Wednesday, January 28, 2004

The traditional 3: Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plus the one used down at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (working on fusion) - Plasma Bose-Einstein Condensate (Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman 1995), Fermion Condensate (Debora Jin 2004) ================================ Bose-Einstein condensates are made with Bosons, whereas the Fermion Condensates use Fermions. Bosons are particles like photons, and w and z particles.  Fermions are protons, electrons and neutrons.   9:34:39 PM

Shirky on Dean and social software I may be about the last one on this (real life got the better of me for a few days there), but Clay Shirky has a well reasoned post at Many-to-Many re the failure modes of Dean's use of the Internet in an electoral campaign, with some parallels to my own suspicions. Civilized discussion and lots of bloggy trackback goodness. Bonus Old Fart points for using Apple's ill-fated eWorld to illustrate a point. RTHT. [Due Diligence] 1:54:42 PM

First, I like Don Norman, But - his annoying primadonna style of presenting information was a bit offputting.  Maybe I only heard one or two segments of this show, but it seemed like he has no tact. Don, let me suggest that you listen to what people are saying, then respond to what they are saying before letting it rip with a different point of view.  You may have great ideas, or have arrived at a pretty accurate picture of what's going on in communication styles, but your own mastery of interaction would seem poor.  Build on what people say - integrating it into your worldview or the worldview of some others that you disagree with -  rather than merely taking someone's heartfelt experience as a data point for launching into your views. ==================== User interface guru Don Norman is on The Connection today talking about why cell phones are so annoying. Wow, Howard Rheingold is on now. [Scripting News] 12:15:01 PM

Why does the singularity need to be distorted into an "evil" singularity - I feel like I'm in the group therapy session of Dr. Evil and his son - when the son is describing what he might like to do (instead of taking over the evil empire) and Dr. Evil keeps interjecting the word "evil" An "EVIL" petting zoo? Technology does not have to become EVIL - but I suppose it helps to capture attention and draw people in to even think about ideas like the Singularity. ============================ The Panopticon Singularity - Big Brother Is Already Watching You. Charlie Stross wrote a powerful, chilling essay for the ill-fated Whole Earth Magazine charting the nascency of The Panopticon Singularity: "a police state characterised by omniscient surveillance and mechanical law enforcement." A Panopticon Singularity is the logical outcome if the burgeoning technologies of the singularity are funneled into automating law enforcement. Previous police states were limited by manpower, but the panopticon singularity substitutes technology, and ultimately replaces human conscience with a brilliant but merciless prosthesis. With the demise of Whole Earth, Stross published his original draft on the Web. He details ten emerging technologies that will enable such a dystopia and outlines the currently apparent pathway for its creation. The list will be familiar to readers of Smart Mobs. A must-read. Thanks, Tex! [Smart Mobs] 10:18:19 AM

Laundry List of the time consuming activities of social networking websites that have become annoying recently. Imagine maintaining presences on all the following sites: Friendster, LinkedIn, Tribe, Orkut, Ryze, Spoke, ZeroDegrees, Ecademy, RealContacts, Ringo, MySpace, Yafro, EveryonesConnected, Friendzy, FriendSurfer, Tickle, Evite, Plaxo, Squiby, and WhizSpark. 10:00:28 AM

Social Nets Not Making Friends. As the number of social networking services like Friendster continues to swell, the technorati are pushing back. An antisocial backlash is afoot. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] 9:57:27 AM

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