Following my post about using the iPad recently, I’ve spent some time using more of the content-focused apps. As I mentioned before, the iPad has turned out to be a great device for consuming, reading and just experiencing media. This has obvious benefits for video, and many of the examples I’ve seen have made use of multi-media and show off the screen. But I tend to read a lot. I tend to read news from content publishers (BBC, Guardian, Gizmodo) and blogs.

One of the first apps I downloaded was Stephen Fry’s “FryPaper” app. It’s basically Stephen Fry’s blog manifested as an iPad app, and it’s one of the most exciting things I’ve seen. This isn’t because it’s swish, flash, or gimmicky. Indeed, it is none of those things. It simply provides the content from Stephen’s blog in a format that is very, very easy to read on the iPad. It seems to focus on simple design, and that’s it. It’s got a very limited set of features, all of which I’ve used—like using the sharing feature to tweet or email links to individual articles.

So, why is this so exciting?

Because it’s a glimpse of the future of well-published stories. It’s a snapshot of a time when anyone can buy/download an app for a single blog, and get all this content beautifully laid out.

So, I contacted Stephen’s FryPaper person, Andrew Sampson of SamFry about building FryPaper.

Here is that quick interview:

Zach: Why make an app for a blog? What does the iPad bring to the table that a browser doesn’t?

Andrew: Stephenfry.com’s blog is a very popular website in its own right. We wanted to offer that content in a newspaper format, for free on the iPad. We wanted to show how you could strip back other contend and concentrate on what was popular. Less is more, was our rule. It was a good first stepping stone for our company to develop an iPad App on our own.

Zach: What did you have to consider in designing it?

Andrew: We considered that the iPad is a new device and that whilst newspapers and magazines are glamouring for it, many would argue that a user interface is yet to be defined. We went for the most elegant and simple user interface we could develop. We also wanted to make sharing it easy. I might add that I don’t see how magazines and papers will be able to sustain the large multimedia elements of their initial iPad offerings. It’s brilliant that they did but it cost them a fortune to produce the content, let alone the app itself.

Zach: Any major challenges or hurdles?

Andrew: Cost. We were very lucky to find a Canadian firm that presented their credentials and production pipeline from the beginning. We’ve had many false starts on app development in the last year, primarily because of cost. Marco Tabini and his team became SamFry’s partners for FryPaper.

We were also lucky to secure the sponsorship of G-Technology by Hitachi. This was the first time we’ve ever had another company believe in what we were doing. They showed extraordinary faith and trust in us, even to the degree of letting us design the sponsorship placements within the app. It only adds up to two ads but boy, it’s allowed us to fund the FryPaper for iPhone, which is due out in the next few weeks.

Zach: From your experience, is there any advice you’d give to someone wanting to build a similar content-focused app?

Andrew: Be confident in the depth of your content. Stephen, Nicole, our graphic designer and I, have a strong focus on design. We think content and the user interface synergy is the single most important aspect in delivering electronic content. It harks back to our traditional theatrical beginnings.

Zach: Thank you Andrew!

Image taken from stephenfry.com.

Blogging Perspective Podcast

Today, I spoke with Jeremy Torz from Union Hand-Roasted Coffee, and recorded part of our conversation as a podcast. I am interested in ways people can get the most out of the pleasurable experience that is coffee, without being daunted by anything hugely technical, expensive or difficult to operate. I asked Jeremy about normal people wanting to learn a bit more about the coffee they drink.

I also recorded this in the presence of Jeremy’s lovely (but whiny) German Shorthaired Pointer Casper, so the jangling and occasional whine are nothing to do with me or Jeremy.

So, let me know what you think of the service, the podcast and the coffee you’re going to try.

I hope you enjoy.

I was recently asked a very interesting question via formspring. An anonymous person asked me:

I think the ability to “filter” — to absorb information from many sources and produce a useful result, quickly — is what really defines the “digital native.” Your thoughts?

Below is my response. I’d be interested in what you think.

Interesting…

Ok, so this idea is pretty loaded: it’s full of meaning. “digital native” is a phrase which is semantically rich, and possibly not very precise. It sounds like the kind of topic which could have an entire book’s worth of words written to describe the meanings.

I’ll take one crack at it, though, by using a subject I better understand: linguistics.

In linguistics, we talk about different kinds of language users. Generally, there are native users and non-native, with many exceptions and all sorts of complications when you start looking into the ethnography of the topic. But, essentially, native language users absorb a language through their childhood (the ability to “acquire” language in this way seems to disappear around puberty), and they develop a fluency in it. Many linguists believe that this also shapes their thought patterns—i.e.: a native of English *thinks* in English in some way. Most at least agree that there is also cultural acquisition of some nature too. It’s all context.

