Concept: imaging this…

(Engels)

Studying like a hard drive?

Studying like a hard drive?

I just stumbled upon this definition:

“An image (from Latin imago) is an artifact, usually two-dimensional (a picture), that has a similar appearance to some subject, usually a physical object or a person.” (wiki)

and it triggered this analogy…

Have you ever, at an examination, had the experience of being able to reproduce complete sentences? Just recovering plain text without actually understanding what is written. I had the pleasure a couple of years ago when I had to scrutinize a bunch of articles. I was able to reproduce the key arguments by looking at the shape of the text rather then its meaning. Not the best way to acquire knowledge for long term memory, but it’s just another way to acquire and reproduce or recover information. Not that I have the luxury of photographic memory, I wish! By focusing at the shape and associating on different levels, I was able to come up with the exact answers.

This brings me to the analogy of ‘drive imaging’.

My PC has the ability to reproduce information in a similar matter. It recovers (reproduces) important data on the primary hard drive when required. It does this by copying the entire drive as an exact image, ghost or shadow. Regardless the context, hence the words in the sentence. This functionality is much faster then the ‘conventional’ method of copying (or recovering) files, folders and its directory structure. The process is the equivalent of (a)building a structure in a – ready to go – modular fashion and (b)building a structure, from the ground up, by millions of bricks.

Thus,

Recovering or coping information (text/data) by focusing on the shape of the entire object (sentence/hard drive) regardless its context (content/directory structure).

October 26, 2009 | Bas Bisseling | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

Concept: using Twitter for book summaries

(Engels)

Every university- or college student has to deal with books to build a foundation on your knowledge within a field of expertise. My learning method is no different than method other students use. This is my method; the first step is using my magic marker to highlight important text. Then I’ll collect the marked area’s and will write them down in a chronological order by using MS Word. finally, I will summarize the most important bits into a readable and coherent text. As far as I know, their is not really a practice of working together in summarizing lectures. Google Docs has the functionality, but I don’t use it often…

I think it would be interesting, as an experiment, to find out if Twitter.com would be a helpful medium to summarize text in a cooperative manner. Thus, collectively building a summary using Twitter.com.

I started of by summarizing Lawrence Lessig’s ‘Free Culture’ (creative commons licence) and putting the important bits into Twitter.com. The result is an bunch of lines (summary-bits), which are structured as followed. A line starts of with the chapter name, e.g. Introduction. It is then followed by quoted text, the author and a page number.

Screenshot of Twitter

Screenshot of Twitter

A disadvantage I immediately did come across, was the lack of ability to post a comment directly targeted at (under) a twitter post. Howe ever, that’s just not the way Twitter.com (wants to) function(s). If you leave a comment, it will – based on the time of the post – show on top. Twitter’s monologue-logic prefers time over context. Tweakers.net is totally different, but its tree-functionality works!

Tweaker and context-based comments

Tweaker and context-based comments

Another disadvantage of Twitter.com’s functionality was the inability to filter posts. As a result, users have to start reading the summary-bits backwards. Users prefer to read the summary-bits in a chronological order.By using the Twitter-API, I am able to change the summary-bits into a data set, which can be modified. In the picture below, the result of the data set is showing. Because, I’ve used a consistent ‘syntax’ within the text, filtering the data set was easy.

Using Twitters API

Using Twitters API

To conclude this little experiment. I think it’s very interesting to think about cooperative ways of writing summaries and micro-blogging. Twitter.com is not the best medium as it is. Due to the lack of direct commenting and filtering. But altering its functionality, for example using its API, will create opportunities. So, I do recommend a forum based structure, like the tweakers.net example. However, building a Twitter clone with adjustments would be the best solution for writing summaries in the future.()

September 16, 2009 | Bas Bisseling | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

Learning from hardware: Rethinking Cooperative

(Engels)

A few weeks ago, I was watching Paul Bennett, who was one of the guest speakers at the annual TED conference. He, as a creative director, was propagating new ways in thinking of problem solving and solution finding. Doing so by trying to think “out of the box”, as he said. That inspired me into writing this post: Rethinking cooperation.

When we collaborate, each of us contributes special powers (trumps) to raise the efficiency or quality of the collective effort as a well oiled chain. This type of cooperation could be problematic if a key member decides to split, because we are depending on each other’s effort. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, so this could jeopardize the collective effort. Why does, in this example and in many other projects, the collective rely on such a fragile structure? When the individuals pass on their knowledge to their colleagues, they will obviously loose their trump and become replaceable. The collective effort will, on the one hand, benefit from this, because it does not rely on the contribution of one individual anymore. But, on the other hand, the individual looses its competitive advantage and becomes replaceable. Could there not be a way for the two interests to converge?

Maybe we could find a solution, when we take a look beyond sociology into the realms of data management and push ourselves into thinking in metaphors. Hard drives can work together in several combinations (RAID-0 / -5). Each of these combinations have different aims (qualities). RAID-0 combines speed with quantity, but jeopardizes the integrity of the data. Hence, to jeopardize the collective effort when a key member splits. RAID-5, for many companies is the most reliable and fastest solution for data management. A few hard drives are ’sacrificed’ to maintain the greater good (Every member of a project has, besides its own knowledge, a little bit of knowledge of the other members). The RAID-5 solution does not work as fast as RAID-0, but is more reliable. (RAID-5 as a metaphor, could be labour intensive, but could spare a project member).

This brings me to the notion of ‘free cooperation’, which I will go into later on…

July 11, 2009 | Bas Bisseling | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »