tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91156446058333841382024-03-13T21:16:17.380+01:00X de XavierUnos y ceros. A veces, en el orden adecuado.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-5686453768867118552009-11-30T23:58:00.004+01:002009-12-01T00:37:09.816+01:00Carrots & Sticks? Autonomy, Mastery, PurposeFun and surprising <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html">TED Talk by Dan Pink on Motivation</a>. <div><br /></div><div>Experiments show that extrinsic motivators (carrots and sticks) work great for simple/mechanical-like tasks, probably by providing a narrow focus. But... rewards make performance <span style="font-weight:bold;">worse</span> for creative/complex tasks!!!</div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.nathaliemagniez.com/cartoons/motivation"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width:400px;" src="http://www.nathaliemagniez.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/danpink.png" border="0" alt="Cartoon by Nathalie 0Magniez" title="Cartoon by Nathalie Magniez" /></a><br />It's a funny coincidence that today I picked up a free copy of the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703294004574511223494536570.html#articleTabs_video%26articleTabs%3Dvideo">The Wall Street Journal and it had an article on executive bonuses</a>. Huge expensive carrots that, according to the experiments above, lead to less ability to deal with complexity.<br /></div>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-3322697314278465182008-08-02T23:02:00.000+01:002008-08-02T23:06:09.748+01:00Keep hopes up (textual street art)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/larimdame/4438632/" title="Riding With Despair Prohibited by LarimdaME, on Flickr"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/4/4438632_b15e68f542.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />More brilliant street art enjoyed today while sitting at home...<br /><ul><li>An artist called <a href="http://trueart.biz/">TRUE</a> replaced some NYC subway security signs with some of his own with less mundane advice: <span style="font-style: italic;">Riding with despair prohibitrd, Have fun, Do not hurt people, Do not accept defeat, Strive to be happy, Do not hold grudges</span><br /><ul><li>The stickers scanned: <a href="http://www.candychang.com/2008/04/04/riding-with-despair-prohibited/">http://www.candychang.com/2008/04/04/riding-with-despair-prohibited/</a><br /></li><li>A recreation of one of the stickers: <a href="http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2007/06/making_happy.html">http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2007/06/making_happy.html</a></li><li>A nice TED Talk by Stefan Sagmeister that mentions this an other interesting projects: <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stefan_sagmeister_shares_happy_design.html">Yes, design can make you happy</a><br /></li></ul></li><li><a href="http://pleaseenjoy.com/">Ji Lee</a>'s <a href="http://thebubbleproject.com/01.Bubbles/BubblesFrameset.htm">Bubble Project</a>: <span style="font-style: italic;">50,000 bubble stickers have been printed. They have been continually placed on top of ads on the streets of New York. They are left blank, inviting passersby to fill them in. I photograph and archive the results. This project instantly transforms the intrusive and dull corporate monologues into a public dialogue. Our public spaces are returned back to the public.<br /></span><span>The project is also mentioned in <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stefan_sagmeister_shares_happy_design.html">Sagmeister's talk</a>, and watching/reading some of the pictures in the project's site is well worth.</span><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoneppink/2616071342/" title="The Bubble Project by jasoneppink, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2616071342_f67ae29bf4.jpg" alt="The Bubble Project" height="500" width="368" /></a><br /></li><li><a href="http://redantenna.tv/sidewalk_psychiatry/">Sidewalk Psychiatry</a>, by <a href="http://www.candychang.com/artdesign/pages/sidewalk_psychiatry.htm">Candy Chang</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.candychang.com/artdesign/pages/image/sidewalk_doesshe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.candychang.com/artdesign/pages/image/sidewalk_doesshe.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></li> </ul>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-71478253583561979342008-07-06T19:49:00.005+01:002008-07-06T20:47:31.706+01:00How many shinning eyes around me?I had read <a href="http://readthisblog.net/2007/04/18/24-amazing-hours/">raving reviews</a> about <a href="http://www.benjaminzander.com/">Benjamin Zander</a>'s talks. Now I get <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html">why...</a><br /><!--cut and paste--><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="VE_Player" align="middle" height="285" width="432"><param name="movie" value="http://static.videoegg.com/ted2/flash/loader.swf"><param name="FlashVars" value="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/BenjaminZander_2008_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="scale" value="noscale"><param name="wmode" value="window"><embed src="http://static.videoegg.com/ted2/flash/loader.swf" flashvars="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/BenjaminZander_2008_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" scale="noscale" wmode="window" name="VE_Player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" height="285" width="432"></embed></object>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-276474749276403192007-09-24T14:21:00.000+01:002007-09-24T14:38:51.445+01:00Beasts walking in the beach<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://flickr.com/photos/pmo/418243956/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/171/418243956_dbcd41c70f_d.