While I was reading René Goscinny’s biography ¹, some ideas popped up in my head. I first put them on Twitter, but someone asked me to put them on my blog, for easy reference. So here they are.

When I read how powerful publishers were in rejecting books and other publications in the past, I can understand how powerless they must feel now. They still cling to the old beliefs that allowed a few individuals to determine what the masses got to read, under guise of “culture”.

Not that everything that is published now is suited for everyone, but that is just the point. It is meant for a few readers, not the masses. It’s a bit like the early days of publishing, where books where made for a handful of people, because they were the only ones able to read. Nowadays as a creator you still want your publications to go to a handful of people, those who want to read your works, because they like it.

Why not make works that are suitable for the masses? Answer: lowest common denominator. Mass appeal means less specific content. There are those who believe that in a few years the good stuff will be established and the bad stuff will go away. That is old school think.

No, I believe the true explosion of creativity is still to come, after which everyone will create some kind of content, all 6+ billion people. This will wash away the old structures of publishing, based on scarcity. New structures will emerge, based on individual preference.

Until then we’re in this gray area, which we call the World Wide Web, forefront of things to come. We are writing history here!

That is all.

1 French: Goscinny (1926 – 1977) : La Liberté d’en rire (Amazon.fr link),
Dutch: Goscinny : Bedenker van Asterix’ avonturen (bol.com link).

In May of 1994, the first World Wide Web conference was held in the auditorium of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). For some historical perspective, this was the year that Netscape released its first Web browser, Mozilla, the World Wide Web Consortium was established, Windows 95 was released with software to access the Internet, and companies like America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe were competing for status in the public consciousness as the lead provider of Internet access. The Internet was beginning to be accessible to the general public, not just those with extensive computer knowledge or who were working within educational or governmental institutions. The Web as we now know it was beginning to take shape.

Eventually, out of the Cambrian-like explosion that wired the masses, the Blogosphere emerged. While it evolved in the same rocky fashion as the Web itself, burdened by neigh-sayers and meeting corporate resistance as companies struggled to harness its growth for profit, the blogosphere is now viewed as an entity that is revolutionizing journalism and human communication at large.

For those on the forefront of the development of the Web, the World Wide Web conference was an event that educated, inspired and forged partnerships by connecting people whose paths would otherwise never cross.

From Weaving the Web, a book by the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee:

It was a tremendous gathering. The auditorium held perhaps three hundred people. We limited registration to three hundred, but ended up with three hundred fifty after admitting members of the press, and others who just appeared — testimony of how the Web had grown.

…

There were people from all walks of life brought together by their enthusiasm of the Web. Talks given in the small auditorium were packed. Because it was the first such conference, many people who had been interacting only by e-mail were meeting each other face-to-face for the first time.

…

The excitement, congeniality and grass-roots fervor for furthering the Web inspired the reporters there, overdoing it a little, to dub the meeting the “Woodstock of the Web.”

Overdoing it or not, it is fitting to compare innovative conferences like this and ScienceOnline to the generation-defining music festivals that bring multitudes of people together over their commonalities in musical taste every year; registration for ScienceOnline was capped at 250 attendees this year, and filled up within 3 days of the initial announcement. The described enthusiasm and fervor of WWW conference attendees parallels the enthusiasm I observed of ScienceOnline participants.

And so I hereby dub the ScienceOnline conference, the Bonnaroo of the Blogosphere. I’m 23 and never attended Woodstock, but I think that as meaningful as it was to Sir Berners-Lee’s generation, Bonnaroo probably is to mine. As important as it was to have a meeting in the late ’90s to discuss and define the Web when it was in its infancy, it is as important to do so for the blogosphere today.

I attended for the first time last January, prompted by my role as an overlord of ScienceBlogs.com, and will return this year to lead a discussion session with Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com. Our session will be on Web Science, the emerging academic field that explores the way people use the Web, and will cover the origin and history of the Web, the phenomena that can be observed and measured by tracking the way people use the Web, how it effects us currently, and the future of science communication on the Web. We chose this topic because it is of extreme relevancy to the attendees of the conference — and extreme interest to us — and was personally inspired by our recent meeting with Tim Berners-Lee himself.

