research - eyal matsliah on Diigo

Why the conventional wisdom is so often wrong . . . How "experts"—from criminologists to real-estate agents to political scientists-bend the
facts . . . Why knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, is the key
to understanding modern life . . . What is "freakonomics," anyway?

06 May 07

How do we know what we know ? - Edge 208

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authoritative edge knowledge larry-sanger research science wikipedia

03 May 07

anthropologist: Anthropology.net and other Online Research Tools

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diigo ethnography research user-review

Actually I love using lots of different technology to help me in my research, especially since my ethnography work last year was mostly cyberethnography. Personally, I've taken to using del.icio.us, Diigo, and Scrapbook (I love this one), extensions for Firefox, 30 Boxes, NetVibes, and Google docs and spreadsheets (helpful because I don't own a copy of Word but it's on every one of the computers at uni), Google Notebook, and iGoogle (personalised google page).

18 Apr 07

09 Apr 07

What You'll Wish You'd Known

paulgraham.com/hs.html - Preview

education growth high-school paul-graham personal-development research science

You
don't need to be in a rush to choose your life's work. What you
need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff
you like if you want to be good at what you do.
So I'm going to tell you what we all wish
someone had told us.
32 more annotations...
- But there are other jobs you can't learn about, because no one is
  doing them yet.
- The world changes fast,
  and the rate at which it changes is itself speeding up. In such a
  world it's not a good idea to have fixed plans.
- The computer world has a name for this: premature
  optimization. And it is synonymous with disaster.
- What they really mean is, don't get demoralized. Don't think that
  you can't do what other people can. And I agree you shouldn't
  underestimate your potential.
- If they were just like us, then
  they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one
  reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for
  being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because
  of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our
  fault if we can't do something as good.
- if you're
  trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse
  for being lazy, the other one is probably right.
- Upwind
  
  I think the solution is to work in the other direction. Instead
  of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations.
  This is what most successful people actually do anyway.
- It's not so important what you work on, so long as you're not wasting
  your time. Work on things that interest you and increase your
  options, and worry later about which you'll take.
- Look for smart people
  and hard problems. Smart people tend to clump together, and if you
  can find such a clump, it's probably worthwhile to join it.
- This may seem a
  scandalous proposition, but it has been experimentally verified,
  in the famous Social Text affair. Suspecting that the papers
  published by literary theorists were often just intellectual-sounding
  nonsense, a physicist deliberately wrote a paper full of
  intellectual-sounding nonsense, and submitted it to a literary
  theory journal, which published it.
- The best protection is always to be working on hard problems.
- If you'd asked me in high school what the difference was between
  high school kids and adults, I'd have said it was that adults had
  to earn a living. Wrong. It's that adults take responsibility for
  themselves. Making a living is only a small part of it.
  Far more important is to take intellectual responsibility for oneself.
- Working at something
  as a day job doesn't mean doing it badly. It means not being defined
  by it.
- When I ask people what they regret most about high school, they
  nearly all say the same thing: that they wasted so much time. If
  you're wondering what you're doing now that you'll regret most
  later, that's probably it.
- So what do you do? What you should not do is rebel.
- Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. In either case you let
  yourself be defined by what they tell you to do. The best plan, I
  think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector. Don't just do what
  they tell you, and don't just refuse to. Instead treat school as
  a day job. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet. You're done at 3
  o'clock, and you can even work on your own stuff while you're there.
- Curiosity
  
