LiveJournal and Wikipedia are vying for the 2004 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Community. I see Friendster is also a nominee, so perhaps Orkut is too new.
Anyhow, it was a tough choice (and it is a tight race: 38% LJ vs. 36% Wikipedia when I voted), but my vote went to LJ. My rationale was that:
- Although I use Wikipedia a lot, I personally use LJ more.
- Wikipedia is still a growing phenomenon, witnessed by the proliferation curve of
wikipedians. - LJ serves a broader user base and has more community functions per se at the moment. If it were a contest of content (Webea aranion), Wikipedia would take it hands down.
It's a reading day. I'm trying to get a little writing started, too.
(A read day, a pen day, ere the moon's rising! For is it not written that the pen is mightier than the sword?)
So far I've found 3 books, received 1, am reading 3 others.
Found
- The Grammar of Graphics by Leland Wilkinson - I like this better than Cleveland's books, not as much as the Tufte Trilogy, but that's hard to beat
- Teaching Engineering by Philip C. Wankat and Frank S. Oreovicz - how to keep to-do lists, set priorities, handle stress; how to design a course, exams, notes; lectures, labs, advising; technology; group study and projects; student psych profiles - Jung and MTBI (!); cheating
- The Engineering Student's Survival Guide, 2nd edition by K. Donaldson - short book (204 pp.), not bad, one I'd recommend for grad school-bound engineering students
Received: OpenGL: A Primer, 2nd edition by Edward Angel
Am going to donate the first edition to the Hale Library unless someone really wants it (let me know by e-mail; I don't sell desk copies, but I will give them away if our impoverished library has no need of them).
Reading
- Probabilistic Networks and Expert Systems by Rebert G. Cowell, A. Philip Dawid, Steffen L. Lauritzen, and David J. Spiegelhalter - terrific stuff if you can get it (get as in buy and get as in wade through the math)
- Practical Genetic Algorithms by Randy L. Haupt and Sue Ellen Haupt1 - am using some stuff from this book to prepare some experiments using BNJ for my next paper
- Information Visualization by Colin Ware - eh
And my bedtime reading tonight: The Mythical Man-Month, 20th Anniversary Edition by Fred Brooks. I tell my students that every computer scientist should feel compelled to go back and reread this every 3 years, but I think my readings have been: 1991, 1993, 1999, 2004, so I'm a little off-schedule.
1 It is a testimony to my ability to be distracted that whenever I refer to this book as "Haupt and Haupt", I think of the Hassler composition O Haupt, Voll Blut und Wunden, rearranged a century and a quarter later by Johann Sebastian Bach.
More quizzage than any single sane blog entry should contain...
Seen with
chevronsha a couple of weeks ago:A retake (snarfed from
masteralida this time) last week, same results as a year ago::: how jedi are you? ::
With one toss-up answer modified:
:: how jedi are you? ::
Yoinked from
yodge this morning:| Which Medieval Language Are You?! Middle English You are so great. Also, I always talk about you. /// Kinderly is now my coming, into this world with teres and cry, litel and povere is min having, britel and sone I falle from hi. (Natural is my coming into this world with tears and crying, brittle and too soon I fall from on high.) |
| Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. |
From Yowie again...
Horrors!
| Which LOTR elf are you? Legolas Silent, cat-like and graceful. You are reliable and loyal to all your companions. |
| Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. |
Gacked form
spoothbrush this afternoon:which pleasure are you?
Finally, something I came across this evening at
vretallin's:--
Banazîr
