#research

A deep-research agent with an enforced budget, verified quotes, and a privacy boundary for local data.

My personal conclusion — as a matter of logic, empirical findings, statistical reasoning, and scientific principles — is that synthetic data has no place in survey research. I also believe the purported use cases for synthetic data are unconvincing; alternative approaches are superior in their results and are less risky in practice. And there are important questions about research ethics that each of us should consider.

In truth, no private company would have been capable of developing a project like the Internet, which required years of R&D efforts spread out over scores of far-flung agencies, and which began to take off only after decades of investment. Visionary infrastructure projects such as this are part of what has allowed our economy to grow so much in the past century. Today’s op-ed is just one sad indicator of how we seem to be losing our appetite for this kind of ambition.

In truth, no private company would have been capable of developing a project like the Internet, which required years of R&D efforts spread out over scores of far-flung agencies, and which began to take off only after decades of investment. Visionary infrastructure projects such as this are part of what has allowed our economy to grow so much in the past century. Today’s op-ed is just one sad indicator of how we seem to be losing our appetite for this kind of ambition.

Making systemic change like this is hard and it will require every invested party to stand up for what they know is right and chip away at the old system. I don’t have tenure (and at this rate, no one will ever let me). I am a young punk scholar and I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to stand up for what’s right. Open-access is right. Heavy metal gates and expensive gatekeepers isn’t. It’s time for change to happen! To all of the academics out there, I beg you to help me make this change reality. Let’s stop being silenced by academic publishers.

"The Echo Nest is a music intelligence company founded by Tristan Jehan and Brian Whitman, who met at the MIT Media Lab while they were both getting their PhDs in music understanding and synthesis research. The company has since grown to a small but insane team of developers, designers, musicians and business people all housed in a cozy office in Davis Square, Somerville, MA, USA. We grow an intelligence platform that automatically reads about and listens to the entire world of music for developers to build search, personalization and interactive music applications. "

"Now there is hope that future implants might be powered not by batteries but by the fuels in our bodies that are used for energy. Scientists have shown that fuel cells implanted in rats can successfully generate electricity from sugar in the rodent's bodies. The devices kept going for months at a time."

"By disrupting brain activity in a particular region, neuroscientists can sway people’s views of moral situations."

"This collection of library and information technology blogs have changed that, and now you’ll be able to learn about all of the trends, developments, tools and resources available to librarians in every niche."

"the device translates signals from a head-mounted camera to electrical pulses that lightly zap your tongue in response to visual stimuli -- early results have shown people can regain a good bit of their spatial awareness and even read large writing."

"Dropping the F-bomb or other expletives may not only be an expression of agony, but also a means to alleviate it"

"Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself."

""Cognizing" (e.g., thinking, understanding, and knowing) is a mental state. Systems without mental states, such as cognitive technology, can sometimes contribute to human cognition, but that does not make them cognizers. Cognizers can offload some of their cognitive functions onto cognitive technology, thereby extending their performance capacity beyond the limits of their own brain power."

"Teleportation should be a matter of simply proving you’re somewhere else."

"Previous studies of tagging determined that many common tags are not directly subject related but are in fact affective tags dwelling on a user's emotional response to a document or are time and task related tags related to a users current projects or ac

"I recently had occasion to do some research on commission and chose to create and deliver this research in the form of a Tinderbox document."

"This page is intended as a catalog of web-accessible information about Lisp Machines."

Learning Lisp is on my research list