Now, if I don’t speak a language and I want to learn, I can learn through what many linguists call “competencies”. The idea is, very basically, that people think and learn in different ways, so develop different tactics. So, some might have a natural tendency to learn words, grammatical forms and therefore develop strategies which allow them to learn vocabulary. Others use a communicative competency, and learn by trying to communicate rather than learn a form and learn basically through trial and error. (It’s closely tied with personality: some people are happy to make mistakes verbally, others are more happy to learn on their own etc…).

I’m going this circuitous route, because I think the way someone learns a non-native language might be a helpful metaphor for the way people work with trends with which they’re unfamiliar. So, in this metaphor, a “digital native” will have the natural acquisition and competencies which come from existing in an online (I assume that’s at least part of what you mean by “digital, by the way) world. They’re used to many sources, ubiquitous connection, visual information on any topic instantly, multi-media content and hardware that’s actually quite complex to use. The thing is, to a native, it’s not a very conscious thing. Someone born into an interconnected world would be more frustrated with NOT being able to find out about anything, about not having some form of connection to information and by being unable to understand their hardware. Filtering information is less of a conscious act and more of a subconscious process. They live in a very full world, so they have already developed ways to work with all this information.

You might see more clearly the idea of native and non-native through different competencies, and perhaps whether the way someone thinks and frames their conscious efforts are affected by the presence of connection. Does a “digital native” think to try terribly hard to remember someone’s phone number, working out some sort of pneumonic or rhythm to memorise it? Or would they only have to if their connection were severed?

So, this is a long road to one context in which filtering might be a part of the competency of a “digital native”. I don’t, however, think it’s definitive; any more than saying someone who can pronounce the “th” sound is therefore defined as a “Native of English”. There are myriad concepts which are begged to be explored in the idea of being a native anything: context, competencies, aspirations, metaphorical constructs etc etc etc. But, I think the idea that someone born into a community which has lots of information will develop a certain fluency in dealing with it. They might think differently, or simply have had the tools in their “hands” for longer—moving from conscious cerebral thought about information to more subconscious, automatic use of digital tools. Filtering, in this construct, is a competency—a skillset and general tendency of a digital world. Natives would be better, non-natives would have to learn by comparing with their own skills and adapting.

But, I think the phrase “digital native” could be too full of loosely-encoded meaning to be very precise, or even useful without a wider, shared understanding of what you mean by it.

This post was originally published on Nodalities Blog.
The Talis offices, for the past few weeks, have been awash with geeky excitement—that kind of near giddy excitement that comes with eager expectation. We’ve all been waiting for something important.

For some, this was no doubt augmented with the announcement of Steve’s new iPad; but that’s not what’s gotten us all worked up.

For months, we’ve been looking forward to the launch of data.gov.uk; and last week, the wraps finally came off. The official press release put it:

A major new website has been launched to the public which gives anyone who wants to use it unprecedented and free access to government data in one place.

This doesn’t quite capture the coolness of the launch, for me. Yes, it’s a major new website, and it’s point is to publish information. But, the exciting thing is that this information is being published as data: data that can be used, reused, remixed and enriched. Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s perspective was more exciting:

Making public data available for re-use is about increasing accountability and transparency and letting people create new, innovative ways of using it. Government data should be a public resource. By releasing it, we can unlock new ideas for delivering public services, help communities and society work better, and let talented entrepreneurs and engineers create new businesses and services.

The point is that this public resource is finally getting a home on the web, and an infrastructure to make it not just available, but useful.

The exceptional team behind data.gov.uk have striven to adhere to web standards in its production: including Linked Data as a priority, as Professor Nigel Shadbolt explained:

We are also going to increase the use of ‘Linked Data’ standards, which allows people to provide data in a way that is as flexible and easy-to-use as possible.

Back in November, Leigh Dodds wrote a post explaining how we’ve been involved, and there’s an official Talis Platform press release too. Basically, we’ve been working with the data.gov.uk team to help with the Linked Data part of the site—hosting the SPARQL endpoints and providing consultancy and training, for example.

I can confidently say that we’re very proud of data.gov.uk, the team behind it, and our involvement with it. We’re excited by the prospect of this data being used as raw material for clever people to make interesting, useful, even world-changing things with it. We’ve seen the beginnings and proof-of-concept projects already.

Now comes the really exciting stuff. What are you going to build?

