tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363035952024-02-22T01:48:13.220-05:00intersticesfragmentary thoughts at the nexus of software architecture and topologynightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-74789528165052500322007-02-10T05:03:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:47.763-05:00Zebra and Pi<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/treknology/warpfield.gif" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:7px 10px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBu322SJHqFDSWKvAg_I5rbY5qlyjQwYeVY1eRFpOAILsduomdFTF-PSeSkb4SJnJLht3cVBc-CDC2nH7xY2AcVbwjKgao-MdyoJUl5imdoGLV-COAZHKmnp2xKR4EpTNis0T/s200/warpfield-t.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029849535426444258" /></a>Young love created a warp in space time.<br /><br />Generally, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. There had been, as far as the gods could remember, just two other reported cases.<br /><br />One had been Romeo and Juliet reported by a William Shakespeare.<br /><br />The sympathies of young vibrations as a rule never generate enough voltage. <br /><br />Zebra and Pi -- they were an exception to the rule. I am Bear. I know this. I see them see the light.<br /><br />Pi was the pathfinder. Zebra was her base. <br /><br />The incubation of their sympathies happened in MySpace -- all cries and whispers. That was common enough.<br /><br />What was uncommon was when Zebra and Pi took their show on the road -- the road from MySpace to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatspace" target="_blank">MeatSpace</a>.<br /><br />None of us knows the road from MySpace to MeatSpace.<br /><br />Not even Google Earth.<br /><br />Google Earth is a god.<br /><br />I know noone knows because Bear once asked Google Earth for the directions. Google Earth did give me directions but they only went as far as the end of the Internet.<br /><span id="fullpost"><br />One night I passed Pi's house in MeatSpace. Zebra was there. Pi was playing Zebra's base and I recorded their song.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.youtube.com/" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 20px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIN5fk_-mVKP_eXnz0HJrJWZB3lEtTND9_dzYB6x41o_YeExZ3bp2rH35CyM07EU1pL5dGynFcV0zyCwvSVRtiCFpJPqIYlgl4gDH8KWAS6_Z1varOdbn3wiQb_ut2APf9zrbs/s200/pic_youtubelogo_123x63.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029846211121757138" /></a>This is not the kind of song I would post on YouTube because Bear has responsibility.<br /><br />It would be like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_%282002_film%29" target="_blank">The Ring</a> or its sequel Ring 2 if you were to hear it. The carnage would have been out of sound.<br /><br />The sound wasn't shrill. The sound was wonder.<br /><br />Two travellers from MySpace to MeatSpace singing wonder would have put the scare in any adult, and Pi, in particular, had become worried.<br /><br />I was unable to console them.<br /><br />After what happened Bear knows that horror isn't horror. The Ring wasn't shrill. It was beauty misperceived by an adult director.<br /><br />And I continue to think it was not the god Google Earth who showed Zebra and Pi the road from MySpace to MeatSpace.<br /><br />Their love was like a drill in space time more powerful than the drill of any dentist.<br /><br />Bear is in the Top 8 not just with Zebra and Pi. So Bear can say with authority to many friends: "No more dentists" and "Let the cavities begin."<br /><br />The only shame in all this rests with the parents. They couldn't agree to let the Zebra and Pi be buried together.<br /><br />Big mistake.<br /><br />Right now, as I speak, a determined army of grave robbers is following in the footsteps of Zebra and Pi. We are an invasion of the body snatchers. We are mad. We are about to make love right again in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead" target="_blank">night of the living dead</a>.<br /><br />R.I.P.<br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/identity+2.0">identity 2.0</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/MeatSpace">MeatSpace</a></span><br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-55909196376026500322007-02-09T09:21:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:47.949-05:00"i come from the web..."<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://annezelenka.com/2007/02/making-the-virtual-self-real" target="_blank"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisiSBL47yrTQ6vqn7vP22OeclDhNIutBx8rja1aaYf81qnHATr354hyphenhyphenLXHMgXTPh6BAPzw4lME_4TG2eUavqIT8w8BWJiARgP_NGBZXKemb5DEIdUhOBaStY-MqpycEMkPSzNE/s400/anne.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029544163251698626" /></a><br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/hidden+in+plain+view">hidden in plain view</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/identity+2.0">identity 2.0</a></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-76668674601479148332007-02-09T04:34:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:48.154-05:00rip<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowWlc0z3GAK0euYP-fMaNuk2t0hien68dmv3ynhEw4MhgV86F0kt_fr7vG_boXjIGbusb8rBHsPKwsUAN221tJeY8EN8b92UWndiI74u0qTA9QvzpTC6pQcmQ6A5TWMnecns2/s1600-h/rip_big2.gif" target="_blank"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowWlc0z3GAK0euYP-fMaNuk2t0hien68dmv3ynhEw4MhgV86F0kt_fr7vG_boXjIGbusb8rBHsPKwsUAN221tJeY8EN8b92UWndiI74u0qTA9QvzpTC6pQcmQ6A5TWMnecns2/s320/rip_big2.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5029478003575471010" /></a><br />Not everyone saw Zebra's stripes.<br /><br />Some of her blog entries were open to the public.<br /><br />Other entries -- they were the dark side of Zebra -- were locked down. Only friends could enter.<br /><br />One of Zebra's friends was Pi. Another was Bear.<br /><br />She wrote for their eyes only.<br /><br />Hidden in plain view Pi and Bear saw black as they read the following:<br /><blockquote><font face="courier new">Have you ever been haunted by an angel<br />who sings songs of the night in your head<br />you know he is warm and gentle<br />but his face is frighteningly dead</font></blockquote><span id="fullpost"><i>I will try to write more about Zebra and Pi and Bear in the coming days. Zebra and Pi are dead now.</i><br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/hidden+in+plain+view">hidden in plain view</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/identity+2.0">identity 2.0</a></span><br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-39999402337222311742007-01-30T03:55:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:48.203-05:00true lifetoday he be the shooter<br /><br />tomorrow he be the shot<br /><br />he try to be a girl but that may be one <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickname"><i>nick</i></a> he not<br /><br />you got a knack for nicks, someone he befriended last week said to him<br /><br />the someone is kim<br /><br />kim see me shed<br /><br />kim figured me to be the same person<br /><br />he said you can always tell an old persona from a new one<br /><br />because in the space of <a href="http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/research/leanmd/" target="_blank"><i>three away</i></a> when an old profile goes and a new one comes, conservation is the rule, according to kim<br /><br />conservation is the <a href="http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/75/8/2133" target="_blank"><i>conservation of identity</i></a><br /><br />the space of three away is <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendster"><i>friendster</i></a> space<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace" target="_blank"><i>myspace</i></a> is different<br /><br />in myspace there is no end to friends<br /><br />kim he be an analyst<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJ4e597KQPLnVVaQ78hNACJAkX03DJCqzRRgiHCjDlrGzVigVWoaG8D99IRXJqolMGMEpdfTFLnGqno9VEgVBMkpm56U9YCFFd_-qgVp1nUsTYpJFj8zwIsTXMMJjdtFhFxkc/s1600-h/myspacexyz.