Monthly Archives: March 2008

Defining the human context for search and retrieval.

I’m trying to wrap my head around all of the information I’m reading about image search. Search, retrieval, information, data, all of these terms are loaded, and used differently depending on whether I’m reading an HCI paper, a text analysis paper, or a blog post about search engine optimisation (SEO). In hopes of simplifying things, …

March 27, 2008 – 17:22 | By dariusz | Posted in Masters Research | Tagged , | View Comments

Graduate Tuition – Guelph vs. USA

In the next few weeks tuition for Graduate students at the University of Guelph is probably going to go up again. As a student, this obviously bothers me. What is that, 14% in three years? 120% in the last 12 years? Since many of us know the tuition increase is imminent, and aren’t really willing …

March 19, 2008 – 23:56 | By dariusz | Posted in Activism and Politics | Tagged | View Comments

Tracks of the year, apparently.

I’ve been using Last.fm to track my listening habits for a few years now, and decided to take a look at what I’ve been listening to. You can use Last.fm to track things you listen to in iTunes, Rhythmbox, Winamp, BBC Radio, whatever. Check out their website for a full list of supported music players.

Anyways, reviewing a list like this made me realise how quickly I forget how important certain tracks were for me at a given point in time. So without further ado, two lists, one rock, one hip hop.

March 17, 2008 – 17:31 | By dariusz | Posted in Music | Tagged , | View Comments

The Guelph Faculty Strike: What about us TAs?

The University of Guelph Faculty Association (UGFA), the union for faculty on campus, is in a legal strike position on Friday, March 14th, at 12:01am (press release). They’ve been negotiating a new agreement with the University Administration for about 18 months now, and haven’t reached something amicable yet. It’s tough to find information on the …

March 12, 2008 – 15:46 | By dariusz | Posted in Activism and Politics | Tagged , , | View Comments

Finding research papers online

Finding relevant and useful research papers is different now than even a few years ago.  Search tools are improving, online collections are growing, and your local university library probably has a proxy that allows you to vist any paper they have access to online.  I have found the following tools useful in finding papers within …

March 11, 2008 – 18:41 | By dariusz | Posted in Masters Research | Tagged , | View Comments

Alternatives to WP-Cache

After spending far too much time trying to get WP-Cache2 plugin to work on a very vanilla WordPress installation, I’ve given up on it. I’m sure it’s super amazing when it does work, but in my experience as a competent *nix user, it’s difficult to get working/debug (and silly to remove because of this stupid …

March 1, 2008 – 15:22 | By dariusz | Posted in Software Development | Tagged , | View Comments

On why it is dumb to categorise ideas.

The gentleman in this video, Dr. David Weinberger, thinks it’s a pretty terrible idea to try to categorise ideas in the same way we categorise physical things in the physical world. Many people who deal with information on a regular basis tend to think that since you can only stack a chair in a single …

March 1, 2008 – 12:35 | By dariusz | Posted in User Experience | Tagged , , | View Comments