Monthly Archives: September 2008

Why is the Mona Lisa smiling? Or is she?

10 Sep 2008 – 11:37

Dr. Margaret Livingstone, a Professor of Neurobiology at the Harvard Medical School, has been studying the human visual system, and specifically how we process visual information. Although I find that this can be a fairly dry topic, she has applied her understanding of how vision works to offer an explanation for why the Mona Lisa’s [...]

By brynn | Posted in science | Tagged | Comments (0)

If you are who you “follow” …..

8 Sep 2008 – 11:41

…then I should be into design, technology, business, twitter, web 2.0, social, and social media. As a Cognitive Science/HCI person studying social media, that’s pretty close My friend Mike Krieger produced this from a little experiment he did last weekend. The idea is simple: Take a Twitter user’s friends (who they follow). Look at each [...]

By brynn | Posted in research, social, social search | Tagged , , , , | Comments (3)

A report of my experiences phone-banking to Nevada (Sept 6)

8 Sep 2008 – 11:23

It’s hard not to follow U.S. politics right now. And especially when we have two presidential candidates who promise to bring us “change”! Heh. Hmmm. Christopher and I have been feeling strongly that we need to do something to bring this country back on track. (Specifically, get Obama elected.) In all likelihood, California will go [...]

By brynn | Posted in politics | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

links on ma.gnolia

6 Sep 2008 – 23:57

In case you’re curious what I’ve been reading… Floozy Speak!: Valley of the Turks Here is another research look at why Turkers participate: “They are motivated by fun and by fast cash.” Corroborates Panos’ findings in his MT demographics blog post. Visualization of Clinton & Obama primary results This is an awesome visualization: it breaks [...]

By brynn | Posted in bookmarks | Comments (0)

What is social sensemaking?

5 Sep 2008 – 13:37

A lot of people have asked me recently what I mean by “sensemaking”: Sensemaking is a cognitive process of finding, processing, and making sense of information. I am certainly not the first to use the term “sensemaking.” Synthesis and assimilation may be good synonyms for it. In other words, it involves building upon what you [...]

By brynn | Posted in research | Tagged , , | Comments (3)