1,717,986,918,400 (1.7 Trillion!) Bits For $69.99 INFO TECHNOLOGY: Kevin Rose points us to a great hard drive deal.

200GB Hard Drive only 69.99 after rebate.

Limit one per address. I'm having one sent to work, and one to my house. Great deal.

¢35 a Gig. This defines the word wØØt.  ¶ 1:07 PM 0 Comments

  Rude Awakening INFO VISUALIZATION: Now you can make a statement with your morning coffee with the new Federal Deficit Mug.



Not to mention the Saint Clinton T-Shirt. Awesome.  ¶ 10:40 AM 0 Comments

  Gallup Way Off? DATA: The Emerging Democratic Majority Blog has a few questions for that oft quoted Gallup poll that shockingly -- and unbelievably -- placed Bush ahead by 13%.

Say everybody, I've got a great new game to play! It's the "How Can Gallup....." game.

How do you play? It's easy! Just take the latest Gallup outlier and compare it to other publicly available data that seem to contradict it. And let the fun begin!

(Via Andrew Sullivan)  ¶ 10:32 AM 0 Comments

  If Porn Could Walk INFO VISUALIZATION: Looks like porn is on the move in Manhattan.



Check out the story at Curbed.  ¶ 10:20 AM 0 Comments

  Like Graduation -- Without the Graduating ASSEMBLEME: Lots of school news of late. Bill Gates will be speaking at the UW's "Come Together Washington" (yeah, I know, barf) special celebration. This is a big deal this year because the UW has a new president.

This special tribute to the University and the ways it contributes to our region will be held Friday, October 15, 2004 in Hec Edmundson Pavilion and will feature a keynote address from Bill Gates III. Everyone is invited, and I hope you will mark your calendars and make an effort to attend. I think you will find it worthwhile.

Eh, might be interesting, but probably not.  ¶ 10:14 AM 0 Comments

  Assessment and Evaluation Techniques INFO SCIENCE: Well, today was the first meeting for my Assessment and Evaluation Techniques class at the UW iSchool. In short, the class will be all about creating a research proposal with enough detail that we could submit it for funding. Could be interesting. I'll keep ya posted as it progresses. So far the most exciting thing looks to be learning SPSS in more detail then I have previously. If that's not exciting, I don't know what is!  ¶ 3:51 PM 0 Comments

  Nintendo DS INFO TECHNOLOGY: Nintendo DS Gameboy specs have been released:

Top Screen: A backlit, 3-inch, semitransparent reflective TFT color LCD with 256 x 192 pixel resolution and .24 mm dot pitch, capable of displaying 260,000 colors

Touch Screen: Same specs as top screen, but with a transparent analog touch screen

Wireless Communication: IEEE 802.11 and Nintendo's proprietary format; wireless range is 30 to 100 feet, depending on circumstances; multiple users can play multiplayer games using just one DS Game Card

Controls: Touch screen, embedded microphone for voice recognition, A/B/X/Y face buttons, plus control pad, L/R shoulder buttons, Start and Select buttons

Input/Output: Ports for both Nintendo DS Game Cards and Game Boy Advance Game Paks, terminals for stereo headphones and microphone

Other features: Embedded PictoChat software that allows up to 16 users to chat at once; embedded real-time clock; date, time and alarm; touch-screen calibration

The most interesting thing for me is the 802.11 wifi. I wonder what features are planned for it?  ¶ 1:08 PM 0 Comments

  Starting Year 26 Tomorrow ASSEMBLEME: Happy birthday to me! :-)



This is a photo of Dan, me, and my mom while she was visiting Seattle last weekend.  ¶ 1:49 PM 1 Comments

  PHP/SWF Charts INFO VISUALIZATION: What an awesome resource:

PHP/SWF Charts is a simple, yet powerful PHP tool to create attractive web charts from dynamic data.



Use PHP scripts to generate or gather the data from databases, then pass it to this tool to generate Flash (swf) charts.

PHP/SWF Charts makes the best of both the PHP and SWF worlds. PHP scripts provide integration, and Flash provides the best display quality.

Yeah, I'm not always a Flash fan, but in this case, I think it's a'ight.  ¶ 1:31 PM 1 Comments

  Stop the INDUCE Act INFO TECHNOLOGY: Got an email alert from Downhill Battle this morning. I'm going to call at lunch time, you should too!

Hi everyone,

This is an emergency alert for everyone who took part in the Save Betamax call-in day: Today, Orrin Hatch will be trying to line up enough votes to get the INDUCE Act (S. 2560) through to the Senate floor. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee need to hear from you right now.

At the bottom of this message is a list of Senators to call. Please take the time to call two of them, before 5 PM EST today. The bill is scheduled for mark-up on Thursday, so it's very important that you make these calls today.

We need to stop this bill, and we can. Because the INDUCE Act is such a radical departure from two decades of tech policy (set in place by the Betamax decision), a truly unprecedented coalition has formed to stop it. Heavyweights of the technology and electronics sectors are joining public interest groups in fighting hard against the extremely well-connected entertainment industry lobbies (the RIAA and MPAA). Right now there's something of a stalemate-- insiders all say that INDUCE has a 50/50 shot at becoming law.

That's why it's extremely important that Senators hear what you have to say. This email is going out to the over 5,000 people who participated in the Save Betamax call-in day. Tomorrow (Wednesday) the EFF will be running a call-in day for their members, using the software we made for Save Betamax. In just two days Senators could be hearing from tens of thousands of constituents. But we need you to make these phone calls, and spread the word (i.e. on your blog, or in an email to friends) that right now is the time to act.

SENATORS TO CALL

Please call two of these Senators, and if you have time feel free to make more calls. Make sure to look down the list to see if any Senators represent your state. Every phone call counts, but calls from constituents will carry more weight, so make sure to let them know if you're a constituent. Also, the RIAA likes to pretend that all musicians support their breed of copyright extremism. We know that's not true, so if you're a musician make sure to mention that as well.

Orrin Hatch
UTAH
202-224-5251

Patrick Leahy
VERMONT
202-224-4242

Charles E. Grassley
IOWA
202.224.3744

Edward M. Kennedy
MASSACHUSETTS
202-224-4543

Arlen Specter
PENNSYLVANIA
202-224-4254

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
DELAWARE
202-224-5042

Jon Kyl
202) 224-4521
ARIZONA

Herbert Kohl
WISCONSIN
(202) 224-5653

Mike DeWine
OHIO
(202) 224-2315

Dianne Feinstein
CALIFORNIA
202-224-3841

Jeff Sessions
ALABAMA
202) 224-4124

Russell D. Feingold
WISCONSIN
202/224-5323

Lindsey Graham
SOUTH CAROLINA
(202) 224-5972

Charles E. Schumer
NEW YORK
202-224-6542

Larry Craig
IDAHO
202/224-2752

Richard J. Durbin
ILLINOIS
202) 224-2152

Saxby Chambliss
GEORGIA
(202) 224-3521

John Edwards
NORTH CAROLINA
(202) 224-3154

John Cornyn
TEXAS
202-224-2934

NOTES FOR YOUR CALL

On the new INDUCE Act drafts:
The INDUCE Act has already been through several revisions, as Hatch et al. attempt to appease some of their most powerful opponents. But none of these revisions cut it; all of them make industries liable for infringement they don't commit or even profit from, and all of them would give the entertainment industry veto power over new technology (say, the wireless iPod). For more information on the latest draft, see the following article in Wired:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65084,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

On Republicans and Democrats:
Like many tech law issues, this one cuts across party lines (most powerful members of both parties are on the wrong side). If you're calling Republican Senators, emphasize that this legislation would create a huge new legal liability (which means bogus litigation) against American high tech companies. Tell them that the Heritage Foundation and the American Conservative Union both oppose the bill. And check out an ACU flyer here:
http://www.boingboing.net/images/acu-inducead-final.pdf

If you're calling Democrats, emphasize that the Betamax decision was sound policy and that the entertainment companies' extreme stance on copyright is directly opposed to the public good.

For more information about the INDUCE Act, go to:
http://savebetamax.org

Thanks for your time and your energy.

Sincerely,

Holmes Wilson
Tiffiniy Cheng
Nicholas Reville
Rebecca Laurie
Downhill Battle Team

  ¶ 8:48 AM 0 Comments

  Florida, Florida, Florida... Who else is sick of Florida? INFO VISUALIZATION: Nice job, Bob Morris, whoever you are.

  ¶ 1:30 PM 0 Comments

  Ahhhh, Remeber Pre-Printed CDs? INFO TECHNOLOGY: CD-Rs that are painted to look like music CDs. How strange. Kinda reminds me of those CD-Rs that were painted to look like records. You know, retro-cool. Like, "Wow, remember when I used to buy plastic musical spheres? Ah, those were days."



Problem is, music CDs aren't old enough to be retro-cool. They're just bulky, ugly, and expensive. Maybe if they were only a couple more bucks then regular CD-Rs they'd be cool, but $8 for 5 discs is pretty much a rip-off.

(Via P2PWeblog)  ¶ 4:34 PM 0 Comments

  Boinc DATA: I finally got around to downloading Boinc (which stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing). Basically, Boinc is by the same folks that brought you Seti@home. Only, instead of distributing software that is designed for just one "problem" (like, say, finding aliens) these folks are now moving to the Boinc platform that allows users to donate their extra cycles to any number of computationally intensive problems.

Oh, and they gave Seti@home a face lift while they were at it. (Actually, it appears that you can install a number of visualizations; of which this is just one.)



Oh, and if you didn't know already, eventually Boinc will be required to continue working on the Seti@home project. So you may as well download it now. (On a sad side-note, I no longer have access to the Seti@home account I created back in 2000, so I had to kiss goodbye those 1,500 workunits).

Currently I'm donating my extra cycles to Seti@home and Climateprediction.net. As soon as I find a good program for protein folding using the Boinc platform, I'll probably sign on for that too.  ¶ 2:32 PM 0 Comments

  Linkcopter INFO SCIENCE: Ran across two resources for informatics peeps today:

The ugly, but useful, World List of Departments and Schools of Information Studies, Information Management, Information Systems, etc. What fun it must be to try and keep track of every informatics program on earth. Glad someone is doing it; glad it's not me.

CMPros is a "membership organization that fosters the sharing of content management information, practices, and strategies." Might be worth a look. Dues are $50/year.  ¶ 11:33 AM 1 Comments

  Sony Ditches Atrac INFO TECHNOLOGY: Could it really be true? Sony finally pulls their heads out of their asses and ditches ATRAC for MP3. Better (very, very) late then never, I guess.

Sony confirmed on Wednesday that it is working to add native MP3 support to its portable music players--a major strategy reversal that could help it compete more effectively with rivals such as Apple Computer.

[...]

"It's about time they did this. They've been inconsistent in their strategy since their Aiwa products, and some of their CD players support MP3," said Susan Kevorkian, an analyst at research firm IDC. "This should help them to be more competitive in the digital audio player market."

Kevorkian noted that Sony does not rank among the top five companies in market share for digital audio players.

Moral of the story? Proprietary formats bad. Open (or at least licensable) formats good.  ¶ 11:57 AM 0 Comments

  Salaries Up for College Grads INFO SCIENCE: Most starting salaries for college grads were up in 2004 according to a The National Association of Colleges and Employers survey. Information Science graduates' salaries jumped almost %11 since 2003. w00t. :-)

Engineering majors are seeing the most cash -- though with narrow percentage changes from last year -- led by gains from chemical engineering graduates, who now earn $52,539 a year on average, up 0.3 percent from a year earlier. Computer engineering graduates follow closely behind with $51,297, a 0.1 percent decrease from last year.

Those graduating with a degree in computer science are seeing heartier increases. According to NACE, information sciences and systems grads earn $42,375 a year on average. That's up 10.7 percent from a year earlier. Meanwhile, computer science graduates make $49,036 a year, a gain of 4.1 percent.

