.. is precisely what I don’t plan on being, but I liked my colleague‘s email subject line so I decided to use it here. Point being: I’ll be in Florence this weekend and am looking for suggestions for what not to miss. As a bit of background: 1. I’ve been already and have visited the relatively obvious touristy musts; 2. I have six guide books in my office with suggestions.

Of course, you could then say “so what do you need us for?”. Well, I’m looking for suggestions of that hole-in-the-wall place you found at the end of your trip having hoped in retrospect to have had more time to enjoy. Or that specific spot on a sidestreet from which the view to some place is especially magnificent. Or whatever. There are hidden gems in every city so I thought it was worth asking.

And if anyone around here happens to be in Florence this weekend, let me know.* This is a work trip, but the meeting doesn’t start until Monday so I have Fri-Sun for fun.

For anyone curious, I’m going there for an OECD meeting on “new millennium learners”. Thanks to INDIRE for sponsoring this. We’ll also have a public meeting next Wednesday on the topic.

* I have another post in the works about how to keep people posted of one’s whereabouts.

• Subway maps
  from around the world
  (tags: maps reference travel)
• Pictaps
  draw a character and watch it dance and cheer itself on; yup, random, but fun & interesting for a few moments
  (tags: flash fun drawing)

Jim got such great response to his academic haiku contest that he decided to categorize the submissions by field. You are requested to cast your vote in the following categories:

• tech/computer/Internet haiku
• social science haiku
• humanities haiku
• physical science haiku

I’m surprised by some of the classifications, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy with some of those submissions. Why my paper that was published in Social Science Quartery was not classified as social science is beyond me, but perhaps Jim needed some excuse to create a fourth category to make things manageable and thus put some entries in the fourth interdisciplinary tech/computer/Internet-related, but otherwise unrelated group. Even in the realm of academic haikus my work lands in a heap of confusion, the story of my academic life.

In any case, this was a really fun exercise and I thank Jim for inspiring so many of us to think about our work in 17 syllables. If you haven’t done it yet, I recommend playing with the concept even if you are too late to enter this contest. Go read the submissions and vote to get inspired.

I’m quite happy with my “I am an expert” haiku. If you agree, don’t be shy and please check off the corresponding mark, #3 on the tech/computer/Internet list.:-)

• CarePages
  Univ Wisc site regarding support with health issues
  (tags: community health)
• ‘MySpace’ Won’t Be in Cyberspace at Wake Libraries
  “Library leaders are putting a block on the popular social-networking Web site because, they say, some people have used it to access pornographic sites and children have accidentally seen what they found.” – sheesh
  (tags: myspace censorship libraries sns)
• 200 Impressions
  this guy’s got some talent, amusing (even though I don’t know a whole bunch of the characters he covers)
  (tags: funny video)
• The OVERnote
  neat idea, pre-filled inf on stickies
  (tags: diy cool templates howto)
• Rubber Stamps
  custom rubber stamps
  (tags: products-services customized)
• Superior labels
  custom labels
  (tags: products-services customized)

• Some Americans Reluctant to Vote for Mormon, 72-Year-Old Presidential Candidates
  I wonder how long someone worked on that title… Some USA Today/Gallup poll stats on willingness to vote for various types of presidential candidates in the US; toward the end of the page includes figures from previous years (1937, 1967)
  (tags: politics news stats polling)
• AVROSS
  Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organisation in Social Science
  (tags: research study)
• WebGURU
  “guide to research for undergraduates” (seems to mainly focus on the sciences)
  (tags: students research reference)
• Earth from above
  beautiful photographs
  (tags: photos geography)
• techPresident
  “How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them.”
  (tags: politics elections blogs web20)
• Thomas Beauvisage
  Internet researcher (unfortunately, some of the links to papers don’t yield anything)
  (tags: people research)
• HigherEdInfo.org
  data on US college retention and graduation by state (offers raw data, graphs and maps)
  (tags: data reference stats education frbk)

• Autumn and the Plot Against Me
  “The mysterious origins of a Windows desktop image.” – fun read, recommended!
  (tags: photos mystery windows article)

Grad school pal Jim Gibbon launched an academic haiku contest a week ago. I only noticed it today (Wednesday),which happens to be the deadline for submissions. If you still have time, head on over and submit something. If it’s past Wednesday then feel free to add your creative output in the comments here.

The idea is that the haiku should represent some of your work (a paper, a book, a dissertation, etc.). Here are my two submissions:

I am an expert.
I am man, you are woman.
I exaggerate.

From: *Hargittai, E & S. Shafer. 2006. “Differences in Actual and Perceived Online Skills: The Role of Gender.” Social Science Quarterly. 87(2):432-448. June.

