Some weeks ago I got to know about Barabasi's new book "Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do". The author decided to spread the word through a very cleverly engineered web game, an example of sticky innovative marketing (see the figure above).

After some minutes of trying the game it started to become more and more interesting. To my great surprise last Tuesday I got the following message from the author of "Linked":


I will comment more on Bursts as soon as I get my signed copy :)

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Check out this awesome video which may spark many questions and thoughts... It has to do with having a goal and being able to put it in a nutshell.

The message of this short video applies well to scientific papers and presentations: many times we are tempted to include too much material thereby forgetting the essentials.

Hi there! I'm back after some months (and many miles...). Thanks to all of you for the many encouraging messages! I hope to write more often so please stay tuned!

For those of you who enjoyed Helvetica there is now Objectified.

"Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability."

You can see the trailer here.

As many of you may have noticed my site was experiencing many problems during the last month. Everything started when my hosting account at 1and1 was ending and I decided to change host. After comparing many services I decided for a two year plan at Justhost. During the first 3 weeks everything was running smoothly until one day my site was down. After opening a ticket and not having an answer for days I decided to close my account at Justhost and asked for the reimbursement of my payment... then did everything to try to keep me there, from offering me 3 months for free to finally to taking my site (by then hosted at another provider) down. What a painful experience! More than a week of messages forth and back, phone calls and chat, until they finally reimbursed my money. If you are looking for a budget hosting with a customer service I would recommend to stay away from Justhost.

I got today an email from Physical Review Letters announcing a reinvigoration of their acceptance standards. This seems to me as a very necessary measure to cope with the increasing publishing inflation of the last years.

From: PRL Editors
Date: Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 6:16 PM
Subject: Reinvigorating PRL Standards
To: me

Dear Dr. ---,
We at Physical Review Letters always look for ways to do better at our core mission, which is to provide the physics community with accounts of crucial research in a convenient format. PRL at present publishes about 80 Letters per week, and we Editors, and many readers of PRL, have concluded that these cannot all discuss crucial research, and that it is too large a number to be convenient. This view is also held by our editorial board and by others, as we know from a wide range of exchanges with our colleagues.

As a result we will reaffirm the standards for acceptance for PRL. The criteria will not change fundamentally, but we will work to apply them with increased rigor. To meet the PRL criteria of importance and broad interest, a Letter must
1) substantially advance a particular field; or
2) open a significant new area of research; or
3) solve a critical outstanding problem, or make a significant step toward solving such a problem; or
4) be of great general interest, based, for example, on scientific aesthetics.

...

For this effort to be successful, authors must submit only results that meet at least one of the above criteria. Referees must judge breadth of interest based on impact both in the specific field and across field boundaries, and must support favorable recommendations with substantive reasons to publish. Editors will be more discriminating in both their own evaluation of manuscripts and their interpretation of referee reports. In support of these efforts we will revise our statement of Policies and Practices and our Referee Response Form.
...
We note that there are many papers that are valid and important in their area, but are not at the level of importance or broad interest that is necessary for PRL. There are also papers of great importance for their field and/or of broad interest that simply cannot be presented in a letter format. The Physical Review journals have high standards and unmatched reputations and are natural venues for such papers.
We know that these changes will lead to some disappointments. We are convinced, however, that a more selective PRL will communicate the best physics more efficiently.
Sincerely,
The Editors
Please see our Editorial: Improving PRL

In "The Wisdom of Crowds", James Surowiecki describes an interesting episode: In 1968, the submarine Scorpion got lost in the north Atlantic and the navy had only a general idea of its location. To determine the position of the lost ship, various independent experts in different disciplines where asked to give their opinion about the location. Later, by weighting these answers, a naval officer managed to predict the position of the Scorpion within within 220 yards.

The idea now is to try to predict the position of the lost AF 447 flight through a similar scheme. To such end I ask you to examine the available data in newspapers and send the coordinates (latitute + longitude) where you think the main remainings are located by commenting to this post. To ensure that each of your posts is independent there will be a delay between your submission and the moment when the comment appears online.

Please send the coordinates in the format: X.XXXXN XX.XXXXW, or as a distance (XXX.XXX km N/S and XXX.XXX km E/W) from the last transmission point (3.5777N 30.3744W). More info on the Air France 447 flight available in wikipedia and links therein.

