Today I discussed with my supervisor and Patrick on the possible shape of the algorithm for the clustering of the messages. The starting point is that we need to define similarity between the messages so to allow for two kinds of interaction:

a- spatial browsing, to show the available resources;

b- spatial information retrieval, to pinpoint to relevant resources matching a query.

In both cases what we need is a mapping from the matrix of semantic distances to the matrix of the geographical distances. What we can use for this scope is the “semantic cohesion”, an home-made marker that determines the level of semantic similarities between a group of messages. Mapping this marker against the radius of the spatial cluster (r) we might find some “drop zones”, or parameter if this ‘r’ for which there is a substantial drop of similarities which will signal the existence of the cluster. Using this we wont incur in the problem of the local maxima.

There will be two levels in the support of interaction. The first will be the construction of the geo-semantic patters that will work at visualization level but not on the data level. The second step will be to support the interaction through the query/retrieval and the user’s feedback (i.e., social rating of the messages).

Tags: clustering, map algorithms, maps

Why spaghetti breaks into at least three pieces. Includes videos and detailed(!) model of phenomena:

http://www.lmm.jussieu.fr/spaghetti/index.html

Bent dry spaghetti do not break in half but instead in three of more pieces. With the aim to explain this surprising phenomenon, we studied a related problem, namely the dynamics of an elastic rod that is bent quasi-statically and then suddenly set free. Counter-intuitively, we find that the mere release of the rod induces a stress increase. The multiple breaking of bent rods, like dry spaghetti pasta, can then be understood as a cascade of releases (loss of cohesion upon breakings) followed by stress increases leading to new cracks.

Tags: wierd

Okay, I am late but hey, I have been to Bern today!

Dencity is a very interesting and relevant project for my research. The system aims at examining the enrichment of real urban sites by a virtual dimension of information and networking, beeing accomplished by localization of the virtual. It is about moderating between “virtual reality”-networks and the city as physical existence. It uses two-dimensional bar codes.

(via) & (via)

Tags: clustering, Location Based Services, map algorithms

I have been playing a bit with the great PyGoogle wrapper and I found another great idea by the great Mark Pilgrim: Google Neighborhood.

The idea is very simple, trying to find the list of sites that are “neighbor” of a certain site/resource web, following the simple rule that a neighbor is a resource that is referenced and references the originating resource.

From this very simple idea we can start rambling on other possible applications, like some of the usage that people find out in google local. Check this description for having a glance at what I am striving for in STAMPS. All comments are welcome.

Tags: clustering, google, hack, Location Based Services, maps, Python

This guy spent some time collecting screenshot of the Mac OS interface to show the trends and the dramatic changes through the years. Check this out!

System 0.0-1.1 introduced in 1984

Tags: interaction design, mac

Matthew Coates and Tim Meldrum projected an apartment that goes right to the core fundamentals of the Cradle to Cradle principles. Not only does the building run a photosynthetic and phototropic skin made with spinach protein, but it also produces more energy than a single family’s needs, allowing the excess to be distributed to neighbors. This radical shift, from centralized energy systems today, fosters community interdependence as neighbors benefit from the resources of others.

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Tags: ecology, environment, hack, new technology, politics, society, urban planning

For those of you that happen to read Italian, here is a pdf containing the transcript of the conversation between Fazio, governor of Bankitalia and Giampiero Fiorani and wife on the Antonveneta issue.

What strikes me is that only two or three passages are marked as “hot” and compromising for these two “gentlemen”, while, according to me, the whole transcript is the proof of an attitude towards corruption. Sad ….

Teaching Turing is a fun, educational environment for learning about and programming Turing machines. The goal of Teaching Turing is to show people how Turing machines work by having them program a Turing machine themselves. The structure of Teaching Turing is divided into a series of levels with the earliest stages very clearly walking the user through the basic controls of a Turing machine, then working up to a series of graphic puzzles solved through programming. We want to present the Turing machine in a simple, easy to understand way. Users can move at their own pace through the levels, or proceed to free exploration and programming of the machine.

(via)

Tags: information visualization, interaction design, learning technology, microworlds

A. Markowetz, T. Brinkhoff, and B. Seeger. Geographic information retrieval. In 3rd International Workshop on Web Dynamics, New York, 2004. [url]

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This document describe a system for mapping internet resources to geographical locations. The authors start from the idea that “all business is local”, for which almost each web page has a local context. For lots of applications geographically close information is the most important.

The autheors list previous work to map internet resources by their physical proximity highlighting the difficulties of clustering in such a way the information. So they propose to use a combined mechanism for which the structure of links pointing to a particular resource is used to contextualise it: “the local pizza parlor might be referenced by only twenty or thirty links, but all from within Marlburg.”

Tags: clustering, information retrieval

MailTags is a plug-in for Apple’s Mail.app 2.0 (Tiger) that enables you to go way beyond folder filing for organizing mail by enabling metadata tagging that are spotlight compatible.

Tags: clustering, information retrieval, mac