Book Reviews
![[Day Permalink]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/images/permaLink.gif){kind=small}
Thursday, April 24, 2003
![[Item Permalink]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/images/ur_bullet.gif){kind=small} Research data should be made public -- Comment()
Here are pointers to two nice books in PDF format on sharing research data:
|
|
Ease of IT makes things difficult -- Comment()
A small company I know advertises each year for summer trainees, requiring IT skills. This year the company received 500 applications, an increase of 50% over the last year. Why this happened? The biggest reason is the ease of submitting job applications by e-mail. Dozens of companies receive almost identical applications, and all require processing by the personnel department in each company. I feel this is a typical result of using IT. Instead of requiring less effort you need more resources for the new bottlenecks which arise. IT makes some things easy and fast, and generates new tasks which were not present before. An IT expert will of course try to solve the job application problem by applying even more IT: an automated system for processing job applications. But perhaps the best solution would be to require applications on paper, with a hand-written cover letter?
|
|
Fight against spam -- Comment()
Here are a few pointers to the fight against spam: There is a illustrative NY Times article about the 'spam king' Alan Ralsky from 2002, and a more recent story about Ms. Alyx Sachs.
|
|
-- Comment()
Internet Is Losing Ground in Battle Against Spam (registration required for access): "Despite the push to eradicate unsolicited commercial email, spammers still have the upper hand, and are battling automated filters and other antispam measures using various methods, ranging from as simple a method as rewording spam messages to hide their content to as sophisticated as masking their point of origin by transmitting them along labyrinthine routes. [...] Exacerbating the situation is the blurring line between spam and legitimate email--blacklisting computers and addresses known to be used by spammers can often lead to false positives, thanks to crafty spammers who can disguise their origins by commandeering undefended systems."
|
