Archive for the 'trust metrics' Category

Citizen Logistics

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-10-29
in hospitality exchange, open life and trust metrics
. 0 Comments

Together, Joe Edelman and I were the dynamic duo of the CouchSurfing Collective in New Zealand. Joe came with fantastic ideas, that were unfortunately not realized in Nelson. Fortunately he also improved the infrastructure of CS in such a profound way that his work there is probably the main reason that the website is still up. It was great working with him and we had many magic moments, where we really thought were about to make stuff happen that would change the world in a profound way.

When I saw a glimpse of James’ headline, Swarming people to work, I had a faint hint that some of the most important of Joe’s ideas were being realized by elsewhere. My online situation at the time is not great, so I sent Joe a text without even checking Joi Ito’s post. The next time I came online I was happy to see that Joe accelerated. From CitizenLogistics.com:

Television and computer games provide expertly designed entertainment and fun… but when we have to deal with our real lives, we’re all alone. When will participating in the real world and dealing with real issues be just as adventurous, easy, collaborative, and fun?

Very soon! We’re developing new game-like ways of working, volunteering, having a good time, and finding assistance. Anyone can play, and you get points for making other people’s dreams come true. Our software lets you find cool things to do, build teams, and connect people with jobs and resources, all via text messaging and geolocation in the real world.

My favorite part of the teaser website is about Open Life:

Our technology will transform everyday life by bringing a new opportunities for teamwork, community, and adventure to everyone involved. We offer a real-time, map-based interface for finding and mobilizing available people out in the world via their cell phones. For mobile users, we have a txt-based interface for declaring your availability and finding opportunities near wherever you are. Combining geolocation, text messaging, trust metrics, sophisticated permissions, and a structure for social incentives, we integrate with many other websites and platforms, and offer a web-wide API for aggregating real world availability and trust.

Related reading:

Google’s issue tracker is not great

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-10-10
in trust metrics
. 2 Comments

We’re using Google Code for our trust metrics project, out of sheer convenience, and because of lack of political correctness. Well, I’ve given up on worrying about privacy a while ago anyway.  I just tried to use the issue tracker that comes with Google Code, but first I got a time-out, there were two identical issues because I refreshed. And on top of that, even though I am administrator of the project, I can not delete it.

So I guess I’m going to install Trac in the near future and forget about Google Code.

numpy documentation

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-10-04
in Python and trust metrics
. 3 Comments

With trustlet, I’m finally getting to a point where we can do cool stuff, evaluating prediction graphs of trust metrics. Now I need to refresh my Python array stuff. Since last time I was using that stuff, in 2004, they have refactored it (once more) and called it numpy. That’s fine. But, in order to read an important part of the documentation you need to pay 39.99 US$. Now, that’s less and less  by the day, but still, it’s very inconvenient, and probably holding back wider acceptation of  Python in the scientific community. Like software, documentation should be free. I might even pay if the author would have chosen to use the Creative Commons ShareAlike NonCommercial Attribution license - but then I would be able to pass on the information to my friends (even they are all over the internet).

I think it would have been a wiser choice to find a job at some institute or company to further the development of numpy and scipy, and its documentation in a freer way. That shouldn’t be too hard these days.

One Million Forgotten Moments

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-09-14
in United States, hospitality exchange and trust metrics
. 0 Comments

amylin cut off her dreadlocks last night. Today she is frantically trying to comb out the remains of her dreads. Last night we also went to a great theater show, we were in an audience of 20, sitting inside, watching tens of “actors” performing on the sidewalk and on the street, mingling with omunexpecting by-passers. Very entertaining!

This week was also great for dumpster diving. It’s just too easy in New York. I also got some work done on TrustLet and spent too much time writing stuff about the CouchSurfing Leadership Team. Fortunately I also booked some progress with getting other people hacking on the BeWelcome code. I can’t wait till it’s finally released under the GPL, so that I can just add a link to the one-file BW Rox for Windows I’m working on.

So, now I hope that my dreadless dear will fix me a new layout for this blog  some time soon.

Addendum, October 2007

I mostly fixed the layout myself, but at least she just sent me this picture.

amylin and me watching million forgotten moments

Guaka Mole in Trento

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-09-01
in United States, hospitality exchange and trust metrics
. 0 Comments

It’s crazy how it’s possible to be together most of the time for one year while traveling, but not when staying in one place. I hope that humanity will be able to get rid of borders some day, well, rather sooner than later. Anyway, I’m flying to New York next week, to see my love!

Unfortunately I can’t stay as long as I would like to. Paolo doesn’t let me. I’m happy we booked a lot of progress with the TrustLet code. And today I even came up with the GuakaMole trust metric, which is the best trust metric of the ones we’ve tried so far on the Advogato dataset.

I’ll be coming back over Dublin, where I hope to stay with matthew75. He was one of my guests in Paris in 2004, and now he happens to be living in Dublin. I found him again on BeWelcome.org. It’s amazing how small world networks work.

Now I can’t wait to see amylin, for a hand massage and delish vegan munchies! Tomorrow I’m taking a 15 euro train to Kufstein, which is right next to the German border, then I’ll hitch to the Netherlands from there.

Apparently Paolo and I just started writing a book

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-08-30
in hitchhiking and trust metrics
. 0 Comments

Apparently Paolo and I just started writing a book, about trust metrics, of course. Feel free to write along ;)

It made me think about an article I read about the advantages of hitchhiking to society. Unfortunately I don’t remember much more than some vagueness. I’m not giving up yet, though. I think it was about how random people meeting and sharing - which is what hitchhiking basically is about - will have a very positive effect on society, i.e. increasing the trust of people in other people.

May the PageRank be with me on this quest.

Weak links

Published
by
guaka
on 2007-08-28
in books, hospitality exchange and trust metrics
. 0 Comments

Yesterday I started reading Barabasi’s “Linked: The New Science of Networks”. It’s inspiring, in many ways. It makes me realize how different my life is, compared to most nodes in the social network of human connections. I have many connections, but compared to most people, most of my links are weak. I met so many people in so many places, mostly for very brief periods - i.e. a ride in their car, staying one night at someone’s home. Or just meeting someone randomly in the street.

Besides these realizations, the book is also giving me more energy to move TrustLet forward. Last month I was a bit pre-occupied with the way CouchSurfing is organized. I hope there will be an announcement, that CS is just a service from now on, and that many occurrences of “participation” and “participate” will be removed from the website. Anyway, there will be a big campaign to attract volunteers and members to BeWelcome in October.