Stunning visualisation of connections between pages in wikipedia – very beautiful.
Created:Sat, 26 May 2007 15:36:59 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1286
Posted: May 26, 2007, 9:36 am

Typically brilliant article by Clay Shirky who once again elegantly proves a thing that, once you know it, is completely and intuitively obvious but that, before then, is just one of life’s curious puzzles. Of course – young people do interesting, creative and novel things and exploit new technologies more easily because they know less. This is the downside of wisdom – the more you know, the more you ignore the little anomalies, the more some things seem obvious and are not questioned.
Clay suggests that this is a real and unassailable advantage of young over old, but I think there is still a chance for us oldies. They key is to completely change your intellectual and/or working life every now and then. Not just a gentle shift from one job to another that is similar, or picking up another skill that draws on your existing skills (e.g. a new language), though that can probably help, but something utterly different and, on the face of it, unrelated to what you have done before.
Created:Sat, 26 May 2007 13:14:25 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1285
Posted: May 26, 2007, 7:14 am

OK, this is really cool – putting the time spent on filling in CAPTCHAs to good use to harness the wisdom of the crowd in a big big way – 60 million eyes a day, solving problems that computers cannot solve. Brilliant idea, so many possible applications apart from the simple task of fixing weaknesses in OCR.
Just a little worrying that it could be a tempting target for coordinated practical jokers and maybe worse – CAPTCHA-bombing could be the next big thing 🙂
Created:Sat, 26 May 2007 06:05:22 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1284
Posted: May 26, 2007, 12:05 am

Interesting social visualisations of timelines, some great e-portfolio functionality and good mashupability.

Created:Wed, 23 May 2007 09:24:52 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1282
Posted: May 23, 2007, 3:24 am

as the title says – generates bibliographies in a small number of popular styles for inclusion in papers etc. The neat part is that the bibliographic database is generated by everyone who uses it.Simple idea, with collective intelligence.
Created:Thu, 17 May 2007 14:55:59 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1279
Posted: May 17, 2007, 8:55 am

Surprisingly high ranking for Netscape, but otherwise much as you might expect, with Digg and del.icio.us in first and third places.
Created:Tue, 15 May 2007 13:15:52 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1278
Posted: May 15, 2007, 7:15 am

Very cool Flash-based system allowing talking/voice conferencing from any Web page. Great tool for social presence, with a low threshold, component-based approach that is where we should be going with educational technologies.
Created:Sun, 13 May 2007 07:09:35 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1276
Posted: May 13, 2007, 1:09 am

Interesting system combining chat and conferencing (fairly simple) with podcasting – can record and download as MP3.
Created:Sun, 13 May 2007 07:05:18 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1275
Posted: May 13, 2007, 1:05 am

Benford’s law shows that, in a very diverse range of data sets, the first digit of numbers is 1 about a third of the time, and the next numbers follow a consistent pattern of distribution. This is both interesting and odd but, for me, it is much more interesting how the law was discovered, independently, by two reserachers:
“Both Benford and Newcomb stumbled upon the law in the same way: while flipping through pages of a book of logarithmic tables, they noticed that the pages in the beginning of the book were dirtier than the pages at the end.”
A wonderful example of the collective in action, without the aid of any computers!
Created:Sat, 12 May 2007 08:04:22 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1274
Posted: May 12, 2007, 2:04 am

Very interesting social networking application that visualises networks, interests and so on. Seems very stigmergic. The site says:
“The Fidg’t Visualizer allows you to play around with your network. You interface with the Visualizer through Flickr and LastFM tags, using any tag to create a Magnet. Once a Tag Magnet is created, members of the network will gravitate towards it if they have photos or music with that same Tag.

This simple mechanic lets you visualize your Network in a unique way, demonstrating its Predisposition towards certain things. What is more popular amongst people in your Network – rock or electronic music? Are photos of buildings more popular than photos of sunsets? Based on how your network reacts to those Tags, you might get an answer. The Visualizer also shows how your Network compares to a random sampling of the networks of other Fidg’t users, letting you see how your network stacks up to others”
Created:Sat, 12 May 2007 07:54:28 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofind/frshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1273
Posted: May 12, 2007, 1:54 am