- NYC BigApps Competition – $20k In Prize Money
A software application competition to make New York City more transparent, accessible and accountable, and an easier place to live, work and play.
And you can win 20,000 dollars! - RGraph – Weighted Graph Animation
Example of use of the great JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit which provides tools for creating Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web.
Yearly Archives: 2009
Links for 2009 10 06
- BBC NEWS | Technology | Twitter 10% users generate 90% content
Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found. - Facebook Measures Happiness in Status Updates
The Facebook Data Team recently measured happiness in the United States based on these updates with a metric they call United States Gross National Happiness.
This graph represents how "happy" the nation is doing from day to day, by looking at how many positive and negative words people are using when they update their status.
Links for 2009 09 29
- Post scarcity – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The term post-scarcity economics may be somewhat paradoxical according to mainstream economics. The reason being that scarcity values are a defining feature of contemporary economic applications. However, the paradox is resolved by considering that some resources will always remain scarce, such as human attention and time". Until you reach Enlightenment of course, then also attention and time will be abundant … ;)
Links for 2009 09 22
Links for 2009 09 21
- Dell Says It Has Earned $3 Million From Twitter – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
Wondering if this is true, if this is the entire story and, if yes, why Dell is giving up this info to its competitors.
"Dell said that the company had earned $3 million in revenue directly through Twitter since 2007, when it started posting coupons and word of new products on the microblogging site." - Social networks for a good cause – growth, culture and impact : crisscrossed blog
Anand Giridharadas “Behind Facebook’s Success: It Takes a Village“ argues that being in a social network is like living in a village, where you can share your thoughts, emotions, news, and more – something like entertaining neighbourhood relationships, with the difference that geographic location, physical distances and time do not matter anymore and interactions can occur on a global scale, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Once you establish your network with a multitude of members, “you are compelled, as in the village, to know their business. It’s strangely nice.”
Suspicion XKCD
One of my biggest fear in electronic communication (email mainly and not for dating, eh) is “Am i not interacting electronically with a bot, am I?”. Creating bots able to appear human (Turing test) is a fascinating research area, one I would like to be in, next life. ;)
Researchers’ Night at Fondazione Bruno Kessler
Experiments, demonstrations, performances, meetings, exhibitions, guided tours, open workshops and a party to learn all about the world of science.
On September 25, 2009 Trento will be animated by “The Researchers’ night”, an event sponsored by the European Commission and organized by Fondazione Bruno Kessler (where I work) in collaboration with the Istituto Agrario S. Michele all’Adige, the University of Trento, Trentino Sviluppo, the Institute for evaluative research on public policies (IRVAPP), the Municipality of Trento and the Autonomous Province of Trento.
Check the Program and the video on Youtube.
The night will end up with a party and I’m sure you will not miss the opportunity to dance with a researcher! ;)
Children and adults will have the opportunity to understand science by experiencing its day-to-day practices, by frequenting the spaces and places where research is carried out and by coming into contact with its machinery and equipment, but above all by talking to those directly involved. The public participating will be actively involved in hands-on experiments, in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, using also an accessible wording also for non scientists . Each of the venues for the day’s events will plan a “European corner”, providing information on Europe and European interventions in favour of researchers and research.
Through offering the public at large and specifically young people the opportunity to directly get in touch with researchers in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, the Researchers’ Night project not only allows the participants to better understand the input of research in economic growth, employment and competition and in their dally lives, but also offers a unique occasion to discover the “human face” of researchers. While discovering the fascinating aspects of the job, the visitors will also share with researchers their hopes, dreams, hobbies, concerns …and perceive them as “ordinary people”.
In the following the program but you better check the Program on the FBK web site.
Links for 2009 09 16
Links for 2009 09 01
Links for 2009 08 30
- Is this the end of the age of our social cohesion? Decline of bonding social capital in Canada.
Discrepancies in recent poll results may be a symptom of increasing fragmentation in Canadian society, rather than of any fault in the methods of data collection. It is harder to find a representative sample when people actually have less and less in common. (…) “We need a public life in common,” he writes, “some set of reference points and allegiances to give us a way to relate to the strangers among whom we live. Without this feeling of belonging, even if only imagined, we would live in fear and dread of each other. When we can call the strangers citizens, we can feel at home with them and with ourselves.” (…) "A nation is an imagined community", wrote Benedict Anderson. (…) “Society is always better when someone is trying to undermine your views. And particularly, social cohesion is better, because being challenged forces you to think through why you believe what you believe. It’s the stimulus for debate and discussion and a recognition of multiple others.”