A Periodical for Linguists?
August 8, 2012
What would a linguistics magazine look like? Back in 2007, Language Log’s Mark Liberman created a spoof cover of the hypothetical “Linguistics Today,” which he reproduces in his recent post, “Linguistics: the Magazine.” He shares two other parody covers for magazines that might be aimed at language nerds, Mignon Fogarty’s “Grammarian” and Jon McWhorter’s “Werd.” Lots of fun, but Liberman isn’t entirely kidding. He proposes:
“Jokes, parodies, and illustrations aside, I really do think that this is a good idea. A semi-ironic supermarket-magazine approach might work — especially for cover stories — but the most plausible core market, I think, would be more a upscale and intellectual one. In addition to those cover stories about the juicier aspects of interpersonal communication, there could be sections dealing with language variation and change, speech and language technology, literary analysis, political language, usage advice, language and gender, linguistic history, advertising language, forensic linguistics, scrabble, whatever . . .”
The write up mentions that the online publication option would probably be “easiest, cheapest, and sanest.” I, for one, would subscribe to such a publication, online or in print. Our burning questions: What system will be detailed in the Road&Track-style exploded diagram? And, more importantly, who will be the person featured in the foldout?
Cynthia Murrell, August 8, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Designing for the One Percent. Thinking for the 99 Percent.
August 5, 2012
I remember when my family moved back to America from Brazil, where we lived for a while. My teacher in the local Campinas school recommended a tutor. I was a “cabeça óssea” or stupid. No kidding. After three days in Brazil, I was unable to read or speak Portuguese. At age 11 or 12, I was a 99 percenter.
I went to special Portuguese lessons, picked up trash talk from the kids in the neighborhood, and supplemented the Estado de São Paulo schools with something called the Calvert Course. My Calvert Course “teacher” was a missionary of a fervent ilk.
As luck would have it, he stepped on a spider, became delirious, wandered into the scrub which in the 1950s surrounded Campinas, which is now a suburb of the city of São Paulo. “A selvla comeu” or something along those lines. So I missed those Calvert Course lessons. I think I missed a couple or three “traditional” US educational hurdles. When I returned to the US, I popped into the American school without having “taken” the classes my peers enjoyed. No problem. I was plonked into what was called then the “advanced class.” Instant one percenter. Magic.
I zoomed through college and graduate school. I was dragooned by Halliburton Nuclear and three years later, I was recruited by the blue chip consulting firm of Booz, Allen & Hamilton. The “old” BAH was different from the azure-chip outfits sporting the name today. I don’t recall brushing shoulders with the “real” 99 percent, but in Brazil I was not just one of the 99 percent. I was one of the stupider 99 percenters.
I learned one thing about being stupid: A log depends on context and point of view.
What’s happening in the digital world is that the one percent are making the world which they want. The problem is that the 99 percenters don’t have a clue about that world. There are some interesting examples of what I call “one percent think.”
ITEM: “Reversing the Decline in Big Ideas” explains that the Silicon Valley “thing” has eroded innovation. Here’s the passage I noted:
But now much of the transformational potential of the “pure information technology” possibility space has been exhausted to the point of terminal differentiation…Now I look around and see lost opportunities for collaboration everywhere.
ITEM: “The Naked and the TED” is a clever and coruscating (if the New York Times writing covering automobiles can use the word obdormition although I would prefer paresthesia, I can employ a form of coruscate). The write up by a one percenter tackles baloney from two other one percenters, Parag Khanna and Ayesha Khanna. The précis for the review of the Khanna monograph “Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human Technology Civilization”, only $2.99 is, “Baloney.” One percenters criticizing one percenters is probably not going to have much of an impact on those in the 99 percent.
