Blog de Voyage en Amérique du Sud

Posted: July 7th, 2003 | No Comments »

Mon ex-collocataire, mais toujours cousin et ami Mathieu tient un blog pendant son projet Le Chemin de l’équité en Amérique du Sud.

Urbanismo en Oviedo

Posted: July 7th, 2003 | No Comments »

The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive?

Posted: July 7th, 2003 | No Comments »

I stubbled on an article in the NY Times on addiction to information. Here are the parts I found most informative. So how much is too much!? And is multitasking counterproductive!? Based on this article, I must admit that it makes me consider taking more Internet-free weekends:

  • “It’s hard to concentrate on one thing,” he said, adding: “I think I have a condition.”
  • For all the efficiency gains that it seemingly provides, the constant stream of data can interrupt not just dinner and family time, but also meetings and creative time, and it can prove very tough to turn off.
  • Others may be sitting at a desk and engaging in conversation on two phones, one at each ear. At social events, or in the grandstand at their children’s soccer games, they read news feeds on mobile devices instead of chatting with actual human beings.
  • they are compulsively drawn to the constant stimulation provided by incoming data. Call it O.C.D. – online compulsive disorder.
  • Dr. Hallowell and John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard and a psychiatrist with an expertise in attention deficit disorder, are among a growing number of physicians and sociologists who are assessing how technology affects attention span, creativity and focus. Though many people regard multitasking as a social annoyance, these two and others are asking whether it is counterproductive, and even addicting.
  • The pair have their own term for this condition: pseudo-attention deficit disorder. Its sufferers do not have actual A.D.D., but, influenced by technology and the pace of modern life, have developed shorter attention spans.
  • According to research compiled by David E. Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, multitaskers actually hinder their productivity by trying to accomplish two things at once. Mr. Meyer has found that people who switch back and forth between two tasks, like exchanging e-mail and writing a report, may spend 50 percent more time on those tasks than if they work on them separately, completing one before starting the other.
  • Bucking the recent tradition at trade shows and technology conferences, the organizers decided not to provide wireless Internet access inside the conference.
  • The technology gives him a way to direct his excess energy. “It is a kind of Ritalin,” he said, referring to the drug commonly taken by people with attention deficit disorder.

    • Oviedo Last Night

    Posted: July 6th, 2003 | 1 Comment »

    Cell phone pictures of Oviedo last night:

    Back to Pratical Technology?

    Posted: July 4th, 2003 | No Comments »

    Some sinks at the EPFL seem to have been downgraded to new-old-style warm-watter-less sinks (from my trip in Lausanne last week). Are our elite researchers back to pratical technology?

    El Espanol en el Mundo

    Posted: July 3rd, 2003 | 3 Comments »

    Dans le cadre de mes cours d’espagnol à l‘Universidad de Oviedo (Asturias, Espana), je suis allé à une conférence donnée par le directeur du département de Filologia Espanola, José Antonio Martínez García. Même si mon niveau d’espagnol est rudimentaire j’ai tout de même pu comprendre certains points sur l’état de la langue espagnole dans le monde:
    Read the rest of this entry »

    Thoughts on Portals and Blogs

    Posted: June 26th, 2003 | No Comments »

    Here I a few thoughts gathered while discussing portals and blogs on TecfaSEED:

    Idea of a blog/portal publishing tool:
    - The ultimate goal of “Tell a portal” could be described as “Write once, publish everywhere”. Meaning a contribution (article) written on a [we-]blog/portal can be published in another [we-]blog/portal. The owner keeping full ownership of his contribution (keep the article on his personal blog or simply on his PC/PDA, …).
    - It is based on the idea the we live in individualistic societies where people want to be noticed (if not rewarded) and want to be able to keep ownership of their contributions (e.g. to keep as centralized personal knowledge base).
    - Use of trackbacks to follow discussion on multiple sites
    - In some ways, freelance journalists and editorialists already work in such way (write an editorial which is published in several papers).
    - one-does-it-all portal application need to be nuked and be replaced by distributed portals :) i.e. a portal should only be a thin layer/proxy which aggregates content and tools.
    - I believe that a portal like TecfaSEED needs more personal contribution/thoughts and not only “hey I have seen this and go test it yourself” kind of post. Personal contributions are found in weblogs.
    - Use of a cache to store distributed content

    Drawbacks
    - Editing needs to be synchronized across multiple sites
    - Might be harder to build communities if contributors do not even dare connecting to portals

    Portal and blog contributors/communities:
    - I believe people writing in portals do it mainly when they become community leaders and start to “own” the virtual place. From that point of view I do not think they are less egomaniac and more sharing-oriented than personal bloggers. People do not heavy contribute outside of their sphere of ownership. Nico did not agree with that statement and replied “check slashdot.org and count the number of “anonymous coward” who posts comments !!!!”

    Reasons tro write in my blog first (and then maybe post somewhere else):
    - full ownership of my contribution (my writings won”t disappear when a third person decides so… what happens if the TecfaSEED community dies and the activity is stopped on the portal)
    - some sort of personal knowledge management (caterorized, sortable, searchable)
    - centralized way to keep track of my thoughts
    - self-creation of my own community (links, blogroll, trackbacks)
    - a proof of some of my knowledge/contributions to a future employer

    My own terms to describe both communities:
    Blog: self-centered, evolving (based on bursts) individual-centered
    Portal: “anchored”, topic-centered

    An paper on the evolution of the Blogspace: “On the Bursty Evolution of Blogspace“

    Social Scaffolding in Online Communities

    Posted: June 23rd, 2003 | No Comments »

    The 9 design strategies for community building mentionned in Community Building by Amy Jo Kim:

  • Define and articulate your purpose: communities come to life when they fulfill an ongoing need in people’s lives
  • Build flexible, extensible gathering places: once you’ve defined your purpose, you’ll want to build a flexible, small-scale infrstructure of gathering places, which you and your members will work together to evolve
  • Create meaningful and evolving member profiles: you can get to know your members, and help them get to know each other (developping member’s profiles to build trust and foster relationships)
  • Design a rage of roles: provide guidance to newcomers while offering leadership, ownership opportunities to more experienced members
  • Develop a strong leadership program: communitiy leaders greet visitors, encourage newbies, teach classes, answer questions, and deal with trouble makers
  • Encourage appropriate etiquette: it is crucial to develop some groundrules for participation
  • Promote cycle events: to develop a loyal following and foster deeper relationships among your members, you’ll want to establish regular online events,, and help members develop and run their own events
  • Integrate the rituals of community life: by celebrating holidays, marking seasonal changes, and acknoledging personal transitions and rites of passage, you’ll be laying the foundation for a true online culture
  • Faciliate member-run subgroups: if you grow a large-scale community you’ll want to provide technologies to help your members create and run sub-groups

    • Vivian pointed me to another book worth reading on the subject of online communities: “Design for Community” by Derek M. Powazek.

    No Fabien, No Comment

    Posted: June 23rd, 2003 | No Comments »

    I stubbled on the The Advertising Slogan Generator. If I ever want to brand myself, it came out with “No Fabien, No Comment”, “My Anti-Drug is Fabien” or “Schhh… You Know Fabien”

    Züri Badi

    Posted: June 22nd, 2003 | No Comments »

    Weekend in Zürich. We took some time to enjoy the different “Bäder” the little big city has to offer including along the Limmat river the Oberer Letten (excellent for an evening social drink) and the Unterer Letten, on the lake shores the Tiffenbrünnen. Still to be discovered the Rimini Bar and the Seebad Enge. More infos on badi-info.ch.


    Unterer Letten, Oberer Letten by night
    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »