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Another revolution is about to happen.
A revolution that is many times in size and importance bigger than the music revolution. I call it the e-book revolution.
In this moment a number of technologies are coming together:
On the one side OCR technologies are reaching a level of sophistication, where it is nearly as easy to photocopy a book as to make an ebook out of it. Do you remember when you would go to a photocopy shop, and ask them to make a copy of the book. Now it is that easy to have the ebook version of it, if you know how to do it. This means that more and more books are available in ebook format.
But the difference between the ebooks now, and the mp3, back then, is that when the mp3s came out, a song (5 minutes of fun) was about 5 MB. And since the internet was slower back then, it would take quite some time to download those 5 minutes of fun. Now a book, is often between 1 and 10 Mega Byte. And it can permit you to read it, study it, but also just to consult it.
More about this later.
I thought there were few ebooks around. That mostly you could find some old classics, but nothing really interesting. I was SO wrong.
Here is a collection available for download from pirate bay with more than 1000 ebooks, all on computer science. Here another with practically all of the ebooks from the “* for dummies” collection.
Those are not just some old classics. Those are good new books.
But why are users going through the whole work of digitalizing a single book to post it online? I guess this text will explain us: Continue reading Ebooks, the next revolution. But this time is BIG!
Some of you might remember that I wrote a post about the long tail of the ruling class. The post was in Italian and got translated in English by blogger Phil Edward. I took the translation copied it in my blog (with a link), but said that I did not fully agree with Phil understanding of my post. I didn’t enter more into details. And then there was silence, and in the silence I decided it was easier to just ignore the whole discussion. But a few days ago Nicholas Carr from Rough Type wrote a post on how the long tail permits to the service the puts in touch people to make massive amount of money, but to the people who produce the actual content not much money. Absolutely true, and this is why you don’t see google advertisments in my blog. But this is a very different problem from what I was discussing when I was speaking about the long tail of the Ruling Class. Mainly because I was not speaking about the ruling class but about the ‘classe dirigente’. Which is not exactly the ruling class, although I still can’t find a better translation. Ruling class smells a bit too much of kings and queens and prime ministers. And I was actually speaking about ‘classe dirigente’ as people who have authority over a certain field.
So when Phil commented on Nick post:
I blogged on this last year, in response to Pietro Speroni:
I felt I had to answer. Because my post was all about a multidimensional space (all our interests), which gets mistreated as a unidimensional space (money). Poor chap! For a multidimensional space to be treated as a unidimensional one is fairly common, but never fair. And the general excuse is ‘to understand better’, or ‘to simplify a bit’. But I suspect that multidimensional spaces might take it personally, bacause if you treat them bad, they can become quite convoluted, if you know what I mean. Maybe I should write a long post on the importance of not making models (even mental ones) with too few dimensions. But I think I shall leave it for some time next year. And then I can say that it was long due.
In any case I decided to copy my comment to Nick post here. Continue reading Where life is and money isn’t
It is now the time to present the next project we have been working to: TagBay. And I say ‘we’, because is this project I am not alone. I did it with a friend of mine, Derek, who accepted, very patiently to code, some of the idea I have been tinkering around in the last year or so. I am speaking about how tags, and tag clouds, and distance between tags, and so on.
So, in brief we made a web site to tag material that is being sold on e-Bay. Anybody can tag any object that is being sold. Not only can any object be tagged but you can tag sellers, too (oh, we are not responsible for offensive tags, eh!).
Tags on objects can be made private or public, and you can also search among your tags, among everybody else tags, and eventually (when we code it) it will be possible to search among the tags of another user, like in del.icio.us.
Now that the summary for the people who have no time has been done, let’s try to explain the idea in the details for those who have a bit more time.
Pages:
On TagBay, right now, there are 3 type of pages: e-Bay Search Pages, TagBay Tag Search Page, TagBayUser Tag Search Page, Item Page, and Seller Page.
- Search Page: It is possible from inside Tag Bay to make searches on e-Bay on specific keywords. The user can then add tags to each object that came out, store the tags added all at once, or store the tags of a single object. The same thing can be done in the Tag Search Page
- TagBay Tag Search Page: In this page the user gets all the results for a single tag that someone have used. Nothing fancy (for now). Items where the tag only appears as a private tag will not appear here.