  ¶ 10:33 AM 0 Comments

  The Horse Race DATA: The horse race numbers in Electoral Votes as reported by Zogby (reported in BOLD ITALICS, I might add.)

	Sep 21	Sep 07	Aug 23	Aug 03	Jul 26	Jul 10	Jun 20	Jun 06	May 23
Bush	241	222	214	215	220	205	285	242	218
Kerry	264	273	286	291	275	322	253	296	320

That's funny, it seems I recently read, "Bush clear leader in poll" on the cover of USA Today. (I don't actually buy the USA Today, but do catch the headlines in their newspaper boxes occasionally.) Of course, you and I and USA Today all realize that national polls mean squat in American politics. It's all about the states, not the nation. Texas and Alabama could go 100% red tomorrow and shift the shit out of national polls, but it wouldn't change the election one bit. Meanwhile, ElectoralVote.com notes that

The big news today is that Kerry is once again ahead in the electoral college by dint of his edging ahead in Florida (49% to 48%) and New Jersey (47% to 43% among RVs).

Hrmn, maybe USA Today was just getting its news straight from the DrudgeReport again.

One should note that according to the Zogby table above, neither president is a winner. This is because a candidate needs 270 votes to win. And, yes, it is possible for both candidates to get 269 votes and tie. If that happens, Joe Grossberg's blog lets us know what would happen:

Short answer: the Representatives from each state vote, and whoever gets a majority wins.

What happens if the states are a 50-50 tie? No fucking clue.

The scary part is that, with the exception of Kerry's small lead in Florida, this is exactly what current projections show.

I have a feeling I know what would happen... The courts would decide (again). Wouldn't that be funny if the courts picked a president twice in a row? Well, not "ha ha" funny. Well, not funny at all.  ¶ 1:15 PM 1 Comments

  Media Center Keyboard (That you don't have to hide under the coffee table) INFO TECHNOLOGY:This Belkin keyboard looks like it would be a nice replacement keyboard for my media center. It's nice and slim (unlike most ugly-as-sin wireless keyboards you'd be embarrassed to have in your living room). Too bad it's bigger then it needs to be because of those special function keys at the top of the keyboard that nobody ever, EVER, uses.

I've only used one of those special function keys regularly. It was a knob that turned up or down the computer volume -- brilliant! (And yes, I know a lot of consumers say they like lots of those keys like "Check Email" on their keyboards, but a lot of consumers would probably say the iPod should ship with a built in discoball if asked, but you won't see Apple pandering to the audience anytime soon. Besides, the reason people like those buttons is because they are confused by the software interface to begin with. Solve the problem of bad UI with the software, and you won't need to give every application it's own physical launch button.)

But, I digress. Check out what comes with the Belkin keyboard:

With its built-in mouse, integrated AV remote, and wireless, rechargeable multimedia keyboard, the Belkin MediaPilot integrates your PC with your home theater to create a complete multimedia center. The MediaPilot uses Cypress Semiconductor's WirelessUSB technology in the 2.4GHz frequency range.

Speaking of media centers, the 30" Dell LCD we've been using at home for a few months just dropped in price again. I wonder if this is the first 30" to drop below $2,000?  ¶ 11:46 AM 0 Comments

  Librarians (The First Information Scientists) and the FBI INFO SCIENCE: Librarian.net has "Five Technically Legal Signs for Your Library" on their site.



Good stuff! In related news, check out the second hit on google for the search term 'John Ashcroft.' It begins with the brilliant first paragraph:

Much like the Nazis in Casablanca, John Ashcroft enjoys a good song -- as long as people remember their place.

  ¶ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

  Information Chaos INFO VISUALIZATION:There are a number of fun information visualization / communication projects over at International Networks Archive.

They are too noisy for a serious or directed analysis of a subject, but I think it's pretty clear that they are intended to be exploratory and artistically engaging and not the basis for serious, empirical information conveyance. Like Fahrenheit 9/11, you could say. :-)

My favorite is the Starbucks Map at the bottom.  ¶ 1:03 PM 0 Comments

  ATMs and PINs DATA: Here's an interesting tidbit about ATM security from The Register.

