Tribute to the Telephone Home Page: " Welcome to Tribute to the Telephone! You'll find all sorts of telephone related web pages here on the history of the telephone, technical information, research resources, human interest stories, clubs, pictures, sound files, links, etc. If this is your first time here, you might try starting out your navigation of my web site by first looking at my Table of Contents. Or, use the following search engine (when viewing this page from the Internet and not the CD) to search this site and my sister site, "A Memorial to the Bell System":"

You have to love the stuff you find on the net! Click on the Table of Contents link above to hear a recording of an unexpected phone number change.

[Thanks to The Shifted Librarian for the pointer that got me here]

4:43:16 PM •  • comment  

David P. Reed: Asking fundamental questions. If technology improves, the regulations become unnecessarily strict. When we make better radio systems, the old ones become obsolescent, and wasteful. We could improve the entire system by junking the old stuff, and replacing it all with functionally compatible systems, based on new insights and design. [Tomalak's Realm]

David is up to his usual high standards here. This offered me some new insight into the interplay between technology evolution and regulartory constraints. It seems as though lots of regulation gets put in place to compensate for the limitations of a particular technology at a particular time and place. The problem is twofold. Technology innovation and development operates at a much faster pace than regulatory change. And, incumbents with the old technology are happy to have regulation slowing down their potential future competition. It's a wonder anything new ever manages to get launched.

4:35:34 PM •  • comment  

Field Studies Done Right: Fast and Observational (Alertbox Jan. 2002). Quote: "Once you go through the hassle of setting up a field visit, the most important data you can collect is about customer behavior. In other words, you watch what people do and not what they say"

Comment: Absolutely.  I remember asking, in a different context, how we'd tested our course schedule designs.  The answer was that we'd had a focus group.  This approach fails for just the reasons that this article identifies. [Serious Instructional Technology]

Jakob Nielsen's advice is useful, although it essentially boils down to Yogi Berra's - "you can observe a lot just by watching."

I also went back to the NY Times article Nielsen refences (Consuming Rituals of the Suburban Tribe). What a load of academic nonsense (BTW, I am an academic, so this qualifies as an insiders opinion)! Did any of these folks ever hear of unobtrusive measures? I think the thing to understand here is that there was no research going on in the Times report. What was going on was a parody of research to justify a high consulting fee and a high marketing budget.  I'm not convinced that the Times piece wasn't meant to be a parody.

4:05:36 PM •  • comment  

DARPA and the US culture of high technology. Sometime in the middle of the 20th century, against the backdrop of World War II, a new type of weapon emerged simultaneously in several parts of the world, whose initial purpose was to improve the armed forces of its parent nation, but was subsequently enlisted to keep fighting long after all of the treaties were signed. That weapon was the modern strategic research and development (R&D) laboratory. In the US, the role of strategic research in the military as well as in the private sector has been influenced greatly by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). [kuro5hin.org]

Nice introduction to DARPA and the societal contributions they've made.

3:44:33 PM •  • comment  

David W. has it:  Weblogging is about creating an online self.  It is your mind... online.  It isn't a cartoon avatar or a silly sign-in name.  It is your body of work, your writing that brings your mind alive online.  It can't be done in a couple articles.  You need to slog at it, day-in day-out, until people begin to understand how you think.  [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

The curious thing I'm discovering is how to walk the fine line between completely forgetting that someone may  be reading what you have to say and becoming paralyzed because you haven't worked it all out yet.

It reminds me of the old saw 'how do I know what I think, until I see what I say." Weblogging is a forcing function that helps make your thinking visible to yourself. Bonus points if someone else pays attention, the payoff is for your own thinking.

3:41:51 PM •  • comment