Image: “Yay for happy days!” by le vent le cri via flickr (CC: By)

I read yesterday that twitter has been banned from the White House. In the post, Marshall Kirkpatrick joked that this could be a reason we haven’t seen much from Obama’s twitter stream recently. I must admit however, my initial reaction was sympathetic with the White House for pragmatic reasons, though the attitude of the Press Secretary’s attitude towards “twitterers” did raise the hackles. It makes sense to be secure in the White House, to make sure people aren’t saying things which could be dangerous or cause scandal through carelessness. “Loose lips sink ships”, don’t they?

But I think there is a wider idea here, which I think I’ve glimpsed between the lines.

about 8 hours ago from Tweetie...

However, I also use twitter to share news. When my grandfather recently passed away, I received dozens of messages of encouragement and sympathy. Several of us here in Shropshire organise a monthly get together to network and discuss tech-trends and the work we do through the @shropgeek. Important announcements at work, and shared interest groups often rely on twitter for their spread and response, and I’ve had customer service reps from big companies personally respond to my feedback. Of far more significance, the government of Iran was unable to stop twitter, allowing its citizens to tell the rest of the world what was going on when all other forms of communication were censored, blocked, or monitored. And citizens from around the rest of the world responded.

twitter is a medium, and suggesting someone is petty and fatuous because they use it is like suggesting everyone on TV is unimportant or vain. There is no connection between the inane talk-show host and the investigative journalist or head of state! The point is in the message, not the vehicle. But, the point this raises in my mind is that twitter, and other forms of web-enabled channels make for a high level of transparency, and I don’t think the US (in particular) is a power who likes transparency at the moment.

This has lead me to question what I think of the use of web-media by politicians and important figures, particularly in the US and UK. It makes me wonder whether the “Loose lips” philosophy is misguided in the modern world. You see, closing channels, blocking communication, and monitoring messages suggests a democracy that doesn’t trust its citizens with the truth. Sure, there are controls and securities which must be in place, and I’m not suggesting for a moment that every clerk should have a constitutional right to twitter state-secrets…

…or am I?

You see, the United States is global super-power on par with, and probably only directly comparable with great states of the past called Empires. The notion of an emperor of the US would chill the blood of most of my family, and thinking of the US as anything but a “democracy” is practically heresy. After all, citizens’ rights are ensconced in the very foundation myth and history of the US itself. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal…” begins a letter to a despotic monarch, sparking off the touch-pad for liberating men from the rule of figureheads, class and social bondage. But part of this very myth* that the Republic, “of the people, by the people and for the people” should be based on citizenship trusted to look after themselves and even take up arms to defend their status as such citizens. There is a deep-running notion in the American psyche that if the government were ever to get too big for it’s boots, it is the right—nay, duty—of her citizens to act to reduce her power.

But I don’t believe the US is a state that can be corrected by its citizens very effectively at all. I think of the complexity, size, presence and byzantine nature of the US Government, and I feel disconnected, small, and powerless to change anything. Over the past decade, in the name of security, Americans put up with reductions in liberty, and I think this principle is bleeding through the cracks in the facade of governance. Blocking channels is saying: “we don’t trust you”.

What would a country look like where the public had access to the vast majority of government information? Where government officially made use of the media its citizens used? Where government officials were held accountable via the various media whenever they were caught being mis-represented?

Oddly, I think it’s the UK.

The “traditional” media here are a powerful force. It is seen as a near human right to have intimate news of public officials and dealings, and watching politicians being interviewed by members of the press is like eaves-dropping on a job interview or witnessing a cautious father’s first meeting of a prospective suitor for his only daughter. The press is a force to be reckoned with here, and it’s not seen as the trustworthy force itself, but is is composed of citizens, not officials.

Does this scandalise the government? Yes… and no. There is a very different attitude toward elected officials here, which doesn’t translate easily to American. A Member of Parliament is legally referred to as “Honourable Member”, but the “honourable” is not taken as read by the average Brit. For decades, for example, Members of Parliament have enjoyed a system of expenses whereby they can claim for nearly every cost of living: from second homes to food and utilities. The true level of this feeding-trough has recently been blown wide by the press (who subsequently have been enjoying their own self-congratulatory feast, but that is another post.)

But, I think the UK get the web, probably because it’s used to dealing with powerful media. I follow Number 10 Downing Street (the metonymic residence of the Prime Minister) on twitter. No 10 doesn’t say much, and I don’t think it’s going to expose any state secrets, but I like the fact that it’s there to be engaged. The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) hosts an important blog which outlines the government’s plans to expose public data for normal, every-day citizens to have a play with and to see what’s going on.

