bits and bikes

Damon Horowitz and Sepandar Kamvar recently published a paper — referentially entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Social Search Engine” (PDF) — in which they nicely lay out the social search problem and the Aardvark solution. As I was reading this paper, one thought kept surfacing…

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I’m happy to announce that Grockit will be offering its paid summer research internship program for the summer of 2010. This is the second year that we’re doing this (thanks again, Angela!), and I think it’s a great opportunity for doctoral students to apply their own research experience to a system that a large (and growing) community of learners uses everyday. It’s worth mentioning that Grockit has a large and interesting set of educational data, a variety of research interests, a very talented team, and a fantastic work environment. I just posted details about this program (with an application form) on the 2010 Summer Research Internship, and I encourage you to check it out.

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Just a quick post to let you know that several hundred great new ideas on how we might reimagine learning have just been submitted to the Digital Media and Learning competition. This week only, you can contribute to the conversation by adding your own comments. Be sure to check out QuestionLab, which is a proposal outlining how we can leverage Grockit‘s platform for live collaboration to create a new game that actively engages learners in asking questions and sharing their work with the world, in concert with our friends at Connexions.

I’d love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment about QuestionLab on the DML site!

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I’ve recently been playing around with Etherpad, which was generously open-sourced by Google after they acquired AppJet. It is a fantastic piece of work, and I’ve enjoyed exploring the source code and brainstorming new applications for the technology.

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My bicycle has a flat tire, so I’ve recently been walking to work. I seem to end up spending much of this time thinking about how to be less late when commuting without a bike. While I always follow the same route when biking to work — one that balances total distance with hilliness — I have found no clear best route for commuting by foot. My path changes the most in the Mission, where the ground is flat and the streets are on a grid. I never walk any more than necessary to get there, but I hate the idea of standing still at an intersection while waiting for a light to turn green.

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My bike has had a flat tire for longer than I’d care to admit, so I’ve been commuting recently by foot and by bus. This leaves me with plenty of time to think, but mostly just thoughts about walking and/or taking the bus.

If you’ve spent time waiting for erratically-timed buses, you know this question well: Will I get there faster if I continue waiting or if I start walking? You can look to recent literature in recreational mathematics for some general guidance on this dilemma [1] [2]. But while waiting may pay off for the lazy mathematician, I like to get some exercise in the process. So here’s a twist on the problem: How far can I walk without missing the next bus? I’ll propose three practical solutions…

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I posted an entry on the Grockit blog today, about how aim to build a learning platform that we is both both peer-powered and data-driven. My goal is to contribute a new post each week or so, which you can find here: http://blog.grockit.com/author/ari/.

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Following my acquisition of these socks, I’ve actively been on the lookout for interesting opportunities in my field. I’m excited to have found something great in the works at Grockit, and will be joining Farb and his team there next month. More details in the weeks to come…

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I spotted this clever website today (via), which plots the number of Google results for various spellings of one particular expression. Now I, too, have generated statistics on various spellings of particular words, and have just yesterday posted them online. This includes about 100,000 spellings of about 3,000 English words, collected through the SpellBEE activity, as part of my dissertation work…

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Chris Seibold’s new O’Reilly book, the “Big Book of Apple Hacks,” is now available (from O’Reilly Media or from Amazon.) While I haven’t seen it quite yet, I am familiar with at least one portion of the book: My blog post on User-Initiated Privacy for Web Applications is included.

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After successfully defended my dissertation yesterday, these new socks fit well!

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I’ve seen several web-based tools for cyclists to keep track of their rides, but rarely see one designed specifically for commuting. A recent post by Noah at Commute by Bike described the spreadsheet that he uses to keep track of his bicycle commuting. … Add a bit of code, and your spreadsheet can email you when it’s time to recharge the batteries in your lights and sound system.

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In a new twist on Human Computation, a team of 10 MIT cyclists pedal-powered an energy-efficient SiCortex SC648 supercomputer for 20 minutes.

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Web-based applications are becoming increasingly popular, offering a variety of compelling advantages over desktop-based applications, both to developers and to users. These applications are platform-independent, accessible from any Internet-connected computer, offer offsite data storage, and often provide integrated tools for collaboration and sharing. One major tradeoff, however, is a loss of privacy. But this doesn’t mean that we need to give up on privacy (or give up on web applications.) We just need to think more creatively…

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Its original purpose was to let me run certain small scripts on my home computer from my very low-tech cell phone. From here, Berry (originally Hackberry) eventually grew a full syntax for requests, a nice GUI, an SDK, a security model, and many new ways to connect. In addition to the original SMS communication channel, six more input channels and nine more output channels were later added (e.g. IM messaging, Skype, Quicksilver.) Talk about feature creep.

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I think you’ll agree that the best driving route from Point A to Point B is not necessarily the best biking route. But when it comes down to characterizing just how good a particular road is for bicycling, things get complicated. … I’m very interested in leveraging technology to make bicycle commuting more approachable, safe, and enjoyable. A (cycle-specific) mapping and routing system affects all three, so it’s definitely on my radar.

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My first cell phone purchase was based on David Pogue’s 2003 recommendation: a Kyocera 2325. And last week, after over 49,000 minutes of talk time, it finally stopped working. … I’d like to hear from people who have made the most of a well-made phone. Have you hit the 50,000 minute mark? 100k minutes? More?

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Recently I’ve been spending time experimenting with (and extending) my coevolutionary simulation software, Coevisualizer, which I now use to model Teacher’s Dilemma-driven learning. … The teacher ends up consistently providing “appropriate” challenges for their student, even as the student’s abilities change.

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