- TagBayUser Tag Search Page: In this page the user gets all the results for a single tag that he have used. If the user is logged in and is looking at his own tags, also the items tagged in a private way will appear.
- Item Page: Each object has its specific page. From such page any user can see what are the public tags that other users have used for that page. Also they can define their personal tags for that object, if their tags are going to be private, and the tags of the seller.
- Seller Page: And then there is the seller page, and in the seller page any user can tag any seller. The use of tag for sellers is still limited, but will be increased in the future.
The natural use of the site
- For a seller or for a shop A seller might want to use the site to tag all the objects that he is selling, giving for each object all the tags related. Thus increasing the possibility for it to be found. We suggest to list the tag in the order of importance, as soon we are going to use the order consider the importance in the search page.
Also, if a person wants to make a cool list of objects, they can tag exactly those objects, with a tag they never used, and then link to the page in their directory of this tag. Thus creating on the spot, their lists. Also sellers will want to tag their objects, and people making searches will tag objects to make lists of objects they want to follow, before jumping on a transaction. We think there is more than enough material to generate interesting behaviour. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same emergent behaviour that we are used to see. After all we are just exploring the possibilities of social folksonomy.
- A shop To the possibilities before, a shop who is selling on ebay might be interested to make sure that the shop itself (remember that you can tag sellers, and not only shops) have all the tags related to the merchandise that they are selling
- Someone buying Our suggestion for someone who wishes to buy, on e-Bay, would be to first look under the tag search, to see if there is anybody who has already tagged any object that they are interested in. This does not necessarily be someone else who is buying, but also someone who is selling. Then tag the objects they are interested themselves, to have it in their own list of objects. Then they could go to the search e-Bay page with the necessary keywords, and add the chosen tag to all the objects interesting. At that point a first selection have been made, and all the possible objects have been tagged. At this point, he could choose one or those objects, change the tags to private, and start betting on it.
- Someone suggesting And finally if someone is just trying to suggest some possible objects, he could search e-Bay for those objects, tag them with a unique tag and present the url of the list to whoever is interested.
There are many other ways to use TagBay. In a sense TagBay is a toy, and not a game. And as every good toy it can be used for many different games. We suggest here only some of them. Also TagBay itself is rapidly evolving. We have tons of stuff we are interested in including, and if you have been reading my blog, you know how my problem is always to find people to code my ideas, more than to find them. And this is why I am so happy for Derek work!
Difficulties that we found:
There were a number of issues that came out when we started developing this program.
- Public vs private tags:
Why would someone tag an object if they are interested to buy it? After all aren’t they making it easier to others to find it, by adding those tags?
This was a serious doubt that we had, and finally we decided to give the possibility to users to tag objects privately. Yet there have to be a balance between private tags and public tags, as public tags are necessary to generate the emerging folksonomy that we wish to use. So we decided for a compromise: public tags can be done from the search page, but private tags requite you to go to the specific object page. In our view (but we are ready to be proven wrong) someone would go to the search page, tag all the entries where he might be interested. Then chose one, and tag that one in a private way.
- Limitations due to the temporary nature of the objects
Considering that most object exist on ebay only for few weeks before being sold, wouldn’t this be not enough time to make a tag cloud and let all cool emergent properties that folksonomy induces, appear?
Maybe, but sellers also can tag the objects they are selling, thus giving a fresh start to all the objects. Also side by side to tagging object we are giving the possibility to tag sellers. Which eventually should survive each transaction and build up an interesting tag cloud.
- I spoke about sellers tagging their own objects, but wouldn’t this invite people to spam your site? After all, wouldn’t it be much better for a seller to add many tags to be present in many searches?
Ah ha! You think tag clouds can be spammed. This is false. Tag clouds cannot be spammed, and no one understand this. And we shall use this site to prove it. We have nothing against spammers, they are absolutely welcome in our site and spam it as much as they feel. Add all the tags they want to each object they sell. It will make ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in the search page. Tag clouds are unspammable. And our engine will use tag clouds as its base. Everybody else uses tag sets. And this makes them easily spammable. So, no we don’t fear spammers. In fact we hope that spammers will come to our TagBay site. They are just people trying to sell their stuff, we are trying to make sellers meet with buyers. Wouldn’t be bad to single out spammers just because they are spammers.