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0px 12px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJ4e597KQPLnVVaQ78hNACJAkX03DJCqzRRgiHCjDlrGzVigVWoaG8D99IRXJqolMGMEpdfTFLnGqno9VEgVBMkpm56U9YCFFd_-qgVp1nUsTYpJFj8zwIsTXMMJjdtFhFxkc/s320/myspacexyz.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5025763704778357778" /></a>he write a screen scraper that breaks the chain of friends by removing the collectors and the fakesters and the myspace whores and all the public displays of connection<br /><br />what he got left is three away<br /><br />three away is not myspace anymore<br /><br />kim calls three away true life<br /><br />he watch me in true life<br /><br />and see me shedding<br /><br /><span id="fullpost"><i>The vocabulary here comes from the ear of danah boyd figuratively speaking. It's a good ear in my estimation -- one worth being sampled.<br /><br />More specifically, I picked up many of my words from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html">Friends, friendsters and top 8: writing community into being on social network sites</a>. This essay appeared in the December 2006 edition of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.firstmonday.org/index.html">First Monday</a>. <br /><br />I also listen at the source. The source is <a target="_blank" href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=67513506">See me, touch me, feel me, heal me</a>. "See me, touch me, feel me, heal me" is a call from MySpace. This call was first made by The Who. <br /></i><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Friendster">Friendster</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/MySpace">MySpace</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/nick">nick</a><br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-50221417445500767252007-01-29T08:14:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:48.358-05:00danah boyd<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-zZjU-qqJNJK62MfglnpBOkb323ckAaUYjnC-L6qWUSU15tiDzScwaQQ1pb3GNzQ2AUiLMLba3qkdxzAMb-MU3QpGRfkAnD4FqcpRJk-j-7tGB5URMDOS1-nUispNGHY2RT2/s1600-h/danahMirror.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-zZjU-qqJNJK62MfglnpBOkb323ckAaUYjnC-L6qWUSU15tiDzScwaQQ1pb3GNzQ2AUiLMLba3qkdxzAMb-MU3QpGRfkAnD4FqcpRJk-j-7tGB5URMDOS1-nUispNGHY2RT2/s320/danahMirror.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5025441912943639554" /></a><br />I just discovered <a target="_blank" href="http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/bestof.html">danah boyd</a>.<br /><br />Slow is me.<br /><br />What does one say about the body of her thought?<br /><br />Connected.<br /><br />Unnerving.<br /><br />The wire flows through her.<br /><br />She has the right ear.<br /><br />And probably a left ear too, judging from pictures.<br /><br />One thing I am pondering that she writes about is <i>multiple personas</i>.<br /><br />People with multiple personas are change artists.<br /><br />Change artists are like graffiti artists only they've got tools and they paint on many canvasses sometimes at once and sometimes in a series.<br /><br />I want to follow in the foot steps of a young change artist.<br /><br />I also want to know how change artists will shape the future of identity services like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID" target="_blank">OpenID</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CardSpace" target="_blank">CardSpace</a> which already provide some support for a digital identity composed of multiple personas.<br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/CardSpace">CardSpace</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/danah+boyd">danah boyd</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/OpenID">OpenID</a> <br />nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-16327456161782783502007-01-22T08:19:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:48.515-05:00Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 11<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbYe8CzWE0zkQ3FlXHfNKDHlMSNFnmABNNw53DK381d-Lu_2jMhzkLMvP7IAGysWSQbi45dmOpP2avuYjZ_M13nlV1POCkOngai5H-meuutun3rcF6fdkxzvxXISOWUqcBvkH/s1600-h/face+of+the+vast+machine.gif" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbYe8CzWE0zkQ3FlXHfNKDHlMSNFnmABNNw53DK381d-Lu_2jMhzkLMvP7IAGysWSQbi45dmOpP2avuYjZ_M13nlV1POCkOngai5H-meuutun3rcF6fdkxzvxXISOWUqcBvkH/s320/face+of+the+vast+machine.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022850651799780338" /></a>I am in another study now.<br /><br />Some time has passed. <br /><br />Tick, tick is the sound of time elapsing. I like the sound of "elapse".<br /><br />The new study is my Health Diary. It goes on for two years.<br /><br />It is in the Health Diary that I found out that The Traveler isn't lying: there is a <a href="http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2005/08/14/story6999.asp" target="_blank">Vast Machine</a>.<br /><br />That's because the Health Diary is not a blank slate. Each day I log in it knows stuff that has happened the day before if I was sick.<br /><br />When I am well my ToDo List is empty. If I have been sick my ToDo List may know a great deal.<br /><br />It knows if I have been to the pharmacy.<br /><br />It knows if I went to the doctor or an emergency room.<br /><br />It even knows when I go to the dentist.<br /><br />Is that familiar or what? Shades of Santa:<br /> <blockquote>He know when you are sleeping<br /> He knows when you're awake<br /> He knows if you've been good or bad<br /> So be good for goodness sake!!!</blockquote>Maybe instead of elves working for Santa, it was the <a target="_blank" href="http://giussani.typepad.com/loip/2006/07/travelling_acro.html">Vast Machine</a>.<br /><span id="fullpost"><br />Well, yes. At first my ToDo List freaked me out. Now I realize the Vast Machine has always been there only, because I wasn't a sampled person, I wasn't privy to it.<br /><br />I thank my lucky stars that I am a sampled person. Because now it is my turn: I get to set the record straight.<br /><br />Like is the cough that I had treated yesterday the same one I had a month ago?<br /><br />Did I see the doctor yesterday or someone else?<br /><br />Did I get a next appointment?<br /><br />Of course maybe I should be UPSET by the Vast Machine. What do you think?<br /><br />You think it is a force for good that cannot act unless and until I sign the permission forms?<br /><br />You think it only fetches my information <i>pour moi</i> and that, if I have doubts about this, <a href="http://www.eff.org/Privacy/" target="_blank">EFF</a> and <a href="http://www.lessig.org/blog/" target="_blank">Lawrence Lessig</a> are reassuring.<br /><br />Maybe so. Because just when I think I should be UPSET, the Vast Machine ask me non-sequitors.<br /><br />One day it asked me if I was satisfied. I wanted to know about what. It answered: <i>your life in general</i>.<br /><br />I mean what the fuck. I can't remember the last time my wife asked me that.<br /><br />I think this is the beginning of a strange relationship.