The modern "PIN entry device" is a physically and logically self contained tamper-resistant unit that encrypts a PIN within milliseconds of its entry, and within centimeters of the customer's fingertips. The plaintext PIN never leaves the unit, never travels over the bank network, isn't even available to the ATM's processor: malicious code running on a fully compromised Windows-based ATM machine might be able to access the cash dispenser and spit out twenties, but in theory it couldn't obtain a customer's unencrypted ATM code.

Amazing stuff. But it seems silly to put so much thought into this potential problem and so little into these well demonstrated problems:

1) Someone can easily steal my social security number and get a credit card in my name and destroy my credit. When are banks going to do something about identity theft?

2) Someone can use my debit card to make purchases with only a forged signature. When are they going to start requiring PINs for POS purchases?

(via EyeBeam via jwz)  ¶ 11:11 AM 0 Comments

  "Links and Causal Arrows: Ambiguity in Action" INFO VISUALIZATION: Edward Tufte has posted a draft chapter of his forthcoming book. It appears to cover displaying graphs (as in the graph theory sense of the word -- think vertices and edges, not as in meaning "charts," as is often colloquially used).

Here is a complete draft of a chapter on linking lines and causal arrows from my Beautiful Evidence.

This chapter suggests methods for showing linking lines and causal arrows, and also demonstrates ideas for assessing the credibility of various links. That is, the links themselves are taken as explanatory evidence.

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but will spend some time with it this afternoon. If there was one thing I learned in data structures class, it was that graphs are awesome and kind of fun in a perverse sort of geek way, but hard to display in a clear and intuitive way.

Oh, and Steve Tanimoto is awesome too. The best CS instructor I've ever had.  ¶ 9:39 AM 0 Comments

  Suprnova Adds Referer Check; Blocks RSS / Hotlinking INTERNET: Dan and I noticed last night that Suprnova has blocked "hotlinking" (linking directly to a torrent file on Suprnova's server). This is a bummer because I look for torrents using RSS and rarely go to their site. But it's unterstandable from Suprnova's POV, that kind of bandwidth doesn't come cheap, I'm sure.

Read more about Suprnova's change in policy at Varchars and go here to find unofficial Suprnova RSS Feeds.  ¶ 3:18 PM 0 Comments

  Wall Street Self-Defense DATA: I've been reading Slate's The Complete Guide to Wall Street Self-Defense by Henry Blodget fairly regularly. While all of the columns have been good, the latest addition, Smart? Skillful? Probably Just Lucky: The (vast and unappreciated) role of luck in investing is right on the money when it comes to the ridiculous business of stock forecasting.

It's that time of year again. […] And, as usual, most strategists are predicting that the market is going to go … up.

Which is understandable. Because the market usually does go up. If not for the exact reasons that the strategists predict, well, then, just because it usually goes up. From 1872 to 2003, according to data compiled by Yale's Robert Shiller, the S&P 500 rose in 83 of 132 years (63 percent) and fell in 49 (37 percent). Strategists who predicted the market would rise every year, in other words—regardless of the logic used—would have been right nearly two-thirds of the time. In the investing business, you can make a lot of money and acquire a solid reputation if you are right two-thirds of the time.

  ¶ 1:39 PM 0 Comments

  Folding Paper DATA: Have you ever heard that if you could fold a piece of paper in half 100 times, it would sit taller then the radius of the known universe? I hadn't until recently. Raju Varghese does the math.  ¶ 3:41 PM 1 Comments

  Freedom Tower DATA: The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has a nice collection of Freedom Tower¹ images available on their site.



However, I must warn you before opening up that page. Those little images you see aren't thumbnails, but the entire image scaled down via the "IMG" tag. *Sigh* For a page with 20 megs of graphics, that's inexcusable. Whoever designed this webpage should be fired.

