 10:03 amAs we approach the Super Bowl, I found this interview about what a coach really does surprisingly informative.
- Henrietta Lacks: A Donor’s Immortal Legacy
February 6, 2010 | 10:02 amThis is utterly fascinating. Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells are the world’s first immortal cells. I had never heard of HeLa cells before this interview with author Rebecca Skloot. Now I want to read the book.
- The Incredible San Fancisco Artists’ Soapbox Derby, 1975
February 4, 2010 | 8:00 am24 minute film about a truly delightful community endeavor. I don’t think SF has this kind of artist mojo any longer, but I’d love to see something like this Oakland, careening down Joaquin Miller Road.
- Paywalls, Blogs, Comments, Editing and Magazines: A Conversation with Paul Ford, Web Editor of Harper’s Magazine | The Awl
February 4, 2010 | 7:37 amIf you’ve followed ftrain for the past 10+ years, you already know that Paul Ford is among the smartest people on the internet. This conversation with The Awl about pay models for publishing and his experience at Harpers is a little precious at times, but worth a read.
- Interview with Bloom County creator Berkeley Breathed
February 2, 2010 | 8:12 amBloom County was among those key influences informing my sense of humor, including Monty Python, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Edward Gorey. This interview looks back to its creation.
- Axe Cop
January 31, 2010 | 9:52 pmSo awesome. And funny. The best comic ever written by a 5-year-old and drawn by his 29-year-old brother. I wanna Avocado Soldier t-shirt.
- Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 3 and 4
January 31, 2010 | 7:28 pmRick Prelinger collects archival, industrial, and found footage of San Francisco, and presents them as clips in front of live audiences. Delightful look at the city’s past.
- Roger Ebert’s best films of the decade
January 31, 2010 | 7:23 pmI’m a little late on linking to this. Historically, I’ve found Ebert to be far too forgiving a critic (he just loves movies too much and gives poor ones a pass), so I was surprised at how close his list is to mine (if I bothered to make one). Synecdoche, Me And You and Everyone We Know, even Juno.
- Taking Directions from Slime Mold
January 25, 2010 | 7:54 pmIf my colleague Kate Rutter were to have a spirit organism, it would be slime mold. Slime mold are bizarre, neither plant nor animal nor fungi, and they’ve become the poster species for self-organizing systems. Anyway, they can also design subway systems. Scroll down to listen to the piece about them.
- Where has all the popcorn gone?
January 24, 2010 | 4:20 pmThe folks on Chowhound have the same question I did the last time I went to the supermarket. Popcorn could become the next artisanal fetish.
- S.F.s Market Street changes as city evolves
January 23, 2010 | 8:07 amCarl Nolte does it again with an exploration of Market Street’s multiple personalities. The stretch between 6th and 9th is among the most depressing urban blights in the US.
- Online Dating: The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures
January 21, 2010 | 8:13 pmOKCupid.com is a dating site. OkTrends is where the people behind the site reveal insights discovered through statistical analysis of site behavior. It’s awesome.
- How to be a superstar bartender
January 18, 2010 | 8:39 pmExcellent set of explicit instructions for the basics of mixing drinks (measuring, shaking, stirring, twists, etc.)
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