And, in the last few weeks, the Prime Minister himself has turned himself around almost 180º in my personal opinion. He represents a party for whom I have less time than either of the other major contenders, and I’ve rather lazily accepted him as an incompetent oaf. But, he’s finally earned my pint and invite to dinner, if not my vote (if any of his secretaries are reading this, just tweet your acceptance, and I’ll find some pheasants and Pinotage). A few weeks ago, he appointed Sir Tim Berners-Lee to a Parliamentary advisory role with the explicit intention of opening up and pushing public data online. This is a major point, because it leads to transparency through public accountability. There seems to be a movement for Parliament to see public data as belonging to the people who bought it with their taxes, and this seems to be the most democratic way to see it. His recent TED talk also made me think he’s got a lot more to say than he perhaps has to date; though I think many of his points raise more questions than they answer.

Much has been said in the online world about the new American administration’s use of social media and the web to mobilise supporters during the election. But there hasn’t been much since. President Obama launched data.gov, but there is very little data there. I think the web is seen as a tool for messages, as a part of a bigger campaign, and as a security breach. It’s something to be used with your own agenda, and only under one’s own strict parameters. And, perhaps most non-democratically, it’s been used to broadcast and to cajole—It has not been used to engage. The fact that social media have barely been touched since the election could point to a wider attitude that citizens only matter for the brief time they’re required to vote.

The UK has already exposed much of its public data, and it’s planning to publish more and more as Linked Data (machine-readable, immediately useful resources), and it’s made plans to be more open, grasping the web and the transparency it’s brought through the hard lessons that spin is impossible with a well-informed citizenry, and on the Open Web, there is less room for your own message than there is for humanity.

*mythos is greek for “story”, and it is from that perspective I use the word myth: that it conveys the notion of a commonly-held understanding, not that it is entirely fantastic or without truth.

Talis, my employer, has been a big promoter of Linked Data and open-access to information, because we see that new ideas often arise when existing ideas come together. Innovation, if you like, occurs at the join between ideas when they connect. I see this as fundamental to the way ideas and their applications (technology) advance. I tend to believe that anything “novel” is actually affected when other ideas are connected together.

In the technological world, this seems like a strong analogy for Linked Data: information which can be connected by a web-like network of links. These Linked Data have become the foundation for what has come to be known as the “Semantic Web”, a web of connected information which breaks out of information silos and enables the discovery of new ideas from old, and innovation from existing information. We use the phrase “serendipitous reuse” for the idea that once an idea (or a piece of data) is published, it can be used and reused in novel ways and in context of other data to produce unexpected, and unforeseeable possibilities. These ideas (data, again) become increasingly useful when published in a format which allows them to be linked freely to ANY other piece of information. We’ve had the distribution method for this network for years (the good, ol WWW itself) and it’s been about a year since RDF was launched by the WWW Consortium to handle the data itself. The idea is basically to give every bit of data an address (a universal address, not one subjective to a database like a cell reference), and to predicate that bit of information very much like language does. If you think of it like a language, RDF lets bits of data (nouns) to be acted upon or act upon (verbs) others (other nouns). This triple-format enables a near infinite recombination (theoretically) of any data, anywhere with an address.

So, what’s the problem? Well, most of the world’s data are locked away in silos (prisoners of the cells their databases confine them to). Many organisations may wish to make use of their data in a semantic environment, and many might even embrace the Open-source nature of their data, and make it freely available to the world to recombine and use: there are always more innovations outside an organisation than within! In order to lower barriers to enter this linked data world, Talis has built a Platform with resources to host and utilise these connections, making use of semantic web standards (RDF and SPARQL, the query language of the semantic web) and a developer-friendly environment (a RESTFul API, for example).

However, this innovation is only possible when data are accessible. In order to further lower the barriers, Talis is now offering free access to the Platform to host public domain data. We are calling this initiative the Talis Connected Commons, and the offer is not limited to free hosting: the data access services, including access to a public SPARQL endpoint, are also freely available. To keep this data open, you will need to use either the Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License or the recently launched Creative Commons CC0 license to publish data. Anyone will then be able to freely access the stored data using the Platform services, without API keys and without usage limits.

There is more information available at www.talis.com/cc, where you can find detailed technical information, FAQ’s and other resources.

Image: “Eggistentialism 1.5 or Three of a Perfect Pair” by bitzcelt (via flickr), CC Licensed

Got one of those tagging tasks from Facebook. This is the first one I’ve done, and I thought it was interesting; so I thought’ I’d post it here. Feel free to do one of your own and ping back here:

To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish. You can also “save drafts” so you don’t have to work on this all in one sitting25 Random Things About Me

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you (no pressure, if you want to write one, write one, don’t do it cos this thing tells you to!).

