Pointer to resources

Andy Loughran said...

That's a pretty good account of one of blogging's limitations. I do find that when I want to append to, or develop, a previous idea, then it's much more difficult on the blog to do that.

I enjoyed your article about big IT projects. I haven't read anything else by you - but was hoping to be pointed to some more resources - so from that perspective I hope it isn't your last blog - even if you only post on an essay a month.

Well, I have no idea whether this will be useful to anyone, but here are some links.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/
Contains pointers to everything else and a recently added snipe at the hassles of Windows users giving presentations without the benefits of multiple virtual desktops.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/talks/
A collection of pointers to talks (PDF) given over the years.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/papers/
Papers and presentations in the EU-funded CoSy robotic project.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/freepoplog.html
The Free Poplog Web site (open source, multi-paradigm program development software, including a lot of AI research and teaching materials -- originally developped at Sussex University, then sold for a while by ISL, until they were bought by SPSS for their Clementine system, implemented in Poplog, after which they had no interest in selling Poplog, so Sussex allowed me to make it available free of charge with open source.)

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/packages/simagent.html
The SimAgent toolkit (part of Poplog.)

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/
Many discussion notes and papers, including some saved email exchanges and postings to news groups, going back over 20 years.
Includes the rant about large monolithic government projects, like the NHS IT project here.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/my-doings.html
A not very successful attempt to provide a structured overview of my research activities (and some others) over the last few decades.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/laptop
Linux on my laptop (Dell D600, then D610, using Redhat then Fedora:
now Fedora 7, including stuff on wireless, software suspend, etc.).

I have probably forgotten something, and it probably doesn't matter!

Aaron

Why I am not a blogger

I set up this blog not knowing whether I would make significant use of it or not.

It turned out that I hardly ever added to it or looked at it. I have decided that blogging is not what I am interested in insofar as the blogging mechanism expects me to organise my thought by date, whereas for me the dates are irrelevant: it's the ideas that count.

So instead I create multiple web sites with all sorts of half-baked or more or less than half-baked thoughts and then go on modifying or adding to them when I get new ideas or others send me criticisms or suggestions.

So they are all essentially constantly changing (some more slowly than others) extensions of my mind (or brain). The state of any of them at any particular time is of no more significance than the state of my brain at that time. Both keep changing and developing.

So this may turn out to be my last ever blog post.

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/

A bit more on WIF: World Innovation Foundation

I previously wrote that as a result of raising questions about the status of WIF I provoked its Chief Executive:

Later, the chief executive of WIF responded, angrily claiming that I was no longer a Fellow and making various demands. Since threatening me never achieves anything I invited him to calm down, and did some investigating of my own.

In fairness I should report that he responded very well, apologised fully, and provided some pointers to help me find answers to some of my questions.

I also wrote

I conclude that it is well meaning and that many would endorse the goals on its web site. But I fear that its influence will never match the impressive list of names of its fellows and members (e.g. large numbers of Nobel Prize winners) because most of what it does is done quietly, and done only by a tiny subset. All the rest are happy to announce that they have been chosen to be members or fellows and then forget about it.

I now think that on the basis of the limited investigations I carried out this conclusion was too sweeping, and even if correct at the time could later become, inaccurate -- especially if, as could well happen, the WIF manages to attract funds to support more extensive activities and more of its fellows and members take an active role. Some contributions from people other than the Chief Executive can be found here.

Aaron
6th August 2007

World Innovation Foundation-PS

In my post below on this topic I did not mention, because I did not know, that a post by Zeth Green to our local Linux User Group commenting on my earlier post had come to the attention of David Hill of WIF, who had posted a reply. After submitting my update I found the correspondence. So I thought I should add the relevant links here:

• Comment by Zeth Green
• Reply by David Hill

Aaron

World Innovation Foundation

I wrote on 19th April 2007 in three-short-notes

2. Does anyone know anything about 'The World Innovation Foundation' apart from the information provided on their web site and on the sites of the very many scientists who announce that they have been elected members or fellows of WIF? Their aims seem to be laudable, but I would like independent evidence of what they actually do.

They had invited me to be a member in 2004, and I accepted though I was somewhat mystified partly because I could not get clear evidence that WIF actually did anything, and partly because I could not understand why they had selected me. I then forgot about it. Later I stumbled across a controversy in wikipedia as to whether WIF ever did anything that was reported anywhere off its own web site.

A little research left me puzzled (e.g. about whether Glenn Seaborg really had founded WIF in 1992 as some news articles claimed), so I mentioned the puzzle on my web site asking whether WIF was a "glorious hoax", expecting that eventually someone with real evidence would respond. I then forgot about it.

