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A rundown of various sites harnessing the wisdom of crowds — using the users of the site to shape its content. Based on the premise that if you ask 100 people to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar, and then take an average of their responses, you will end up with an answer that is closer to correct than the vast majority of their individual responses. (See also a counterpoint.)
Archive for 2007
Yearly Archive
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A captivating, beautiful music visualisation.
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ABCs for geeks. Hit “Learn” to see how you do.
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Of all the lists I’ve created and checked off since starting to use Getting Things Done, this one has been one of the most rewarding. Still a way to go!
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Like everything else Bruce Shneier writes, this is excellent. This describes the mental tradeoffs we all make automatically, balancing security with everything else. See also the Economics of Information Security.
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Documenting known patterns and trends that lead to successful wikis.
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A discussion on “mirror neurons”, the parts of your mind that make you instinctively act like those around you, for better or worse.
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“Limits on time, money, people, resources can channel your creative energy, drive innovation and focus.”
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A paean to the URL, and a furtherance of the concept of URL as UI.
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I’ve recently heard of guys who are able to do this (and who are ridiculously productive as a result). Still need a bit more convincing, but it sounds great.
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Steve Jobs raises a few eyebrows by asking music companies to let him sell music with no DRM frippery in the way.
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Programmers don’t like coding, they like problem solving.
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Clay Shirky on the idea of the LazyWeb: If you wait long enough, someone will write/build/design what you were thinking about.
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Thoughtful piece by Tim O’Reilly on digital distribution of commodity items like songs and books.
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Why profiling cannot work, and could actually decrease security.
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Contrast with What I learned from the Month of Apple bugs.
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Matt’s resolutions echo my own quite closely.
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Terrific instructions on building all the programs you need to have a Ruby on Rails-ready development machine.
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An interesting view on software versioning, and the problems that can occur when a new branch comes out with a bumped version number. “Attempting to force differing approaches onto a numeric and ordered scale increases social friction.”
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I’m still a little sceptical about some speed-reading claims, but this seems like a practical start.
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Comparing mindmaps and linear notes for learning.
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It gives good stats, but Google Analytics delivers a surprisingly woeful user experience. This is just one small example of why.
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