Tim Bernhards-Lee, inventor of the internet at CERN in 1989 has been sharing his vision of how it could help the world in the future. He hopes to do this through the launch of http://www.webfoundation.org/. Reading the website, I am a bit bemused as to what the aim of the organisation is, as are a number of commenters on Molly E. Holzschlag's blog.
The hot air about the LHC at CERN gave Tim the perfect example to tell us that "The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science" as described in a BBC article by Pallab Gosh. From Steven Clark's post I think I'm right in saying that Bernhards-Lee proposes making the web searchable by correctness rather than relevance. The plan might work, unfortunately the Web Foundation site doesn't get the message across effectively.
I think that Bernhard Lee's mistake is to think of those talking about science as being different to those talking about any other product or event. Bit of a mouthful I know, but I would prefer if he said:
"Science is fun, and it's great when people talk about it. It is the responsibility of the scientist to make their work so easy to understand and remarkable that the space of malicious rumours is reduced. When rumours do occur the scientist can reach out and educate the community, speaking a language they understand"
Would it not be great if the creators of this viral video got a guided tour of the CERN facility for their troubles?
No doubt there is some room for an internet policeman, but if NASA can win the marketing war, there is no reason why MMR vaccines, particle accelerators or NGOs can't. Some of the large funds for this project could be diverted into philanthropic marketing projects perhaps.
You can follow the Web Foundation on twitter @webfoundation
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Saturday 13 September 2008
Review of Ben Elton's Blind Faith - Social Media has yet to convince everyone!!
Whilst it is true that as I read it I was reminded of Nineteen Eighty Four by the totalitarian nature of the public rule; It's a completely different style of novel with a completely different message. Privacy is illegal, everyone shares everything, people are constantly watched big brother style in their own homes and group hugs are compulsory. Silence is an expensive commodity. Read this book, laugh at it, then go and watch tv or speak to a teenager or work in a certain office I may or may not work in and be very, very scared.
This is 1984 for the MySpace generation. Ben Elton is a shadow of himself.If we want pontification, we can plug into Gordon Brown. Is it a reworking of 1984? Is it an allegory of our CCTV society? Is it a swipe at fundamentalism? To be honest I do not know
With thanks to
M. Stapleton "Mel Stapleton" Queenie91 "Queenie" Helenbookworm M. van Beek "Noldor" M. D. Colebourne "Blackblade" Careless Heart Roger Boyle
Ms. K. Phillips can have the final word
Sorry for writing a review Ben, Amazon likes us to "share"
Of course all these reviews are from Amazon.co.uk (I got lazy on this entry)
Hot air about the LHC at CERN - the hot circular lack of air
As the dust (that would be there if the CERN place wasn't really clean) settles on the bing bang story I would like to ask: Will they be able to generate this level of conversation when the high energy experiments kick off next year?
In the case of space missions, launches have become commonplace and no longer remarkable. From that moment on though, we have a definite time of arrival to look forward to. NASA also uses analogy well and underplays expectations. For example: even though previous missions had "found good evidence" of water on Mars, the lastest probe "touched" it. Most of the probes "last longer than expected"as well. I particularly enjoyed a workshop I went to at last year Piers Sellers (Britain's current Astronaut). Those guys are certainly half decent science communicators.
In the case of the LHC at CERN, the beauty of the engineering is now old news. Next spring there will probably be some new strangeness numbers for bosons. It will be interesting to see how the CERN marketing guys spread the word. As we tire of being told that the world might end, maybe they'll have to resort to calling particles mythical.
In the case of space missions, launches have become commonplace and no longer remarkable. From that moment on though, we have a definite time of arrival to look forward to. NASA also uses analogy well and underplays expectations. For example: even though previous missions had "found good evidence" of water on Mars, the lastest probe "touched" it. Most of the probes "last longer than expected"as well. I particularly enjoyed a workshop I went to at last year Piers Sellers (Britain's current Astronaut). Those guys are certainly half decent science communicators.
In the case of the LHC at CERN, the beauty of the engineering is now old news. Next spring there will probably be some new strangeness numbers for bosons. It will be interesting to see how the CERN marketing guys spread the word. As we tire of being told that the world might end, maybe they'll have to resort to calling particles mythical.
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Hero Square
Originally uploaded by StretAndy
I started playing with my camera by putting it on the ground in the shadow of things. One day I will actually buy a lens that I can use a filter on... until that day my ccd detector can just take a hit.
Sunday 7 September 2008
Labyrinth in Buda
We didn't really consider the fact that all three of us are mildly afraid of the dark. The trouble is you must first find the beam of light in complete darkness without banging into the stone walls. There even was this fountain of wine, which I thought, smelled awful. It looked more like blood flowing from the tap. We spend like 1 hour there and we lost like 3 times.
With thanks respectively to Emily Kahn of http://gelatoandwine.blogspot.com Megan Meadows of http://worldramblers.com/, the author of http://www.linguist-in-waiting.com/ and whitewolf22 of http://whitewolf22.livejournal.com/
Towards the end of the "tour," we got to a series of rooms called the "other world."
Particular thanks to Heidirific of http://heidirific37.blogspot.com, this was my favourite part too. See, the descriptions of the rooms were written in a future perspective looking back on the world today. The world was occupied by homoconsumerists and they led a strange life indeed.
John, Evan, and Marshall from http://twelvecountries.blogspot.com perhaps had an opposing view
You get to the first fossil, which has a footprint. You read the plaque - it says "footprint, circa 42 million years ago." You look at the footprint again... and see a nike swoosh. Seriously. This is Hungarian humor at its finest.
Reading all the plaques however I came to realise that this was genuinely a respectable piece of satirical art. The people designing it had perhaps been influenced by the endgame sequence in Sid Meier's Civilization. "There were no traces of culture, art or religion" Perhaps it's possible that a section of our society could consume and de-evolve itself to extinction. I will explore these ideas further in my forthcoming review of Ben Elton's novel Blind Faith.
With thanks respectively to Emily Kahn of http://gelatoandwine.blogspot.com Megan Meadows of http://worldramblers.com/, the author of http://www.linguist-in-waiting.com/ and whitewolf22 of http://whitewolf22.livejournal.com/
Towards the end of the "tour," we got to a series of rooms called the "other world."
Particular thanks to Heidirific of http://heidirific37.blogspot.com, this was my favourite part too. See, the descriptions of the rooms were written in a future perspective looking back on the world today. The world was occupied by homoconsumerists and they led a strange life indeed.
John, Evan, and Marshall from http://twelvecountries.blogspot.com perhaps had an opposing view
You get to the first fossil, which has a footprint. You read the plaque - it says "footprint, circa 42 million years ago." You look at the footprint again... and see a nike swoosh. Seriously. This is Hungarian humor at its finest.
Reading all the plaques however I came to realise that this was genuinely a respectable piece of satirical art. The people designing it had perhaps been influenced by the endgame sequence in Sid Meier's Civilization. "There were no traces of culture, art or religion" Perhaps it's possible that a section of our society could consume and de-evolve itself to extinction. I will explore these ideas further in my forthcoming review of Ben Elton's novel Blind Faith.
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