<br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/EFF">EFF</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Lawrence+Lessig">Lawrence Lessig</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Vast+Machine">Vast Machine</a> <br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-25129655868872688392007-01-21T04:55:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:49.500-05:00Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVcELv7bjmTjEFgxU4b0J9Qwyi9kFl_r3NOrfmPN_KeZpsStmzcwUeUjFP7lahG2T4kcYL2bgyRjRSiyY_sY_QPxFjdub3ucveArhDpD-dDZfi9TANs0hPQuS3wQO2cX7RpGZ/s1600-h/apple.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="60px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVcELv7bjmTjEFgxU4b0J9Qwyi9kFl_r3NOrfmPN_KeZpsStmzcwUeUjFP7lahG2T4kcYL2bgyRjRSiyY_sY_QPxFjdub3ucveArhDpD-dDZfi9TANs0hPQuS3wQO2cX7RpGZ/s200/apple.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022442043906237714" /></a>I just started a food diary on my <a href="http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/#l=products,n800" taget="_blank">N800</a>. I love my N800... The food diary is what you call <i>interactive</i>. Interactive indeed. <br /><br />It starts with an on-line calendar and the N800.<br /><br />The way it works is that I go on-line to my food diary while I am eating. I seem always to be able to go on-line because of mobile broadband. I love mobile broadband.<br /><br />My food diary opens to the current day and waits for me. That my cue to, using the N800, take pictures of my meal. I won't show you all my meals for thirty days because I don't eat well. I know another SP though who went to <a href="http://www.japanfooddiary.net/" target="_blank">Japan</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.japanfooddiary.net/" target="_blank"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW3WkyECBUHsiFI2F8cFu95ixAinMkSFekO1MLDqfJC5WBv0WflYLAHn26u6n_81K_SitHEh2UqEScbS4jSWvUyWJ3jpNirC2nQh8ahinuJR_WoO7akbe2FZaKfduRzKmXeoO9/s400/diary.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022555439632786738" /></a><br /><span id="fullpost"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4_afoPVodPfnMoL0sXBW9bGaU48NzMFtCVXotWaBeF92tNITdpm_2589nrmBmCylS2elRlNnqCPKiWQe8AqjQxugUnxrkpSviZp9KQGOaXIFCXQ1q0Zu2jxLc7BIAa8qMIAz/s1600-h/20041011.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4_afoPVodPfnMoL0sXBW9bGaU48NzMFtCVXotWaBeF92tNITdpm_2589nrmBmCylS2elRlNnqCPKiWQe8AqjQxugUnxrkpSviZp9KQGOaXIFCXQ1q0Zu2jxLc7BIAa8qMIAz/s200/20041011.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022428214111544530" /></a>Maybe by now you have looked at the diary and saw the comments. The comments come from friends. My diary has a rolodex, and I add a card for each friend. Only my friends can make comments. That's a good thing.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ZIEzpZ-_2U4GeCzY-eNuddkT4RMhLdgR1xC2_ADC8OcT3uPLshsNQ5eNZH4z4wM6uYWNviIL-c2tKtnl0pPg6XLmyvQX0h9qdU8S54Zhgkcy6i6piBunw1rbEvGdNla11fIf/s1600-h/postit.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ZIEzpZ-_2U4GeCzY-eNuddkT4RMhLdgR1xC2_ADC8OcT3uPLshsNQ5eNZH4z4wM6uYWNviIL-c2tKtnl0pPg6XLmyvQX0h9qdU8S54Zhgkcy6i6piBunw1rbEvGdNla11fIf/s200/postit.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022432706647336178" /></a>In addition to the friendly fire, from time to time other comments will appear. The other comments take the form of Digital PostIts. Someone sticks one on top of a picture, and I reply.<br /><br />Whoever said that a picture was worth a thousand word never met my nutritionist. <br /><br />I call her a nutritionist and I call her a her. We have never met. I have only seen her avatar when we IM (instant message) from time to time.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi772MaCHn2elYDoS5f1MKYODyRrH4DOJpFsHk3jIx45LBQEBtdbfqDj8evm6BoGUwzwhUdlI_nxE-ABrzwJFBCZ7vAubUZhxdX5wANwnK9-Uq98VYOq_E5L50nIXRZq5EMUJ5e/s1600-h/planefood2.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi772MaCHn2elYDoS5f1MKYODyRrH4DOJpFsHk3jIx45LBQEBtdbfqDj8evm6BoGUwzwhUdlI_nxE-ABrzwJFBCZ7vAubUZhxdX5wANwnK9-Uq98VYOq_E5L50nIXRZq5EMUJ5e/s320/planefood2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022439784753440002" /></a><br />She calls the PostIts <i>food probes</i>. They happen. Not every meal. Just sometimes. I don't really mind either because <i>I've got probes</i>.<br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mobile broadband">mobile broadband</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/N800">N800</a></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-52872858305066674482007-01-20T06:00:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:49.827-05:00Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8k-F4QhT5znVVQkcUFz21xEEsHxrIYJgjvS9LJJLSIsD3-RcdMoPw2UjDXDcXXt1JwjjbqKTCPRRarWd3DNk2mb2DJAumBxgiB4Y-dwzWvEWIGaTrkgcmaUZVjn8GxjZ_qgKI/s1600-h/dada_logo.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8k-F4QhT5znVVQkcUFz21xEEsHxrIYJgjvS9LJJLSIsD3-RcdMoPw2UjDXDcXXt1JwjjbqKTCPRRarWd3DNk2mb2DJAumBxgiB4Y-dwzWvEWIGaTrkgcmaUZVjn8GxjZ_qgKI/s320/dada_logo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022264472778351810" /></a>A community that is based on random sampling is unusual to say the least.<br /><br />DadaSP is cool because on the list of my surroundings I see locals and travelers.<br /><br />Locals are people from the current PSU. PSU is short for Primary Sampling Unit. Travelers are people in the current PSU who come from other PSUs.<br /><br />Sometimes I am a local and sometimes I am a traveler.<br /><br />When I am a traveler sometimes I will ask the help of locals -- like to find the best restaurant or the location of a street if I am lost. That happens alot.<br /><br />I won't ask just any local though. That isn't permitted. Instead locals can volunteer to become Harlequins. And <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traveler_%28novel%29" target="_blank">Harlequins protect travelers</a>.<br /><br />At DadaSP I will pick a Harlequin based on reputation. The reputation of a Harlequin comes from previous encounters. <br /><br />So DadaSP is a service -- definitely a perk for people who are members of the random sample.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUJCkJbwE8qx-SjsAHNdcl976jv9NgmH2-LUdX0jax9FaP38STEnfTI2yA2eHkkwVHzKhjAe8Pt7_LsrMkmmm9XsXifK4D37pXHLSkIXX20QO8m1Fm0uESIJ1cL16uDNaT0tWE/s1600-h/perk.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUJCkJbwE8qx-SjsAHNdcl976jv9NgmH2-LUdX0jax9FaP38STEnfTI2yA2eHkkwVHzKhjAe8Pt7_LsrMkmmm9XsXifK4D37pXHLSkIXX20QO8m1Fm0uESIJ1cL16uDNaT0tWE/s320/perk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5022452871518790946" /></a><br /><span id="fullpost"><br />There is something else. We get default personas.<br /><br />A persona is what the other people in the community see of me virtually. <i>See of me virtually...</i> That is a mouthful.<br /><br />Noone can change their default persona.<br /><br />It's like Halloween every day of the year.<br /><br />At the same time, based on usage, DadaSP will construct one or more additional personas at my direction.<br /><br /><i>Moi</i>. Me. Me directing my own Identity. It's a bird. It's a plane. No. It's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_2.0" target="_blank">Identity 2.0</a>. <br /><br />I say the number of additional personas I want. Then DadaSP comes up with candidate interests based on the analysis of my usage. Then I get to accept or reject these interests into each persona via a text message that comes at the end of each day. <i>I've got interests</i>.<br /><br />At any time when someone is helping me or if I am a Harlequin too, I get to pick my persona.