Recent Posts

30476

Living Room / Re: What are your best working hours?

« Last post by mouser on July 28, 2006, 11:55 AM »

im like mukestar, it is extremely difficult for me to work if i see the sun; my windows are all boarded up for exactly this reason.

30477

Living Room / Re: What are your best working hours?

« Last post by mouser on July 28, 2006, 05:59 AM »

are you really resigning today?? 

GOOD LUCK!!!

30478

Living Room / Re: Digg, the wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, netscape, and competitors

« Last post by mouser on July 28, 2006, 03:35 AM »

im not interested in trying to make anyone change, i'm just interested in social networking systems in general, and understanding when collective content works and when it doesn't, and how to build a community content site which is fair.  so i tend to be curious about the advantages and disadvantages to any given model.

30479

Living Room / Re: Digg, the wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, netscape, and competitors

« Last post by mouser on July 28, 2006, 02:23 AM »

let me try to explain why i think this is important.

let's contrast two (idealized) models for choosing what goes on the front page of a respectible newspaper (i know, not too many of them left).

in model A (traditional model), a small hierarchical group of "experts" decides what to put on the front page, based on a combination of what they feel from a lifetime experience is important to the world, to their readers, etc., and based on somewhat what they feel people will be interested in.  they know the content of the articles they put on the front page and they know that if it goes on the front page, it should be reliable information.

in model B, a crowd votes on potential articles for the front page, WITHOUT EVER READING THOSE ARTICLES, based entirely on a 3 second glance at the list of headlines.

---

the point is this:
leveraging the wisdom of the crowds is dangerous if the crowd individuals are making shallow judgements.

i guess i would sum up my position as being there is a role for both expert and crowd input.  but i'm very skeptical of systems like digg which claim to be able to do away with the top-level expert filtering.

not only is it prone to such wild effects as headline biases, but extremely prone to manipulation by those who want to game the system.

sure you could say "if you don't like it don't use it", but in fact i do like digg, i'm just interested in the debate about the role of crowd wisdom, and how to make it work properly.

30480

Living Room / Re: What are your best working hours?

« Last post by mouser on July 28, 2006, 02:15 AM »

nice page javajones, i like this quote:

"Sleep - those little slices of death, how I loathe them." - Edgar Allen Poe

30481

Living Room / Re: Favorite viral video or short film clip?

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 11:02 PM »

Spoiler

damn it app, that scared the sh*t out of me.

30482

Living Room / Re: Favorite viral video or short film clip?

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 10:40 PM »

pc vs. mac spoof but linux makes a visit: http://www.youtube.c...=related&search=

30483

Living Room / Re: Favorite viral video or short film clip?

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 10:31 PM »

i posted this over a year ago (https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=299.0), but it enters my conscioussness every month or so and i've watched it about 100 times. i love it.  it's definitely virused my brain:

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=Mns5gjfrOCE

alternate version with live footage of the rapper (mc chris):
http://www.youtube.c...v=erP1K_9yf6o&NR

30484

Official Announcements / Re: The countdown.

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 07:34 PM »

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Official Announcements / Re: The countdown.

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 07:10 PM »

for the july giveaway?

i guess josh did not hear about the new rule:
he who mentions the countdown to the giveaway shall not be given any prize. 

30486

Living Room / Re: Digg, the wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, netscape, and competitors

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 05:41 PM »

i feel guilty like i am hating on digg... but here is another article complaining about the model and wisdom of the crowds:
http://evolvingtrend...est-flaw-discovered/

i dont actually hate digg - i actually find it quite good at discovering useful links (though i am extremely bored by the fact that half of the posts on digg are actually about mundane digg news).

From this post, and this is exactly the kind of thing that troubles me:

To understand a crowd’s lack of rationality and wisdom, as a phenomenon, consider the following.

I had written a post (see link at the end of this article) about the Semantic Web, domain specific knowledge ontologies and Google as seen from a Google-centric view. I went on about how Google, using Semantic Web and an AI-driven inference engine, would eventually develop into an omnipresent intelligence (a global mind) and how that would have far reaching implications etc. The post was titled “Reality as a Service (RaaS): The Case for GWorld.” I submitted it to digg and I believe I got a few diggs and one good comment on it. That’s all. I probably got 500 hits in total on that post, and mostly because I used the word “Gworld” in the title.

More than a week after that, I took the same post, the same idea of combining the Semantic Web, domain-specific knowledge ontologies and an AI-driven inference engine but this time I pitted Wikipedia (as the most likely developer of knowledge ontologies) against Google, and posted it with the sensational but quite plausible title “Wikipedia 3.0: The End of Google.” The crowd went wild.

I got over 33,000 hits in the first 24 hours. And as of the latest count about 1600 diggs.

If we rely on wisdom of the crowds and dispense with the input of "experts", do we suddenly enter a world of headline news and surfact level attention, where the only thing that matters is quick snap judgement based on the title of a page or the colorful graphics of the startup screen?

