Ward Shelley has mapped the evolution of the science fiction genre, from our first days of fear and wonder to Wall*E.
Is Microactivism A Gateway To Engagement?
A key part to finding value in the intersection of technology and politics is microactivism: the small-scale, many-to-many communication that facilitates political expression.
Empathy and Diversity
Political forums are constructed on actor networks. As technology allows us to re-think how we govern, we also have to balance the value of expertise, diversity, and the structure of our networks to allow for both information flow and behavior change.
Disaster in a connected society
A tip on how to deal with the storm and aftermath of Hurricane Gustav this week: Join Twitter.
Twitscoop
A sure sign that Twitter is regaining good health: the third-party applications are returning. TweetScan, for example, sent me my first email summary of a few tracked words in almost a month. And we are still getting new ones. Welcome, TwitScoop.
Designing in Ten Dimensions
A book by Rob Bryanton, Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A new way of thinking about time, space, and string theory, provides an explanation of how the ten dimensions might be perceived. Like Charles Eames’ Powers of Ten—which illustrates relative size by imagining a voyage from a view of the universe and down to the vibrating building blocks of matter—the insight that arises out of this thought experiment is in the patterns that form when moving from one state to the next. While we aren’t necessarily aiming to satisfy users in alternative universes, there may be some benefit in approaching design in a way that anticipates future change and acknowledges constraints in perception.
New views for Google search
Google is continuing to experiment with the presentation of their search results. It doesn’t work particularly well, but the concept and initial release of Google views is very compelling. By adding view: to the search query, the results are grouped together in one of a few pre-determined ways: as a timeline, a map location, or information filters.