RSS, widgets,
Don’t know one from the other.
Average Web users.

From: Hargittai, E. 2007. “Wikis and Widgets: Differences in Young Adults’ Uses of the Internet” Paper to be presented at the 2007 ICA meetings.

[*] I have to add that it’s actually not possible to tell from the findings whether men overestimate or women underestimate their skills, but perhaps that amount of artistic freedom for the haiku is allowed.

• Pluto RIP T-shirt
  (thanks to Greg for pointing this out to me)
  (tags: tshirt funny)
• Uses for Google Custom Search Engines
  (tags: google search-engines ToRead)
• Many Eyes – data visualization
  careful, any data you upload will become public; cool tool for data visualization and seeing what others can make of your data
  (tags: tools stats data)
• Female Pakistani minister shot dead for ‘breaking Islamic dress code’-News-World-Asia-TimesOnline
  A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil.
  (tags: women rights news)

For any regular reader, it’s probably been hard to miss that I haven’t had much time for blogging.. or even browsing the Web given how few links have appeared here via del.icio.us.

I was on the road, first at a MacArthur grantees’ meeting, then in Fort Lee, NJ for a couple of days, next in Chicago for some meetings and data collection, and finally at Northwestern for our graduate recruitment weekend. I’m delighted to be back in what was sunny California when I arrived yesterday, but what is now a cloudy rainy day (less delighted about the latter).

I’m still in catch-up mode so don’t expect too much in the near future. Maybe I’ll post some photos to keep things colorful.

In the meantime, check out how the “wisdom of crowds” principle completely failed me in this guessing game Scott put up. I decided to guess the contents of the coin jar by averaging the guesses of everyone else. It didn’t work at all.

I guess it’s just as well, choosing from among those intriguing prizes would’ve been difficult.

• Yahoo! Pipes: Rewire the web
  Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.
  (tags: web20 mashup rss feeds aggregator)
• List of large data bases
  (tags: reference top10 data)
• Random amusing signs from all over
  (tags: funny signs)
• Seven steps to remarkable customer service
  some interesting thoughts on how to deal with people in situations where emotions run hight
  (tags: advice howto support)

• Blurb
  publishing your own book
  (tags: books publishing)
• Yourminis
  “Web minis”, dunno
  (tags: widgets web20)
• Google Maps adds subway stops in urban areas
  (this link to the Chicago loop) Awesome service! No more guessing as to where stations are exactly.
  (tags: chicago googlemaps transit trains)

• Afternoon naps may boost heart health
  (New Scientist)
  (tags: article health)
• Introducing the book
  LOL funny video
  (tags: video funny skill)

• The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids
  (tags: article education youth)
• Backup tapes with sensitive informtion go missing
  (tags: news idtheft privacy security)

• Swiss still braced for nuclear war
  (tags: article switzerland)
• The Wizards of Buzz
  WSJ article about social bookmarking sites and recommender sites (Reddit, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us)
  (tags: article reddit stumbleupon recommender social-bookmarking)

• Numbers Are Out on How Rich the YouTube Deal Was
  (tags: youtube google money)
• Maple Pecan Pie
  recipe for awesome pecan pie (I love my existing recipe, but wow, this was good)
  (tags: recipes)

• America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future
  ETS report on the need to increase learning levels, increase reading and math skills and narrow the existing achievement gaps
  (tags: report ets literacy)

• Fun with Lite Brite
  Make your own creations
  (tags: fun design)
• The New York Review of Books: Europe vs. America
  (tags: ToRead reviews usa europe)

• Beat Your Risk
  tool for figuring out BMI and heart concerns
  (tags: tools health)
• How Chicago skyline is lit up for special messages
  (tags: article interesting)

Not interested in football, but still want to get into the Superbowl spirit? Check out Jeremy’s “The Boy Detective” dance choreographed for the occasion. Try at your own risk.

Requisite addendum from a Chicagolander: Go Bears!

• Plazes
  location tracker
  (tags: community maps networks social)
• The Passion of Mary Cheney
  Dan Savage to Mary Chaney
  (tags: gayrights politics)
• The Brick Testament
  (tags: books)
• NoDaddy
  “Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names”
  (tags: domains)
• Dilbert Comic Strip
  funny cartoon about satisfying the boss’s nutty requests
  (tags: funny cartoon)
• HTML Playground
  html codes with example codes and previews
  (tags: html reference)
• Running the numbers
  “contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics” – the page has interesting visual representations of various figures (hard to explain, check it out for yourself)
  (tags: stats usa visualization)