Attending the ScienceOnline conference last year was an incredible experience that further solidified my decision to pursue my interest in the Web. It’s a place where, if you’re into science and you’re into the Web, and these are the things that get you really excited academically, professionally and/or socially, you can learn what the game-changers in the field are up to and talking about, and talk about it with them, maybe become a game-changer yourself.

On the time line of human existence, being able to “know” someone before you meet them occupies an extremely minute segment. ScienceOnline is an event that epitomizes this. It’s a place where the names that we’ve come to know by hypertext on the computer screen become associated with real people: Where the mental images we hold of people based on their projected online personas become modified or solidified by the impressions gathered from meeting them and interacting IRL. Someday, this concept will be commonplace, if it isn’t already. But right now, it’s exciting to connect these two seemingly anachronistic pools of information.

So, you’ve probably gathered by now that I think ScienceOnline is awesome and that I’m really excited for it. And if I haven’t sold you on it’s awesomeness yet, be convinced by this: Bloggers and scientists partying together. I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I enjoy more than a good geek party.

ScienceOnline2010: Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, January 14-17, with the main conference events Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th. Get ready. Check it out on the ScienceOnline Wiki. Explore, contribute, Tweet and reTweet. Then when the time comes, check you favorite science blogs for mentions and Twitter for the #scio10 hash tag.

The effects from the networks that were forged at the early World Wide Web conferences are visible in just about every aspect of the Web today. Who knows what aspects of the future this year’s ScienceOnline will shape.

_________________________

Lead image photoshopped by me, logo courtesy of the ScienceOnline wiki.

“Geek Party” pic via damn cool pics.

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Una din 150 de pagini web cu extensia “.ro” este infectata cu un virus si prezinta riscuri pentru cei care o acceseaza, nivel de 10 ori mai ridicat decat in cazul site-urilor inregistrate în Japonia, a declarat, miercuri, Costin Raiu, expert in cadrul Kaspersky Lab Romania.

“Printr-un program demarat în 2006, monitorizam peste 150.000 de site-uri cu extensia .ro Printre paginile web infectate se numara cele apartinand unor institutii bancare si guvernamentale sau din domeniul medical, inclusiv ale trei manastiri”, a spus Raiu, prezent la Zilele Biz.

Compania Kaspersky Lab (Rusia) este prezenta în Romania din 2003, printr-un departament de cercetare si dezvoltare. Incepand cu 2008, producatorul rus de solutii de securitate informatica a deschis un birou local de marketing si vanzari.

In acest an, afacerile Kaspersky Lab în Romania au fost estimate la un milion de euro.

SURSE: Mediafax, Capital

Later edit:

Chiar recent primisem un link pe twitter catre un site care iti afla parola contului si trimitea mai departe mesaje catre toti followerii. A trebuit urgent sa-mi schimb parola ca i-am secat cu mesaje spam din cauza acelui, sa-i spun virus.

Intrebarea e:  cum ne protejam de virusi cand patrundem in acele site-uri dubioase? De unde facem rost de un prezervativ informatic?

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I’d like to take a few moments to recognize the technologies (information, that is) that we should be thankful for.  My criteria are simple.  To be considered, the technology must have had a meanful, positive impact on people’s lives and changed the world for the better.  And just so the turkeys don’t feel left out I’ll mention a couple of them.

Wireless communications.  No other technology has had as big an impact on individuals lives and changed the world as much as wireless technology.  In some ways wireless technology is the printing press of our era.  It has liberated individuals from their desks and given them the freedom to work where and when they want to.  But, more importantly, it has liberated people from tyranny by providing access to uncensored information.  Without radio broadcasts into closed societies and, more recently, mobile communication devices that allow people to communicate free of central control, much of the liberalization we’ve seen over the past 30+ years  would not have happened.  [My argument with those who would put the Internet first is that wireless technology was having an impact long before the Internet existed.  Exhibit #1: The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the same year Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web and well before it was a factor in our lives.]  And wireless technology is still going strong with new advances in wireless communications promising better, more timely access to information as well as increased automation of manual tasks.

