Last night I watched Nova's Smartest Machine on Earth program.Really fascinating stuff as it explored how machine learning happens (it is essentially a weighted relevance ranking dependent upon data and rules, but then it makes decision based upon specific bits of information including pattern seeking). It also touched on what makes us human, our peopleness and how our experiences shape our knowledge (and how do you teach those to a computer?) The main focus was exploring the work on the machine Watson which plays on Jeopardy Feb. 14-16.

Very interesting overview of the rise of online video, especially as relates to journalism.2004:

Coinciding with the election of 2004 was the prevalence of broadband speeds, and with half of American homes reaching better than dial-up transfer rates, along with all the noise created by the blogs and pundits of the internet, an audience was born, capable and accustomed to online payments (i.e. market potential) and finally able to watch video, on demand by the masses.

..and now we can watch tv online, both episodes from network television as well as original programming.

heh heh... some of these are actually well thought, while others are clearly humorous...1. Librarians take care of libraries, which are still invaluable today.2. Not all information is on the internet.3. Older books still hold great cultural significance.4. Libraries are still repositories for some of the most valuable works of literature in the world.5. Even with the internet, the library is still the best place to do research.6. Girls with glasses can still rock the “sexy librarian” look.7. “Sexy Librarian” is still a popular costume at Halloween.8.

Arches @ noon. Nov.

Well, this is a pretty unwieldly subject to pack into a 1 hour presentation (and I didn't go very far into the details of the mechanics of the semantic web, at all)....[googleapps domain="docs" dir="present/embed" query="id=dkcxvp2_12299fxpzchq&interval=15&autoStart=true" width="410" height="342" /]

Okay, I don't feel like tinisizing that URL, but you can follow it on a blog, right? ;-)Interesting article about the upcoming changes in facebook privacy. I'm not surprised facebook is moving towards public feeds, because as the article puts it:Facebook holds a giant reservoir of demographic and sentiment data.

----------------------The Professional & Continuing Education Interest Group (PACE) of GLA (the Georgia Library Association) chaired by Robin Fay & Beth Thornton have decided to do a free online community portal (a ning).Even if you are not a member of the Interest Group or GLA, feel free to participate.

Although I was late, I managed to attend the Carolina Conversations webinar in Second Life. Yep, I actually got my avatar to the presentation and I got her to sit down. I've been wanting to attend an academic event in SL for a while, but they always seemed to either cost money (real money!) OR were at 3AM my time. Sorry, I may be an insomniac at times, but even I have to sleep occasionally!

drop me a line @ georgiawebgurl@gmail.comif you'd like to.