Science Library Pad

Google visualizes open government data

Official Google Blog - Adding Search Power to Public Data

We just launched a new search feature that makes it easy to find and compare public data. So for example, when comparing Santa Clara county data to the national unemployment rate, it becomes clear not only that Santa Clara's peak during 2002-2003 was really dramatic, but also that the recent increase is a bit more drastic than the national rate

There is also a video about how it works.

via ResourceShelf

So Google, whom do I talk to about adding Canadian data?

ideas for book publishing innovation in Canada & an unconference

I have to admit, when I was scanning through Boing Boing and saw "Six good technological ideas for improving publishing", that word "publishing" started me off with the tyranny of low expectations.  However (and those of you who know me will know I don't go in for false praise) I was pleasantly surprised to encounter Michael Tamblyn's entertaining presentation which has six great ideas, some of which are relevant outside the specific world of book publishing.

(Sorry, initially published as a blocked link - have to unflashblock this content - hazard of browser-editor interaction.)

I have to admit, this is my first time hearing of (or at least my first time paying attention to hearing about) BookNet Canada and this particular event, BookNet Canada TechForum '09.

To be honest, I think it starts a bit slow - Michael Tamblyn starts off talking about the recession - I recommend you skip ahead to about the 3 minute mark where he gets into the meat of his talk.

He calls for a number of things, and I don't want to steal his thunder, but some highlights include:

* publishers getting smarter about how they share their data online - BookNet has an initiative called BiblioShare - "BiblioShare is a service that allows Publishers to store their most recent ONIX files at a central server that can then be picked up by any aggregator that needs them."

* publishers getting better at XML workflows - he indicates O'Reilly's Start with XML as one place to begin

* publishers opening their organisations up to innovation, and embracing ideas from creative technologists (I like this terminology of "creative technologist" a lot)

* publishers experimenting and connecting - BookNet is supporting an unconference called BookCampToronto on June 6, 2009

The one area of mobilizing data he didn't really talk about was connecting publishers to libraries (he focused on the connection to booksellers).  I think there are lots of opportunties in the library space, particularly for sharing data.

I know we often give publishers a hard time for being resistant to innovation - this is a great example of an individual and an organisation that are leading with their ideas.

I have to say I found their site a bit confusing.  There is a blog which doesn't seem to have an RSS feed.  There is an RSS feed, but it appears to be for news items.  There are supposed to be slides at There are slides from the TechForum at

http://slides.booknetcanada.ca/

but I could never get it to load.  You can also see Michael Tamblyn's slides directly on SlideShare.  There's also the blip.tv channel, which has a few other talks on it so far.  The blog slice that is about the TechForum is also useful.  The tag was bnc09 if you want to dig around further.

illuminate the government's operations with open data - Sunshine Week

The time has changed, the times have changed, the days are getting brighter - what better time for Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week is a [United States] national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.

March 15-21, 2009

They have a blog, Facebook, Twitter and all that groovy stuff.  I couldn't find a declared tag, so I'm just using the rather long "sunshineweek".

Through their Twitter I find an interesting article from The Economist - Track my tax dollars.

THE taxpayers do their part, and faithfully fling their hard-earned treasure into the gaping public maw. Surely they should be allowed to know what happens to it. So why not put government spending online?

This also gives me a chance to link to a great TED video of Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the WorldWideWeb) talking about "linked data".  He talks about the importance of sharing data because you can build so much on raw data.  The data part starts at about 3:58 in, and the government data specific part starts about 9:46 in.



I also very much liked his simple message of "Raw Data Now!" - my experience with Linked Data, at least at Open Repositories 2008, was that it very rapidly descends into obscure discussions about the philosophy of data representations (e.g. "do we point at the data, or the metadata about the data?"). The most important thing is to just get the raw data up, and then we can work to have wonderful semantic markup things once we actually have something to work with.

Tim B-L video via ReadWriteWeb via TED

can Canada learn from US open government? - City News reports

Kris Reyes uses the announcement of President Obama's Director of Citizen Participation, Katie Jacobs Stanton as a jumping-off point for discussions of Canadian government and social media, touching in particular on the Toronto-based ChangeCamp.

You can see video of her interview with Mark Kuznicki as well as additional links in a posting on her City News cityonline blog, "All about ChangeCamp".

Incidentally, for those who think one technology kills another, this posting is an example of tech interactions - I saw the end of the story on TV, sent a tweet to Kris Reyes to ask about her blog posting, got her response, and then added info from her blog to this posting on my blog.  New tech adds new capabilities, but it doesn't necessarily replace existing services.

Sidebar 1: Until I read the techPresident posting about Katie Jacobs Stanton, I had forgotten that Google Moderator existed (it's a ranking / discussion site, similar to digg, obamacto, or some features on change.gov)

Sidebar 2: Mark has been pretty busy recently, he was also interviewed by CBC's Spark - "Full Interview: Mark Kuznicki" (Spark is on Twitter as well - sparkcbc) and was part of TVO's AgendaCamp.

Planète Facebook

French perspective on Facebook.

Reportage - Envoyé spécial - France 2
jeudi 4 décembre 2008

Avec ... millions d’utilisateurs dans le monde et plus de 4 millions en France, Facebook est devenu un phénomène de société. Ce site de réseau social permet de créer autour de soi une véritable communauté pour échanger avec ses amis, retrouver des copains d’enfance, partager des photos, des potins et bien d’autres choses. En à peine deux ans, le site a révolutionné la façon de communiquer, comme le téléphone portable ou les mails en leur temps.

Saw this on TV.  You can view the video online, for some reason there are two pages that will get you there:

http://envoye-special.france2.fr/index-fr.php?page=reportage-bonus&id_article=1106

http://envoye-special.france2.fr/index-fr.php?page=reportage&id_rubrique=686

It has good coverage of privacy issues along with other aspects.

10 years of Google

TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin had a good segment on 10 years of Google.

You can watch Flash video of it on the site,
they also have podcasts in audio and video flavours.

You can also follow them on Twitter

twitter.com/theagenda

twitter.com/spaikin

Science 21 video and presentations

I have been following the Science in the 21st Century conference via the FriendFeed room

http://beta.friendfeed.com/rooms/science21

and via that room I see that the first day's presentations and video are already up on the Perimeter Institute's archive, PIRSA

http://pirsa.org/C08021

Nature of Things - Climate Change - free

Canada's The Nature of Things, episode on Climate Change, free on iTunes (other episodes cost $2)
If you want to navigate to it, set your iTunes to Canada (My Store: Canada at the bottom of the iTunes home window).  Then TV Shows->Nonfiction->The Nature of Things->The Best of The Nature of Things.  I don't know if it's geofenced.

UPDATE: Incidentally I notice that CBC documentaries has a Twitter feed,

https://twitter.com/DocsCBC

but like some other shows, they're using it more like an RSS feed; it just has tweets about the latest documentaries, no discussion or individual voice.

Government 2.0

A grab-bag of things about government and Web 2.0

Wikinomics - Government of Canada and the Web 2.0 reports on a study done for Agriculture Canada

Library Boy - Federal Library Community Forms Web 2.0 Interest Group

Public Sector Marketing 2.0 - Update on Social Media Policies in the Canadian Government (January 2008)

If you want the latest official word, you probably want to go to the keynote by Ken Cochrane (CIO GoC TBS) at GTEC 2008.

The GTEC 2008 theme is "Make the shift to Government 2.0".

Also interesting in the lineup is "NRCan's Collaborative Technology Revolution" by Marj Akerley, Chief Information Officer, Information Management Branch, Natural Resources Canada and Peter Cowan, Director, Enterprise IM, Natural Resources Canada.

NRCan has a fully running internal wiki.

You can also watch videos such as "This is MY NRCan - Eric Gagné" in the jellybeancontest YouTube account and see the audio-less version of "NRCan KM Inspirational Video V8" on Slideshare.

TBS is moving quite quickly to support intranet Web 2.0 with policy.

Internet Web 2.0 (for the Government of Canada) is quite problematic however.  But it appears to me that you're better off taking a leadership role and just experimenting with things, and seeing the results.  I think people are afraid the policy police will come punish them, whereas it appears to me more likely that they will get an award for technology innovation.

It's still a challenging situation because unfortunately most of the Web 2.0 services are hosted in the US, and this creates privacy and control issues if you're gathering any information about Canadian citizens.  For example I use Typepad, Blogger (Google), Feedburner (Google), Google Analytics, jot.com (Google), Google Docs... hmm, it sure would be a nice start if Google Canada just set up a dedicated data centre here that they could guarantee would never be subject to US legislation...

Libraries in E-Science - Christine Borgman

A digital video of Christine L. Borgman's "Role of Libraries in E-Science" presentation at EAHIL 2008 is available. Her presentation slides are also available.

Video: Christine Borgman on the Role of Libraries in E-Science - Digital Koans - July 21st, 2008

I reviewed Borgman's book Scholarship in the Digital Age for Nature; she has a comprehensive view of the many different factors that go into scholarly communication online.

CBC Spark Wiki + library tech

CBC's radio show Spark has a wiki.

we're really pleased to announce the Spark Wiki. We hope it will complement this blog and the radio show (and podcast). Right now, it's an experiment: a place to collaborate on story ideas, suggest guests, music selections... whatever. It's a many-to-many form of communication, and I'm really excited to learn how we can use it to make more participatory, collaborative radio.

from the Spark Blog - January 09, 2008

You can see a vaguely related discussion from Globe and Mail Video, "CBC's wiki experiment".  It seems to me they might have been better off talking to someone directly at Spark.

The wiki itself is at

http://www.socialtext.net/spark/

There is a Spark story proposal up for Libraries and technology but it hasn't had much activity.  If you'd like to hear about library tech on Canada's national radio, maybe you might consider adding some ideas or suggestions of people for them to interview.

Trouble with Medical Journals?

Peter Mansbridge, a Canadian newsanchor, interviews Richard Smith, former BMJ editor, author of The Trouble with Medical Journals.

30 minute Windows Media video

http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/oneonone/20071124.wmv

Book info at

http://www.rsmpress.co.uk/bksmith.htm

The Agenda on Microhoo and the Compute Cloud

The Agenda had their somewhat-usual technology suspects on talking about the Microsoft-Yahoo merger, with a majority of the show devoted to the idea of the "compute cloud" future for computing.  It's quite impressive that they took this fairly technical topic on, and they did a good job of covering it from various angles.

The Debate: The Coming Cloud (switch to the Mark Evans tab for the other discussion) - video is linked from these pages, just click on "Watch video" there

also available as iTunes audio and video - I'm npt seeing it in iTunes yet though

Overall I liked the show, but I would have liked to have seen a cloud computing user, rather than just a panel of pundits.  Show me someone who has moved their enterprise over to Amazon EC2/S3 or other cloud services.  (For example, Internet Archive has been experimenting with this... and I see I'm the top hit for this information: "Science Library Pad: Internet Archive 20th Century Search".  Also SmugMug photos uses Amazon S3 storage.)

I think the future splits into multiple models of computer use.  Gamers, for near-term, need local graphics engines and local storage (holding the multi-gigabyte virtual environments they use).  The intensive computer users like me probably still have their whole elaborate local network and local storage and local computing... well, basically entire personal data centre.  We're probably the only ones left with a lot of non-cloud data and computing.

The digital dividers (old people, poor people, the technically unsavvy) will have very simple devices, something very akin to thin clients - probably in many different form factors - built in to televisions, set-top boxes, things like OLPCs and Eee PCs, "intelligent LCD displays".  The highly mobile will have quite sophisticated but completely mobile devices.  All of the data for both groups lives in the cloud.

This being said, there is a very, very long history predicting the demise of the PC and its replacement with set-tops and thin clients, and it has yet to materialize.  People use a bunch of devices (cell, camera, PDA, laptop) AND their home computers, not instead of their computers.

SIDEBAR: Jesse Hirsh had quite the slag on for the Preventers of Information Services in IT Departments.
First he says home users can't be trusted with personal computers, and then he says work users must be trusted with unlimited use of Internet applications.

It is true that some of the Dr. No aspect of IT is arbitrary, but some of it is either out of their control (layers of regulations imposed from on high), and some of it is related to user support.  IT is about user productivity.  Computer secure, applications running smoothly = happy IT.  If this could be guaranteed through the magic of trusted cloud computing, that would be fine.  But the reality is, users download a bunch of cr*p and access a bunch of cr*p websites, and then IT has to come in and try to clean it up.  That's why IT tries to lockdown.  Lockdown is about being able to guarantee a stable computer, network, and sustainable support experience.

If you want to see what happens in an uncontrolled environment, just let a bunch of consultants into your organisation and let them "manage themselves" and see how well that works...

LimeWire led to data breach: N.L. justice minister

an outside consultant had installed LimeWire, a popular program used to swap music for free, on a laptop computer that was being used to work with data for the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission.

As a result, information — including names, addresses, dates of birth and medical and work histories — related to 153 individuals was exposed

END SIDEBAR

SIDEBAR 2: A minor quibble with terminology used during the show, Amazon's S3 is cloud storage only, their compute cloud service is EC2.  END SIDEBAR

ICSTI video - "Assessing the quality and impact of research: practices and initiatives in scholarly information"

Videos of the presentations from the ICSTI 2007 Public Conference "Assessing the quality and impact of research: practices and initiatives in scholarly information" are now available.

You can see the programme with links to presentations, and the video page is separate, with links to each topic (RealVideo format - click on the camcorder icons on each sub-page, not on the presentation titles), I was in Quality, certification and peer review - Part 1, my presentation was Web tools for peer reviewers...and everyone (RealVideo, 35 minutes).  I encourage you to check out the other topics, I found there were some really informative presentations.

(As I said in my previous posting about my presentation, the title is not great, it's more like "categorizing the problem space of journal article exploration, and what new features or metrics we might use in this new space, as well as what new scholarly objects we might certify by applying peer review".)

My hair is, as usual, sticking out at some odd angle.  Fortunately for you, most of the time the video shows the slide I'm talking about. It's probably not entirely clear from the video, but about 14 minutes in the projector died, so I was left talking beside a blank screen (I could still see the slides on my own monitor) for about 5 minutes until everyone decided they'd had enough of that and we took a break and came back when the projector was fixed.

The next (closed, members-only) ICSTI meeting is coming up next week in Paris.  I don't know whether there is an accompanying public workshop.

UPDATE: The first version of this post ended up with an amusingly unfortunate URL.

understanding academic copyright

through puppets

via David Flanders - Twitter

inexpensive laptop may be appropriate for many uses

In an interesting article, Road-testing the $100 laptop's 'appropriate technology', Ryan Bigge talks about the implications of inexpensive laptops

In creating a cheap laptop, the XO has also started a fresh debate about affordable technology. Affordable and appropriate interrelate quite closely, and the XO hints at the added costs of proprietary operating systems offered by Mac and Apple, along with the price to be paid for the Intel brand. In this way, appropriate technologies such as the XO serve as an implicit critique of the marketplace.

Plus which, any article that includes the TRS-80 Model 100 deserves a mention.
(I saw, but never used the Model 100.  I used to go to RadioShack and play Hammurabi on their regular TRS-80s.)

You can see video of him demoing the XO.

The inexpensive laptop trend was noted as part of ALA LITA Top Trends 2008

• Hearing a lot lately about lightweight road computers
• Could be appropriate for loaners, not as big of a deal if beat up, most of work on network anyway.
• A discussion of solid state hard drives & sealed keyboards… more durable
• Relying more on the Internet for applications and data means we can have a much smaller laptop

conference notes from Lauren Pressley
via Michael Ireland

I hadn't realised but there is already a small laptop (the Asus Eee) with solid-state storage out in Canada for C$300, it sells through The Source (formerly Radio Shack)

see e.g.

ASUS EEE 2GB SURF MOBILE INTERNET DEVICE, GREEN

You can see others in the Mobile Internet category

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/category.aspx?language=en-CA&catalog=Online&category=Mobile_Internet

In the US, you can get them through Amazon (below is an affiliate link), for US$300

with that kind of price and availability, the barrier to mobile computing is very low.

If I understand correctly, you can buy an SDHC card to add more storage.

They have some new models planned as well

The Register - Hardware - Second-gen Eee PC

I wouldn't put the MacBook Air in this same space, as it is much more expensive.

The Air is more like the ultimate Road Warrior laptop, you pay a heavy price in terms of limited expandability.  Since I use my laptop mostly as a home desktop replacement, I'm continuing to look at the regular MacBook as my next computer (I have a PowerBook G4 right now).

SIDEBAR: Dear Radio Shack, do you really need an "MSCSProfile" of

287001FD2674671CC1C6E1B8FD422E0877FC152AF8DD5EA4F64CC488CD9F9EBB8663805103CFB74
01041BEB7B395895C25D0D2FA5E2CFCD5D4F58390B0377D79966CED87AC19D769C2D0DC51FEBF8
7913B4E23159DD17CBAC78B9FDB32CF03ECF2F50753794A30EF0E5A558850D5AD85500469650F624
FBD9F19AA4A6BE0B24BC8ADCEC1815BED94

in your URL?  What are you trying to do, describe every atom in my body?