Some days ago I bought a book at Better World Books, a singular online bookstore that defines itself as "a pioneering social enterprise — a business with a mission to promote literacy". "Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide".

"The online bookstore with a soul" sent me a message today confirming the shipping of my book. This seems just normal. What makes it special is how they did it. Take a look for yourself:

Hello Luis,

(Your book(s) asked to write you a personal note - it seemed unusual, but who are we to say no?)

Holy canasta! It's me... it's me! I can't believe it is actually me! You could have picked any of over 2 million books but you picked me! I've got to get packed! How is the weather where you live? Will I need a dust jacket? I can't believe I'm leaving Mishawaka, Indiana already - the friendly people, the Hummer plant, the Linebacker Lounge - so many memories. I don't have much time to say goodbye to everyone, but it's time to see the world!

I can't wait to meet you! You sound like such a well read person. Although, I have to say, it sure has taken you a while! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but how would you like to spend five months sandwiched between Jane Eyre (drama queen)and Fundamentals of Thermodynamics (pyromaniac)? At least Jane was an upgrade from that stupid book on brewing beer. How many times did the ol' brewmaster have one too many and topple off our shelf at 2am?

I know the trip to meet you will be long and fraught with peril, but after the close calls I've had, I'm ready for anything (besides, some of my best friends are suspense novels). Just five months ago, I thought I was a goner. My owner was moving and couldn't take me with her. I was sure I was landfill bait until I ended up in a Better World Books book drive bin. Thanks to your socially conscious book shopping, I've found a new home. Even better, your book buying dollars are helping kids read from Brazil to Botswana.

Imagine, you read the subject of the message and you think another confirmation message from the bookstore, you open it and, unexpectedly, you find a message written by the book you bought who is telling his story: how he was rescued from a landfill, who were his neighbors and how much he is looking forward to meet you!

I wanted to share it with you as example of a lively and emotional story "made to stick" in the words of Dan and Chip Heath.

How is science built? Is it through small incremental changes or through “revolutionary”, disruptive and singular events?


As emphasized by Nassim Taleb, it is not the expected and mundane events (the white swans) the ones that shape the world but the improbable and unexpected (the black swans). The point that Mark Buchanan makes in his recent Physics World article is that "the publish-or-perish ethic too often favors a narrow and conservative approach to scientific innovation". Are we then pushing the most innovative ideas/people to the margin and transforming valuable people into some kind of golem? poor beings limited in their free will by being stimulated to follow the main stream?

Here it is a brief excerpt taken from Buchanan's article:

Unfortunately, today’s academic and corporate cultures seem to be moving in the opposite direction, with practices that stifle risk-taking mavericks who have a broad view of science. At universities and funding agencies, for example, tenure and grant committees take decisions based on narrow criteria (focusing on publication lists, citations and impact factors) or on specific plans for near-term results, all of which inherently favour those working in established fields with well-accepted paradigms.

The conference room is almost full as the people try to get the last seats while the session is restarting after the coffee break. The speaker is trying to convey his motivation. After a few words he presents a bar graph showing the number of publications on his topic as a function of time showing a huge (seemingly exponential) increase in the last few years. "There is a lot of clever people working on this field" he assesses confidently with an Iamoneofthem attitude.



This kind of phenomenon, called "social proof" is not new. Stanley Milgram and other social psychologists identified it already in 1968 in a series of social experiments. The key is the assumption that if lots of people do something it should be because there is something interesting in it. Therefore, the crowd becomes more influential when it is bigger. As James Surowiecki points out: "every additional person is a proof that something important is happening", "The strategy of following the others if things are uncertain is reasonable but if too many people adopt that strategy, it stops being sensible and the group stops being smart".

Google is now trying "The Wisdom of Crowds"
strategy to find the best ways of saving money. Earlier this month google announced Tip Jar, a new web experiment based on Google Moderator. Tip Jar allows users to submit money-saving tips and vote on them. After a very large number of independent proposals and votes, it is expected that the best tips will somehow emerge (or may be the best tip will in fact be some combination of the most voted tips(?)). So, let's share a tip...

Links: Official Google Blog: Tipping points
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.