<br /><br />I pick a persona and people see its avatar and a cloud.<br /><br />At DadaSP the cloud is the cloud of my interests. Each interest is a label and my labels are organized serendipitously. My main interests appear in large fonts. Lesser interests appear in little fonts.<br /><br />Click on an interest -- say "science fiction" -- and you get a standard result set. The cloud is operated by <a href="http://www.quintura.com/" target="_blank">Quintura</a>. I have <a href="http://nightcleaner.blogspot.com/2007/01/google-is-boring.html" target="_blank">blogged</a> Quintura before.<br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Dada">Dada</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/DodgeBall">DodgeBall</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Identity 2.0">Identity 2.0</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/imaginary friend">imaginary friend</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/random sample">random sample</a><br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-72516113817784137872007-01-19T04:30:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:50.033-05:00Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 1I just got my <a href="http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/#l=products,n800" target="_blank">N800</a>. I call her Naughty.<br /><br />I got Naughty from the company because I am a sampled person.<br /><br />When they first told me I was a sampled person the announcement came in a text message. <br /><br />I never used to read text messages from unknown senders before. Except now senders have reputations that my spam filter sniffs. Sometimes a text message <i>fails</i> the filter. That's when the ring tone tells me that I've got incoming nasties.<br /><br />My filter zaps the nasties. My filter blows nasties to bits. Pow! Nasties makes my day.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw-zr3zm04jCxYkGLVy1o2N_DZCyZYWRXKX6nNMQ8Uez1LKtemDKR81L1xYJlyB_-bk0f8xy7s19gWITijonOLWb-oQoc1MsIzYWS0mZMP5AMJyN3cGVNj_Hj6G-cLELMVBZGS/s1600-h/batman.JPG" target="_blank"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw-zr3zm04jCxYkGLVy1o2N_DZCyZYWRXKX6nNMQ8Uez1LKtemDKR81L1xYJlyB_-bk0f8xy7s19gWITijonOLWb-oQoc1MsIzYWS0mZMP5AMJyN3cGVNj_Hj6G-cLELMVBZGS/s320/batman.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5021666342747808946" /></a><br /><span id="fullpost"><br />The text message said I would get the N800 if I agreed to have an imaginary friend. It said the N800 (today I call her Naughty) had personality, talked a blue stream and was very interested in my opinions. The text message also gave me a link to DadaSP. At DadaSP I would meet and get the scoop on this imaginary friend stuff from other sampled persons who were within walking distance right now. Shades of <a href="http://www.dodgeball.com/" target="_blank">DodgeBall</a>.<br /><br />The people at DadaSP were a strange mix. But that is by design. Because we are a random sample.<br /><br /><span style="color:tomato">Technorati Tags:</span> <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Dada">Dada</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/DodgeBall">DodgeBall</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/imaginary friend">imaginary friend</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/tag/random sample">random sample</a><br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-6642590337040053152007-01-16T09:48:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:50.413-05:00Tubes R UsWhat is a data silo that tilts? A <b><i>tube</i></b>.<br /><br />What happens when two of these tubes meet? They <b><i>exchange</i></b>.<br /><br />If Don Quixote could see us now, he might become an early adopter.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.tubesnow.com/" target="_blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 12px 0px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhQcYR7Q0FcWNFNSBbipJlt7zVnrKir4gUsmnO-wZjXmeVehaAPGa0nFNhmw1DQy3GXCBSDxzG13eo3bt4AvulgtRCIsZFFmdIJb74_AUzvniIhmPAjNazTIV-86z-E0-_-VA/s200/tubes_logo.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5020649341736756386" /></a>An early adopter of what? <a href="http://www.tubesnow.com/" target="_blank"><b>Tubes</b></a> R Us! Fast forward to a future with Tubes:<i><blockquote><br /> They met in the tubes.<br /><br /> She hosed him with her content.<br /><br /> He hosed her back.<br /></i></blockquote>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-60130709768193770652007-01-05T07:49:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:50.640-05:00The dirt on Ting-lanTing-lan was thoughtful.<br /><br />She had solved a problem sideways the way mathematicians go at it sometimes.<br /><br />The problem had been to match answers that had no questions to questions that had no answers.<br /><br />Ting-lan smiled. Papa had been no good. If Mama could see her now. She was about to wonder twice but decided this was not the time for Ting-lan Tao. By Ting-lan Tao Ting-lan meant the reverie.<br /><br />Ting-lan's solution came from <a target="_blank" href="http://fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/dirt/main.php?deeplink=fancast">Dirt</a>. Dirt is an online celebrity gossip magazine where fans can submit audio comments to podcasts and spill their beans. Not mung beans but all kinds of confession beans. Tittle beans. Tattle beans. Audio beans.<br /><br /><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV7V9rWcsHga5Ok5Iv5BZh2dgYC7bnAfohw0G02VRhLovkWlKJyy3b9Ko9D2dxaY3TuqCY4EMDRUhaYrAJ-5jfZMC-481eJMT1DENCcSevpdG0SzqzqMBP_k1fUroq7bp0LUeW/s400/dirt.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5016553837913920226" /><br /><br /><span id="fullpost">Dirt is powered by <a href="http://www.biggu.com/" target="_blank">Big In Japan</a>. Big In Japan has an <a target="_blank" href="http://www.biggu.com/how-we-think/">ethos</a> for developers. Ting-lan followed the ethos.<br /><br />In this ethos Ting-lan became a "social samurai". A social samurai would not dream of clustering answers and questions through their feature values without user input. <br /><br />In Ting-lan's solution a user/interviewer enters the bestmatch algorithm via The Door and becomes part of the program. Ting-lan built The Door using parts from Big In Japan.<br /><br />There was a movie once where users entered programs -- <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(film)">Tron</a>. Ting-lan's solution was Tron for interviewers.<br /><br />Who said survey research wasn't cool? Cooler than Google? Yes, Ting-lan thought, Google is boring.<br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-13694928809109421682007-01-03T08:40:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:52.368-05:00Google is boringGoogle is boring. <a href="http://www.quintura.com/">Quintura</a> is not.<br /><br />I enter "self-organizing map". Along with the usual result set, I get a cloud. In the cloud I see my keyword along with other ones sized according to their frequency.<br /><br /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRekpYqqz_vArMmPfmsAl3IHfXZQkZLsZGSqMwJGO3I_E14NuSaNtF3e9Fa5vBgmXGdGFBmAshKYZoKDXAcHslnQWuLt9uKhsd7Cb_Mc208LQ3hjfrrriULeuvOARGfoYWX2Bc/s400/self1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015799964762170610" /><br /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="400px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-S3JphIU33Zx-OSlmMWdth5n0QCfoKQL74QfTY3ri2q9K_SihyyojiM3R7QcgM6BlRsWCYrh8CKLxJMJvoSHXtF1A8ii_mWTfa5lAeRPqhGJewNSYSNJoXmiuSHIOWYvMJiTM/s400/self1a.