END SIDEBAR

the currencies of the digital realm

I have been thinking about how the digital environment behaves.  What kinds of properties does it have?  How does it differ from the physical world?

One major aspect of the physical world is the economy.  You make a thing, you sell it, you get money.

In the digital realm, you imagine a thing, you share it, and you get attention.

Attention is the first currency of the digital realm.

In practice, you expend a certain amount of your attention to e.g. craft a blog posting, and get small slices of attention from others in return.  (In the case of a technology review, this may be 4 to 6 hours of my time, for a minute of every visitor's time.)

Attention over time becomes reputation.

Reputation is the second currency of the digital realm.

Both attention and reputation can be converted into various rewards, both monetary and non-monetary.

Attention is transformed primarily into money through ads and other affiliate linking arrangements.  The more attention, the more clicks, the more clicks, the more money.  I'm not sure whether attention can be exchanged for anything else.

Reputation, at least in the library blogging context, converts mainly into opportunities: it might be a job offer, or an invitation to speak, or a request to write an article.

And of course, money is still a currency of the realm, but I would consider it the third currency.

Upon discussing this at lunch with Steve, I realised that this analysis should be quite understandable to the scientific community, as it is almost directly analogous.

If I write in Nature, I may get a lot of reputation, convertable into grant funding, employment offers, conference invitations, Research Assessment success.  But I may not necessarily get much of a fraction of the general public's attention.

If I write a newspaper column on science, I may get a good chunk of attention, but not as much reputation.

And of course, as many people have discussed elsewhere, the reputation-weighted network of scientific citations has much in common with the reputation-weighted network of web links.

In a way, Google can be considered as a reputation ranking engine, and make no mistake, it does everything in its power to measure attention (through ads, Google Reader, FeedBurner, and much more) to ensure that attention is being appropriately converted into reputation.

To me this means that in the digital realm, you have to stop thinking that you're in the XYZ business (the information business, the document delivery business etc.) and start thinking that you're in the attention and reputation business.  The number of sites that can use a traditional physical world model of converting things into money is tiny.  The rest of us (assuming we want to make money) have to use the primary digital currencies of attention and reputation, and convert them into money.

So you need to ask yourself, how big is your organisation's attention surface?  How much digital stuff (blog postings, search results, images, whatever) does it have to attract attention?  How is it using its reputation?

Some of these thoughts were inspired by reflecting on Chris Anderson's presentation at Nokia World (video), talking about his upcoming book on the topic of Free.

Library Support for E-Science - ARL Final Report

A challenge:

Whither Science Libraries?

What are contemporary library uses and needs
of the scientific community? Are subscriptions to
e-journals sufficient? The emergence of escience
raises important questions about the
services and infrastructure within ARL libraries
in support of science.

Libraries may, in fact, be creating obstacles to
emerging interdisciplinary models of science.
Branch libraries based on separate collections in
related areas of the sciences are cited as a
hindrance to multidisciplinary research at a time
when online access transcends discipline-based
collections.  Other recent behavioral
assessments suggest that libraries are often not
perceived as part of the evolving research
infrastructure in support of interdisciplinary,
team science.

There is a perception that science librarians,
more than ever before, need to be actively
engaged with their user communities. They need
to understand not only the concepts of the
domain, but also the methodologies and norms
of scholarly exchange. This level of
understanding and engagement goes well
beyond knowledge of the literature. It requires
being a trusted member of the community with
recognized authority in information related
matters. This new paradigm suggests a shift in
focus from managing specialized collections (the
“branch library” model) to one that emphasizes
outreach and engagement.

Many science librarians, of course, are already
doing this. There are examples of science and
health science librarians working with faculty in
teaching courses, participating in research
projects, and publishing. Are these models
extensible? Can we re-conceive the science
library for e-science?

Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries - Final Report and Recommendations (PDF) - Association of Research Libraries: Library Support for E-Science - November 2007

A way forward - Model Principles.  I must admit, when I was blogging for the OECD, I had a hard time grasping the shape of the conversations that were going on.  This set of model principles (based on a draft from Chuck Humphrey), from Appendix B of the ARL E-Science Final Report, provides a clear set of topics that research libraries should consider (I have trimmed some entries - see the document for full versions):

1. Open Access: Research libraries will support open access policies and practices regarding scientific knowledge and e-science.

