Category: Web/Tech
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Practically Creative
The first issue of Practically Creative Quarterly was published recently: "a free webzine and creative community on the grow, exploring the creative process ~ increasing creative productivity ~ enjoying the creative life." There are many inspiring short articles throughout the magazine, with sections focusing on process, craft, practicalities, creations, practice and practices, crackles and preferrals. …
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The Future of Search: What We Want vs. What We Need
Dan Farber and Gary Price have some interesting things to say about a recent panel on "New Directions in Search" at the PC Forum … which brought to mind the song "You Can’t Always Get What You Want". According to these reports, panelists agreed that the main goal is to get users the information they…
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Philips Polymer Vision: A Realization of Phineas J. Whoopee’s 3D Blackboard
Philips Polymer Vision recently announced a new rollable display for use with mobile devices and applications: The Polymer Vision PV-QML5 is an ultra-thin (100µm) featherweight QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) active-matrix display with a diagonal of 5 inches. When not actively used, the display can be rolled up into a small housing with a radius…
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Amazon’s Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): Potentially Useful Curiosities
I was browsing through some books at Amazon today and saw a field I’d never seen before: statistically improbable phrases (SIPs). These are phrases that occur frequently in one particular book and infrequently in others, and thus likely to be "interesting" or "distinctive". As an example, the Amazon page for "Finding Your Own North Star:…
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Jan Jewell: Celebrating Entrepreneurial Perseverance and Open Book Management
Jan Jewell, co-founder and co-CEO of Celebrate Express, gave a presentation on "Open Book Management and the Celebrate Express Story" at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network Venture Breakfast Meeting this Friday. Jan led off with a history of her personal and professional ups and downs with Birthday Express (which evolved into Celebrate Express). Among the themes…
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Goal-based Endorphin Release
When I told Melissa about 43 Things, the goal-based social networking service, she told me she’d read that endorphins are released simply by checking off a task on a to-do list. I did a little research (well, googling), and uncovered an inspiring article on setting and achieving goals: As you accomplish an important task, you…
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43 Things: Goal-based Social Networking
43 Things is a recent entry into the social networking services world that has received a great deal of publicity lately. What sets 43 Things apart from others is its focus on goals: the site offers members the opportunity to list their goals (those that they want to accomplish as well as those they have…
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Frontchannels, Backchannels and Sidechannels at CSCW 2004
CSCW 2004 was an engaging experience along numerous dimensions. In addition to an interesting collection of papers, panels and keynotes presented in the frontchannel(s), we had WiFi coverage and designated IRC channels throughout all the sessions. In one session, we projected the IRC window onto the main presentation screen, moving the backchannel toward the frontchannel,…
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Representations of Identity: Digital and Physical
CSCW 2004 was a great conference on multiple dimensions (for me); personal highlights include participating in a great workshop, exploring Chicago, co-presenting a paper, co-organizing a panel and being inspired by the closing plenary. I’m going to post separate entries for each of these, starting with the workshop. The workshop was on "Representations of Digital…