I’ve been somehow coworking (I just created the page in the Italian Wikipedia which was missing) the past weeks, i.e. I’ve been visiting friends in their offices for meetings and then remaining there for working: when I have an Internet connection I can do my work in any place and visiting other talented people is always a source of new inspirations and fruitful discussions and a more creative way of working and seeing your daily job from different angles and perspectives.
So this post is just to put out there a sort of placeholder: anybody interested in formalizing some coworking spaces in Trento? Anybody maybe already doing it? (Credits: photo by “hillary h” released on Flickr under Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike license)
I received the following message in Facebook: “Don’t work too hard! Is this what you do at work all day?” With a link to the first episode of the IT Crowd. So I thought I might embed episode 1 below. Enjoy!
If you don’t ROFL (Roll On Floor Laughing) watching “The IT crowd”, don’t worry, we are a subculture and it is much better for yourself if you don’t understand this kind of jokes ;)
Usually during one of the first lectures at the University, I’m used to project full screen the following image “There is no place like 127.0.0.1”
and observing students telling nothing. The class can be divided in two: students who get the joke (and usually start smiling by themselves with self-complacency, self thinking “we are in the same crowd”) and those who don’t get it. And I usually tell people who cannot get it to stay away from people who get it ;) And this also gives me an index of the nerdiness level I should keep during the lectures.
By the way, the “There is no place like 127.0.0.1” t-shirt might be a good present for me, just to let you know of course … ;)
John Resig – Genetic A/B Testing with JavaScript
Javascript, CSS and genetic algorithms: basically websites rewriting themselves depending on users accomplishing their tasks or not. Wow! And John Resig’s interest changed it into an open source project in days! Amazing!
In a previous post I reviewed the tools used by Dellai for his local political campaign and I was wondering if and how he will keep trying to involve citizens in the loop.
Of course Obama had a much larger campaign and faces now a much larger effort in order to keep the US citizens (and partly all the world inhabitants) in the loop.
I read from a post on the Complexity and Social Networks Blog the following email, sent to Obama’s e-mail list, by David Plouffe, Campaign Manager of Obama for America.
This is an amazing time, the challenges ahead of Obama are huge and I would not sleep the night being in his shoes but what he and his staff will do is going to reshape how we think about government and participation.
The emphasis on locality (your community!) in this message is really amazing!
Exactly one month ago, you made history by giving all Americans a real opportunity for change.
Now it’s time to start preparing and working for change in our communities.
On December 13th and 14th, supporters are coming together in every part of the country to reflect on what we’ve accomplished and plan the future of this movement. Your ideas and feedback will be collected and used to guide this movement in the months and years ahead. Join your friends and neighbors — sign up to host or attend a Change is Coming house meeting near you.
Since the election, the challenges we face — and our responsibility to take action — have only gotten more urgent.
You can connect with fellow supporters, make progress on the issues you care about, and help shape the future of your community and our country.
Learn what you can do now to support President-elect Obama’s agenda for change and continue to make a difference in your community.
Take the first important step by hosting or attending a Change is Coming house meeting. Sign up right now:
http://my.barackobama.com/changeiscoming
To get our country back on track, it will take all of us working together.
Barack and Joe have a clear agenda and an unprecedented opportunity for change. But they can’t do it alone. Will you join us at a house meeting and help plan the next steps for this movement?
Thanks,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
But in Italy something is moving as well! Yesterday there was a discussion in the Italian Parliament about Internet Technologies and politics.
The video embedded by David Orban in his post is very interesting so here we go with the re-embedding. It is a video from the documentary “Us Now”, a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet (tagline from site: “New technologies and a closely related culture of collaboration present radical new models of social organisation. This project brings together leading practitioners and thinkers in this field and asks them to determine the opportunity for government”)
Digg the Blog » Blog Archive » Digg Recommendation Engine Updates
– Digging activity is up significantly: the total number of Diggs increased 40% after launch.
– The Recommendation Engine is running strong: at any given point in time, the system is generating over 54 Million Recommendations, with the average Digger having nearly 200 Recommendations from an average of 34 “Diggers like you”.
– Friend activity/friends added is up 24%.
– Commenting is up 11% since launch.
Thomson Reuters Regarding Lawsuit Concerning George Mason University’s Zotero Software
The Scientific business of Thomson Reuters has initiated a law suit against George Mason University (GMU), creator of Zotero.org "Simply put, we strongly believe that the creators of Zotero have reverse engineered our software code which enables EndNote’s bibliographic formatting capability. These format files only exist as software code; there is no content or information independent of lines of code and these files can only be interpreted by the computer. A key value of EndNote is its ability to format a bibliography within a manuscript and the format files are integral to that capability. We have talented employees who have invested many years in building this resource for the EndNote community." Software patents madness. Buuu Thomson. Go Zotero, go!
The YouTube Presidency | 44 | washingtonpost.com
"This (youtube) is just one of many ways that he will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told us last night. In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.
I’ve been somehow coworking (I just created the page in the Italian Wikipedia which was missing) the past weeks, i.e. I’ve been visiting friends in their offices for meetings and then remaining there for working: when I have an Internet connection I can do my work in any place and visiting other talented people is always a source of new inspirations and fruitful discussions and a more creative way of working and seeing your daily job from different angles and perspectives.