Later, the chief executive of WIF responded, angrily claiming that I was no longer a Fellow and making various demands. Since threatening me never achieves anything I invited him to calm down, and did some investigating of my own.
I have found that the reports of Glenn Seaborg founding WIF in 1992 were not published by WIF itself but by press offices of organisations whose members had been selected by WIF. Several press notices conflated two facts:

1. WIF was originally founded as The Institute of National Economic Enrichment and Development (INEED) in 1992
2. Glen Seaborg agreed to be the 'founding president' in 1996 and suggested the new name at that time. He died not long after that, which is presumably why the information is not on his web site.

I have also found that some WIF members have indeed done things for WIF, e.g. signing letters to Bush and Blair, or writing articles to go on the WIF Web site.

So the organisation is real and attempts to do things, including influencing governments. But it does not do so publicly, and that makes it very easy for governments to ignore its advice. I have no idea whether it really can achieve its goals, including setting up the multi-billion dollar research centre described on its web site.

I conclude that it is well meaning and that many would endorse the goals on its web site. But I fear that its influence will never match the impressive list of names of its fellows and members (e.g. large numbers of Nobel Prize winners) because most of what it does is done quietly, and done only by a tiny subset. All the rest are happy to announce that they have been chosen to be members or fellows and then forget about it.

Sad in a way.
Aaron

My namesake?

I discovered a reference to "Aaron Sloman microsoft evangelist", and wondered if I had stumbled into an alternative universe.

It turns out that I have a namesake, e.g. reported here
http://khnl.com/global/story.asp?s=6166042&ClientType=Printable

His company's website is so slow to respond that I have not provided a link.

New blog format, thanks to Zeth Green

Zeth saw my complaint about fixed-width blogs, looked at the result of my attempt to alter the default to allow text column width to expand when window width expands, and suggested some alterations to the template.

It turned out to be much simpler to install his changes than I had expected: download the old template, make a copy, insert the four suggested changes, and upload the new template.

The result makes the header and footer much more tidy. Many thanks Zeth.

Aaron
www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs

three short notes

1. I have been given me some tips on how to improve the implementation of the variable-width text column on this blog. I'll try implementing them when I get time.

2. Does anyone know anything about 'The World Innovation Foundation' apart from the information provided on their web site and on the sites of the very many scientists who announce that they have been elected members or fellows of WIF? Their aims seem to be laudable, but I would like independent evidence of what they actually do.

3. I heard this morning on BBC Radio 4 Today programme that the UK government had mis-managed the new contracts with hospital consultants. One of the claims made in answer to a reporter's question is that it is very difficult to find out how much time consultants actually work. This reminded me of the fact that the government apparently REFUSES to collect information regarding the time actually worked by university academics. They insist on collecting information in terms of hours per week spent on various activities and the total per week is not allowed to exceed some notional limit of the maximum working week. Our university refused, when asked, to modify the information collected in order to find out the actual totals. In other words they force academics to lie about how much they work, and they then report the information based on such lies to the government.

No wonder pay disputes in the university sector are so bitter and damaging to everyone. (It doesn't affect me: I live on my pension.)

Not so frustrated now

As indicated in the comment on the previous post I have managed to make this display respond to changes in the viewer's window width.

It still needs some tweaking, but at least you are no longer stuck with huge amounts of wasted screen space on a modern display.

Frustrated by narrow text columns

Many web sites that provide textual information restrict the width of the text columns even if I have lots of spare space on my screen.

If I expand the viewing window width I expect the text column to expand also. Otherwise I end up with lots of wasted screen space, and having to waste time scrolling down (or up) the page to read more text. (Hmmm... I wonder if that seriously increases the risk of RSI?)

It gets worse if I increase font size (which I prefer to wearing my reading glasses). If the text column width is fixed, increasing font size means I get fewer characters per line (i.e. the line width is effectively shortened) requiring even more scrolling.

Why are there so many format dictators on the web?

Even the BBC does that: it is one of the worst. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Google news is much better in that respect.

If anyone can tell me how to alter these blogger pages so as to make the text column a percentage of the window width I'll be very grateful.
(You can email me at A.Sloman @ cs.bham.ac.uk -- thanks.)

Hello World

Well I have never previously used a blog site, being content to add stuff to my web page http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs in the School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK.

It has myriad links to all sorts of discussion notes presentations and research papers (published and unpublished) produced over many years. But some bits have had the character of blogs, reflecting on the follies of politicians, university managers, people who believe there is a god who listens to their prayers, and so on. So I thought I would try transferring such musings here.

Not sure when I'll have time to start, however, so here's a link to previous 'bloggy' stuff of mine: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/#messages and here is another: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/politician-manager-messages.html

For idle browsers here's information about the many kinds of things I have been writing over the last few decades: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/my-doings.html

Dear reader: there are zillions of bloggers and blogs in the big wide world, so if you happen to stumble across this, you have defied the laws of chance. Congratulations.