ITEM: “The Linguistic Interface” explains why a command line interface is not such a bad thing. After all, the article says, “We live in a Kingdom of Nouns.” Here’s the ace quote:
There does come a time when all you want to do is pick up a pencil and draw a cat. But we must remember that we aren’t using an application in which one draws cats, we’re simply acknowledging that paper is a thing we can draw on. There is still no application harness set up to isolate us from the rest of the world, and the pencil is not inextricably bound to the paper. The terminal — a record of the conversation we’ve been having with the shell — happens to be one thing to look at, but even as we scribble over the page we can still talk to the shell, and it can do things to the drawing just as it can anything else. “Now add to this all the pictures I drew of kittens. All of them.”
I can see the folks at the bar in Harrod’s Creek arguing over this insight and not the University of Kentucky football scrimmage.
Google: Communicating Differently, Maybe Less?
August 5, 2012
There was an interesting “official” Google Blog post on August 3, 2012. Google slipped in a zinger with its usually run down of terminated products I never heard about. Here’s the killer passage in “Giving You a Better Google,” which is a heck of an Orwellian title in my opinion:
Google maintains 150+ blogs and other communications channels about our products and services, and so over time we’ll also be closing a number of Google-created blogs that are either updated infrequently, or are redundant with other blogs. This doesn’t mean that we’ll be sharing any less information—we’ll just be posting our updates on our more popular channels.
When online content disappears, how does one know what was there? One doesn’t. Does the Wayback Machine or the Library of Congress tweet project captures the information? I don’t think so. Are the data in these blogs potentially useful going forward? I can’t answer the question. I do know that if content is not online, it does not exist.
George Orwell allegedly said:
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
YouTube Boasts Most Creative Commons Licensed Videos
August 3, 2012
Creative Commons has brought “free” video to millions, and now The Next Web reports, “With 4 Million Videos, YouTube Now Has the Largest Collection of Creative Commons Videos in the World.” What a surprise.
The write up by Drew Olanoff notes that YouTube began building its Creative Commons video library one year ago, and has quickly captured the lead, at least in terms of quantity. Flickr, by the way has amassed the most Creative Commons-licensed photos.
Cathy Casserly, the Creative Commons CEO, recently blogged about her project’s YouTube-hosted library. She promotes:
“Do you need a professional opening for your San Francisco vacation video? Perhaps some gorgeous footage of the moon for your science project? How about a squirrel eating a walnut to accompany your hot new dubstep track? All of this and more is available to inspire and add to your unique creation. Thanks to CC BY [the Creative Commons Attribution license], it’s easy to borrow footage from other people’s videos and insert it into your own, because the license grants you the specific permissions to do so as long as you give credit to the original creator.”
Founded in 2001, Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization. Designed to counter the inability of bureaucratic systems to adapt to rapid technological changes, the organization provides a suite of licenses that works within copyright law’s “all rights reserved” realm. The goal is to empower folks to share and build on each other’s’ creative work online without the risk of some commercial entity snapping it up for profit.
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
LinkedIn and Desperation Marketing: The State Farm Case
July 13, 2012
I am all for making sales. What I found interesting this week (July 8 to July 12, 2012) was a flurry of four spam emails from what I believe to be LinkedIn’s marketing operation. I poked around a little and realized that I had signed up for a Louisville (Kentucky) sales discussion group. When I say “I”, one of the goslings who manages my social presence on LinkedIn joined the group. We are researching the local market for a project, and I assume joining a LinkedIn group of local businesses was a good idea. Wrong.
Is this State Farm’s favorite marketing department lunch meat? Yummy, spam.