Personal computers and network technology.  Let me start by painting a portrait of a (frustrated) engineer as a young man.  I started my engineering studies wasting many hours keypunching cards to run programs on mini-computers and, even after we had ceremoniously destroyed the last of the keypunch machines, waiting in line to use one of the limited green screen terminals.  On starting my first job we had three PCs to share amongst  20 engineers…and they weren’t yet networked!  A couple of years later I was in information technology heaven with my own machine and a connection to the minicomputers (DEC PDP11s) where the data resided.  Around the same time I discovered Lotus 1-2-3.  I was off to the data crunching/data visualization races!  For those wondering, I lumped personal computers and network technology together because, by themselves, they are nothing compared to what they are together.

The Internet.  Ranking the Internet third will no doubt get me lots of flack, particularly from 20 and 30 somethings.  But hear me out.  The Internet is still young and its impact on our lives, while significant, is a ways from peaking.  And its impact would be negligible if personal computers were not as ubiquitous as they are.  It will no doubt move to the top of the list over time but in the meantime we’re dealing with its growing pains including search results that don’t return what we want, the rise of spammers and their ilk, and legitimate concerns about privacy.  Personally, though I’m grateful for the Internet, I sometimes see it as mixed blessing.

Flat Panel Displays.  There are two aspects of information technology that often get no respect – input and output technology.  And, rightly so, because there hasn’t been much change over the years.  But one breakthrough that deserves mention is the emergence of low cost, high resoution flat panel displays.  Without this breakthrough there would be no laptops, smartphones, and GPS systems, to name a few transformational products.  And there’s still plenty of innovation to be had in the world of flat panel displays including flexible displays, black on white displays, etc.  [Honorable mention in the input/output space goes to the mouse.] 

And now for a couple of turkeys:

Battery technology.  OK, I acknowledge it could be on the list above.  There would be no mobile devices without some advances in battery technology.  But progress has been so slow in coming that failure to advance battery technology fast enough has held back progress in other areas.  There are signs of breakthroughs (and certainly no shortage of investment in battery technology recently) but nothing to be truly thankful for yet.

Voice recognition technology.  Maybe this is simply the lament of a failed typist but it seems like we’ve been promised a breakthough in voice recognition technology for over 20 years!  Personally I gave up waiting five or so years ago.  I would have been better served by putting my energies into learning to type when I was younger.  In the meantime, I console myself with the knowledge that on a smart phone everyone has to use two thumbs to type.

So there you have it.  My short list of information technologies to be thankful for.  Regardless of which technologies are on your own list, be sure to put them away tomorrow.  After all, the best technologies are the ones that give you the time to do the things that you’ve always enjoyed such as eating, drinking, and being in the company of family and good friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

While writing some code in ASP.Net, I got a run time error where two variables of unequal type were compared.

If varA = varB Then
    ' somecode
End If

By accident varA was a String and varB a Number. One would say, that those variables are unequal and life goes on. But no. The program refused to run. Alarm, Error, Wrong, Impossible.

I am totally puzzled. There is only one reason why this could be: a String and a Number (it was a Long, but that’s too much detail maybe), can not be equal, so comparing them is useless. But then again, comparing Strings of unequal length is fine, even though they can not be equal either, or Strings which start with a different letter.

The point of my code is to evaluate if two things are equal or not. I want an answer. So seriously, my question to all programming gurus around the internet, explain why a language can not answer a simple question, but wants to tell me – as the programmer – that I should not ask.

Very funny short cartoon film about LinkedIn and how useful it really is.

USE THIS LINK

http://current.com/items/91503521_linked-in-to-what.htm

Cheers,

Kohlben Vodden

Marketing4recruiters

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Chris Stevens at Crave (CNET-UK) wondered…

Using publicly available information, for the first time in the world, we have precisely and scientifically calculated the weight of the Internet. Obviously this information is only really useful to someone attempting to work out the cost of posting the Internet somewhere, perhaps to North Korea. Still, the casual reader — hi there! — may still enjoy learning just how damn heavy the thing is.