TagBay is obviously still in beta, and there are many things that need to be coded. If you have any idea on how to make it better please do not hesitate to contact me. If you want to make a difference on what the final product will be now is the time to do it. Also all new suggestion implemented should be listed in a special page with links to the original suggester home page.
The BBC is present in 43 languages. Incredible I would say. What is more incredible are the naguages that are missing, more than the languages that are present. In particular for Europe we have:
Russian, Uckrainian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Slovak, Albanian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Greek, and Turkish.
Impressive, isn’t it? And yet don’t you feel that we are missing something? I mean… what about French, German, Spanish, and Italian? Well, French is there. Just not in the European list but in the African one. As well as Portuguese and Spanish (which is called Mundo just to make things more interesting, but the url recites ‘/spanish/’) for Latin America. But there is not just a difference of language but of focus. So, for example, there are two edition in Portugese: Portuguese (focused on South America) Portugueseafrica (focused on Africa).
Still French, German, Spanish, and Italian are missing as BBC pages focused on Europe, while German and Italian are just missing, fullstop (Japanese is also missing from the Asia languages, but I am sure it is a coincidence!).
The question remains, why is it so? And I suppose that from a strictly economical point of view it makes sense for BBC to invest in opening up to nations where they will not find a big competition with local media. Also the people who would
choose BBC in those countries are generally people from a highly educated background that surf often on the Internet. In short people who have little problems in reading their news in English.
Yet it would bve so good to have this other possible source of news for media-controlled-Italy. In the meantime Euronews offers news in 7 european languages. A message that it might seem a small niche for the BBC but the request for european news in Italian, German, Spanish, and French is there.
Some of you know that I left ProtoLife. I hope in the future to keep on colaborating with the P.A.C.E. project, but for now that’s it. I want to go back to Germany, and finish my Ph.D. .
Somehow this seem to have a higher priority. Beside is getting clearer for me each day that I am hardly a ‘company’ type of person. I’d rather make research inside the university, or nowhere at all. While I was in Venice I met with the local group of Go players. Sandro, one of those made a big impression on me, being a person of great knowledge, whose only excuse was: “I don’t look at television, I read.”.
I decided that it made sense to read more… that it made sense to read ‘cum grano salis‘. With intelligence, choosing carefully what to read,
When I came back to Rome I decided that it made sense to read more. More than this, that it made sense to read ‘cum grano salis‘. With intelligence, choosing carefully what to read, and not reading any bullshit the latest friend suggested me. I remember telling a friend, “you know, I decided to stop just following my nose, on what books to read…”
His answer was quite funny: “If you don’t follow your nose, what do you follow? Other people’s nose”. And then he added: “This is actually a serious question, you might for example, find some people that you really don’t like, ask their suggestion, and then took off the book they suggest you from your reading list”. As you will see by the end of this entry, this ended up being very near the mark.
So I started asking around what where the books (or document) they felt where more important to understand the world we are living in
So I started asking around what where the books (or document) they felt where more important to understand the world we are living in. As an example I often gave where the acts of the Second Vatican Council (in particular Dignitatis Humanae). Since I am not catholic (nor even Christian), by suggesting something that was not traditionally seen as a classical text, I was implicitly suggesting: the documents that are behind the world we are living in, the documents that most people refer too, but few really read.
I did not receive many lists, but here and there someone would suggest a book or two, that I would dutifully add to my note. I then started keeping track of this list in a separate page on my blog. Since I did not publicize the page no one would read it. The list is nowhere ended, and I feel its inadeguateness knowing all the wonderful books that should be there, but I preferred to keep it small, and add new books slowly.
While I was keeping the list in the back burnere, and slowly going through some of those books, I found another list a much better one from which I am about to fatten my list. And the story of how I found it, and how it relates to my list is very funny, so let me tell it to you.
The list have it all, it’s the most complete list of texts I found that were really important to understand the world we are living in. Each of those book inspired millions of people.
A right winged newspaper: Human Events online, asked
a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th enturies.
