, 1 min read
Didier reminded me to check Nielsen’s last post on Principles of Effective Research. I take a quote out of it… The foundation is a plan for the development of research strengths. What are you interested in? Given your interests, what are you going to try to learn? The plan needs to be driven…
, 4 min read
When I started out as a researcher, as a young Ph.D. student, I thought research was about “having ideas”. Then, it occured to me that it was about “having ideas and ‘selling’ them” because “having ideas” is easy and too many people have too many ideas already. But marketing experts…
, 1 min read
Michael Nielsen: Principles of Effective Research: Part IV
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I’ve been reading Michael Nielsen’s Principles of Effective Research, he is up to Part IV now. He makes a very important point about research. When I started out doing research, I thought that research was about sitting in your office thinking up new ideas. God! Was I wrong! Now, don’t get me…
, 3 min read
A must read paper in the Chronicle Is There a Science Crisis? Maybe Not. The paper is about the oversupply of graduate students in science which is brought upon by universities who have a vested interest in producing more and more science Ph.D.s but don’t necessarily need to adjust to the job…
, 1 min read
A must read paper in the Chronicle
, 1 min read
Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon
, 1 min read
The people at Carnegie Mellon seem to have the right idea: their Open Learning Initiative offers you to browse right there and now the content of their courses. It seems to be a driving point: they want to make courses free for individuals, and low cost for institutions. By building communities…
, 2 min read
Stephen gave an interview to Clientology about eLearning. Some of his statements should be scaring the h*ll out of some people in universities and elsewhere. First, he points out that gatekeepers are slowly losing their power: It is important to recall how much of our culture – including…
, 1 min read
Eating poutine in Montréal
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Through Seb, I found Idle Words. The guy is moving to Montreal and just discovered Poutine. If you know what poutine is, you’ve got to go read his post on his first Poutine experience: hilarious. Actually, last time I ate poutine was one I made myself. Well, at least, I made the French fries…
, 1 min read
Through Lucas’, I got to an interesting article called Who’s Behind This Mess? He applied his ideas to companies, but I claim that it can be applied to long term projects as well. The project must address a pain point, an existing or soon-to-be problem The project must be run lean The project…
, 1 min read
Still looking for creative folks in Montreal. I figured that I’d follow the money. Found Innovatech’s web site. It is particularly nice because they list the companies they’ve invested in. I think it is a Quebec government shop, probably along the lines of IRAP, but with maybe much less of a…
, 1 min read
Here’s an interesting article, Capturing the Value of “Generation Tech” Employees, I got through Downes’. The premise of the article is that there is a new generation (< 30 years old) which was born with computers around and thus, thinks and act differently. I’d argue that even if…
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Capturing the Value of the e-Generation
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Sean was cool enough to invite me to join Gmail. Gmail is the Google free email service where you have almost unlimited storage (1GB to be precise) and various cool Google tools to search your emails. I’m not convinced I’ll use it very much, but it is cool to have it. My address is lemire…
, 1 min read
Yuhong is worried that as more people visit her blog, she will censor her content. You might recall that Yuhong is the latest NRC researcher to join the blogger community. There is no question that writting for a public, however small, will impact the content. In this sense, a blog is not intimate.…
, 2 min read
Life is funny, you’ll work like a dog on something, and it will just plain won’t work. And once in a while, a very simple concept will just work. I think that research and life has more to do with luck, as in “try many things and hope that something will work”, rather than pure intellect.…
, 1 min read
Turning the fight for Linux up one level
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Thanks to Internet, it is possible for a musician in Bolivia to be listened to in Toronto. My blog is read by people in Brezil. However, there is a very serious threat on this brave new world: that individuals and small communities get lost in the ever increasing noise. Just think about how…