Read the entire analysis here.  But (SPOILER ALERT) lest readers agonize in suspense, the total mass of the internet is:

As Chris observes, “very heavy indeed.”

As we contemplate the weight of innovation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1867 that Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. 21 years later (in 1888), a French newspaper ran a premature obituary of Nobel, ran his obituary under the cutting headline “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (the merchant of death is dead); Nobel’s reaction was to sign a will (in 1895) leaving the bulk of his fortune to establish and fund the Nobel Prizes.

Alfred Nobel

Today’s suggestion is to get involved in the Open Directory on the World Wide Web by applying to be an editor for the directory. The idea is to assist in manually categorising web sites submitted to the directory

For more information on the Open Directory visit:

http://dmoz.org

I have enough work in maintaining and adding to the many web sites, blogs, etc, that I own. So I’ll opt out of getting involved in this project, but none-the-less think it is a very worthwhile one.

Very nice book about our favorite web creator Tim Berners-Lee.  It tells the story from his point of view.  Interesting the kind of ideas he had when this book came out in 99.  Click here to read the Amazon reviews.  Highly recommended!

In former times, not even more than ten years ago, nobody could merely imagine the impact the internet has achieved nowadays. Noone imagined that the presidential campaign 2008 would be decided by the greater online competences a candidates team has. Those times seem to be from a forgotten age though.

Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, won the elections due to his lots of activities on Facebook, Twitter and Co. His Facebook account currently counts 6,933,920 fans. His Twitter profile meanwhile involves 2,722,502 followers. These accounts, however, are only the ones that are named merely “Barack Obama” – not even considered “ObamaBiden2012″, “Students for Barack Obama” or similar ones. Most of his fundraising focused on small amounts of money from the small middle-class people – quite unusual for a promising candidate.

One can doubt that President Obama could have succeeded to the White House without the possibilities of the internet. Powerful lobbyists had been ruling the campaigns for centuries. Now, the people achieved the power to decide about the ones to have the chance to become the most powerful position of the world. To conclude, the political impact – at least in the USA – has settled where it would have already belonged since Abraham Lincoln had announced in his Gettyburg Address in 1863…

…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

You!

Yes, I mean YOU – right in front of this PC screen. I am sure, you had been relaxedly sitting on your chair until I started talking to you. I see, you are not that much dressed up. You want to know, how I can know that? Well, there are two possibilites… either I am a very good guesser, or – and the latter one is more likely – I just used the endless possibilities of Google – the Godfather of Big Brother, as I started to call it. Or even the God of Web 2.0.

I would never dare to commit heresy; but the comparison of Google and God is based on four convincing commonalities:

1) The first two letters are the same: G and O. This can’t be a coincident!

2) Both are located in heaven – or how can it be explained that Google Maps can see you lying naked on your terrasse? This can’t be a coincident either!

3) Both are omniscient, they know everything: There is Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Reader, Google Books, Google Bible… let me guess, you didn’t even notice that the last one is wrong. This can’t be a coincident!

4) It is not possible to draw a picture of both: Or how do you explain that Google changes its appearance every couple of days. This can’t be a coincident!

This must be an act of providence!

And it is known that you cannot skip your fate, as this video proves:

Last Thursday, there happened a remarkable change on the so well known appearance of the Twitter-Homepage: The “What are you doing” button is now called “What is happening?” button. This transformation might seem minor on the first sight. But it is not at all! It rather emphasises the micro-blog’s ambitions to become a considered news source.

These ambitions, though, are lacking of any basis, as news are supposed to be directly connected to reliable sources. The posts on Twitter – in contrast – lack of any check; they are published to the public within seconds. In spite of exceptional incidents like the Hudson River plane and its first announcement on Twitter that accidently turned out to be true, Twitter is based on the chatting and gossiping purpose. The name itself even stems from the gossiping origin.

It may sound hard but the only good thing about Twitter is its easiness. And even this advantage implies its big disadvantage: Everybody can send off everything at every time. Imagine a forest where every single bird is tweeting at the same time! You wouldn’t enjoy the birds’ singing any more. This scenario is similar to Twitter: Or who is really enjoying to get to know that your cat is just going on the toilet or something of a similarly high value of interest ?