This first round of seminar-style presentations seemed to have gone very well. It’s the final year and it is a relief to see the scattered class bonding together. Like in the words of the Ping – paraphrased – it is a miracle; this seminar-style approach to educating every one works for o’three. Throughout this week, a lot was covered – from Wisdom of the Crowd, Mobile Revolution to Facebook.

Search engines throw out their web spiders to collect information via HTML around the vast internet – as WP presented it. I thought there were only the spiders but turns out not; ants and worms are part of the act too! And the text of mankind – be it font-size 12 or 40; lorem ipsum or twit language – collectively form the Wisdom of the Crowd. No wonder Google struck it rich: they were quick to leverage on this opportunity hence created one of the most widely-used search engine today.

I was singled out in the demonstration of that theory. And it did prove – my level of wisdom, however intelligent I may think of myself to be, could not stand up to the class as a whole. Think about it, in actuality, this is more or less along the lines of logic and common sense – the comments and opinions of others, who have come from different background and possessed different interests, are considered more objective than one soul’s point of view. To add on, you will be spoilt for choice and faced with thick walls of dilemma from having to come to your decision. Always remember, the opinions and/or comments of others are just suggestions – the ultimate decision is yours; just compare, contrast and run it through your heart. In other words, be discerning even when seeking the almighty advice from Wisdom of the Crowd.

Let me sum up Mobile Revolution in a line: The advancement in science is unbeatable, though fairly foreseeable, technology will continue to renew with greater things and maybe even realise the reality of ‘Alien v.s. Predator’ causing chaos like in ‘Left 4 Dead’.  Hence in a way, no biggie, revolutions will eventually become passe over time and more will come.

On the topic of ‘Left 4 Dead’ – here’s an interesting treat (rated NC-16):

Facebook? It’s so popular now that it does not need more text in this post.

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Ok, here’s my issue with Twitter. Why?

Do we really need this ‘new’ concept of communication? Am I in the minority here or is this a service that, though possibly exciting to some, seem somewhat spare and even frustrating? In fact to be honest I find it similar to spam, as irritating, and terminated my overeager original registration made in those first months after their launch when we all acted like Twits and signed up.

I get status reports of similar frequency and length from networks like Ning, Linkedin and of course Facebook. Possibly for these reasons I have not yet missed being a Twit. Anyone else feel the same way?

A tweet from Andy Afford today about Hall and Oates made me remember doing this..

I’ve done it! I’ve joined the twentieth century and am officially a twitterer-er. If any of you want to “follow” me (and if you’re in any way curious about yourself, please do – just not physically, I am armed) then you will find me @professorhuman.

After some initial scepticism (I was led to believe it involved hanging around car parks, naked), I thought I’d give this new social phenomenon a go – especially after I got wind that Winston was thinking of becoming a user. He’s always trying to get ahead of me and will try anything to get the upper hand: even if it does involve visiting his nearest NCP in the buff. So I thought I’d beat him to it! (by joining up, not stripping off)

I’ll be honest, I’m still not entirely sure how twitter/tweets/twatting works – a student tried to explain it to me as being a cross between faxbook, S&M and face-texting. But I think they got the hint I was bored out of my cranium when I glazed over and reached for the Bourbon. They then massively simplified it for me as essentially being a great opportunity to self-publicise myself using bite-sized ‘factoids’. Once they had clarified this further, I couldn’t refuse the chance to spread my knowledge instantly with the masses and hastily signed up.

So stand back fellow tweets, here I come! Or rather, here I tweet! No, that sounds absurd – what I said first.

Well yes I am.   But it was his birthday  And I do make birthday cards – whether people want them or not…

“Sir Beefiness cleared off chasing something in the Bush…mind boggles !!” tweeted Bumble Lloyd … and later tweeted that he was missing…..

