Research
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Aerial map mashing
Thanks to Jeff Warren (also here) of GrassRootsMapping and Public Laboratory, I now know — and am highly turned on by — the possibilities of mapping in the wild. That is, mapping by the 99.xxx+% of us who are not in the mapping business, and are in the best multiple positions to map the world(s)… Continue reading
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Broadband vs. Internet
By design, the Internet supports everything you can do with it. As deployed, it is no more capable than the infrastructures that carry it. Here in the U.S. most of the infrastructures that carry the Internet are owned by telephone and cable companies. Those companies are not only in a position to limit use of the… Continue reading
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Circular quoting
So I’m writing about financialization. Kevin Phillips‘ prophetic book on the subject, Bad Money, is open on my desk. (He published it in early 2007, in advance of The Crash.) But it doesn’t contain the definitional quote that I need. So I turn to Wikipedia. There, in the Financialization entry, we are treated to this… Continue reading
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Why not link to sources?
A few minutes ago I saw Stephen Hawking trending on Twitter, clicked on the link, and found myself on the Twitter Search page, where the two top tweets from news organizations were these: HuffPo’s link goes to a brief story with no links to any sources. I see there’s a tiny AP symbol next to the… Continue reading
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Dorothy Parker quote question
So I’d like to find authoritative sources for two Dorothy Parker quotes. Here’s the first: “I prefer the company of younger men. Their stories are shorter.” No idea where I got that one. It’s too right not to be real, but I can’t a source yet. (That’s a job I’m giving ya’ll.) The second quote… Continue reading
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Geography forever
When I was walking to school in the second grade, I found myself behind a group of older kids, arguing about what subjects they hated most. The consensus was geography. At the time I didn’t know what geography was, but I became determined to find out. When I did, two things happened. First, I realized… Continue reading
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Curing High School
So I’m in the midst of my first encounter with PeerIndex, which I found through this Petervan’s Blog post. I’d been pointed to PeerIndex before, and to other services like it, and have always found them aversive. But this time the lead came from a friend and business associate, so I thought I’d check it out.… Continue reading
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Some context on privacy
Searches: privacy: 1,390,000,000 privacy+policy: 3,400,000,000 results “privacy policy”: 837,000,000 results So if you’re looking for something about privacy that’s not a site with a privacy policy, you’re also looking at a high haystack/needle ratio. Just saying. Not sure what else that data says, such as it is. But it’s interesting. Continue reading
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What does cognitive science say about privacy and the Net?
Here’s what one dictionary says: World English Dictionary privacy (ˈpraɪvəsɪ, ˈprɪvəsɪ) — n 1. the condition of being private or withdrawn; seclusion 2. the condition of being secret; secrecy 3. philosophy the condition of being necessarily restricted to a single person Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition 2009 © William Collins Sons… Continue reading
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Name that car
The Kid has been scanning archival family photos and I’ve been uploading them to Flickr (where I have now passed 39,000 shots in that one site alone). Many of these photos are well over a hundred years old. Most are about eighty years old, give or take a decade or two. They’re from the collection… Continue reading
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I was saying…
Two new and worthy posts over at the ProjectVRM blog: Awake at the Wheels and VRM as Agency. Featured are Zeo and MyDex. Continue reading
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Research assignments
I’m looking for two things here. First is the percentage of advertising devoted to “branding.” I’ve read 90% somewhere, but I need more than hearsay or partial recall. In fact, I’m in the market for any hard numbers on the subject of advertising. This is for a book I’m writing, and my sources need to… Continue reading
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The World Live Library
My great uncle Jack Dwyer worked in the shipping and steamship business through the first half of the last century. He also took a lot of pictures, including my favorite family photo of all time. (I’m the kid with the beer.) I was going through a bunch of these on Flickr yesterday, when I noticed… Continue reading
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Some research questions
Here’s some what I’m looking for right now. Any help is welcome. Topic 1: Advertising Size of the advertising industry, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Sums of advertising of various types to which individuals are exposed every day. Breakouts and growth rates of advertising sectors. Online and mobile especially. Weaknesses and/or declines in advertising… Continue reading