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015800316949488898" /><br /><br />If I want to add a keyword to the cloud that is not already there, I just double click:<br /><br /><span id="fullpost"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_8vO4YYOrGQYfoNgOkV_BLxZVtgknX84VAdngtTs-6NlH_mUH9P6PMIZdeJ6JX5Doc4R8XmImB3zEd_eib8Nr0TFRSWIYtQiTwwmMW55k9beviHrcDtalhGSoxtcvyA8YQPbS/s400/self2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015802352763987218" /><br /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_oQWkyoHV_sSHnZwC0aXQ9d20_G9iDpcrlYZ5TcDEDmqEa-hpTyYUdFR7EUl05nDL8phIwB60ei2tFRq1_N38Itbxc3tK4YunavB3b0wfhVh2RgTKD9M9QeQsNZVo7hpP-qEk/s400/self3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015802760785880354" /><br /><br />Now my result set is the product of the two keywords. Pretty cool! It gets better. I hover on "cluster analysis" and preview its keywords:<br /><br /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDMqhIC1iSb2AOSwL_v8SApu_Q0FsCzWxs2Nz-8leUigZOqXA7G0ajvvUEck4ylx64pBVpyVzQ0eSP58XjBt8m-tst4FOf23yEpFrOjGlNKZhV-vRVkpawKWQ2hPrwGUzcpfS/s400/self4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015803765808227634" /><br /><br />Finally, I select "cluster analysis". And I get a new cloud and a new result set. They are the products of "self-organizing map" and "cluster analysis":<br /><br /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy8Wbdo7dlP0wAa5fQq2aazU86rhp5eTofb4tZeT3crUe403l8EjkW7c8JjJrbaLxq7IBVvt1fR_I89LrNNUu7BeKJ_Yi87nLAKaO8yFcrQDMEYtRFtsLOq9vL3suwkBGVDRtd/s400/self5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015805586874361154" /><br /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="400px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRiauqyb48hK6iHN95SSgSc7djPSoT5EnqfL2PWZWRHwhCe8DRas07ygHB74SaEKtTS-W7oFmBD3wkxeSJVmvm-qhMbzIHeUh9eBK7dEtiy0YxYEovwLMV9cu81PEX78ifw_9N/s400/self6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015808632006174034" /><br /><br />Not bad. Better than not bad. Not boring...<br /><br />In a recent post at Read/WriteWeb Alex Iskold wrote otherwise at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_race_to_beat_google.php">The Race to Beat Google</a>. He was somewhat dismissive of the clustering solutions saying they were too complex to make it in the mainstream. I don't think we want to underestimate clustering when it is wedded with clouds. Indeed clouds informed by clustering like the ones above can rain on Google's parade. I hear from kids that they always wanted clouds to do the walking. Imagine a swim in clouds that have three dimensions. Instead of "googling", the euphemism will be "I need to check the weather." The rejoinder from Will Smith's wife in <i>Enemy of the State</i> would be: "And just whose weather are you checking?"<br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-89288856712254813892007-01-02T05:09:00.000-05:002007-01-08T06:32:57.696-05:00Velvet has a tangerine dayVelvet was having a tangerine day. On a tangerine day every interview she touched would flow and glow and she was reminded of that song by Talking Heads which right now she couldn't stop hearing even if she wanted to:<br /><br /><blockquote>I dont know why I love you like I do<br />All the troubles you put me through<br />Sixteen candles there on my wall<br />And here am I the biggest fool of them all<br /><br />I wanna know that youll tell me<br />I love to stay<br />Take me to the river and drop me in the water<br />Dip me in the river, drop me in the water<br />Washing me down, washing me down.</blockquote><br />Yep. It was one of those drop me in the water days.<br /><br /><span id="fullpost">There had been alot of those days since the retooling. The retooling was when she sent her laptop back to the company. Then, a few days later she got back a <a href="http://wii.nintendo.com/whatiswii_index.jsp" target="_blank">Wii</a>.<br /><br />It wasn't really a Nintendo. It was still a laptop. But it was also a Wii.<br /><br />It was a Wii because now when she dragged the external data sources avatar onto the interview and there were still too many unanswered questions, she could shake and bake.<br /><br />Shake and bake was a new resource. It used something called "connecting the dots" to turn unanswered questions into answered ones. The reason they called it "shake and bake" instead of "connecting the dots" was easy. Because you just didn't activate the shake and bake plan by dropping it on the interview and its lost sections. After you dropped the plan, it had to be simmered and cooked. That was when Wii came in. <br /><br />Velvet would pick up her laptop and move it from side to side and back and forth until there was a fit and the answers covered all the questions.<br /><br />The company never really explained the Wii except to say that the laptop was now capable of doing "lateral thinking" but the thinking had to be shaped. Hence shake and bake and Wii. And hence visualization. And hence the interviewer as cook.<br /><br />It was all very natural. Smile.<br /><br />Velvet wanted to look under the cover of shake and bake just like she would look under the cover at her boyfriend. But she knew this time she wouldn't understand anything she saw. Even so, Velvet couldn't let sleeping dogs lie. The sleeping dog in this case was a tip -- you know, one of those yellow popups that surfaced under a mouseover.<br /><br />When Velvet moused over the shake and bake plan she got the tip. The tip said "self-organizing map". Sometimes it simply said "SOM". And sometimes there was the <a href="http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~databionics/en//images/phone.mov" target="_blank">video</a>.<br /><br />Yep. Take me to the river and drop me in the water. It wasn't better than sex but Wii was it fun.<br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-27524959690758483132007-01-01T07:16:00.000-05:002007-01-03T07:05:02.944-05:00Technorati Charts<div>Posts that contain <a href="http://technorati.com/search/%22data+mining%22">"data mining"</a> per day for the last 30 days.<br /><a href="http://technorati.com/search/%22data+mining%22"><img src="http://technorati.com/chartimg/%28%22data%20mining%22%29?totalHits=39017&size=s&days=30" style="border:0" alt="Technorati Chart" /></a><br /></div><br /><div>Posts that contain <a href="http://technorati.com/search/%22cluster+analysis%22">"cluster analysis"</a> per day for the last 30 days.<br /><a href="http://technorati.com/search/%22cluster+analysis%22"><img src="http://technorati.com/chartimg/%28%22cluster%20analysis%22%29?totalHits=1303&size=s&days=30" style="border:0" alt="Technorati Chart" /></a><br /></div><br /><div>Posts that contain <a href="http://technorati.com/search/imputation">imputation</a> per day for the last 30 days.<br/><a href="http://technorati.com/search/imputation"><img style="border:0" alt="Technorati Chart" src="http://technorati.com/chartimg/%28imputation%29?totalHits=5010&size=s&days=30"/></a><br /></div><br /><div>Posts that contain <a href="http://technorati.com/search/%22self+organizing+map%22">"self organizing map"</a> per day for the last 30 days.<br /><a href="http://technorati.com/search/%22self+organizing+map%22"><img src="http://technorati.com/chartimg/%28%22self%20organizing%20map%22%29?totalHits=119&size=s&days=30" style="border:0" alt="Technorati Chart" /></a><br /></div>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-86985307240408957982006-12-31T08:32:00.000-05:002007-01-08T06:46:24.704-05:00Carl's Skinny on Active ParticipationGenerally speaking, interviewers aren't told alot by the company. They say that is so the interviewer won't be a source of bias -- something about interviewers shaping respondents subliminally.<br /><br />Like if I were to wink my eye at the respondent here and there.<br /><br />It might fill her head with ideas. I hope noone is reading this -- least of all the wife.<br /><br />In any event Carl had cornered a statistician on the bus where he proceeded to impersonate a programmer and the two of them kicked around the <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputation_(statistics)">nearest neighbor hotdeck method</a>. This was how an interview that was refused got its data.<br /><br /><span id="fullpost">The technical term for this is imputation.<br /><br />It turns out imputation is cool except when you are collecting longitudinal data. This is when your heartaches begin.<br /><br />With longitudinal data it is possible to check hotdeck data against a previous interview from the real respondent.<br /><br />Some people would have said to let sleeping dogs lie but curiosity got the better of the statistician, and now it is possible to wonder about imputed data.<br /><br />Enter the heartache and the impersonator and the shaper and Carl. That's me.<br /><br />Carl was feeling bigger every moment.<br /><br />That's because active participation was impersonation guided by the shaper. <br /><br />Carl, the impersonator, would get in the mindset of the respondent and answer questions that were flagged. He would answer the questions to the shaper's liking.<br /><br />This could happen sooner or it could happen later. <br /><br />You would think that a bot or semi-sentient like the shaper had all the time in the world. But she didn't. Indeed she went wobbly when the impersonator gave a good answer on the first try. And this made Carl blush.<br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-17495894125421329522006-12-29T05:56:00.000-05:002007-01-08T07:01:03.337-05:00An Interlude: Self-Organizing MapsOn September 28, 2006 the US Patent Office published a patent application from Microsoft entitled <a href="http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220060218138%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20060218138&RS=DN/20060218138" target="_blank">System and method for improving search relevance</a>.<br /><br />The inventor contemplates the following problem:<br /><blockquote>Take a collection of documents, say about the size of the Web, and try to organize them based upon textual similarities between them. Can that organization provide a useful way to index the web?</blockquote>The invention would augment keyword search. Documents would not be indexed based on keywords directly. Instead there would be an indirection. Documents have labels -- many labels. Just look at how documents are labeled by a typical user of del.icio.us or one of its competitors. Keywords would be related to labels that are related to documents.<br /><br /><span id="fullpost">Some invention like this is what Microsoft proposes using a technique called self-organizing maps.<br /><blockquote>The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) by Kohonen is motivated by the receptive fields in the human brain. High dimensional data [e.g. labeled documents where each label is a dimension] are projected in a self organizing process onto a low dimensional grid [e.g. a system of keywords that Microsoft refers to as "content tiles" in the application] analogous to sensory input in a part of the brain.</blockquote>See the discussion of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~databionics/en//?q=esom">Emergent SOM</a> at the website of the Databionics Research Group for a more in depth treatment of self-organizing maps including some nifty visualizations of the SOM process. See also <a href="http://del.icio.us/jaygee2456/som" target="_blank">my del.icio.us som</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile here is the patent application abstract:<blockquote>A system and method for performing context based document searching is provided. A grid of content tiles is constructed corresponding to a desired concept space. Each content tile is assigned a content tag and is associated with a series of feature values. The feature values are trained to correspond to various regions of the content space. Documents are associated with one or more content tags based on a comparison of document feature values with content tile feature values. A search query is modified to include one or more content tags based on the terms in the search query and/or user preferences. The search query is then matched to documents associated with content tags contained in the search query.</blockquote></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-62589205376412117062006-12-27T05:18:00.000-05:002007-01-08T06:47:58.895-05:00Ting-lanTing-lan wondered twice.<br /><br />Would her way be vinegar or might she succeed with the many?<br /><br />Generally speaking, the Americans were premature. They were premature this and premature that. Both of the sexes. Need she say more?<br /><br />Ting-lan had left the pack for a few weeks now.<br /><br />She was working on the usable data problem. External data had been a disappointment. Too many unanswered questions. Sometimes it was easier not to use the external data at all.<br /><br /><span id="fullpost">Ting-lan had the insight that would minimize the unanswered questions. She would use the off-colors. The off-colors were the very small data islands on her screen that could not be located in question space.<br /><br />Ting-lan liked answers without questions. As a little girl this had always been her way.<br /><br />At first Ting-lan has thought the clustering algorithm would be easy to devise. She would discover the drifts in the questions with answers and use the drifts to reel in the off-colors at random and with brute force.<br /><br />Only the net she cast was too large.<br /><br />Now Ting-lan was working with majors and minors. Semantics, she thought, was a dog's day afternoon.<br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-78959978356096868692006-12-26T07:13:00.000-05:002006-12-28T04:55:52.222-05:00Active ParticipationCarl was impressed with active participation.<br /><br />At first, when the concept had been presented at training, Carl had been sure that he had a personality that was averse to shaping.<br /><br />Just ask the wife.<br /><br />Now that he had been working with the shaper though, Carl was of a different mind.<br /><br />Carl didn't think this was brain washing. He thought of it as collaboration. True the shaper was only semi-sentient and Web 2.0 had largely closed the door on the participation of other beings.<br /><br />Indeed many hives actively challenged and tried to screen out the semi-sentients.<br /><br />The company and now Carl obviously had second thoughts.<br /><br />The record had to be set straight, Carl decided. So he made a mental note: when he had a little time, Carl would post the skinny on active participation.nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-2440274132411901852006-12-25T04:34:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:52.948-05:00Future Instruments -- Part IV<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsWh36-Bwse3aoW2x6uSwDqnyjrJQGkV8Loe8Fzp1OtG-J501y7tdGEt5KZo3v_dKdk26_0ZPEITsu5whJBQPTsPnB51pj03P9ktZugwfU1neRYKJYCtMN8pqo_9MdeNMd1kXj/s1600-h/piipein.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsWh36-Bwse3aoW2x6uSwDqnyjrJQGkV8Loe8Fzp1OtG-J501y7tdGEt5KZo3v_dKdk26_0ZPEITsu5whJBQPTsPnB51pj03P9ktZugwfU1neRYKJYCtMN8pqo_9MdeNMd1kXj/s320/piipein.