They crossed the information between the various people and came to a list of 10 really dangerous books, and 21 ‘honorable mentions’. The list have it all, it’s the most complete list of texts I found that were really important to understand the world we are living in. Each of those book inspired millions of people. Just to understand where those people come from the book is important. Fundamental I would say. You have it all: Freud, Darwin, Gramsci, Marx, Engels, Mao, the Kinsey report (the Kinsey Report! That I wanted to read from so long). Dewey, that I have been told set the foundation for modern relativism thinking (so dear to our new pope). There is also Mein Kampf, which I am not sure if I’ll have the guts to read, but I probably should. And many others, Betty Friedan (don’t you want to understand Feminism? Read it, too), Keynes, Adorno… Is a wonderful list.
Interesting enough I was not the only one to see this as my next reading list. On the delicious page of the people who bookmarked the article the most common comment is “my next reading list”, ” A very interesting list of powerful books that have changed history.”, “some good reading”, “…some of these would make my required reading list…”, “…would make an excellent library booklist.” and so on.
Buy ‘The Kinsley report in the human male’, and help sustain the neocons battle.
One of the things that you should not fail to notice is that each book in the top ten most dangerous book is presented with a link. The link to Amazon. But is not just a normal link to Amazon. Amazon let you sign an agreement so that you can advertise some books from your website, and if people buy your book, they get a discount, and you get a percentage. So, yes you got it, each of those book is presented in that format. If you click on those links to go to Amazon, and you buy the book, the right winged journal will get a percentage. Will get a percentage out of you buying Mein Kampf, and The Communist Manifesto. “Buy ‘The Kinsley report in the human male’, and help sustain the neocons battle.”. Ah, the irony of all this.
no I don’t ask people I don’t like which books to read and cross them out. I ask them which books not to read, and add them to my reading list. Way more efficient!
So, to answer my friend, “no I don’t ask people I don’t like which books to read and cross them out. I ask them which books not to read, and add them to my reading list. Way more efficient!”
And if you read all this, and want to add something to my reading list, feel free to suggest:
“what books or document would you suggest to understand the world we are living in”. And tell us why, in what way was this book so unique that reading it is a must. Now the line is yours.
Some time ago I posted about how artificial scarcity applied to travellers. Today I read about Clay Shirky who has a hard time in copying his own material, of which he is copyholder, because modern tools have been adjusted not to make this copy feasible… to protect copyright.
His comment was:
This is because copyright laws do not exist to defend the moral rights of copyright holders — they exist to help enforce artificial scarcity.
I think the concept of artificial scarcity is a key concept. Fighting it high in my priority list. And yet it is a concept who is quite unknown. I made a search on delicious for artificialscarcity, artificial+scarcity and not one gave any result. Well I suppose there will soon be 3 results. But it is still a drop in the ocean.
My dear friends, I bring you bad news. The IMF offered to help the countries affected by the Tsunami.
Good! Will say most of you (naive!).
Bad, sais I. Because the IMF is not just giving money… It is lending it:
For our part, the IMF stands ready to provide financial assistance to affected countries, in the first instance through our Emergency Natural Disaster Assistance facility. This financing, which could be on the order of US$1 billion for the most affected countries, could be made available quickly and without an IMF program.
In other words: It is not a gift, it is a loan.
Emergency assistance loans are subject to the basic rate of charge, and should be repaid within 3¼ to 5 years. Since May 2001, for post-conflict cases which are eligible for the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), the interest rate on loans has been subsidized down to 0.5 percent per year, with the interest subsidies financed by grant contributions from bilateral donors, Recently, the Executive Board agreed to consider a similar subsidization of emergency assistance for natural disasters.
And they also want interests on it. How generous!
Looking at the press. I noticed that the story had been taken by various news, yet only one clarified that it was not a gift.
You know, yesterday evening I was speaking with a friend who told me of a new book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”(english review here). It is the story of John Perkins…
…John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies
Also note how the order of magnitude of the loan that is being offered right now:
This financing, which could be on the order of US$1 billion for the most affected countries, could be made available quickly and without an IMF program.”
Is of the same order of magnitude of the one that John Perkins was offering:
my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan–let’s say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador–and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure–a Halliburton or a Bechtel.
So, the IMF has offered a loan.
“Thanks, but no thanks” should those country answer.
While the rest of the world collects the money (this really as a gift) to help.
Will those countries be strong enough to refuse it.
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