The Old Utah Theather

I have seen many a movie at this theater. The Hunt for Red October (about 6 times). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original one). The Little Mermaid (where I got to hold a girl's hand). In fact, any decent movie that came out in the late 80s, I probably saw here. It was a dollar theater, so I could afford it.

The theater closed down several few years ago. One day it was open, then it was gone. I hadn't seen a movie there for nearly 10 years.

A few months went by, and then, almost as suddenly as it closed, it was once again open. But instead of current movies it now shows classic movies.

This is a long way to say that after about a decade, I have once again attended this beautiful theater. Last night I took my two boys to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was a great experience. The boys loved it, I enjoyed seeing Indy on the big screen, a good time was had by all. I'm glad to see an old theater still being put to good use.

And as long as I'm talking about my boys, the other day at dinner I asked my sons what they wanted to be when they grew up. Number 2 immediately said he wanted to be an anti-aircraft person so he could shoot down bad guys in planes. Hmmm, hope there is good money in that. My third son said he wanted to be a fireman. No surprise there. My fourth son shoveled another pile of food in his mouth (he's 3). My fifth son shoveled another pile of food on top of his head (he's 7 months).

But my first son looked thoughtful. He asked me what I was. I told him I was an 'Information Liberator".

"That's what I want to be." he said. And we all went back to shoveling food in our mouths.

It was a happy moment.

Mobs or Crowds? Which would you rather have?

Excellent article over at blog critic. The author describes in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges to user-driven sites like digg and reddit.

"The biggest problem seems to be visibility. When one submits a link to one of these sites, how many people will actually see it? If the first few people who see it don't value it, most people will never even see it, so the control of the site falls to those most able to spend the most time on it...

"Not to put too fine a point on it, the people with the most time are not often the people with the most experience or wisdom. Those people are, we hope, creating content more than voting on it!

"How is that anyone thinks that social news sites will avoid the problems inherent to committees? When a sufficiently large group of individuals is added to a committee, the result more or less exactly fails to please anyone."

The context in which content is displayed plays a large part in how that content is received. Why do you think we call it 'open source' and not 'freeware' anymore? Because if something is free, it can't be that good, right? If they're just giving it away, it's because it's not valuable.

Too often we are affected by what the crowd seems to think. Can 700 digg users really be wrong? If all of them found it fascinating, it must be. I have often seen a site hit the front page. The link is dead (due to the increased traffic), and yet the submission continues to get hundreds of diggs. People are voting it up without even being able to get to the site!

Digg hides the methods in which they decide what stories make it to the front page, and I'm not sure reddit and other sites publish their algorithms either. If we had an 'open' algorithm would that help, or only make it so that more people could abuse the system? What about a system that didn't show the popularity? Maybe some kind of tiered system that moved a story up, but only if the interest was based purely on the content, and not the fact that the mob liked it?

Too many questions, not enough time.

Encyclopedia of Life

A new site getting some press is the Encyclopedia of Life. The goal is to catalog all 1.8 million species or organisms on the planet. A lofty goal, and one they think they can accomplish in roughly 10 years. A few interesting things in their FAQ.

"Unlike conventional encyclopedias, where an editorial team sits down and writes the entries, the Encyclopedia will be developed by bringing together (“mashing up”) content from a wide variety of sources. This material will then be authenticated by scientists, so that users will have authoritative information. As we move forward, Encyclopedia of Life and its board will work with scientists across the globe, securing the involvement of those individuals and institutions that are established experts on each species."

The bit where they say, "authenticated by scientists so that users will have authoritative information" almost sounds like a jab at wikipedia. You won't get information from just anybody, you'll get it from 'scientists'. But a bit further down, appropriate props are given to the 'Wild West' of encyclopedias:

"Wikipedia inspired us. Wikipedia accumulated about 1.5 million entries in English in its first four years. That gave us confidence that our tasks are manageable with current technology and social behaviour, although the expert community in a lot of the subjects for pages in Encyclopedia of Life may be only a handful of people. Wikipedia has also created some species pages, as have other groups. Encyclopedia of Life will, we hope, unite all such efforts and increase their value. The Wikimedia Foundation is a member of the Encyclopedia’s Institutional Council."