The sender was a person who believed that I would be interested in an “Entrepreneurial Career Opportunity” with State Farm Insurance. Now anyone who runs a query for me on Bing, Google, or Yandex will be able to conclude that I probably am a long shot for this type of work:
After reviewing your LinkedIn profile, I was impressed with the experiences you’ve had in your career and would love the chance to chat with you regarding our career opportunities!I am expecting several openings in 2012/2013 in Louisville and surrounding areas. I am looking for qualified candidates to become our next State Farm Agents. We offer a 7 month paid training program at your current salary (subject to a cap of $144K). Following your training you would earn renewable income from an existing book of business, $30,000 in signing bonuses, retirement benefits, worldwide travel incentives, office set-up assistance and more. We are not a franchise, so there is NO franchise fee to start a business with State Farm. We have an 85% success rate on all new agents and the support system that we offer to our agents is the best in the industry. This is a great business opportunity!I’m not necessarily looking for someone who is looking for a job; I’m looking for highly successful individuals…
The job is to earn six figures selling insurance in Louisville. Okay. Now Louisville is in my view wallowing in the economic hog slop. There are quite a few people out of work. I know because we are adding staff to Augmentext, so I have a pretty good sense of the level of desperation in the job market. I don’t understand why State Farm is having such a tough time finding door to door, hammer dialing, bright white teeth and big smile workers. Unemployment is about 15 percent, maybe as high as 20 percent around Harrod’s Creek. What’s up?
I did some poking around and the sender is a State Farm insurance person is based in Nashville and has a colleague named Jerry D. I wrote Ms. Swing, suggesting she do a better job of screening her spam. I also requested that she not spam me with four identical emails in a span of minutes. One works just fine, thank you. She apparently told her boss, “Jerry”, whom I had a tough time understanding on his panting and nerve-tinged voice mail. Jerry wanted me to call him so he could explain the process used by State Farm. He gave me a phone number to call too: 615 692 6149. I did not call. You feel free to call.
World Wide Web Not Quite World Wide Yet
July 8, 2012
I was just pointed to an article in which a current Google Exec warns us that many of the world’s population are missing out on the advantages brought by the Internet.
Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that less than a third of the world’s population has Internet access and believes that the benefits of connectivity that are brought on by technology is lost on far too many global citizens. In an article on Phys.org, “Google Exec: Technology Wave Leaving Many Behind,” we learn about Schmidt’s recent conference in Israel, his thoughts on the current limitations of the Internet, and his optimistic views on the spread of technology. The article states:
“‘All of us are blessed with a capacity for innovation [and] connectivity will help unlock that potential,’ [Schmidt] said. He pointed to the Internet’s ever-widening reach and its educational potential, citing the Khan Academy’s 3,000 video lessons on YouTube. The Khan Academy, which receives funding from Google, is a nonprofit organization that offers free online lectures in subjects ranging from physics to American history and algebra.”
Perhaps this means Google realizes that its market is not “Googley” and, therefore, is more easily shaped with filtering, predictive outputs, and selective relevance?
Andrea Hayden, July 8, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Shocking Internet Marketing Statistics
July 8, 2012
For those interested in finding current data on the state of the Internet marketing world, HubSpot blog recently published a listing of “21 Internet Marketing Stats That Will Blow Your Mind.”
The article is presented in a list format and the majority of the statistics back up the notion that we live in a world where the majority of online adults utilize social media sites on a regular basis. Despite that fact, no one wants a brand to blast them with meaningless Facebook and Twitter statuses multiple times a day.
This leads me to the first surprising factoid:
“The more posts per day, the less engagement — when a brand posts twice a day, those posts only receive 57% of the likes and 78% of the comments per post. (Source: Track Social) Be mindful of your publishing frequency on Facebook, and start testing with your own page to see what frequency is right for your community.”
What is even more interesting, considering the intensity at which companies seem to want to blast their customers, is this statistic:
“On average, companies respond to only 30% of social media fans’ feedback. (Source: Factbrowser) Engagement is rare. Stand out from your competition by caring and engaging with your social media community.”
Which may be the reason why our third datum is so prevalent:
“In any given week, less than 0.5% of Facebook fans engage with the brand they are fans of. (Source: Marketing Science) Brands aren’t providing the right kind of content and experience to engage their fans. Ask your Facebook fans what type of content they want to see, and then give it to them!”
Businesses that are interested in actually making an impact with their social media marketing plan need to focus on targeted statuses that inform their customers.
