Category: Four pillars

A word about spam

Of late I appear to be getting over a couple of thousand spam comments a day, all ably blocked off by Akismet.

In the past, I used to go through the blocked items, just in case some legitimate comments had been suppressed. And I would find one or two a week.

Since early December, I haven’t had the time or the energy to do the blocked item check; I’ve just gone for the delete unseen.

It is possible, as a result, that I may have deleted legitimate comments. If you have been the victim of such a deletion, my apologies.

Do let me know, by writing to [email protected]. I have so far been loath to implement any other form of spam filter, especially one based on your entering Dali-clock-esque words. Your comments will help me make that call.

Setting the record straight

My musings on a post by James McGovern attracted a number of comments, and I want to set the record straight:

The only real point I wanted to make was that opensource communities are not defined by the size of their core. That there will always be a number of people more active than others. And that this is not wrong.c Openness is about equality of access and opportunity, and not measured by the actual number of participants.

I promise to return to some of the other comments later. But while I’m seeking to set the record straight, there was one other thing buzzing around my head while I was in hospital:

As a result of this interview,  a number of you commented that I seemed to separate creative people and thinkers from doers and whatever. I made no attempt to separate human beings.

The only point I wanted to make was that blogs suited thinking, wikis suited workflow and reference, and IM suited wisdom-of-crowds problem-solving. An individual is able to use all three modes of conversation.

Enough said.

You ain’t seen nothing yet

Visualisation tools are going to become more and more important over time, as we struggle with problems like “information overload”, problems that have been with us so long they’ve become cliches.

Statistics are made to lie. The lies stick because Innumeracy is rife. Despite everything that John Allen Paulos has done. And Powerpoint, usually bad Powerpoint, rules over all. What makes the innumeracy unbearable is the fact that poor visualisation techniques are then used to propagate the lies.

A sorry state of affairs? Well, that’s why I found this representation of visualisation methods uplifting.

Don’t just look at the table. Run your cursor over it. Move it from element to element. See what can be done. We need ontologies and topologies like this one to help us work out what to do. Thanks to Cory for the find.

As if I need an excuse to mention the BTO track.

It’s that time of year

It’s been an eventful year for me, what with changing jobs in March, changing firms in October, nearly moving house and then not, and finally having a heart attack a few weeks ago.

It’s been an eventful year for me, what with starting this blog in late February, and really feeling part of a small but close-knit community ever since.

It’s been an eventful year for me. I’ve learnt a lot, and you guys have been instrumental in that.
Thank you.

Have a great New Year.

More on Line Rider and on “wasting time”

Some of you were smitten by Line Rider, enough to bother to comment on my post :-)

You may find the wikipedia entry for Line Rider of some interest.

And if that doesn’t ring your bell, maybe this video will…..