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Flickr picture by <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/pmo/">pmo</a></span><br /></div>BMW has been showing a beautiful commercial featuring the kinetic sculptures by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Jansen">Theo Jansen</a>. This is its one minute version:<br /><object height="326" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/a7Ny5BYc-Fs"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/a7Ny5BYc-Fs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="326" width="400"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/162">The art of creating creatures</a>, a talk by Jansen, has been recently posted to ted.com. But, if you are curious about some of the fascinating technicalities behind Jansen's air-powered logic and mechanical design through genetic algorithms, an earlier talk at <a href="http://www.gelconference.com/">http://www.gelconference.com</a> is a better choice (20 minutes):<br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1908854709977452326&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-49880201084728217832007-08-10T18:04:00.000+01:002007-08-10T18:37:44.181+01:00I am thinking nowDo not miss (sorry, louder, DO NOT MISS) this <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks">TED Talk</a>:<br /><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/156">Patrick Awuah: Educating a new generation of African leaders</a>.<br /><br />It's not only about Africa. It's about entitlement[1] and responsibility, education, ethics, critical thinking, incompetence, economic elites, empowerment... in any part of the world. 18 moving minutes that will make you think.<br /><br />I'm keeping a quote from it:<br /><blockquote>Every society must be very intentional about how it trains its leaders</blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">[1] I was talking about this to someone and could not think of a good Spanish term for "entitlement". He translated quoting something heard in lots of movies when the hero is in trouble while abroad: </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >I am an American citizen</span><span style="font-size:85%;">. Not that I believe that Americans are worse than in my corner of the world in the entitlement disease, but I thought that it was a very funny and good translation.</span>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-71914425157737354332007-04-29T14:08:00.000+01:002007-04-29T13:13:25.559+01:00Mockingbird Molotov cocktailsI'm not much into poetry, but <a href="http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com/">Rives</a> seems to be monopolizing most of my rainy Sunday morning. Using <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/profiles/view/id/13">June Cohen</a>'s words, <span style="font-style: italic;">"on the surface, it's light-hearted, but then he layers in unexpected depth and emotion".<br /><br /></span>Some cool things would happen <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/26">if Rives controlled the internet</a>, although I wish there were a transcript because he pushes my English skills a bit too far.<br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="VE_Player" align="middle" height="285" width="432"><param name="movie" value="http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf"><param name="FlashVars" value="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/RIVES_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="scale" value="noscale"><param name="wmode" value="window"><embed src="http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf" flashvars="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/RIVES_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" scale="noscale" wmode="window" name="VE_Player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" height="285" width="320"></embed></object><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/108">Mockingbird</a>, including a TED 2006 remix that is not available in this <a href="http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com/mockingbird.html">text version</a>, creates vivid surprising and pretty images on me.<br /><br />But, my favourite, by far, is <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Compliment</span>, in <a href="http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com/compliment.html">text</a> and in <a href="http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com/videos/rivesandjoshua.mov">beatboxer+poet+harmonica video</a>. Mmmm, wait Xavier, that's dangerous stuff to listen to when you are happily and safely uninterested in that kind of love; so lets use a quote by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw">George Bernand Shaw</a> that I heard in <a href="http://helenfisher.com/">Helen Fisher</a>'s TEDtalk <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/16">The science of love, and the future of women</a>:<br /><blockquote>Love consists in overestimating the differences between one woman and another</blockquote>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-14960342692127696762007-04-28T17:48:00.000+01:002007-04-28T17:01:01.798+01:00La felicidad y la bola de cristalA toda prisa a la librería de la esquina [1] a comprarme <a href="http://www.edestino.es/fichalibro.aspx?IdPack=2&IdPildora=280">Tropezar con la felicidad</a>, de <a href="http://www.danielgilbert.com/">Daniel Gilbert</a>, después de haber escuchado su <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/97">divertida y sorprendente conferencia</a> en <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks">TED Talks</a>.<br /><br />La idea básica de la conferencia es que somos muy malos en nuestras predicciones sobre lo que nos hará felices o no. Al parecer, tenemos las mismas posibilidades de ser felices tanto consiguiendo lo que deseamos como no consiguiéndolo.<br /><br />Está llena de datos sorprendentes, como que, un año después de acontecimientos tan distintos como quedar parapléjico o ganar la loteria, las personas de los dos grupos muestran el mismo nivel de felicidad. O que mayores posibilidades de elección van en detrimento de nuestra felicidad (más sobre esto en la también sorprendente conferencia de <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bschwar1/">Barry Schwartz</a> <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/93">The paradox of choice</a>).<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="VE_Player" align="middle" height="285" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf"><param name="FlashVars" value="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/DANGILBERT_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="scale" value="noscale"><param name="wmode" value="window"><embed src="http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf" flashvars="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/DANGILBERT_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;logo=&allowFullscreen=true" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" scale="noscale" wmode="window" name="VE_Player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" height="285" width="320"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[1] </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Mi librero no tiene el libro, así que lo encargo y me llevo uno de <a href="http://www.joseantoniomarina.net/">José Antonio Marina</a>. JAM siempre me gusta. <span style="font-style: italic;">La magia de escribir</span>, escrito con María de la Válgoma.<br /><br />Curioso: ¿por qué me da esta pájara de comprarme libros sobre escritura (<a href="http://xdexavier.blogspot.com/2007/03/bird-by-bird.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bird by Bird</span></a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The War Of Art</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">La magia de escribir</span>)?!</span>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-68206727161766862782007-04-28T00:50:00.000+01:002007-04-28T16:58:34.997+01:00Democratizing visualizationI learned today about IBM Research's <a href="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/app">Many Eyes</a>, available at <a href="http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/">alphaWorks</a>. Although at first sight it seems simply a nice tool to create nice visualizations, its goal is to enable collaboration around visualizations.<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/fernanda.html">Fernanda B. Viégas</a>' <a href="http://blog.many-eyes.com/2007/01/31/democratizing-visualization/">words</a>, the intend is <span style="font-style: italic;">"to enable people to collectively reason about the trends and patterns they see on the vivid representations of data called visualizations"</span>, or <span style="font-style: italic;">"distributed data analysis and <span style="font-weight: bold;">collaborative sensemaking</span>"</span>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/app"><img style="margin: 0px; display: block; cursor: pointer; width: 600px;" src="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/images2/title.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />How? You can upload data sets. You can create visualizations of them. You can discuss the visualizations, <a href="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/Sk1zvEsOtha6XGE-SiR0F2-">highlighting</a> <a href="http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SGXXRFsOtha6X2lZVhPjF2-">parts</a> of them.<br /><br />You are not sold into the power of good visualizations? Check out <a href="http://roslingsblogger.blogspot.com/">Hans Rosling</a>'s <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92">Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen</a> TEDTalk (aka <span style="font-style: italic;">No More Boring Data</span>, as posted on youtube). Or play with a tool similar to the one that he uses in the presentation, at <a href="http://tools.google.com/gapminder">http://tools.google.com/gapminder</a>.<br /><br />And whatever you think about Many Eyes, Hans Rosling, logarithms or baseball, do go and check <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php">the improved TED site</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> It seems that Many Eyes is not the only project in this area. From an <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ibm_many_eyes_after_one_month.php">article</a> by Fernanda and <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/martin.html">Martin Wattenberg</a>,<br /><blockquote>We think that <span style="font-weight: bold;">social data analysis</span> is a lively area right now and we are not the only ones exploring this space - two other sites of note are <a href="http://www.swivel.com/">Swivel</a> and <a href="http://www.data360.org/">Data360</a>. Each of the 3 sites has a different emphasis, but what we have in common is a belief that the web enables a new, social kind of data analysis; a type of statistical thinking that is both playful and serious.</blockquote>Social Data Analysis. Nice term.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0