30487

Living Room / Webreakdigg - interesting experiment against digg?

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 05:36 PM »

this is interesting.. as i understand it they are just trying to get together a network of people to demonstrate how digg can be gamed by some determined people..

Launch of Webreakdigg!
July 26th, 2006

This is gonna be a piece of internet history. Why? because this post pens the very first page of Webreakdigg, the social news blog of 200 strong. What exactly is Webreakdigg. We are recruiting, yes, we are looking for 200 strong to join Webreakdigg blog network. Webreakdigg is conceived from the fact that Digg is broke. Why is Digg broke? Read here, here, here and here and you will know why.

So what has Digg gonna do with WebreakDigg, as the name implies, we are gonna break digg and in hope to bring a new wave of social news to the rest of the world that believes in what Digg do not believe in.

So how do I join the Webreakdigg network? Simple, you need to first of all have a blog, two, you need to sign up for a Digg account or if you have one already that’s fine. Wait a minute, I thought we are anti-digg? Nope, we are not anti-digg, we are only here for the rest of the world that do not believe in digg.

http://webreakdigg.w...unch-of-webreakdigg/

from www.stumbleupon.com

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General Software Discussion / Re: Undeleting Software works in VMWare

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 05:18 PM »

yes it should work in vmware.

i hear this one is good: http://www.runtime.org/

30489

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 04:48 PM »

i think most people probably associate a donation as being optional, so i can see having a mandatory donation, even if you let them donate 1 cent, as being objected to.

30490

Developer's Corner / Re: Flash art images for you to use

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 04:46 PM »

nudone has a bunch of images of cody he has been making, that would surely be useful in any game.

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Developer's Corner / Re: Flash art images for you to use

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 04:24 PM »

deozaan perhaps now is the time for you to bring us a cody flash game or cartoon? 

30492

Living Room / Re: What are your best working hours?

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 04:07 PM »

12mid to 6am matches me as well.

30493

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 04:05 PM »

A forced donation is basically shareware with a new name tagged on to it.

i think the idea being posed here is that you require them to donate OR answer a one-time survey.

note:
as an aside, i do think that letting users choose how much to donate by itself makes this not shareware - i think as soon as you let people choose how much to donate (even if you never added a way to let them opt-out of paying), would warrant a new term.  now whether you wanted to call this donationware is a different issue.  maybe PayWhatYouWantWare.

30494

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 04:03 PM »

if you asked them to fill out a survey after each major release you would get people shooting at you with sniper rifles as you walked down the street 

30495

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 03:59 PM »

But I'd only employ surveys after major versions are released.

i'm not sure i understand this point -

i think the idea was that a user could get a lifetime permanent license after answering a short one-page mini survey about why they are not donating.

so every user who chooses not to donate would answer that, once and only once, in order to get a permanent license.

30496

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 03:19 PM »

i'm liking the survey idea more and more..

it seems to me that it would give an opportunity for us to at least engage the user in some form and get them to think about why they are not donating, as well as get some useful feedback from them to help us improve the site.

if we keep it all on one page with full info as we discussed above about how the info will and will not be used, i think it might be something the non-donating user would be willing to provide without too much annoyance.

and it seems a justifyable ethical approach doesn't it?  either donate, or be considerate enough to tell us why you aren't donating.

30497

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 02:53 PM »

the policy would have to be very clear that whatever answers and reasons the person gives are ok, and that no one is going to try to follow up and convince them to donate, and that they are going to receive their license key regardless of the reasons they list, and that no one is going to follow up and try to convince them their reasons weren't good enough..

30498

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 02:51 PM »

i completely understand that people might to submit anonymously.

certainly this would be strictly forbidden:

Requiring an email is only, in my understanding, giving the author a way to respond with more reasons as to why they should donate.

so i understand why someone would want to submit anonymously, for fear of getting such an email or follow up.

however, accepting anonymous submissions makes life more difficult - the license keys are tied to emails to discourage (slightly) sharing of keys, and so we would have to then do some kind of second step for that.  plus as jgp says, letting people submit anonymously would boost the rate of fake quick submissions, when what we really are asking from the user is a considered set of answers and comments as an alternative to donating.

(note one would have to consider the issue of people needing to fill out the form in non-english).

so i guess i would lean towards having them fill out a form with a real email address provided (to which the license key would then be sent), but stressing very clearly that no one is going to follow up and try to convince them to donate.

30499

Living Room / Re: Click Anywhere...Visualization Page

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 02:44 PM »

i love stuff like this.

30500

General Software Discussion / Re: "Donationware 2.0" or something like that - opinions wanted

« Last post by mouser on July 27, 2006, 02:30 PM »

jgpaiva's idea of a survey might be reasonable..
if you choose not to donate then we ask you to complete a small survey instead, which would ask why they chose not to donate, what might make them choose to donate, and ask them if they would consider donating in the future.  it might be a reasonable way to "connect" with those who choose not to donate and have a minute to "talk to them"
it's kind of a neat idea.