Firefox fast release cycle is something that you start by hating but then come to love (Even more that they are now adding long term support). The latest Firefox 10 release updated the Web Developer Tools and it is now a really cool way to inspect the pages your visiting (or developing). Also, Mozilla introduced a new JS scratchpad that is great for running JS code. I imagine it to very usefull when doing online d3.js development! Yeay!
Is Twitter Evil?
You can’t service all of humanity if you allow the needs of politics to triumph over the needs of the people. And if you can’t service all of humanity, what is your relevance?
via Forbes – Twitter Commits Social Suicide
I don’t think that Twitter will fade out because, like Facebook, Twitter is too big to fail now. The problem is that these kind of measures (some might call them features) are now part of the process and not some kind of CIA tapping on the pipes. By doing automated self-censorship Twitter might be releasing a nest of wasps. That’s sad.
A simple way to improve Google Reader new Style!
Google Reader new Theme is awful in terms of usability. They are just trying to hide the way you work with it in favour of some BLING.
One thing that annoys me the most is all that empty unused features on the top bars! Solve it by your own hands you just need:
tip:
#top-bar {
display: none;
}That’s it! Reclaim what google is breaking!
bonus tip:
If you don’t like the second bar:
#viewer-header-container {
display: none;
}That kills it too!
Wikileaks Cablegates
The Cablegate is getting way out of any reasonable logic. It is becoming a soap opera. Before starting to throw yourself into one camp, please read the following links and think…
- Defend WikiLeaks or lose free speech Dan Gillmor points that the attacks on Wiileaks (that hasn’t been charged yet) are an attack on journalism itself.
- The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks The list of those acting against Wikileaks grows by the minute. All big companies are trying to fall under government grace.
- Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths Julian Assange wrote to the Australian just before being arrested in London today
- The Internet’s Voltaire Moment Simon Philipps talks about the implications of the topological changes the network is going through and why it is important that Wikileaks or The Pirate Bay exist, even if you don’t really agree with them.
- Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It’s your choice John Naugthon from the guardian takes on the hypocrisy of the politicians and really asks them: What do you want to do next?
- NewScientist:Info pirates seek an alternative internet How the structure of DNS with it’s 13 root servers is being challenged by P2P. We need more P2P in our lifes if we want freedom.
- Why WikiLeaks Matters More (And Less) than You Think Wikileaks and GDP? Yes… more correlated that you might think at first. Wikileaks is a new way to see and act in the this world.
Boilerplate: Article extraction from webpages
The amount of clutter text present at different webpages makes the task of discovering what is important a pain. At the observatorium I’ve been using a simple Tag to Text ratio to try to extract the important sections of text from webpages. The results are good, but not great, the method is fast and it works if one has in consideration that noise exists and can’t be totally eliminated.
The other day I found another technique that I think might become my de facto standard technique for text extraction from webpages as its first results are better than what I expected. The algorithm is able to detect the meaningful sections of pages with high accuracy and also has the benefit of being truly fast.
This is derived from the paper “Boilerplate Detection using Shallow Text Features” by Christian Kohlschüster et al. that was presented at WSDM 2010. and there’s a google code repository available with the Java source and binaries to download.
Redes Sociais: Facebook vs Second Life
A PC World tem um artigo sobre o Facebook e apesar da rede social até se sair bem do artigo, não posso deixar de ler com consternação que as pessoas parecem estar a transformar-se numa espécie de Zoombies. A autora fala, e bem, de que se trata de uma actividade passiva, a de passar o tempo a ver os updates dos outros em vez de interagir directamente. O facebook é uma espécie de ZoombieLand. Talvez por isso mesmo tenha tanto sucesso e talvez por aí se explique o falhanço, digo menor sucesso, do Second Life. O Second Life exige das pessoas uma participação muito mais activa para a formação da rede social. Exige actividade. Por outro lado o Zombie(Face)Book não exige tal e uma actividade passiva é ainda assim recompensada pelo voyarismo existente em cada um de nós. Talvez a melhor conclusão deste tipo de serviço seja a de que o seu próprio sucesso é conseguido transpondo a ideia da novela de TV para a internet. O utilizador não tem necessariamente que se mexer para fazer parte e se sentir integrado nessa rede social, basta estar ali, de comando na mão, a ver a menina pobre apaixonada pelo menino rico. É tão simples!
Google DNS vs. OpenDNS vs. DNS Clix. Qual é o mais rápido?
Os endereços Web são só nomes que na realidade apontam para IPs e a conversão de endereços web em IPs é feita por servidores de DNS (Domain Name Server). Este passo acrescenta latência na ligação pelo que decidi saber qual o servidor de DNS mais rápido.
A Web 3.0
Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.
É este o futuro da Internet? E por consequência também o futuro dos estudos de ciências de complexidade (no sentido do estudo de quantidades de dados monstruosas)?
A minha grande dúvida é quem vai puxar quem. Será a Web semântica a exigir novas ferramentas da ciência ou será a ciência que vai criar possibilidades para a Web? Normalmente as duas andam interligadas e esta questão é como a do Ovo e da Galinha, mas em todo o caso fica feita…