Umpiring and Peer-Review: Why a Perfect Game Is Still a Perfect Game
When clearly observable facts are ignored and post-hoc analysis abandoned, great achievements can be undercut by injustices.
Arguing Against Links: Are They Distracting, Counterproductive, and Anti-Intellectual?
Is there a good case against linking? Or are links just an updated version of an old idea?
Academic Incentives Gone Awry: Why Junk Persists in the Scientific Literature
The system of scientific publication is broken, with rewards cynically exploited by many players while science fills with more and more garbage. How can we fix this?
Information Chasing — a New Addition to Browsing, Seeking, and Searching
The classic bins of user behavior — browse, search, and seek — may have a third and more vital aspect.
The Online Newspaper, Circa 1982
Ah, nostalgia for when technology was cool in a completely different way.
Great Microbiologists: Remember Them This Weekend
This fun Lego animation takes you through an important part of Memorial Day history — the history of how we’ve partially tamed microorganisms.
Blogs, Twitter, and YouTube: Just Amplifiers of Traditional Media, or a New Set of Filters?
Blogs, Twitter, and YouTube feast on traditional media, but they change the agenda for millions in the meantime, as a recent Pew study shows.
Blogging Software as a Disruptive Publishing Tool — Is There Anything It Can’t Do?
Blogging platforms have morphed into web site and social media platforms. But now they’re moving into areas even farther afield, like books.
Monkeys vs. Robots: The Mysteries of Identity in the Age of Facebook
Facebook continues to try to redefine identity as an addressable single element for its business model. Should we monkeys allow it?
Facebook, Diaspora, Public, Private, and the Fork in the Road
Can Diaspora restore social networking to personal control?
Get the Picture: PowerPoint, Systems Dynamics, the Military, and the New York Times
What we know is important, but how we interpret it is vital. Getting the NYTimes/PowerPoint narrative right requires a little more complex knowledge.
PowerPoint Karaoke, the SSP Annual Meeting, and Dueling Presenters: Contribute to the Chaos
A sadistic challenge has been created for two presenters at the upcoming SSP Annual Meeting. Get in touch with your Marquis de Sade of PPT, and up the ante for us.
iPad Usability: Confusing, a Prevalence of Print Metaphors, and Weird Interaction Models
Jakob Nielsen releases his first usability studies of the iPad. Bottom line? Users are not being served, interfaces are “wacky.”
Financial Times Hits the iPad: A Video Tour
A short video tour of the Financial Times’ new iPad app — and a question.
Etiquette and the Electric Friendship Generator
This film from the early days of Facebook illustrates the perils of poor etiquette with online friendship generators.