I can’t believe there is only about one month left of the semester. I still have a bunch of stuff to do before it is over. I’ve also registered for a quick 4-week class over winter break and 4 classes in spring. I still need to take this math placement test which I am def not looking forward to. When I went to Ramapo College of New Jersey they used my math SAT score to place me in a math class. I know that was about 10 years ago, but I wish MCC would do that too.

I am sitting outside, in between my two classes. It seems so dreary out, but the breeze is really nice. The sun is hiding, but I enjoy not sweating my ass off today. It is November. The fact that it has been like 90 degrees out recently is ridiculous. I don’t remember it being this hot last year. Today is supposed to only be 80 degrees. I miss wearing sweaters and socks.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately including “WTF with Marc Maron”, “This Week In Google”, “Bill Moyers Journal”, and “This Day In The Past”. For those that don’t know him, Marc Maron is a comedian that used to be on Air America Radio. He is the most neurotic person ever and its lovely to see someone being so honest.

“This Week In Google” is an offset of TWiT. Leo Leporte , Jeff Jarvis, and Gina Trapani talk about what is going on with Google. They break off into discussions on other related tech things, but they are informative and entertaining to listen to. Gina Trapani is a Java developer who founded Lifehacker, which she still contributes to occasionally, and Smarterware, which she is still running. I hate to be a super nerd but she is basically my idol. I long to be as knowledgeable as her. Jeff Jarvis has the blog BuzzMachine and Leo Leporte runs TWiT.

The Bill Moyers podcast is pretty self explanatory. It’s news and he is pretty fair to everyone. “This Day In The Past” is usually a 30 second clip everyday by the hysterical John Hodgman (PC Guy in Apple Commercials, and currently guesting on Bored To Death on HBO). You have to hear it to understand its amazing-ness. The picture associates with it says “At Last: A Page-A-Day Calendar Without Pages” and has a picture of John Hodgman holding a ferret. So random!

I have misplaced my headphones! I’ve been using my ipod headphones for a while now and they don’t fit in my ears and keep falling out. I need to look around my entire apartment for my food ones that go around the back of my ears. My bf and I have checked both of our cars with no luck. They weren’t expensive, but I really don’t want to have to find and buy them again. Blah!

Last week I was listening to This Week in Google, another wonderful podcast made by Leo Laporte (others include This week in Tech, The Tech Guy, Mac Break Weakly and so on…), they were talking about a interesting website named KickStarter.com. The idea behind KickStarter is that anyone with a good idea (be it a book, computer program, design, art…) can make a pledge, that if users raise enough money the project will be done. Those who ‘invested’ in the project get some form of added value, be it autographed hardcover book, or interesting behind the scenes videos or articles. If a given project fails to raise enough money than no one gets charged anything.

For example lets take a look at project created by Joseph Wain from New York. He pledged that if he raises 500$ than he will release icons for iPhone developers to use and download for free. He managed to raise 1820$ and thus released his icons on website http://glyphish.com/.

Cool idea, and sometimes everyone gets something for free out of it

The better England players are involved in a ping pong tournament (Swann has been eliminated of course)

Probabilmente in Italia non funzionerebbe. In Nuova Zelanda, invece, le Pagine Gialle scelgono di promuoversi con un fantomatico progetto affidato a un fantomatico giovane, incaricato di studiare, progettare e produrre il cioccolato dal gusto “giallo”. Naturalmente usando solo le Pagine Gialle per selezionare collaboratori e fornitori.

Sul sito web dedicato all’iniziativa tutti gli aggiornamenti sulla missione. Intanto, per le strade di Auckland, si può vedere il protagonista – Josh – e i suoi aggiornamenti in tempo reale su Twitter. 

Leo Laporte bought a new 2010 Ford Mustang. According to the video he posted it’s not the GT500 model.

http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/mustang/

Leo Laporte from TWiT was out car shopping one day. He shot this little video in a GT Mustang and put it up on the interwebs.

Here’s a little diddy I whipped up to enhance the driving experience.