1. I was born in Ft. Collins, a university town in northern Colorado.
2. I dislike very few foods. indeed I can only think of one dish I would not eat.
3. I hate flying; in part because of fact 4, but for other reasons as well.
4. I am afraid of being in high places. Some call it an irrational fear, but I have yet to grow wings, so find it rational enough.
5. I was born with such light-coloured hair, it was virtually pink.
6. I have a tendency to over-explain, rather than letting my statements…
7. I am picky about the films I watch, and consequently, haven’t seen many lately.
8. The key I most use is the backspace key, followed by the left-arrow for correcting thoughts as I type.
9. I don’t really have a favourite colour.
10. I tend not to like yellow very much.
11. I prefer trains to cars, but very much enjoy driving.
12. I am distressed to the point of insensibility by some things; and this makes me feel older than I am. Currently, I am 56; and inexplicably of high military rank.
13. I am often accused of linguistic pedantry.
14. I tend to disagree. I think this is too easy a reaction to anyone who understands grammar.
15. I often misspell grammar.
16. I make my living by thinking about other ways of doing and saying things, then writing them down. In other words, I work with concepts, the abstract, and writing.
17. Inconsequential things bother and exercise me more than important things.
18. I very much like dogs.
19. I enjoy creating, both with words and with images.
20. I have sold a painting in a coffee house. I have, so far, a 100% success rate for my art.
21. I enjoy semantics. Meaning is important to me.
22. I love thinking about things, in abstracts. I love metaphorical explanations of the way we think.
23. I dislike playing most games, mostly—I think—because I don’t see the point in winning an inconsequential game. This includes winning games. I simply do not experience much joy in winning on arbitrary terms.
24. I don’t understand why women need to know so many details about certain topics: child birth, for example.
25. My middle name is only an initial. It doesn’t stand for anything at all.

This post featured originally in Nodalities Magazine.

I’m sure I’m introducing old friends; but Twitter is a “microbloggiing” platform, to give it its proper description. it gives users 140 characters to publish status updates, comments, gripes, complaints, praises, news and whatever comes to mind. It’s burst out of its original answer to the simple question: “What are you doing?” and users often tweet just about everything.

One interesting innovation is the integration of the hashtag. Simply a hash symbol (#) and a tag descriptor for the comment. This gives people the ability to follow particular threads of updates or participate in conversations around an interest. They’re often used, for example, to update the goings on from conferences (#FOWA for example). People give their own content this little bit of information, and a search engine can find them. People can add additional information and follow conventions which allow for distributed trends that anyone can follow and interact with.

The recent snowfall in Britain gave rise to a flurry of tweets about road closures, amounts of snow falling, schools closing down and all the other chaos unleashed. When users followed a simple convention, however, this information got organised. People quickly adopted the #uksnow hashtag to track the topic; and eventually someone worked out a way to capture all the info needed to follow these geographically. By tweeting the first half of a UK post code plus a rating out of ten snowfall, anyone following the thread knows exactly where it’s snowing. It’s like an instant weather polling station, distributed across the country. It can go a step further, however, when services can actually mashup these tweets when users turn their simple status updates into a mini line of code.

This little bit of information allows for people to write software to track and automate the twitter information. This interactive map from benmarsh.co.uk, for example, actually plots a visual graph of snowfall across Britain. Bigger snowflakes indicate larger numbers out of ten in the poll. It’s simple, really. Ingenious, possibly. But the fundamental distinction between this tracking ability and the noise of thousands of Twits shouting about the snow is that little bit of metadata.

So, is this use of twitter a metaphor for the Semantic Web? It’s certainly a picture of automating information flow using metadata via software. Sounds Semanticcy to me.

1, 2, 3…4.

That little bit, between each number—count it: 1, 2, 3, 4;

The essence of the fourth dimension, the way our bodies, lives, minds and souls are moving through spacetime;

When it’s even, when it’s expressive in and of itself;

Circadian, pulmonary, seasonal, tidal;

Everything moves, and has rhythm.

I’ve always found something thrilling in the measure of time, and the rhythm of music. Maybe that’s why I play drums, and maybe why I’m drawn to hand-percussion; cause I can feel the measure, the steady and the syncopated. Watch any musician, of any genre, and you’ll see them moved and moving to the measure. Concert violinists flow in intricate dances, emphasising and counter-pointing their legato streams of liquid sound. DJ’s pulse to the movement of the base and percussion: even, simple, intense.

Likewise, playing with this rhythm somehow seasons everything. Tap your fingers in a simple four-part beat: 1,2,3,4 , then cut it in half, so you’re tapping twice for every 4: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &… Finally, go back to the first, but play 1′s half and 2′s half missing out 2: 1& _& 3 4. It’s syncopated, the rhythm’s pulled back, altered. It’s emphatic, and it completely draws attention to itself. I love pulling these bits out of the steady measures. And I can’t help but pull out the counterpoints to any activity, from typing to chopping herbs.

