Infomaki is an open source “lightweight” usability testing tool developed by the New York Public Library to evaluate new designs for the NYPL.org web site and uncover insights about our patrons. Designed from the ground up to be as respectful of the respondents’ time as possible, it presents respondents with a single question at a time from a pool of active questions. In just over seven months of use, it has fielded over 100,000 responses from over 10,000 respondents. — The Code4Lib Journal – Infomaki: An Open Source, Lightweight Usability Testing Tool Read more →
November 2009
Overheard
Charlie Weis: Done
I will mostly miss him because his teams were lousy and I enjoyed watching them lose. — Dashiell Bennett Read more →
Shamans: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
My dad was telling me about a recent trip he took to the wilds of Ecuador. From the airport, it was a three-hour truck ride, followed by two hours in a motorized canoe to get to the lodge he was staying at. “That doesn’t sound good,” I said. “What if you have a medical emergency?” “There’s a shaman at the village,” he said. “And what the shamans do is they take peyote or whatever the local hallucinogen is, they hallucinate about a drug, then they go into the forest, come back with the drug and give it to you.” “Are they board certified?” “No. And the other thing they do is they blow smoke on you.” “I hate that. What kind of smoke is it?” “I think the guy has a pack of Marlboros. But if you have a heart attack or something, that’s all you’re gonna get.” Read more →
Occupational Intensity
I saw a guy yesterday — let’s call him Jack — that I used to work with 20 years ago on my first programming job. My most vivid memory of him is the day he offered to sock another programmer — let’s call him Sid — “right in your f^$&ing face, Sid” because Jack was unhappy with the quality of Sid’s work. You rarely see that kind of passion and zest in the workplace anymore . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
USC 28, UCLA 7
It hasn’t been a great season for Pete Carroll and the Trojans — but they’re still three touchdowns better than UCLA. FIGHT ON! Read more →
Pug Photos on Flickr
Originally uploaded by RM Porangaba Originally uploaded by pugphotos Originally uploaded by RM Porangaba Read more →
Twitter: 2009-11-27
Dogs Are Smarter Than Cats: http://bit.ly/7SpXBU # Read more →
Dogs Are Smarter Than Cats
My dad is of the opinion that cats are “smarter” than dogs. Not coincidentally, he and my mom own a couple of cats, one of which was sitting next to his chair at Thanksgiving dinner. Dad decided to share some turkey with the cat. He stood up with a piece of turkey, showed it to the cat, than walked out to the kitchen and dropped it in the cat’s food dish. When he returned to his chair, the cat was still sitting there. Never moved. “That is one stupid cat,” I said. “Well, he’s three-quarters blind,” my dad said, although he didn’t say how he could possibly know that. “If my dog was here, he would have jumped up and eaten your whole dinner the second you left the room.” Read more →
Thanksgiving Memories
My dad’s holding a bottle of wine as he says, “Who wants straws?” “Are you asking me,” I say, “if I want to drink wine through a straw?” As it turns out, what he actually said was “Who wants Shiraz?” Read more →
Vanity Fair
Reading a few pages of Vanity Fair — the book, not the magazine — before retiring for the evening . . . I say to my wife, “Man, this Thackeray guy is really funny.” “Funnier than you?” she asks. “He must be.” “Why?” “Well, this book is almost 200 years old and people are still reading it.” “Imagine at the time he wrote it,” she says. “People probably laughed till they choked.” “Exactly.” Read more →
Are Nash Equilibriums Killing Agile Initiatives?
If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium. A system may have many possible Nash equilibriums. There is no guarantee that a Nash equilibrium is optimal for the system as a whole. Most are not. However, it is often very difficult to move from one Nash equilibrium to another. To do it successfully, all players must be made aware that a better state is attainable and they must trust each other to change. — Kallokain: Are Nash Equilibriums Killing Agile Initiatives? Nash equilibriums are named after John F. Nash Jr., whose life was depicted in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Read more →
Climate Comedy
Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. There’s a consensus that it’s going to change, so they’ve decided to keep us in the dark. — Best of the Web Today Read more →
Twitter: 2009-11-24
Shockwaves to the Crotch Treat Erectile Dysfunction http://gizmodo.com/5411430/ #ed #erectiledysfunction # Read more →
Résumé Tips: Attention to Detail
I read this today on an actual résumé: Superior written and communication skills and detail to attention Don’t do that. Read more →
Want a Date? Consider Becoming an Atheist
OkCupid.com analyzed over 500,000 first contacts on their online dating site to see how certain keywords and phrases affected reply rates. The results could be considered a set of rules for what you should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself online. Thinking of mentioning religion? The graph below shows reply rates of messages containing the listed keywords, plotted against the average reply rate of 32%. Read more →
Obama in China
Obama’s strongest comments during the town hall were directed at China’s Internet controls. “I’m a big supporter of non-censorship,” Obama said. . . . Chinese bloggers who saw it were grateful that he addressed censorship, but many zeroed in on what they considered Obama’s waffling language. “Learn English from Obama: Instead of saying ‘I want to eat,’ say ‘I am a big supporter of non-hunger,’” Wang Pei, a writer based in eastern China’s Hangzhou, twittered on Tuesday. — China govt pleased but ordinary folk cool on Obama Read more →
Suck it Up, Liver Cancer Patients!
When the government runs healthcare . . . Liver cancer sufferers are being condemned to an early death by being denied a new drug on the Health Service, campaigners warn. They criticised draft guidance that will effectively ban the drug sorafenib — which is routinely used in every other country where it is licensed. Trials show the drug, which costs £36,000 [$60,000] a year, can increase survival by around six months for patients who have run out of options. The Government’s rationing body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said the overall cost was “simply too high” to justify the “benefit to patients.” — Mail Online Read more →
Your Face is Your Fortune
OkCupid’s analysis of how your looks affect your online dating results is chock full of interesting insights. The one that really jumped out at me is that while men’s rating of women’s looks follows a normal distribution — some low, some high, most in the middle — women rate 80% of men as worse-looking than average, but then go ahead and date them anyway. Read more →
Diversity in Practice
This is how “diversity” works in practice: Intellectual contention is drowned out in a sea of emotion, much of it phony. Members of designated victim groups respond to a serious argument with “pain” and “shock” and accusations of “hate,” and university administrators make a show of pretending to care. — Best of the Web Today Read more →