But the building itself actually looks pretty cool in my view. If you watched the PBS special about the tower on September 7th, you'd know that the design was an outright battle between the biggest asshole in Manhattan, Larry Silverstein and his architect David Childs, and the coolest Polish immigrant since my great-great-grand-parents, Daniel Libeskind. To read a discussion about the fight over the tower's design, check out Gothamist's post on the PBS special.

Also interesting is a piece in the NY Times about other large buildings being built in New York and a story in the NY Daily News about a $1,300,000 studio in the West Village with a view of an alley. Insanity!
--
¹ Freedom Tower, how lame does that sound already? And it hasn't even been built yet. Hopefully New Yorkers will come up with their own little nickname for the building -- Seattle's Darth Vader Building comes to mind -- or just continue to call it the WTC.  ¶ 1:07 PM 2 Comments

  Forecasting Emotion ASSEMBLEME: Sorry for the light posting for the last week. I've been trying to figure out how my boyfriend and I can tackle a pretty large debt that struck us out of left-field. (Long story short: never trust your immature younger brother to an apartment that has your name on the lease.)



Anyway, I found myself coming back to an interesting article that I read about a year ago in the New York Times Magazine. It's called "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness" and is about Daniel Gilbert's research of human emotion and behavior. It really changed my views about my own "future forecasting" and consumerism generally. I highly suggest it to everyone. Here's a clip to pique your stubborn curiosity.

One experiment of Gilbert's had students in a photography class at Harvard choose two favorite pictures from among those they had just taken and then relinquish one to the teacher. Some students were told their choices were permanent; others were told they could exchange their prints after several days. As it turned out, those who had time to change their minds were less pleased with their decisions than those whose choices were irrevocable.

The original article used to be here, but the Gray Lady will charge you three bucks to read it. Instead, read it here or here.

Another good article written about Gilbert's work is here. This one being about forecasting regret rather then happiness.

People thought they'd feel worse having just missed the subway than arriving several minutes late. What researchers also found, however, was that no matter how much regret subjects anticipated, none actually experienced anywhere near as much as they expected. It turns out the human ability to absolve ourselves, to rationalize quickly and to dodge blame, even from ourselves, is quite remarkable.

You can also check out Daniel Gilbert's home page at Harvard for a ton of psycho info goodness.



Speaking of good reads, I'm about halfway through Sam Harris' The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. I'll wait to post my feelings about the book until I'm done, but so far I can say without a doubt that it's the most interesting and objective book on current affairs I've read in years. You can read the review in the Times (until they charge you $3 for it that is) here. More to come.  ¶ 2:24 PM 1 Comments

  Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women INFO TECHNOLOGY: Hrmn, a gadget blog for girls? Does this mean that Gizmodo and Engadget are for boys?

Weeelll, grabbing two random images from Engadget and Gizmodo suggests that in fact, yes, those blogs are for boys.





So where are the gay male and militant dyke gadget blogs? Those two would be in my RSS reader in a fucking instant.  ¶ 2:07 PM 0 Comments

  Frances; Ivan; El Destructo DATA: Tired of hearing Floridians whine about hurricane Frances, Ivan, and El Destructo? (Good Ol' Destructo hasn't been officially announced yet, but my spidey-sense is tingling. And I heard a dog barking this morning. Don't dogs always bark before crazy weather? They sure do in the movies, and that's proof positive in my book! Or maybe I'm thinking of earthquakes. Eh, who cares.)

Well I was bouncing around online looking for info on why there seem to be so many extreme weather events this year. Along with the answer¹, I found an interesting paper on why the U.S. is spending more and more on natural disasters.

Here's a cute little graph that demonstrates the problem. (Too bad they did it in actual dollars rather then adjusted dollars. I think we all know how real estate in urban areas has grown exponentially in price and this graph doesn't disregard that inflation.)



The bottom line?

The long-term economic impact of low-probability, high-cost events such as earthquakes and hurricanes are not being incorporated into the planning and development of our societal infrastructure. Economic incentives for responsible land use have been stifled by legislated insurance rates and federal aid programs that effectively subsidize development in hazard-prone areas. And while there will always be great political pressure to provide economic relief after a disaster, there has been little political interest in requiring predisaster mitigation.