I’ve been playing percussion since I was 5, and absolutely revel in it. However, it’s not just music that surfaces the measured passing of time in human expression. Words themselves—or, should I say, language itself—expresses meaning, emphasising expressions with steady and altered rhythm.

It has never surprised me that magic in stories works through hocus-pocus, or abracadabra—words that interrupt the ticking-over of English’ natural iambic rhythm. The division between moments is expressive, creative, and carries meaning and movement, and it’s magical. Shakespeare’s dialogues and soliloquies comprised five-sectioned pieces of English, which trip off the tongue. They flow out from our minds and lips with ease <– see? We have a natural way of talking, and when you play around with it, it gets powerful.

Consider the Witches from Macbeth. They’re eerie, and exude menace. But not all the meaning and power of their characters is expressed through the words. Their chanting is drumming, powerful, and on the first beat of each two-part section: DAH dum, DAH dum, DAH dum: it’s unnatural, menacing, maybe even thrilling.

I don’t know what this all means, or what to “do” with this love of rhythm, except express it. Anyone can do this, no matter how “arythmic” you feel yourself to be. I’d invite you to play, any time, and we’ll pull out some measures.

"Confetti" by mr_gonzales

I have talked a lot about metaphor, both here and, perhaps sadly, to my friends and family. Metaphor and the abstract are true passions of mine, and I can’t help but see them everywhere. I suppose, it’s the nature of metaphor to be everywhere, really.

So, seeing (or, “experiencing”, since “seeing” is really a metaphor) one idea or concept in terms of another is a kind of abstraction. You’re essentially changing your perspective on something by bringing in another concept. Metaphor, generally, is about comparison and noting the similarity, but I suppose there can be an element of the dissimilarity which makes them work. So, if I use a literary metaphor (comparing two things without the use of a similating word like “like” or “as”) and say: “this computer is rubbish”; I’m fundamentally making a comparison between the two notions—”this computer” and “rubbish”. It is the similarity which I am stressing; and, on the surface, using “rubbish” as a sort of modifier of the computer.

However, there is a whole plethora of meaning in this statement, if you pull yourself back from it a bit. What’s rubbish? Rubbish is stuff we throw away; it can smell bad; it’s collected from our houses and fills holes in the ground; we don’t want rubbish; we don’t like rubbish; it’s a generic term for things we don’t like or are unhappy with. With this simple statement, I’m ever-so-casually bashing together large quantities of information and notion, and letting the meanings fall where they will. Inside this somewhere is the idea of “propositionality”, meaning that I’m letting the hearer of this statement draw their own conclusions to what I’m saying (he’s not happy with his computer, his computer may not be very good, he wouldn’t recommend it, he’s having a bad day…) some of which is intended, some of it not (at, least, not consciously). There are also cultural considerations in that there is a sort of social consensus that this metaphor “works” and that we must not literally interpret this statement as an intention to physically dispose of an object (which is good when you consider any time you’ve ever heard a person “understood or experienced in terms of” rubbish This leads me to think that there are also elements of disassociation between the two concepts, so that some of the meaning is actually in the difference between “rubbish” and “this computer”. I’m probably not going to throw it away (at least, not immediately); It’s probably something I’ve bought and have no intention of burying in the ground; I expect to be happy or satisfied with it (whereas, you wouldn’t about a used tea-bag). So, the two concepts modify each other, they’re like points in a perspective, making it possible to glean added meaning from the situation which is greater than just the two ideas themselves.

(if you’re still reading by here, email me, and we’ll have a pint!)

I mentioned in my previous post that data are used in abstraction. What I mean by this, is that a bit of data is “used” in a process when it’s a point of reference for something. This number + that number = another number, the two numbers are reference points for the sum. When I say: “I’m busy on the 2nd” it means that I’ve referred to a bit of data (a number on a calendar application, an email, or whatever) that I’ve used as a point of comparison. I’ve essentially understood the projected state of my schedule in terms of what i’ve already planned to occur. And, these bits of data are more and more powerful when the perspective you gain from them is more accurate.

When we get more reference points, and more interactions, our perspective becomes more flexible. We can abstract ourselves right out, and look at a very broad picture. Google’s Pagerank does this by mining clickstream information from a very, very large dataset using very simple reference points: the number of links to an item increases its position in the rank. Conversely, we can focus right in on a single notion or dataset using as many different references as possible to understand a limited set of transactions. Amazon’s book results page is full of this kind of perspective with user-ratings, purchase histories, browsing behaviour, and mathematical algorithms to give a very full picture (and options to accomplish a task) of a single notion.

