] Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for
] scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers,
] theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports
] from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to
] find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers,
] professional societies, preprint repositories and
] universities, as well as scholarly articles available
] across the web.

Excellent!

Google Scholar

] The design gap between computer-as-box and
] computer-as-door persists because of a diminished
] conception of the user. The user of a piece of social
] software is not just a collection of individuals, but a
] group. Individual users take on roles that only make
] sense in groups: leader, follower, peacemaker, process
] nazi, and so on. There are also behaviors that can only
] occur in groups, from consensus building to social
] climbing. And yet, despite these obvious differences
] between personal and social behaviors, we have very
] little design practice that treats the group as an entity
] to be designed for.
]
]
] There is enormous value to be gotten in closing that gap,
] and it doesn't require complicated new tools. It just
] requires new ways of looking at old problems. Indeed,
] much of the most important work in social software has
] been technically simple but socially complex.

[ Worth a read... ]

This also adds ammunition to the design of one of my future works, collaborative desktops -- graphical wikis, kind of. Imagine your desktop as a virtual desktop, your various friends a spacial scroll away -- look at what they are doing right now, what their environment looks like, place things in their attention, onto their desktop...

[ ... that's very intriguing. I like the concept of maintaining a public space naturally... and having the ability to metaphorically step into a buddies office and hash something out. -k]

Shirky: Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software

According to British web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like web pages.

"I don't think Hollywood is willing to let it slide, but whether they're able to (stop it) is another matter," Bram Cohen, the programmer who created BitTorrent, told Reuters.

!!!

File-Sharing Thrives Under Radar

] Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to easily
] get precise answers to specialized queries from your
] mobile phone or device. Send your query as a text message
] and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions,
] product prices and more. Just text. No links. No web
] pages. Simply the answers you're looking to find.

This works great. I'm gunna end up paying for cheaper SMS service with this.

Google SMS

] MOJAVE, Calif. Sept. 29, 2004 %u2014 After recovering
] from a wild corkscrew roll on its ascent, the first
] private manned rocket soared to space and returned safely
] to Earth on Wednesday in a bid to earn a $10 million
] prize.
]
] SpaceShipOne, with astronaut Michael Melvill at the
] controls, climbed to an unofficial altitude of more than
] 330,000 feet, about 2,000 feet above its target altitude
] of 62 miles.

ABCNEWS.com : Private Rocket Unofficially Reaches Space

] Welcome to TiddlyWiki, an experimental MicroContent
] WikiWikiWeb built by JeremyRuston. It's written in HTML
] and JavaScript to run on any browser without needing any
] ServerSide logic. It allows anyone to create
] SelfContained hypertext documents that can be posted to
] any web server, or sent by email. If you like it, do
] please EmailMe and let me know. If you're interested in
] FuturePlans for TiddlyWiki, keep an eye on this site.

This is very cool.

[ Yeah it is. -k]

TiddlyWiki - a reusable non-linear personal web notebook

] And when the devices, which can cost less than a music
] CD, are not being used to store or retrieve data, they
] often dangle from key chains and backpacks - or even from
] the necks of users - as if pendants signifying a cult of
] convenient computing.

I'm having a hard time with this. I want one. I'm not sure why. Basically, its a techno toy. I don't know what I would do with it, but its cheap, so who cares? Put it on my key ring... maybe it comes in handy some day.

Trouble is that everytime I think I might have a use for one, scp comes to the rescue. I can move whatever I want to the Memestreams webserver and grab it later. So what's the point? Why can't everyone use one of those web file storage services?

But a fashion statement? What does it say? I'm enough of a computer geek to want to wear a computer peripheral around my neck, but I'm not enough of a computer geek to have figured out how to use the internet for this instead?

[ I have one. I use it as sort of a backup and persistent copy of things i might want handy without futzing with the computer. My resume, current project notes, desktop backgrounds, encrypted copy of my passwords, etc. It's also helpful for programs or utilities that you can't deal without but other people might not have. Putty, for example, and WinSCP. And yes, when the office IT staff is so draconian that you can't get shit across the network, or when they won't allow non-company equipment on the network, so there's no other way, the usb key is the answer.

I can't speak for it's chic appeal. I don't use the lanyard, and unless i was using the damn thing constantly, wouldn't ever. But I understand the technology fetishism enough not to be bothered by it. The next step is the Hello Kitty USB flash drive, or the GI Joe one, in camo. Anyway, my "keychain" is an aluminum ring that used to separate hard disk platters, so, who'm i to talk anyway. -k]

The New York Times - From Storage, a New Fashion

As many of you know, modern color copiers/Photoshop detect currency and refuse to scan/open such images. There has been some work in reverse-engineering what algorithms are used to determine what is currency. I am very much interested in expanding this work towards the end of creating false positives. [Think like a T-shirt that when worn would make you difficult to photograph, or artists discreetly embedding such watermarks inside photos that they dont want photoshopp'ed, etc.]

Consider this a call for any comments/knowledge relating to this issue.

Also see: http://www.wildspark.com/eurionize/
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000497.html

[ Very interesting thought. I'm afraid I don't have any expertise to assist, but I'll bump this thread at least... -k]

Photoshop Currency Detection

Um, who is this guy and this method of his and WTF is he saying Voynich is solved? He got published in Cryptologia, which is something to his credit. However, to my understanding Voynich remains very very much unsolved.

[ Yeah, last i heard the prevailing wisdom was that it's pretty much a sham. -k]

WIRED: Psychologist says he cracked Voynich?

] A German who had his lower jaw cut out because of cancer
] has enjoyed his first meal in nine years %u2014 a
] bratwurst sandwich %u2014 after surgeons grew a new jaw
] bone in his back muscle and transplanted it to his mouth
] in what experts call an "ambitious" experiment.
]
] According to this week's issue of The Lancet medical
] journal, the German doctors used a mesh cage, a growth
] chemical and the patient's own bone marrow, containing
] stem cells, to create a new jaw bone that fit exactly
] into the gap left by the cancer surgery.
]
] Tests have not been done yet to verify whether the bone
] was created by the blank-slate stem cells and it is too
] early to tell whether the jaw will function normally in
] the long term. But the operation is the first published
] report of a whole bone being engineered and incubated
] inside a patient's body and transplanted.
]
] Stem cells are the master cells of the body that go on to
] become every tissue in the body. They are a hot area of
] research with scientists trying to find ways to prompt
] them to make desired tissues, and perhaps organs.

Unreal! -LB

Time for a sandwich: Doctors use man's back to make jaw