--
¹ Turns out this year has had more hurricanes then the average year, but for the past several years we have been below average so this year seems much more extreme then it actually is.  ¶ 1:46 PM 1 Comments

  FSU Strikes "Deal" With Apple for Free iTunes; Students Confused INTERNET: In a puzzling move to combat piracy (yarg!) Florida State University has signed a deal with Apple to allow students to download free iTunes for free and buy 99 cent songs for 99 cents. Yes, this is by far the stupidest article you'll see today.

In an effort to prevent illegal file sharing on campus, Florida State University is on the verge of finalizing a deal with Apple Computer, Inc. -- a deal that would provide free iTunes software to students and allow them to download music for 99 cents per song.

Carl Baker, the director of university computer systems at the FSU Academic Computing and Network Services Department, was appointed chair of a committee charged with finding a way to stop illegal file sharing on campus. The committee, known as the Online Music Committee, was created this spring semester and is made up of members of FSU's administration and a small group of students.

(via Engadget)  ¶ 1:35 PM 1 Comments

  Word Recognition VISUAL COMMUNICATION: There is a fascinating read over at Microsoft Research called The Science of Word Recognition. It's all about how you do what you're doing right now: recognizing words.

[O]ur eyes don’t move smoothly across the page, but rather make discrete jumps from word to word. We fixate on a word for a period of time, roughly 200-250ms, then make a ballistic movement to another word. These movements are called saccades and usually take 20-35ms. Most saccades are forward movements from 7 to 9 letters,* but 10-15% of all saccades are regressive or backwards movements. Most readers are completely unaware of the frequency of regressive saccades while reading. The location of the fixation is not random. Fixations never occur between words, and usually occur just to the left of the middle of a word. Not all words are fixated; short words and particularly function words are frequently skipped. Figure 5 shows a diagram of the fixation points of a typical reader.

I actually found it difficult to read, simply because I had become too aware of my eye movement and thought processes to pay attention to a number of passages, so I had to reread large sections of the paper.

Sometimes I think if I could do it all over again I would go into cognitive psychology... This paper makes me want to read my Steven Pinker books again.

(via EyeBeam reBlog via SlashDot)  ¶ 9:26 AM 1 Comments

  Paper Documents Are A Pain INFO SCIENCE: BoingBoing has taken note of a research project of my department at the UW. It's called Keeping Found Things Found and is all about human information behavior. Here's what BoingBoing had to say:

A new study from the University of Washington's Information School provides more proof that search rules:

More than half of survey participants admitted losing track of a paper document at least once a week -- more than twice the number of people who reported losing electronic information.

The result? While more than 60 percent reported being satisfied with their ability to handle computerized records such as e-mails, electronic documents and Web bookmarks, only 31 percent were satisfied with their ability to organize their papers.

The survey is part of an interesting project called Keeping Found Things Found, an effort to develop innovative ways to manage information stored digitally and on dead trees. Link

I feel like I should say "go dawgs!" or something here.  ¶ 9:53 AM 0 Comments

  Get Your International News DATA:
Google News just got a bit handier. They recently added (or perhaps I just recently noticed) a little drop-down box near Top Stories that allows you to quickly jump to Google News' international sites.



I used to jump between international versions of Google News because I'm always wondering what other countries think of this crazy country I live in. (I don't know why, sounds a little sadomasochistic now that I say it.) Now it's a bit easier.

Next I'd like them to develop some really good translation tools and allow me to read news from all over the globe in English. So get on it Google! :-)  ¶ 3:57 PM 0 Comments

  Subway Map Special Edition VISUAL COMMUNICATION: On the heals of my earlier post about real subway maps comes a special (wink wink) subway map for RNC delegates.



This is cool, but for some reason I doubt many delegates are using the subway.

Looking at this gets me excited for the Second Avenue Subway (T), which will hopefully begin construction by the end of this year.  ¶ 11:55 AM 0 Comments