So, I think that data are very similar to metaphor in that they are used to understand one thing (or set of things) in terms of another (or others).

The upshot of this is that we can refer to this abstract concept of “data” in terms that help us to understand both their significance and their utility to us. When I say: “I want my data to do this”, it’s not that helpful unless you understand that I’m trying to get all my reference points to produce a perspective to help me accomplish something. Which leads me to my main point: the whole point of metaphor is to help—or possibly enable—our understanding. Data should do the same. Collecting all the bits and pieces of information you incur by being a person and doing things should bring you some form of understanding leading to a benefit.

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• Semantic Metaphors

Image via Wikipedia

I have begun to see that we may be entering a new age of polymaths, and I’m happy to be involved in a part of the business world which seems to sustain some of the best brains on the planet.

I remember reading about the beginners of industry—the pioneers of technology and science. I remember reading how Robert Fulton came up against problems in life, and simply invented new ways of doing things, leading eventually to the development of steam-powered paddle-wheel-boats. I remember, vaguely, from my propagandistically pro-industrial schooling that as a child, Fulton had invented or improved on the lead pencil, because the one he was using in school wasn’t up to scratch. The same story is reflected through many of the West’s inventors of what we’ve retrospectively come to call the Industrial Revolution: when opportunity or difficulty forced their hands, they changed the situation.

Now, aside from natural romanticism, I like to look to the past with neither rose-tinted glasses nor “isn’t-everything-better-now” short-sightedness. I’m sure that for every changer, there were crowds of followers in every age, and I’m sure many of you could point easily to both an earth-changer and a follower without too much effort. Besides, history pays scant attention to followers.

No, what I’m talking about is the seeming ease with which many of my colleagues in the web industry switch between impressively diverse tasks. Some I know make impressive presenters, and happen to hold PhD’s in fields more or less unrelated to what they do now… and can code Java and know a bit of CSS on the side. I fear to challenge any to play chess (since I haven’t played in over 5 years, and have the patience of a twelve-year-old), and several are rumoured to be better-than-average musicians. This diversified excellence, alongside the startups, ideas, enthusiastic organisations and programmes i’ve seen recently, remind me of the society-changers of a century and more ago. Not since then, I think, has such an importance been placed on ambition within social responsibilities.

One of the things I’ve seen most recently has been the Google 10^100 (apparently pronounced: ten to the one-hundredth with a typically geeky need to explain the pun) which aims to “help as many people as we can” by contributing $10million to fund earth-changing ideas. Their site is, in classic Google fashion, very straightforward, so I won’t repeat their blurb…just go have a read. But, while you are doing it, I dare you to set aside any cynicism you may harbour either toward a big business, or to any notion of “changing the world”. Think about what has and is being done, and then think how you could change the world.

Image via Wikipedia

I’m trying out a Zemanta blog post. What it does, apparently, is to suggest ideas for the article you’re currently writing. It’s a semantic blog suggestion feature, and it’s manifested in this instance as a firefox plugin that adds a write widget to my WordPress WYSIWYG editor. IIt updates every 300 characters, and also has ‘semantic features’. There’s an interview over at R/WW, for more information. I’m kind of trying to see what it recommends so need to fill in the 300 characters:

Well it looks like it suggests related articles, and adds a bunch of Zemanta boxes into the blog space. It also finds images from Flickr.

I could see this tool being very handy in future, though I usually blog from a client, and I don’t think this supports ScribeFire or ecto (which is rubbish, by the way.) However, there are a few problems with it:

1. It generates an unhelpful set of areas in the blog itself. So if you include a Zemanta suggestion, it pastes it where you’re typing, and you end up typing in an alt area in the code… annoying.
2. It updates every 300 characters. This is annoying because it’s not necessarily that real-time. This is an awkward interface feature. It also places your curser at the top of the post every time it updates, meaning what I just typed appeared above the opening line…

I think this kind of application, however, is prescient of the direction the Read/Write web is heading. It’s active and dynamic, and I’m sure the interface will be ironed out over time. I’m not sure what ‘semantic’ features they’re necessarily incorporating (is this just keyword-searched or is it tyingin with some RDF store somewhere?) but I like the way it’s heading.

I like the fact that it suggests images (all images in this post provided by Zemanta), but I’m not sure about the inclusion of ‘Zemanta’ presence everywhere… I’m also slightly concerned that some of the images it supplies are ‘license unknown’, meaning  you could use one and infringe on copyright. It does, however, have a link saying you can check it yourself, which shows they’re thinking ahead! It’s implementation of images is a bit of a struggle, however, in that you end up typing in the description area without the ability to click out of it. This is balanced by the fact that it automatically adds citations. It only adds a single image, though… so you can’t add a second image to the same blog post.

Now, they just need to make it a bit smoother, and stop jumping to the top of the bloody post

The BBC reported a few days ago that:

Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research.

The idea is that people are using the web to get things done, and don’t seem to notice that service providers want them to stick around. They even get tetchy with intrusions or ‘widgets’.

I agree, to a certain extent, with this statement—that people are impatient with adverts on sites. However, I’m not sure if I feel this article is that well informed. Yes, it is backed by Jakob Nielsen (so-called “Usability Guru”); which means it’s founded on stable research etc…

But, what’s a widget if not a short-cut to a result? An Amazon widget on a site is basically a way to buy a product without the need even to visit Amazon.co.uk. I don’t think it’s helpful to lump all widgets together on this one. Most widgets are functional—In fact, I’d go so far as to say that a non-functional widget is just a banner-ad.

It IS annoying when your browsing is interrupted with a flash game or advert placing itself over your text or form. It doesn’t help me make a decision, and actually puts me off that particular site. The Times Online had a long-running Land Rover ad which drove over the page, stopping me from reading. Since when is a Land Rover Discovery 3 an impulse buy?

What this article fails to notice is that users are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do: use. The internet is usable now. People can think to themselves: “I’d quite like to buy an iPod, right now.” Within a minute, they can have a confirmation email and estimated delivery date in their inbox. This is using the web, and I think it’s not so much a ‘ruthless’ thing or a ‘selfish’ thing. You expect to buy what you’d like in a supermarket, and no one would call you ruthless for not setting up camp there for the afternoon. I know I like to spend as little time in Tesco as possible, and I don’t think anyone who considers me selfish or ruthless does so on account of that.

This is actually an issue of usability and confidence. People are more confident in their ability to purchase, find information, and network online. The majority of my book, electronic, and increasingly household purchases are done on amazon.co.uk. I check my calendar on Google before confirming appointments, and I even check people’s statuses on Facebook to see how they are. This is confident, comfortable use. I don’t need to spend an hour on a site when I can get the info I need in my RSS reader (Vienna, it’s brilliant!), but I still want the content.

I’m also still open to relevant advertising… If I’m after an iPod, I don’t mind being shown iPod accessories, especially discounted ones. I don’t mind being recommended a new book by a previously-read author. But, I do mind being shouted at by banner-ads and I tend to ignore them.

Having worked in online marketing, I couldn’t imagine a less-useful tactic than plastering your content with splashy ads and irrelevant content. It’s not helpful or usable, and goes against the grain of how the web works. It’s an open garden, and it’s rude to litter. This does not mean we’re ruthless, we’re just getting better at keeping our spaces clear and useful.

There’s the bin, put your Flash-ads in on your way out of our park, mate.

Image: “Rubbish!” by dogbomb from flickr

I just watched this talk by Richard Baraniuk (link if embed doesn’t work), about opening up access to educational text and information. One of the most amazing ideas from his talk and the project they’re working on (Connections) is open-sourced text books.

The idea is that collaborative text-books, published on-demand could answer more questions and provide a better, more tailored resource to students and teachers. If educational resources are produced with granularity (i.e. like ‘Lego’ blocks which can be reused at a small level) they can be used and reused in a variety of novel and unpredicted ways.
Have a look and let me know what you think!

I was listening to one of Stephen Fry‘s ‘podgrams’—”Wallpaper“—in which he briefly touched on the idea that the English tend to classify something as ‘pretentious’ if they don’t understand it. It’s a form of defense of tradition or perspective. Intelligence or flamboyance are marked as a personality flaw; people exhibiting uncomfortable behaviour or traits are disarmed by being seen as blemished. Pretension is perhaps the greatest fuel for satire and ironic mockery—maybe because it produces such good, well-recognised material. It is funny to see pretentious people mocked, and they are therefore rendered harmless. (I find particular hilarity in piss-taking of Tony Blair and would happily laugh at someone poking fun at Jacqui Smith, also!)

I think I recognise this, and I wonder whether there might not be more perspective defenses? The way we perceive the world—metaphorically “see”—is a deeply personal and fundamental aspect of our characters. Perhaps it’s tied in with our own beliefs about ourselves to such an extent that a conflict of perspective resonates with an attack on our person.

We defend our perspectives, especially perspectives involving personality or other foundational ideas, because they are metaphorical constructs to help us understand our world. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much to be called pretentious (speaking from the platform of a much-called pretentious git)? Because one is consigned to the same category as the most-maligned in cultural conscience?

Makes me think…

image “wine snob” from j/f/photos