Metamind's Corner of the Universe: Archive

“Once again, I remind you that I know nothing of Mr Revere, or his conversations, or his habits or beliefs, his writings (if he has any) or his personal life. All I know is this bit of metadata, based on membership in some organizations. And yet my analytical engine, on the basis of absolutely the most elementary of operations in Social Networke Analysis, seems to have picked him out of our 254 names as being of unusual interest. We do not have to stop here, with just a picture. Now that we have used our simple “Person by Event” table to generate a “Person by Person” matrix, we can do things like calculate centrality scores, or figure out whether there are cliques, or investigate other patterns. For example, we could calculate a betweenness centrality measure for everyone in our matrix, which is roughly the number of “shortest paths” between any two people in our network that pass through the person of interest. It is a way of asking “If I have to get from person a to person z, how likely is it that the quickest way is through person x?” Here are the top betweenness scores for our list of suspected terrorists:” —

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere (via new-politic)

Funny, powerful, but in the end true. If you were British and you used the metadata available to you to find Paul Revere you would be a hero.

So the takeaway is not really “is using metadata a violation of a person’s right to privacy” but instead “do the ends justify the means”. And the answer is: It depends on what side you are on.

Metadata is like a diary left out in a park. Sure it says private but it is left out in the open. Opening it is more a personal moral question rather than a legal one. Civilized society says you should respect ones privacy. But what if there was a young girl missing in the neighborhood? Access to the information in the diary may provide a life or death clue in the case. There is no way of knowing if the diary is even related to the missing girl unless you open it. Now the moral question’s weight shifts depending on how likely the diary is related to the missing girl. How close is the park to the site of her disappearance? Can her friends or family be interviewed to describe the missing girl’s diary? Is there a receipt for the diary sold to the girl’s family? We are told the first few hours of a missing person case are crucial to a happy resolution. Is there time for all the checks and balances to determine if we should violate the inherent and implied privacy of a diary or do we open it to see if it is hers or not right away? If it is not hers we can rule it out, closing and replacing it on the bench contents unread further and continue looking for the missing girl, no longer wasting valuable time or resources on this unrelated diary. If it is hers we can mass our resources to reading and deciphering the contents for clues.

So metadata is an diary left out in a public park. Eventually someone is going to look at it. Our best bet for privacy in a digital world is to have our diary next to a billion other diaries in the same park where only those with massive resources have the ability to sift through them all. If you are concerned about the NSA singling out your/our diary don’t leave it in the park and don’t write in it about your conversations with known terrorists.

(via ebookporn)

Jun 12, 20134 notes

#metadata #paul revere

ebookporn:

Awesome is their word not mine but still some pretty useful stuff. ~ eP

PCMag recently spoke with Danny Winokur, Adobe’s vice president and general manager of Interactive Development, who said the point of today’s releases is to advance what’s possible with HTML5 and associated technologies that have become instrumental to the modern Web. Adobe’s tools for HTML5 website development have brought the power of multiple technology features to build creative website designs. It aims to revolutionize the way the web is dealt with going forward. Adobe hopes to surprise web developers with a rather convenient and simpler creative process. These comprehensive tools are smart, flexible, and highly interactive in their use, style and performance. Let’s take a look at the latest Adobe’s HTML5 website development tools re-invented for 2013: Edge Reflow This is a completely new, responsive web design tool by Adobe, available only for Adobe Creative Cloud members. The tool can create layouts and visual designs with CSS and is totally free in Adobe’s creative Cloud. It has a smart and intuitive design surface which can be easily resized. This surface gives an idea as to how layouts and visuals will adapt to different screen sizes. It allows users to preview their designs in the browser, and check their designs in real-time with Edge Inspect extension. The design CSS can be transported to Dreamweaver, Edge Code or any other code editor for further modifications. What it has in-store for Developers? The primary purpose of Adobe’s Edge Reflow is to simplify the multi-screen design process, making it much more efficient and time-bound. Used for creating UX prototypes and visual designs followed by quick mock-ups. Edge Reflow works on 2 design regions – design canvas for WYSIWYG layout and the property inspector (for single element styling). Breakpoints create new media query regions that can be easily tweaked to edit visual elements such as boxes, layouts and much more.

Jun 12, 20133 notes

#HTML5 #library #web publishing

Jun 11, 201352 notes

#library #lines #demmand

complexitea:

Though industrial firms have used additive technologies in rapid prototyping for years, the tech is still fresh and growing in the consumer segment. The latest sign of the 3D printer home invasion? Retail office supply chain, Staples, says they’ll sell the 3D Systems Cube 3D Printer online and in retail stores by the end of June.

Awesome! Even with the size constraints, you could make some pretty nifty tools and art pieces with this even without printing multiple pieces of something larger. Custom accessories and jewelry, tiny models to use for classes or research presentations, pretty much any little doohickeys you might want or need, albeit only plastics. Now I just need to find somebody to pool some funds with…

Jun 11, 201335 notes

New digital tools help researchers see who’s sharing their work online, but in most cases the data aren’t considered by tenure committees.

