Michigan iSchool creates Social Computing Graduate Program

Now this looks really interesting:

SI MSI Degree: Social Computing Graduate Program:

Social Computing (SC) Specialization

Social computing, including online communities, social networking, and user contributed content, has been the darling of Silicon Valley for the past several years. It has also gained currency in library circles, as venues such as library Web sites incorporate blogging features and sites such as LibraryThing bring recommender technologies to personal book collections.

SI faculty have been leaders in inventing and analyzing many of the underlying techniques that have powered the rise of social computing:

  • Recommender systems
  • Reputation systems
  • Prediction markets
  • Social network analysis
  • Online communities
  • Computer-supported cooperative work

Students pursuing a specialization in Social Computing learn to analyze online social interactions, both in online communities and in more diffuse social networks. They learn about features of social computing technologies so they can recognize opportunities to put them to use in new settings and make good choices about alternative implementations.

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SXSW: Monkey Warfare's Don McKellar

The Austinist has a short, but interesting interview with Don McKellar about his new movie Monkey Warfare.

Don is a favorite writer-director-actor from Toronto. You’re a fool if you don’t watch some his work including:

  • The Red Violin: tracking a violin’s path through history with Samuel L. Jackson (but no snakes or planes), a child prodigy, a Chinese musician in the era of Cultural Revolution and a love-triangle including the violin itself.
  • Last Night: an unusual “end of the world” movie with a small role by David Cronenberg as a dedicated power company employee dealing with the destruction of the planet in the only way he knows how – by thanking all of his customers (how Canadian)
  • Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould : wonderful and insightful and you get to learn what Glenn Gould might eat for lunch.
  • Twitch City: which recently came out on DVD and captures slacker Toronto, in the Kingston Market area perfectly. Watch this now.

pre-pre-SXSWi Meetup (Thursday, March 8, 2007)

Coming to Austin for South by SouthWest? Already in Austin and looking for something to do this evening?

Well, it’s that time of year again, the annual Austin area Information Architects and UT ASIS&T chapter pre-pre-SXSWi Meetup and Happy Hour(s) tonight, Thursday March 8th. If you’re a Web geek, blogger, designer or just about anything else you’re welcome to join us.

We’ll be there tonight from 5-7 at the Cedar Door, which is at 201 Brazos Street. (Map to the Cedar Door ) Lots of Austinites will be there to happily advise out-of-towners on all things SXSWi, Austin, BBQ and so on. (Lots of Austinites will be arguing amongst themselves about SXSWi, Austin and BBQ too.)

Come on by!

http://upcoming.org/event/157945/

Mac tip for right click

If you’re using a Macintosh MacBook Pro (and other Apple notebooks I assume), you need to know this tip:

Put two fingers on your trackpad, keep them there and click the trackpad button. This emulates a “right-click” and opens the contextual menu in most applications that have one.

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Video Games at the University of Texas

Last night I got invited to an event sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin, Center for American History to explore ideas related to the academic study of video game history, development and design. The event was full of video game luminaries including Richard Garriott, Warren Spector, George Sanger and Steve Jackson among many distinguished others.

As you might imagine, getting about 50 freewheeling game designers together can be pretty entertaining but Bill Bottorff (from Austin Business Computers, Inc.) and Don Carleton (from the Center for American History) kept the event going.

One issue discussed was the preservation of video game ephemera and digital assets related to the history of the game industry. Richard Garriott (pictured below) talked about his history in video games and even brought a few items for show and tell.

Richard Garriott, and Steve Jackson in the foreground (with the Illuminati logo)

Among some of the items for show and tell are one of Garriott’s original Apple computers that he used to develop many games (he has a running one in his office to this day) and the roll of paper tape on top of the Apple is a working copy of his first game Dungeons and Dragons I.

ORIGIN Game history from Richard Garriott

George Sanger also spoke, played some recorded music and was very entertaining, if not a bit surreal.

George Sanger, dressed in some kind of General Custer outfit

George passed around some his personal keepsakes, including this test cartridge from the Son of M.U.L.E. game. (I fondly remember M.U.L.E. myself, it’s probably one of the best games I ever played.)

Son of M.U.L.E. test cartridge

It’s hoped that this is the first of many initiatives between UT Austin and the the video game community, look for more information in the future.

Can the Internet save democracy?

David Weinberger is asking an important question tonight (Feb 14th, 2007) at the Berkman Center’s Web of Ideas series:

Can the Internet Save Democracy?

Here’s his blurb:

We’ve been through a few election cycles in which the Internet played an important part. What have we learned? Beyond being a fund-raising tool, has the Internet changed anything important about elections, politics or governance? Will it? Does the connectedness of the Net promise an invigorated democracy? Or more of the same? Or a polarized electorate? David Weinberger of the Berkman Center will present a discussion opener on this topic, to be followed by an invigorating—or polarizing?—discussion.

David says: “ I’ll probably open the discussion trying to stay as far away from facts and reality as I can”, so with that in mind I’ll provide my quip:

The internet IS democracy.

The internet is an open-ended discussion, where anyone (with access) can participate on almost equal footing and the best ideas (usually) win out. (You vote with your clicks?) Sure, it’s not perfect, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill said “the internet is the worst form of government except for all the others”.

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