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5012426159726254978" /></a>Velvet wasn't happy.<br /><br />On the dashboard she was watching a picture develop that was nothing short of confusion.<br /><br />The picture was an overlay -- a scattergram -- on top of a pipeline. The pipeline itself showed neighborhoods. Some of the neighborhoods were dark and some were light, depending on what happened after Velvet had dropped the external data sources.<br /><br />External data sources made certain neighborhoods more or less light while leaving other neighborhoods in the dark.<br /><br />Today this was not Velvet's problem.<br /><br /><span id="fullpost">Many dark neighborhoods in the overlay had been labelled "let sleeping dogs lie". The company would not pay her to ask the questions in these sections. Other neighborhoods that had only been partially illuminated as a result of the drop were now labeled "simulation candidates". <br /><br />What was troubling Velvet were the neighborhoods marked "critical sections". These were empty sections that needed to be asked or not depending on the access roads. The trouble as Velvet looked at the scattergram was that it had waffled on the access roads.<br /><br />Velvet, like most interviewers, wanted to see the access roads in black and white. Interviewers didn't have to enter a neighborhood connected to other neighborhoods on a black road. Being a person of color, Velvet wished the company had devised other color coding but she would muse on geek culture at another time.<br /><br />Right now on the scattergram she saw dark neighborhoods labelled "critical sections" whose access roads were the color gray.<br /><br />This could only mean back tracking. And back tracking always required a plan.<br /><br />This had not always been the case. Before the advent of external data, interviews had been one way in and one way out for the most part. She wasn't sure why but external data sources had complicated this picture. In training they had simply told the interviewers that "now there is more than one way to skin a cat."<br /><br />Velvet liked cats but she caught their drift.<br /><br />On the dashboard Velvet flipped overlays to a plan called "the shortest distance between two points." This would be the plan that minimized back tracking which of course, Velvet thought, would have the side effect of maximizing the company's profits.<br /><br />It didn't take Velvet more than a few pokes at this plan to decide it was high risk. Velvet's rule of thumb was to look at gate questions that would turn access roads to white coming from neighborhoods that were lit up by external data sources. In these situations Velvet judged whether the respondent would know the answer.<br /><br /><img align="right" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJBHi4dOjPGAmtAk4fhD5IC5gjyv8S5E1j_xodf5vkYVXsuyVNghmf3jUMARwT9IbdkHbTop3PzapzndAT-2H7Z7p3ggM3DsSBpo0U28BhQ3P5uFnxSLtgnDhyphenhyphenNw2A8xMJPY8p/s320/rose.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5012420417354980210" />Now Velvet chose a plan called "NoMax". Velvet wasn't sure what "NoMax" did. Velvet did know that "NoMax" did not maximize the use of data from external data sources. So much for double negatives. <br /><br />Velvet looked at the scattergram once more and liked what she saw. Instead of lots of gray access roads, everything was coming up roses.<br /><br />She counted four roses. Velvet knew that this was a borderline case that required authorization. Velvet also knew she was not about to be second guessed by central authority. That was why as she dragged the current pipeline she had just devised on top of the central authority resource, Velvet waited with easy confidence.<br /></span>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-21740120936082302162006-12-24T05:55:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:53.720-05:00An Interlude: The Cast of Characters<div align="left"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand; padding-top:0px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8a3gzbXm4CEzPQVzd6BvIRmSHjE0zUI-ZvtcKS7WWPD3-RwZ5r3OYjHLhYTW2zSB554qZGegc_YiAbF_RoPLn3dPrZbsOSXqHJI3lnVz2QtVzW2J-4EWi-smYlq02bimSXmi/s320/xml_application.gif" border="1" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5012075887963396946" /><br />the pipeline -- an application developer's view <br />from <a href="http://www.stylusstudio.com/xml/applications.html" target="_blank">the stylus studio xml pipeline </a><br /><div style="padding-top:2px">1. Advanced simulation data source -- aka "the match"<br />2. Active participation data source -- aka "Carl is in the house"<br />3. XQuery merges two streams into one XML<br />4. XSLT generates ajax-enabled HTML<br />5. XQuery generates an XSL:FO stylesheet<br />6. XSL:FO prepares a PDF for ad hoc interview publishing</div></div><br /><div align="left"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand; padding-top:5px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWwPxE_aLdVCXA5lvM2UJwAV41kM7W03kzn6T7z11ZnLJmWQOXGUdY9S_-EG1xH-FxTDj-NiOadhB7kD7DrR8RWObXQ1eKFK7uFn98CnW50IctoPBzOISasSzz5OnUv6u-D3P/s320/toolbar.gif" border="1" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5012043332111293250" /><br />selected resource pool -- an application developer's view<br />from <a href="http://www.stylusstudio.com/xml/pipeline.html" target="_blank">stylus studio's xml pipeline</a></div><br /><div align="left"><img style="cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNUlPj9-kBTySdoXwzpeSLpedaupwvweLXBnhPQS7oIvulDNB1T5MzDm3L30w8AThyCR_qWx-uQDI_CXFKMVaqSyaVGJAUeTbQaeRRFU8xh9dKdJl-qQ_1qNWvnInvtZtpYh-n/s320/statuses.gif" border="1" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5012029098589674258" /><br />respondent statuses</div>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-66843232263013825752006-12-24T05:22:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:53.947-05:00Future Instruments -- Part III<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmUuNhlqTpbhW01oR1NYF05UFU_HuO2tYsEwfJRdwnt6kquYBCfDG1ZgTRCakBfQBtGSgN5a_KJvK7iUrIFbWwZEdKGee52_syFLa3JWBUxtZ_HqTy1BtRDP4UahpHOv6WzpRm/s1600-h/xml-processing-nested.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmUuNhlqTpbhW01oR1NYF05UFU_HuO2tYsEwfJRdwnt6kquYBCfDG1ZgTRCakBfQBtGSgN5a_KJvK7iUrIFbWwZEdKGee52_syFLa3JWBUxtZ_HqTy1BtRDP4UahpHOv6WzpRm/s320/xml-processing-nested.gif" border="0" alt="" width="90px" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5012087578864376674" /></a>Carl was about to begin a new interview. He knew the drill. He would snap and shoot the respondent and an avatar would appear in the resource pool. He then would drop and drag the avatar onto the pipeline and, after a pause, the questions would begin.<br /><br />Only today there has been a refusal right after the snap and shoot. Perhaps it had been stage fright. In any event he wouldn't get to see the respondent's avatar first turn busy and then progress in hues from gray scale to whatever rgb his monitor was set at as the interview unfolded. Indeed something new occurred as Carl changed the avatar's status to "refusal". Carl had been trained for this eventuality but the eventuality had never happened before.<br /><br />Carl checked the resource pool on the dashboard again. He had not been mistaken: a match had occurred. In a match the actual respondent avatar and a funny one were joined at the hip: a twin was born.