Jun 11, 20132 notes

Jun 7, 20132 notes

#Library #information literacy #digital public library of america #academic library

The American Library Association (ALA) is gravely concerned, but unfortunately not surprised, at this week’s revelations that the U.S. government obtained the phone records of all Verizon customers for the last seven years. Leaders of the association again call upon Congress to provide more accountability and transparency about how the government is obtaining and using vast amounts of information about innocent people.

Jun 7, 201313 notes

#librarian #ARL #ala #privacy

Play

Jun 4, 201323 notes

#library for all #metadata #kickstarter #philanthropy

Jun 4, 2013100 notes

#card catalog

SAN MATEO, Calif. (AP) — Invisalign, a San Jose company, uses 3-D printing to make each mouthful of customized, transparent braces. Mackenzies Chocolates, a confectioner in Santa Cruz, uses a 3-D printer to pump out chocolate molds. And earlier this year, Cornell University researchers used a 3-D printer, along with injections of a special collagen gel, to create a human-shaped ear.

Jun 2, 2013

#iPad #Creativity #Manufacture

The latest from one of Apple’s top developers shows the app is coming of age as a new art form, says Matt Warma

May 30, 2013

#Beethoven #9th symphony #Apple #app #iPad #iPod #iphone #classical music #metadata

The life of a marshmallow man

I sat by the camp fire holding my laurels and looked at the hills. But all I could say was….
I am just the marshmallow man
When Regina and Tina convicts us with brute and explains how mom and dad’s think their children are the truth. All I could say was…
I am just the marshmallow man
When the chicken’s come home to roost and poop, all I could say was
I am just the marshmallow man
When following beacon’s light and ushering in the vanilla women of scone on a Saturday night, all I could say was
I am just the marshmallow man
I am burnt like a wick, but sweet as a kit.
Monday through Friday I am librarian on a kick,
But in the end, when I add up the sum of the whole all I can say is

I am Just the marshmallow man

May 22, 2013

#marshmallow man #librarian #women

May 21, 2013440 notes

#tornado #oklahoma #Fujita scale

http://jstor.tumblr.com/

May 20, 2013

#metadata #jstor #tumblr #yahoo

What is Transliteracy?

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. – www.transliteracy.com

What does it have to do with libraries?

Longer definition of trans-literacy in relation to libraries

(originally published at Librarian by Day)

I have been asked this question many times by librarians so I am way overdue for this post.

Most recently I was asked “….are librarians the people best equipped to define and interpret transliteracy (as opposed to say cognitive scientists, anthropologists, or critical theorists).” This is a modified version of my original answer.

No librarians are probably not the best people to define and interpret transliteracy. Fortunately we are (or at least I am) not defining it, and we certainly are not the only ones thinking about it.

Where did the word transliteracy come from?
Transliteracies came first, introduced by the Transliteracies Research Project directed by Alan Liu, Dept of English, University of California at Santa Barbara.

“Established in 2005, the Transliteracies Project includes scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and engineering in the University of California system (and in the future other research programs). It will establish working groups to study online reading from different perspectives; bring those groups into conjunction behind a shared technology development initiative; publish research and demonstration software; and train graduate students working at the intersections of the humanistic, social, and technological disciplines.”

Sue Thomas attended the first transliteracies conference and was inspired to form the PART Group (Production and Research in Transliteracy, now http://www.transliteracy.com)

” PART is a small group of researchers based in the Faculty of Humanities but researching in the Institute of Creative Technologies. The IOCT, which opened in 2006, undertakes research work in emerging areas at the intersection of e–Science, the Digital Arts, and Humanities”. – Thomas, et al.

What is transliteracy? Sue Thomas and her group use this working definition

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.

How is transliteracy different from media literacy or digital literacy or technology literacy?

…because it offers a wider analysis of reading, writing and interacting across a range of platforms, tools, media and cultures, transliteracy does not replace, but rather contains, “media literacy” and also “digital literacy.” Thomas, et al

It also includes technological, economic, social, cultural, and global issues (convergence). While it can be easy to tie transliteracy to technology

it is important to note that transliteracy is not just about computer–based materials, but about all communication types across time and culture. It does not privilege one above the other but treats all as of equal value and moves between and across them. Thomas, et al

Is transliteracy new?

No, but it has just been named recently. We are not seeing any new communication styles, only new ways of capturing and sharing those communications. We are now using video or audio equipment to capture content that could only have been witnessed live. We are using computers and other technology to share information that we would have previously shared over the phone or face to face. Getting information from people you know rather than from a reference book or librarian is traditionally information seeking behavior.

What we are witnessing today is thus the acceleration of a trend that has been building for thousands of years. When technologies like alphabets and Internets amplify the right cognitive or social capabilities, old trends take new twists and people build things that never could be built before. – Rheingold (pdf)

Will all this new technology change how we think and act?

