Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Author: admin

  • Boycott Thomson Reuters

    I use an excellent program for research, called Zotero. It helps me catalog everything I find about my research subjects into one easily accessed place. One of the best features is that it can pull the bibliographic information off a web page such as Amazon, and put it into a traditional format, such as APA or MLA. This has long been the most time-consuming part of research for me, getting all those niggly little commas, underlines, and dates, names and titles in the correct order and format. It helps tremendously. Highly recommended.

    Now, Thomson Reuters, publishers of a similar software, endnote, are suing Zotero because Zotero can read endnote’s formatted files and put them into an open standard. (Reported by Liberal Education and EdTechPost). Trying to close down research by suing a company that can read files your customers make is unconscionable.

    If you order Thomson Reuters textbooks, I urge you to switch to another brand.

  • Banned Books Week

    Lisa Gold is an accurately self described Research Maven, who help Neal Stephenson write the Baroque Trilogy, about late 17th Centery and ealry 18th Century physics, banking, and world politics. Here she points out that Banned Books Week is September 27 to October 4. Noting Sarah Palin’s propensity to block purchases to her local library, this is an especially important year for observation. Follow her links.

  • Cognizing and offloading Cognitive Load

    In linguistincs and psychology we talk about the cognitive load of any task. A task that requires calculation or analysis has a larger cognitive load. A task in a foreign language, or using an unfamiliar tool, like a computer, also increases cognitive load.

    David Peskovitz over at BoingBoing has a friend at the Institute of the Future Mathias Crawford found this article about Cognizing entitled Offloading Cognition onto Cognitive Technology by Itiel Dror, and  Stevan Harnad talks about

    “Cognizing” (e.g., thinking, understanding, and knowing) is a mental state.

    And how to offload some of the cognitive load onto technology. In our discussions over at cck08, the Connectivist class  by Siemens and Downes, echoed across the web (search your RSS for cck08), where we are talking about the nature of knowledge, and the connectivist idea that it’s most basic element is connections. Connections between neurons, between people, and between organizations and concepts. Check it out.

  • The Ellsberg Paradox

    Close-up of two bottles of marbles

    Mark Frauenfelder over at BoingBoing is reading Gregory Bern’s Iconoclast. He talks about the Ellsberg Paradox. Read his description of aversion to ambiguity.  Which one would you choose?

  • Utterly Cynical GOP

    Saw this first on Digg, where the GOP is trying to use foreclosure roles in Michigan to deny people the vote.

    How sadly, sinisterly ironic is this. Deregulate the mortgage lending industry so that the market collapses and voters get booted from their homes. Use this information to eliminate these disgruntled voters from the polling place. (posted by Knute5)