2. Open Data: Access to open data is a movement supported by research libraries, taking into consideration the ethical treatment of human-subject data.

3. Collaboration: Research libraries will collaborate with multi-institutional, interdisciplinary
research projects by developing and supporting digital repositories for their research outputs,
data, and metadata.

4. Digital Stewardship & Preservation: Research libraries will have institutional repositories that meet international preservation and interoperability standards and practices.

5. Equitable Service and Support: Research libraries will work collectively to ensure that gaps do not develop in the levels of support provided across e-sciences.

6. Professional Development & Investment: Research libraries will develop the human capital to provide the range of knowledge management skills at the appropriate level needed by esciences.

7. Metadata Standards & Metadata Creation: Research libraries will spearhead initiatives to develop metadata standards supportive of scientific data.

8. There is no number 8.

9. Virtual Communities: Research libraries will contribute to the establishment of and
participate in virtual laboratories or organizations developed across e-sciences.

10. Sustainable Models: Research libraries will participate in the development of and contribute to sustainable business models for the resources and services essential to e-sciences.

11. Communication: Research libraries will participate in initiatives to increase wider
professional and public understanding of e-science contributions to knowledge and its
infrastructural requirements.

* The June 2008 OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy will be
considering a set of digital information principles, indicating a broad international interest in
developing principles for cyberinformation. (See
http://www.oecd.org/department/0,3355,en_2649_34223_1_1_1_1_1,00.html )

This gives me a great opportunity to connect to more information from the 2007 OECD Participative Web meeting in Ottawa.  You can read my blog postings about the e-science presentations, and I have been remiss in not pointing out the video (Windows Media) of the presentations (the session starts at 05:30 into the stream).  The presentations are in English (the introduction is in French).

PS For a more direct (and memorable) link to the OECD Future of the Internet Economy work, use http://www.oecd.org/FutureInternet 

Info about the ARL final report via Bev Brown, from asis-l and CNI Announce.

Facebook fad or future - TVO's The Agenda

The Nov 7, 2007 The Agenda on TVO starts off with swearing (seriously) and then has a panel on Facebook.  Unfortunately TVO's new video player doesn't show you a time index (a control bar will come up at the bottom of the video if you put your mouse over the video window), so I can't point you at a starting time for the panel, other than to say it's roughly one-third along.

I can't direct link to the video either, but it's on their videos page, I think it only stays up for a week.  You can also get audio of just the Facebook segment free via iTunes or video also from iTunes.

I'm never convinced that having a bunch of middle-aged people talk about a technology that started with university students is particularly useful.  Anyway, Om Malik was there, he talked about the valuation and such.

Om has a good posting about Facebook Beacon, which may or may not be evil - Facebook’s Cruel Intentions, Facebook Responds.

Middle-aged opinionmaking aside, the Agenda discussion is informative, and at 32 minutes long, comprehensive.  I like Nancy Baym's turn of phrase about Microsoft and Facebook - the moderator asks "can Facebook make Microsoft cool?" and she responds "I don't think so, it's like the middle-aged man with a new sports car".  Baym's website Online Fandom also reminds me that you can also get TVO video through iTunes, as a free video podcast.  It's interesting to see all the panelists all commenting on each other's blog postings - I have to wonder whether they made similar connections and had any discussions within Facebook.  (And of course since Facebook is a dark net, I have no easy way of discovering this.)

Mathew Ingram - http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2007/11/09/video-me-talking-about-facebook/

Mary Evans - http://markevanstech.com/2007/11/09/whats-a-friend-these-days/

Jesse Hirsh - http://jesse.openflows.org/the-clash-of-the-titans-20/

They talked a lot about about Beacon and all this application notification virality, the dream/nightmare of these megatargeted social network ads (which I have already been ranting about on Facebook).  They also discuss Facebook apps and Google OpenSocial briefly.

In my experience, the main thing Facebook has done is connected me to a few people from Junior High, and gets me a little bit of insight into activities of some people who don't have blogs.  But for me overall I get way more out of my blog connections.

This URL should get you to the Agenda audio Podcasts page in iTunes:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=200802797

and this one to their video podcasts

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=251692621

(Additional update after I realised The Agenda has both audio and video podcasts on iTunes.)

videos of research both improbable and probable, on TVO

TVO's Big Ideas is one of my favourite shows, a venue for interesting lecturers.  Today's was

Marc Abrahams, editor of The Annals of Improbable Research and one of the organizers of the annual Ig-Nobel Prize ceremonies at Harvard University, discusses the work of scientists and academics that, "first makes you laugh, and then makes you think". Highlights of the lecture include discussions of a study that proves that Kansas is flatter than a pancake and a paper investigating The Forces Required to Drag Sheep Over Various Surfaces.

The second lecture in this episode of Big Ideas is by University of Toronto Zoology researcher Susannah Varmuza who discusses the evolving field of Epigenetics and what research into such things as mouse coat colour is telling scientists about the age-old "nature versus nurture" debate.

Alvin Toffler interviewed by Allen Gregg

ALVIN TOFFLER
Future Shock. The Third Wave. Two classics that revolutionized the way we think about our rapidly changing world. They established Alvin Toffler as one of the world's most influential futurists. In his new book, Toffler once again takes us back to the future. It's called Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be Created and How it will Change our Lives.

Web Exclusive Preview: Allan Gregg in Conversation with Alvin Toffler

Allen Gregg in Conversation (on TVO) - August 31, 2007

Note: a lot of the links on the TVO site won't work if you have cookies turned off.

Previously:
October 1, 2006  Alvin Toffler on Big Ideas

news video on photo geocoding

CBS 5 KPIX San Francisco has a video report on photo geocoding (there's a brief ad at the beginning).

via EveryTrail Blog

Chris Anderson's tail in Canada

Another Canada 2020 presentation

On March 28 [2007], Chris Anderson the Editor in Chief of  Wired magazine and author of  "The Long Tail"  discussed how our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to millions of niches.

http://www.cpac.ca/asx/show_pr_can2020Anderson_mar28-07_eng.asx

If you want to skip the politicians, Anderson starts speaking at 12:20 in.

Previously:
August 03, 2006  my review of The Long Tail

CPAC and CBC climate changingness

Apparently there was an event called Canada 2020 in Gatineau, they had a variety of high-power speakers.  Unfortunately, while I think I'm supposed to consider Gatineau an integrated part of Ottawa (NOTE TO READERS: very slightly humour-tinged aside coming up) it might as well be on the far side of the moon for most practical purposes for me.  Plus which, I don't circulate in such lofty company.

Anyway, amongst other speakers (one of which to be mentioned in subsequent posting), Tim Flannery, the The Weather Makers author, "discussed ways to bring the public into the debate on global warming".

The video (Windows Media format) is available from CPAC: http://www.cpac.ca/asx/show_pr_can2020Flannery_mar27-07_eng.asx

If you want to skip the part with the politicians talking, Flannery starts at 15:23 into the feed.

CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster, has also been doing a series this week on global warming, with the anchor and others reporting from all over the world.  I haven't actually looked into it in enough depth to know whether they offset all that travel, if anyone knows, please leave a comment.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/climatechange/roadstories.html

Apparently, Australia is a tad dry these days.

Canada and Kyoto

Canada ratified Kyoto in 2002, but then didn't actually take any steps to implement it.
Here's what's going on:

The opposition parties teamed up Wednesday to pass a private member's bill that requires the government to meet international Kyoto targets

CBC - Opposition MPs pass Kyoto bill despite Tory resistance

It's Bill C-288 in the current session.  It now goes to the Senate (it is not yet law).

5. (1) Within 60 days after this Act comes into force and not later than May 31 of every year thereafter until 2013, the Minister shall prepare a Climate Change Plan

There has also been recent provincial activity.  Prime Minister Harper gave the province of Quebec hundreds of millions of dollars to support its goal of full Kyoto compliance, as part of a $1.5 billion initiative.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled a $1.5-billion fund yesterday to help provinces reduce greenhouse gases, allocating the first $350-million to Quebec on the eve of an expected provincial election.

The province of British Columbia is also setting a goal of a "33 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2020".

TVO's The Agenda has had a couple recent shows on Kyoto and the environment, you can watch the video online (Flash format).

Monday February 12, 2007 - Kyoto and You
Tuesday February 13, 2007 - The Greening of Big Business