Probably. But even the bemoaning of the change in the format in which content or information is shared is new. Socrates beat us to it when he complained the the written word is

an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. Pluto, The Phaedrus

Libraries and Transliteracy from Bobbi Newman

References:

Transliteracy: Crossing Divides – Sue Thomas, Chris Joseph, Jess Laccetti, Bruce Mason, Simon Mills, Simon Perril, Kate Pullinger
Technologies of Cooperation (pdf) – Howard Rheingold

May 20, 20139 notes

#Transliteracy #universal compatibility #digital libraries

May 17, 2013108,051 notes

#First Lady of Song #marilyn monroe #ella fitzgerald #civil rights #Mocambo #jazz

Play

May 16, 20131 note

#catshit #entrepreneurship #itunes #outreach #thats what friends are for

By Ann Pendleton-Jullian

May 13, 2013

#ARL #LIbraries #diversity

The wrapping does matter or Something that is good for you should taste and look good.

Ok, instead of the normal blog post I am going to use food prep analogies to re affirm the question to a question; why do people like e-books and others do not? I argued once that basically something that looks appealing whether it is consumed via our site, taste, or touch can be consumed by anybody. What do I mean? If I wanted to quote from Hamlet, I would not be out looking for a leather bound copy of the play. I would go on the internet and or check out a Norton Anthology to Literature. What really matters is that the content and not the presentation is there for me to read However, in business, is not always about the product as it is about the presentation.

For example, would you buy this cake from your local supermarket?

I suspect not.

However, would you buy this cake from your favorite grocery store?

I suspect that most of you would buy the later cake. However, to some, chocolate cake taste great no matter how it looks. So the former choice would work fine.

When someone is trying to sell you something is partly about how scrumptious it looks and not about the initial appearance that grabs our attentions/taste buds and keeps them coming back for more.

Here is another example:

Here we have a international delicacy that I would not eat no matter how you prepared it. I don’t care if they (somehow) put this dish in a Suit and Tie, I would not even allow this pig or cow organ to touch these lips. As such I am talking about chitterlings (chitlins or chittlins).

Anyway„…

suppose you only had two choices of food to eat, would you rather eat chilins in this form

Or, would you consume a delicious ……hahahahaha (evil laugh) portion of these taste morsels if they were presented for your approval like this?

Again, I still know what this is. But, I would at least would allow the later to creep into my thought processes in terms of a negotiable dietary supplement.

Now one has to ask why these comparisons came up in my head? Well, I just finished watching a trailer for a Movie called The Oranges starring Hugh Laurie of Fox Television’s House fame.

The word Oranges stood out in my head. Life sometimes deals you Oranges and sometimes Apples; two different fruits. This leads me back to the statement about enjoying something in various forms versus others. Lately, I have been reading the book , Everything Is Perfect Your A Liar.by Kelly Oxford

Initially when I was reading the book, I was using my e-reader aka ibook app on my iPad. I got tired of waiting for it to come via Inter Library Loan or ILL. The book is literally that popular. As such, when the book finally arrived, a library staff member came up to my office and handed me sign for it slip. I was like ” yeah I have the physical book in hand to finish enjoying.” Then something weird happen; I went to my favorite coffee shop to read it. I noticed that it was taking me longer to get through the pages of a chapter. Was I tired? Not really. Did the vernacular or grammatical flow of the book all of a sudden become dense and hard to pay attention to? Nope. After about 15 minutes I put the book back in my backpack and called it a night.

Saturday, May 11, 2013, I again went to my favorite coffee shop to try and enjoy my book. It just so happens it was raining so I did not pull the book out. However, I had my iPad with me and pull it out just to update the music on it. At the same time, I notice that the coffee shop was hosting two bands who were due to perform. So, I decided to put my laptop bag in the car and keep my iPad attached to me. Well one thing led to another and I was listening to the band, looking at the woman dancing to the music (turns out it was one of the band member’s mom) what? she was attractive. Anyway,

I noticed something as I listened to band. I was going through the pages faster on my iPad. The e-book had the same text size and font annotation. I mentioned this to a librarian friend of mine later that night and she said “maybe because it is easier to hold and flip pages on an iPad that I was reading the book faster. I thought about it and said “I don’t think so”.

I then thought about how I have looked at countless scholarly articles, cataloged thousands of items, and used the internet for basic overall enjoyment and entertainment

…..NOT EVEN REMOTELY WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT.

And yet, when I am handed important documentation via paper, it will sometimes take me days to get through it .The non-scientific conclusion I came to from this was, I can disseminate printed text digitally verses its physical or monograph counterpart. Now why did I take you lovely readers through this narrative based journey? Because I could for one. Second, I was just thinking about this and I had no one else to communicate this to.

As such, if you want a more provocative visually stunning example of something that has been printed in text and digitally manipulated to attract different user aka Digital Natives, then click on the pic below for 9 amazing book visualizations. Enjoy your e-books people!!! Enjoy!!

9 amazing book visualizations

May 13, 2013

#ebooks #e-books #Kelly Oxford #hugh laurie

May 12, 201318 notes

Metamind's Corner of the Universe

June 2013

10 posts

May 2013

17 posts