  And what's your real job supposed to be? Unless you're Mozart,
  your first task is to figure that out. What are the great things
  to work on? Where are the imaginative people? And most importantly,
  what are you interested in? The word "aptitude" is misleading,
  because it implies something innate. The most powerful sort of
  aptitude is a consuming interest in some question, and such interests
  are often acquired tastes.
- And passion
  is a bad word for it. A better name would be curiosity.
- It has to: you can't get anything done if you're always
  asking why about everything. But in ambitious adults, instead of
  drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep.
- So I was surprised when, early
  in college, I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had no
  self-discipline and had never been able to deny himself anything,
  not even a cup of coffee.
- Now I know a number of people who do great work, and it's the same
  with all of them. They have little discipline. They're all terrible
  procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves
  do anything they're not interested in.
- If you want to do good work, what you need is a great curiosity
  about a promising question.
- That's what you need to do: find a question that makes
  the world interesting. People who do great things look at the same
  world everyone else does, but notice some odd detail that's
  compellingly mysterious.
- The way to get a big idea to appear in your head is not to hunt for
  big ideas, but to put in a lot of time on work that interests you,
  and in the process keep your mind open enough that a big idea can
  take roost.
- Put in time how and on what? Just pick a project that seems
  interesting: to master some chunk of material, or to make something,
  or to answer some question. Choose a project that will take less
  than a month, and make it something you have the means to finish.
  Do something hard enough to stretch you, but only just, especially
  at first. If you're deciding between two projects, choose whichever
  seems most fun. If one blows up in your face, start another. Repeat
  till, like an internal combustion engine, the process becomes
  self-sustaining, and each project generates the next one. (This
  could take years.)
- Don't worry if a project doesn't seem to be on the path to some
  goal you're supposed to have. Paths can bend a lot more than you
  think. So let the path grow out the project. The most important
  thing is to be excited about it, because it's by doing that you
  learn.
- The important thing is to get out there and do stuff. Instead of
  waiting to be taught, go out and learn.
- You start being an adult when you decide to take
  responsibility for your life. You can do that at any age. [10]
- Well, most adults labor under restrictions
  just as cumbersome, and they manage to get things done. If you
  think it's restrictive being a kid, imagine having kids.
- [3] A day job is one you take to pay the bills so you can do what
  you really want, like play in a band, or invent relativity.
- [5] The key to wasting time is distraction. Without distractions
  it's too obvious to your brain that you're not doing anything with
  it, and you start to feel uncomfortable. If you want to measure
  how dependent you've become on distractions, try this experiment:
  set aside a chunk of time on a weekend and sit alone and think.
  You can have a notebook to write your thoughts down in, but nothing
  else: no friends, TV, music, phone, IM, email, Web, games, books,
  newspapers, or magazines. Within an hour most people will feel a
  strong craving for distraction.
- Why does society foul you? Indifference, mainly. There are
  simply no outside forces pushing high school to be good.

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research

paulgraham.com/hamming.html - Preview

career growth paul-graham personal-development research richard-hamming science

Why shouldn't you do significant things in this one life, however you define significant?
You don't have to tell other people, but shouldn't you say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like to do something significant.''
42 more annotations...
- That is the characteristic of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.
- What appears to be a fault, often, by a change of viewpoint, turns out to be one of the greatest assets you can have.
- You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done.
- Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory.
- When you find apparent flaws you've got to be sensitive and keep track of those things, and keep an eye out for how they can be explained or how the theory can be changed to fit them. Those are often the great contributions.
- Most great scientists are completely committed to their problem. Those who don't become committed seldom produce outstanding, first-class work.
- If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. And so you wake up one morning, or on some afternoon, and there's the answer.
- ``If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?''
- They were unable to ask themselves, ``What are the important problems in my field?''
- If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work.
- You should do your job in such a fashion that others can build on top of it, so they will indeed say, ``Yes, I've stood on so and so's shoulders and I saw further.'' The essence of science is cumulative.
- I suggest that by altering the problem, by looking at the thing differently, you can make a great deal of difference in your final productivity because you can either do it in such a fashion that people can indeed build on what you've done, or you can do it in such a fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you've done.
- it is not sufficient to do a job, you have to sell it.
- There are three things you have to do in selling. You have to learn to write clearly and well so that people will read it, you must learn to give reasonably formal talks, and you also must learn to give informal talks.
- The technical person wants to give a highly limited technical talk. Most of the time the audience wants a broad general talk and wants much more survey and background than the speaker is willing to give.
  > As a result, many talks are ineffective.
- The technical person wants to give a highly limited technical talk. Most of the time the audience wants a broad general talk and wants much more survey and background than the speaker is willing to give.
- `Is the effort to be a great scientist worth it?''
- I think it is very definitely worth the struggle to try and do first-class work because the truth is, the value is in the struggle more than it is in the result. The struggle to make something of yourself seems to be worthwhile in itself. The success and fame are sort of dividends, in my opinion.
- Why do so many of the people who have great promise, fail?
  
