Daniel MacArthur of the Genetic Future blog at scienceblogs has broached the topic of using realtime online technologies (liveblogging, twitter, flickr, etc.) at science conference in a few posts, and updates with some information about a peer creating a set of slides and icons to indicate how information contained in a presentation can be disseminated:
A while back I pondered the possibility of creating icons for conference presenters to add to their first slide to alert bloggers/tweeters in the audience about whether the presented data was “blog-safe”. This was provoked by a recent episode illustrating general confusion among bloggers (in this case, me) and scientists about the use of social media at conferences.
Fellow Australian-turned-UK-resident-scientist Cameron Neylon has now put together a handy set of slides for presenters to label both “blog-safe” and “no-blogging” presentations. The slides have a ccZero license and so are freely available for download and modification; the original icons can be found on Cameron’s Flickr account and Christopher Ross’ website.
Coming from information science, my default assumption at conferences or talks is that presenters want their information disseminated as far as possible, and services like twitter and the practice of liveblogging seem the obvious way to go for real time info, provided quotes and data are accurately attributed at the time of publication. I’ve twittered about the last two professional conferences I’ve attended, and subsequently provided my notes on those conferences as publicly available Google Docs (see my BookCamp Toronto 2009 and Internet Librarian 2009 notes).
But I understand some disciplines, particularly biomedical sciences, depend on keeping their data and findings within a limited sphere of people and publications. For example, this winter I attended a talk presented as part of the Health Informatics Grand Rounds series, which is sponsored by a variety of health science departments and institutions at the University of Michigan. The talk was done by John Wilbanks, Creative Commons VP and Science Commons ED, and was about mechanisms for sharing and storing data sets online, and how such mechanisms would affect how researchers think about what information belongs to them, how they collaborate with colleagues, etc. Sharing research data is a no-brainer for me, but I’m also not trying to beat my competitors to the cure for cancer, or secure research funding for the special thing that only my lab (at least I think it’s only my lab) does.
Developing a set of symbols, or a written statement, that tells viewers what can and can’t be discussed outside the original presentation forum is, I think, a step in the right direction, and will get people talking about the issue. But, for better or worse, I think we’re moving closer and closer toward a world where people assume that information they see and that they find important can and should be further disseminated.
What do you think?
The root of the big bang, the basis of all we know, has been called the God particle.
There is a project that is attempting to recreate the conditions of the big bang. It’s called the Large Hadron Collider.
There is a show on the BBC called Horizon that does a full show on it and the amazing telescopes that have helped us see billions of years into our past.
You should watch it.
Thanks to transiit and National Geographic, it has come to my attention that platypuses are even awesomer than I already thought.
From the article:
…remains of what was believed to be a distant forebear of both the platypus and the echidna—the fossil species Teinolophos—actually belong to an early platypus, according to scientists who performed an x-ray analysis of a Teinolophos jawbone.
The finding means the two animals must have separated sometime earlier than the age of the fossil—at least 112 million years ago.
Platypuses survived what dinosaurs didn’t. Booyah.
Another dose of “Quick! Give me an idea!”
Is a simulation anything more than scientific fantasy?
In the 1990s, when everything was “cyber” and “virtual,” I remember being distinctly unimpressed by “virtual reality” and flight simulators and the like. This was largely because I spent a good deal of my time reading, and what I made up was always more interesting than anything that was being shown to me on a computer or TV screen. I like video games (I have a special place in my geek heart for Myst) but have never minded them not looking real.
I am not alone. Any research into the Uncanny Valley will tell you that people have a visceral reaction to things that look really really real, but don’t quite make it. The closer to real things get, the more skeeved out we get. Little round dancing robots are awesome, but get an android-like automaton and you just feel…weird. Supposedly once robots and other non-human entities cross that valley into the indistinguishable-from-people realm, the weird feeling goes away, and we like them again. Not really provable yet, since we’re just starting to create machines that approach the other side of the Valley.
We don’t mind cyborgs, or prosthetics. (Small children tend to stare at people with obvious prosthetics, but that’s not so hard to understand.) Cyborgs are awesome, and those cheetah-like running legs are almost more awesome. And, arguably, cyborg-esque. But my point is, perfect simulation is still a scientific fantasy. Until our computers and homes and workplaces are run by nanobots working like cells and molecules at incredible speeds, reproducing themselves and hivelike yet mimicking a type of intelligence we can’t separate from our own, simulation has a ways to go. That said, wouldn’t even robot or a world built to behave like ours still be a simulation?
I wonder if that shiver you get in the Uncanny Valley is a biological reaction to otherness, or your brain’s way of saying, “This is weird. I’m not fooled, but what is it that keeps me from being fooled?”
Other food for thought from this round:
Original pre-move comment from britta:
The way I understand the Uncanny Valley is that it’s part of our general pattern-matching ability to tell when something is “wrong” with another person – a mentally or physically sick person has something “off” about them that we can detect pretty quickly. This is useful, so it’s a trait that we’ve evolved with. I’m not sure if this is the accepted theory or something I just read somewhere, though.
Anyway, once we’ve made simulation too good, we’ll get all sorts of horrible existential problems about what is real and what isn’t (if we haven’t already). Yay Baudrillard!
I know it’s been a while, and I’ve been doing non-bloggy things, such as making silly videos for the ORG, but I wanted to bring this important news to your attention.
Several years ago I read a book wherein scientists speculated about what earth would be like after humans become extinct. The major question: What species will become dominant over land and sea? The answer: Squid.
The AP reports that jumbo (not to be confused with “giant”) squid are taking over in California. They “can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds” and might disrupt the local ecosystem as they compete with other animals at the top of that particular food chain.
The expert interviewed for the article is named Louis Zeidberg. “Zeidberg” is only one letter different than “Zoidberg.” I think the crustaceans are colluding with the squid.
Update: Nature has this awesome video.