<br /><br />Carl remembered a Starbucks around the corner. It was no telling how long working the match would take. <br /><br /><span id="fullpost">Once in line Carl ordered a triple short mocha and after almost no wait, he sat alone at a table ready for the eventuality.<br /><br />Carl dragged the match onto the pipeline hoping against hope that now his heartaches would begin. A heartache, Carl had learned in training, was when an interviewer had to join the match.<br /><br />This wasn't normal. Generally matches, the product of <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/pubs97/97450/97450-3.asp" target="_blank">advanced simulation</a>, didn't require interviewer intervention. But Carl's company which had developed advanced simulation in the first place (patent pending), had also written the book on active participation.<br /><br />Active participation was a training module. It was also an avatar in the resource pool. This avatar had Carl's face. Carl would use it if advanced simulation called on Carl to speak.<br /><br />The trouble with advanced simulation, Carl had learned during training, was that sometimes a match gave answers that would fail the consistency check. There were two types of failures (called lies by experienced interviewers) that the match might be caught in. K failures had face validity. With F failures a match made a complete non-sequitor.<br /><br />In either event Carl would get to say the answer.<br /><br />Carl kicked back, dropped the match on the pipeline and watched the match do the walking. He did steal a glance at the resource pool and saw himself. Carl smiled at his reflection. It wasn't every interviewer who could say: I am in the house. This required specialization.nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-43818860924299016952006-12-23T06:52:00.000-05:002006-12-28T04:33:32.183-05:00Future Instruments -- Part IIMaybe the future of instruments is edit mode and the future of edit mode is a control panel/dashboard.<br /><br />Interviewers -- generally middle-aged women and men -- would learn to play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game" target="_blank">Ender's Game</a>.<br /><br />Of course (or perhaps) this is my fantasy. So in our cold, cruel world (<a href="http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/fleetwood+mac/sentimental+lady_20054152.html" target="_blank">"we live in a time where meaning falls and splinters from our lives"</a>) what might the dashboard be like?nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-90097889852326685422006-12-21T05:04:00.000-05:002008-12-09T21:37:54.097-05:00Future Instruments -- Part IJust saw the article in Amstat International's newsletter on the situation at Statistics Netherlands.<br /><br />Does one think that the shift to registers and administrative files as the primary data source is a phenomenon unique to the Netherlands?<br /><br />Let's say it is not and see what happens (a thought experiment).<br /><br />Let's say that the use of data banks in both establishment and household surveys becomes a requirement in the US too.<br /><br />At the same time, as the article suggests, there may be "initiatives for new statistics". I would also add that with this data source, as with any other, there will also be missing data.<br /><br />What kind of "instrument" is required to build the record under these circumstances?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_NKm0ORf7YDP0zQ-s6W6B5KK62iksLeRv3_0qo9vqtbeZAFewMQQGex57OoQpQlMUj-H-C83lsvYjTb1Nn1yoMLz013kbzYFIXdontzkn1_l6GSTP3zV-sk5v9QMroikaAaCM/s1600-h/minizoom.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_NKm0ORf7YDP0zQ-s6W6B5KK62iksLeRv3_0qo9vqtbeZAFewMQQGex57OoQpQlMUj-H-C83lsvYjTb1Nn1yoMLz013kbzYFIXdontzkn1_l6GSTP3zV-sk5v9QMroikaAaCM/s320/minizoom.jpg" border="3" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010926709333809922" /></a><br /><br />It would be an instrument that largely filled in the gaps or, as people in the market research world might says, it would be an instrument that filled in white spaces in the single source of truth.<br /><br />I try to imagine such an instrument.<br /><br />Could we get by using the current paradigm which in this case would be a preload of the registers and an instrument that knew how to jump from one white space to another without interviewer intervention.<br /><br />Would we not want to know before a survey went to a mode whether it was going to take five minutes or five hours depending on the missing data?<br /><br />Would an interview that jumps between white spaces trash the context in which questions are normally asked?<br /><br />Alternatively, if the context was preserved and an interview walked instead of jumped, wouldn't the cost of data points become prohibitive and the interview come to be seen as flat-footed?nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-1165307998214516812006-12-05T03:39:00.000-05:002006-12-28T04:54:20.963-05:00Are wikis and blogs the future of spying? | ZDNet Government Blog | ZDNet.com<a href="http://government.zdnet.com/?p=2759">Are wikis and blogs the future of spying? ZDNet Government Blog ZDNet.com</a>nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36303595.post-1161593703009409652006-10-23T04:04:00.000-04:002006-12-28T04:30:06.236-05:00The topography of XMLWhich are the stuff of dreams -- XML documents or relational databases?<br /><br />Freud might say that a relational database is polymorphous perverse. That's because through the miracle of foreign keys the same table can have many parents. Imagine that.<br /><br />Actually it is hard to imagine the life of rows because they can appear in many places at once. That is, the same row might be involved in several relationships. Are you getting the perversity of all this?<br /><br />In XML, elements have elements, and elements have attributes.<br /><br />I can hear the train of thought now. XML is hierarchical whereas in a relational database there are more degrees of freedom.<br /><br />Freedom and perversity.<br /><br />When have I heard this story before.<br /><br />Is XML then the representation of conservatives?<br /><br />Am I a conservative who chooses XML?<br /><br />And do relational database administrators really have a proclivity to sleep around?<br /><br />Tune in next week for an entirely new episode of "XML Matters" only on Wolf TV...<br /><br />Actually there are two things you have to know about the flavor of hierarchy that comes in XML. They are cardinality and order.<br /><br />Cardinality is about the number of elements. Order is about their position. The calculus -- say integration -- uses number and order to make sequence. Sequence is like the card deck our ancestors once flipped to produce animation. Sequence is a movie. Sequence is visualization.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/791/4055/1600/x3d.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 196px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/791/4055/320/x3d.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I'd like to see a relational database put sequence in its pipe and smoke it. It is not possible according to Codd and Date who are two really big relational database fish.<br /><br />On the other hand, shaping, shapes, movement and maybe, as we shall see, even morphing and cloning are <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/x-matters43/" target="_blank" style="color: tomato;">second nature with XML</a>.<br /><br />Finegan. Begin again.<br /><br />Did you know that Finegan's Wake is an XML document?nightcleanerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07550460039648785488noreply@blogger.com0