Jasmine Ashton, July 8, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Google Filters: Fire Arms
July 7, 2012
No big deal, but I wanted to capture this news item. Outdoor Hub reports “Google Censors Firearms Products in Shopping Search Results.” I am not a person who searches for weapons. I am also not a person who turns to Google Shopping for products. I wonder if anyone has prepared a master list of the works and phrases which Google filters. If one of my two or three readers knows of such a list, please, post a link in the comments section of this blog. Here at the goose pond, we don’t want to undertake this task. We have added a new category to this blog; it is “infoshaping.” Stories which touch on disinformation or management of indexes will receive this category assignment. We practice infoshaping, and we think it is a wonderful method for presenting curated content. Infoshaping used to be called an “editorial policy” but that term is not popular among infoshaped millennials.
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Honk and Infoshaping
July 6, 2012
We issued another test issue of Honk, the opt in newsletter about search and content processing. The lead story this week is “Infoshaping: The New Approach to Search.” The feature story in Honk each week tackles a subject and takes a more direct, blunt approach to the topic. The stories in Beyond Search, OpenSearchNews, Inteltrax, TheTrendPoint, and SharePoint Semantics are useful. We do, however, write around some sensitive issues. In fact, we don’t do “real news.” We prefer to leave that to “real” journalists. The goslings and I are more along the lines of reference librarians with feathers.
This button will appear on our information services as we move toward the formal roll out of our opt in weekly newsletter.
In the infoshaping article, I tackle the touchy subject of disinformation and weaponized information. We think the subject is important because as education becomes less able to produce individuals who can think critically, the opportunity to manipulate or frame a subject increases. How does this impact search? Well, people use online search systems and analytics systems without understanding what choices are made to control the information in the index. If information is not in the index or in the database, that information is tough to find. When the information is shaped, most users don’t know what is what.
Over the years, I have produced a number of for fee articles. Information about most of my monographs is readily available, but the for fee articles are more difficult for inexperienced researchers to locate. We have just posted on LinkedIn under my public profile, a list with links to about 100 of my columns and features. You can locate the list at Stephen E Arnold on LinkedIn. If the link on the “new and improved” LinkedIn does not work, navigate to the LinkedIn.com Web site and search for “Stephen E Arnold.” There are two with that name, but I am the shifty, wrinkled and stupid looking one.
A number of the for fee write ups tackle the subject of infoshaping, but not as directly as I do in this week’s Honk feature. We are in test mode. You can opt in by writing to one of the goslings at thehonk@yandex.com or click this link.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT
Microsoft through X Ray Glasses: Oh, Ugly.
July 3, 2012
Vanity Fair is a magazine I associate with fashion. Sun glasses, movie reviews, and perfume. I was incorrect. Vanity Fair is a business analysis journal. I suppose it wants to become the four color version of the estimable Harvard Business Review or the HBR before the editorial excitement over the alleged mixing article subjects with editorial fun.
I read “Microsoft’s Lost Decade.” I suppose I will buy the hard copy issue with the story. I hope I don’t get funny looks about my choice of reading material. I suggest you read the article. Quite a dark look at the Redmond-based giant.
Here’s the passage I liked:
When one of the young developers of MSN Messenger noticed college kids giving status updates on AOL’s AIM, he saw what Microsoft’s product lacked. “That was the beginning of the trend toward Facebook, people having somewhere to put their thoughts, a continuous stream of consciousness,” he tells Eichenwald. “The main purpose of AIM wasn’t to chat, but to give you the chance to log in at any time and check out what your friends were doing.” When he pointed out to his boss that Messenger lacked a short-message feature, the older man dismissed his concerns; he couldn’t see why young people would care about putting up a few words. “He didn’t get it,” the developer says. “And because he didn’t know or didn’t believe how young people were using messenger programs, we didn’t do anything.”
Notice that it was an older man who was the dolt. Since I am 67, I can relate to this. But I am not a dolt; I am an addled goose.Vanity Fair does do quite a hatchet job. Is it warranted? Who knows? What I took away from the Lost Decade piece is that Microsoft does nothing right in the eyes of this particular HBR like write up on the Vanity Fair Web site.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