Conspicuously missing from all of the FAQ is the subject of price. Will this be a free resource? If not, how much will it cost? None of that is addressed, and I suspect that there will be a fee for schools and individuals to access the EOL. And I suspect that the entire site will also be securely copyrighted, so no derivative works will be allowed. Which is too bad, because the whole site is possible based solely on the idea of building on the works of others.

Back!

I'm back from Spain, and it was a lot of fun. It's amazing how many people speak Spanish over there! Even the little kids have picked it up.

So, I've put up a few pictures over on flickr. You can see my famous 'self portrait' pose. I know, it gets old after a while, but there you have it.

The chocolate was/is incredible, and I ask myself once again why we eat the brown waxy stuff over here. We really need a revolt. I have a good pound or so down in my storage room, and I intend to eat it slowly.

Also, I've put up a new wiki with an easier to read URL. If you'd like to contribute your favorite scout story (or any other story for that matter), you can do so at http://www.buckleywiki.com

Hope to see you over there.

Castle Real, Santander Sapin

Castle Real, Santander Sapin
Originally uploaded by firemeboy.

I probably won't be blogging for a few days, as I'm in Santander, Spain. I've seen a castle, the ocean, some incredible hot chocolate, and a sheep.

Good times.

Another few sites added to the Utah Alliance

So, the Utah OCW Alliance is slowly growing. For those keeping track at home, USU, Weber State, and UVSC all have OCW sites up and running. WGU has also put some things online. We hope to have some Applied Technology courses up, as well as courses from the U. And by the end of the year, maybe all Utah universities and colleges will have some material up. A citizen of the state and in fact, any person with internet access, will eventually have access to hundreds of college courses.

I'll keep you posted.

I'm a celebrity, at least on a certain block...

About three weeks ago I spent two full days at an elementary school. I went to every class (except the kindergarten) and talked about my book. 40 minutes in each class. I told them how I wrote the book, how I got it published, I read to them from it, and then taught them a quick lesson on writing.

It was a lot of work, and I had the time of my life.

Usually I REALLY don't like dealing with my book. When I do a book signing I feel like an animal at the zoo, except for at the zoo, the people at least make eye contact with, and talk to, the animals. "Hello little monkey!" Nobody says "hello little author!" they simply walk around the author while looking the other way.

And when I talk about my book with people, I feel like an Amway salesman (not that there is anything wrong with that (ok, there is something wrong with that)). I find myself constantly telling people, "yeah, if you want to read the book, which you may not, and please don't feel obligated, because I won't feel bad if you don't, then go to your local library and check it out for free, or read the first chapter online and see if it's something you think you might like, which you may not, but I won't feel bad if you don't, because some people just don't like some kinds of books." Yes, I talk in run on sentences, and I use that many commas when I talk. You can see why I don't like talking about my book.

But, there was something about talking to the kids that made it a blast. It was out of control fun. The kids kept wanting to get out of control, and the teachers were trying to reign them in. And of course, I'm asking them questions, and giving them activities that will lead to more out of control activity. But the funny thing is that now I'm almost a celebrity at the school. I work about 60 feet from the elementary school in the education building on USU's campus. So when I walk to my car, I hear things like, "Hey! It's Mathew!", or "There's the author!"

5 minutes ago I was walking toward my building and a small boy was looking up at me with wonderment in his eye. He was walking with a lady who appeared to be his mom, and at the risk of looking like a child predator I said to the boy, "Hey there! How is it going?" He just grinned as he walked past, and then I heard his mom ask who that was. "That's Matthew Buckley!" He said it as if that was all the information she needed. "Oh, of course, that's Matthew Buckley."

So, I'm never going to reach celebrity status, nor do I want to, but I've got a taste of it here at Edith Bowen, and it's a little fun.