  Well, one of the reasons is drive and commitment.
- And, he never went any further. He had his personality defect of wanting total control and was not willing to recognize that you need the support of the system.
- It has a lot, if you learn how to use it. It takes patience, but you can learn how to use the system pretty well, and you can learn how to get around it.
- If you want to do something, don't ask, do it. Present him with an accomplished fact. Don't give him a chance to tell you `No'.
- I didn't say you should conform; I said ``The appearance of conforming gets you a long way.'' If you chose to assert your ego in any number of ways, ``I am going to do it my way,'' you pay a small steady price throughout the whole of your professional career. And this, over a whole lifetime, adds up to an enormous amount of needless trouble.
- By realizing you have to use the system and studying how to get the system to do your work, you learn how to adapt the system to your desires. Or you can fight it steadily, as a small undeclared war, for the whole of your life.
- Which do you want to be? The person who changes the system or the person who does first-class science?
- you cannot be original in one area without having originality in others. Originality is being different. You can't be an original scientist without having some other original characteristics.
- how, given the situation, by changing the way I looked at it, I converted what was apparently a defect to an asset.
- I think you need to learn to use yourself. I think you need to know how to convert a situation from one view to another which would increase the chance of success.
- Now self-delusion in humans is very, very common.
- Don't try and kid yourself. You can tell other people all the alibis you want. I don't mind. But to yourself try to be honest.
- If you really want to be a first-class scientist you need to know yourself, your weaknesses, your strengths, and your bad faults, like my egotism. How can you convert a fault to an asset? How can you convert a situation where you haven't got enough manpower to move into a direction when that's exactly what you need to do?
- In summary, I claim that some of the reasons why so many people who have greatness within their grasp don't succeed are: they don't work on important problems, they don't become emotionally involved, they don't try and change what is difficult to some other situation which is easily done but is still important, and they keep giving themselves alibis why they don't. They keep saying that it is a matter of luck.
- When you talk to other people, you want to get rid of those sound absorbers who are nice people but merely say, ``Oh yes,'' and to find those who will stimulate you right back.
- If you read all the time what other people have done you will think the way they thought. If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what a lot of creative people do - get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you've thought the problem through carefully how you would do it, how you could slightly change the problem to be the correct one.
- I said true greatness is when your name is like ampere, watt, and fourier - when it's spelled with a lower case letter.
- I believe that books which try to digest, coordinate, get rid of the duplication, get rid of the less fruitful methods and present the underlying ideas clearly of what we know now, will be the things the future generations will value.
- books which leave out what's not essential are more important than books which tell you everything because you don't want to know everything.
- Somewhere around every seven years make a significant, if not complete, shift in your field.
- You have to change. You get tired after a while; you use up your originality in one field. You need to get something nearby.
- When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-handedly, then you should pursue it.
- The day your vision, what you think needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you have to move toward management.
- I tried to go with people who had great ability so I could learn from them and who would expect great results out of me.

04 Apr 07

Consumer Reports WebWatch: The leader in investigative reporting on credibility and trust online

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activism advertising consumer credibility identity privacy report research

03 Apr 07

20 must-have firefox extensions - at Lifehacker, the Productivity and Software Guide

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diigo extensions eyalnow-comment firefox lifehack research scrapbook tools

01 Apr 07

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human | the Daily Mail

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biotech genetic-engineering genetics research stem-cell

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human

By CLAUDIA JOSEPH - More by this author »
Last updated at 15:53pm on 27th March 2007
Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.
1 more annotations...
- But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.
  
  Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."
  
  Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: "Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all."

31 Mar 07

How to Read a Scientific Research Paper--

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education howto research tips

How to Read a Scientific Research
Paper--

a four-step guide
1. Skimming. Skim the paper quickly, noting basics like headings,
figures and the like. This takes just a few minutes. You're not trying
to understand it yet, but just to get an overview.
6 more annotations...
- 2. Vocabulary. Go through the paper word by word and line by
  line, underlining or highlighting every word and phrase you don't
  understand. Don't worry if there are a lot of underlinings; you're still
  not trying to make sense of the article.
- Look up simple words and phrases.
- Get an understanding from the context in which it is used.
- Flag this phrase as belonging to one of the major concepts of the paper--it's
  bigger than a vocabulary question. For example, a paper about diet and
  cancer might refer to "risk reduction," which you would need to understand
  in context and in some depth.
- 3. Comprehension, section by section. Try to deal with all the words
  and phrases,
- In the Introduction, note how the context is set. What larger
  question is this a part of? The author should summarize and comment on
  previous research, and you should distinguish between previous research
  and the actual current study. What is the hypothesis of the paper and the
  ways this will be tested?

27 Mar 07

A great list of social bookmarking sites (with pagerank) at 3spots blog

20 Mar 07

Seth's Blog: The next free ebook (Squidoo!)

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advertising business expert marketing research seth-godin

Searching online should really be called poking online. Because that’s what you do. You poke around. You poke in
Google or at Yahoo! and you poke at some ads. You’re not ready to take action, but you are willing to spend a few
minutes poking.
- eyalnow on 2007-03-20
The first version of the Web—the clue machine—continues to get better and faster and more complete. The
first version of the Web is, in essence, a miracle, something few people could have predicted even ten years ago.
But the first version of the Web is still focused on poking. It always will be. It delivers matches, but it doesn’t deliver
meaning.
- eyalnow on 2007-03-20
The first is that people like to listen. They like to listen to people they agree with and to people they trust. They
go online to hear what others have to say. You do this every day. So do I.
And the second is that people like to talk. This, of course, is no surprise to you, but it appears to have stumped the
first generation of media conglomerates that have tried to control the conversation online.
People like to talk about what’s on their minds. People like to talk about the products they use. They like to talk
about the music on their iPods and the hotel they loved in Paris. They like to talk about celebrities and calamities
and science and math and even brands of sneakers. It’s not trivia if it means something to you.
- eyalnow on 2007-03-20
Sometimes we need a starting point, not a movie. We need a nowblog.
TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW.
Point me in the right direction.
Put all the clues on the table at once. Tell me at a glance whether I can trust you and
how I can discover the meaning I seek.
That’s what most Web surfers want. That’s what everyone often wants.
And that’s been missing from the Web.
We need a nowblog. A place where a stranger can go to get insight and meaning—and then leave that site and go
somewhere else.
- eyalnow on 2007-03-20

13 Mar 07

Most Visited Web Sites according to netcraft

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Google and I.B.M. Join in ‘Cloud Computing’ Research - New York Times

Writing for the Web

YouTube - Diigo - Improving how we find, share, and save information

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

How do we know what we know ? - Edge 208

anthropologist: Anthropology.net and other Online Research Tools

Citebite - Link directly to specific quotes in web pages

Anatomy of a Webapp

Add comments to a web page and spread a little "Jump" Knowledge

What You'll Wish You'd Known

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research

Consumer Reports WebWatch: The leader in investigative reporting on credibility and trust online

20 must-have firefox extensions - at Lifehacker, the Productivity and Software Guide

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human | the Daily Mail

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human

How to Read a Scientific Research Paper--

A great list of social bookmarking sites (with pagerank) at 3spots blog

Seth's Blog: The next free ebook (Squidoo!)

Most Visited Web Sites according to netcraft

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