Thursday, August 19, 2004

When Reputation Systems Are Worse Than Useless. "A paper by Ely, Fudenberg, Levine, titled 'When is Reputation is Bad', analyzes mathematical models of situations where public reputations make it harder, not easier, to sustain good behavior. from University of Michigan scholar Paul Resnick's blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/presnick/12582.html [Smart Mobs] 6:14:40 PM    comment []

Computerworld: Cryptanalysis of MD5 and SHA: Time for a new standard. Bruce Schneier. But there's an old saying inside the NSA: "Attacks always get better; they never get worse." These techniques will continue to improve, and probably someday there will be practical attacks based on these techniques. It's time for us all to migrate away from SHA-1. [Tomalak's Realm] 6:14:32 PM    comment []

Rudy Rucker on the joy of hacking: "Coding a simulation forces a programmer to ponder unexpectedly many issues. God is in the details. One might go so far as to assert that a person doesn’t fully understand something until they’ve written a simulation of it -- a precept which has the perhaps too übergeekly corollary that non-programmers don’t fully understand anything!" [Hack the Planet] I'll be working on some simulations for use in my classes this year and find Rucker's words cautionary. 8:01:19 AM    comment []

Spotting Signposts to Higher Education. Advice is widely available online for jittery parents and their college-bound offspring, even if their graduation date is still some years away. By By MICHELLE SLATALLA. [The New York Times > Technology] 8:00:34 AM    comment []

The three ages of internet studies: ten, five and zero years ago, by Barry Wellman, Director, NetLab, University of Toronto (in New Media and Society, v. 6, no. 1). 7:54:40 AM    comment []

Jeff Brown Spouts off again! You gamers are wasting your time.. Well, Mr. Uber-foot-in-mouth has outdone himself. This time, EA's Vice President for Corporate Communications Jeff Brown popped off at a gamers conference in Scottland, saying that gamers would be better off going out and mowing the lawn than ... did he say play online games or did he say try to make money gaming? The attendees were unclear on what he meant, but it is reported on Terra Nova that these remarks were made as he sat next to Jamie Hale of Gaming Open Market! Lots of fun remarks in the thread on Terra Nova? Favorite quote: "Either EA hasn't been tracking EA player auctions, or this guys is a complete idiot." Gee, can't it be both??? Here is your thread for more hilarity: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/08/eas_eyes_wide_s.html [The Second Life Herald] 7:49:17 AM    comment []

Mascot, sculptures add intrigue to Gorlok U. First-year students at Webster no doubt have heard the sales pitches about what makes Webster such a great place. The small class sizes, international community and "individual learning experiences" will all ring a bell even to those who have never stepped foot in an active Webster classroom. [The Journal] 7:48:54 AM    comment []