Facebook is the sender

TLDR; Without the control and true freedom of speech we should regard Facebook as nothing but a attention draining casino made for people with fear of missing out. Equally so, we should consider it as an active sender as it actively modifies what is being said and consumed. And hold it responsible as such.

Probably most of us have felt fear of missing out. So we try too keep up with too many sources of information and entertainment. Facebook et al. promise to help us by filtering information. It is well described in for example the Facebook guidelines of how their newsfeed algorithm is supposed to function.

The filtering one gets is based on the behaviours of others. It is based on the often correct premise that the more people agree that something is 'worth sharing' or ‘worth interacting with’ makes it more 'worth showing’. Especially amongst ‘like-minded’ (actually: l…

ActionCable and authentication with Devise (2/2)

This is a short follow up on the previous article in which the ActionCable basics were explained. We can now add some level of authentication. Authentication is a bit harder than simply registering some before_action’s, but it is perfectly doable, especially if you've survived the previous tutorial.

From the official Action Cable guide we can simply reuse the full connection.rb template:

module ApplicationCable
  class Connection < ActionCable::Connection::Base
    identified_by :current_user
 
    def connect
      self.current_user = find_verified_user
    end
 
    protected
      def find_verified_user
        if current_user = User.find_by(id: cookies.signed[:user_id])
          current_...

Essential Startups from The Next Web - reviews

My TNW-ticket was sponsored by The Bean Machine, the company I'm working for. Thank you!Here are my reviews of the rising suns (will be updated after hopefully each session):Best:Prezi cool new way of making presentations, really visual, spatial… innovative. Most of the other apps were slight improvements (and too much based on web as we know thinking) or reuses of existing ideas (possibly applied to a different domain). So my vote goes to Prezi.Runner ups:Mendeley A tool for researchers, helping to orchanize papers. But they have added a social component, trying to become the last.fm for musicians. There have been others before that tried adding social components to online paper cataloging services, but this one seems actually to work (whereas the others don't). Bit boring topic, but think this is really useful!yunoo cool finance app, but does require you to upload quite a lot (or possibly even to enter yourself)… but recommendations on how to save …

Zoals de waard is... (nieuwjaarsrede 2009)

Zoals de waard is, vertrouwt hij zijn gasten.Neen, geen wrok te bekennen. Nog niet in ieder geval. Alles gaat goed. Ik huur een huisje samen met mijn vriendinnetje, in onze tuin staat een boompje, en onze buren hebben een beestje, die graag over onze glad gelakte vloer komt. Maar wat gebeurd er om ons heen? Hypotheek problemen in de VS wordt de huizencrisis, wordt vervolgens bankencrisis aldaar, wordt wereldwijde economsiche crisis… en nu zitten we, in wat heet, een vertrouwenscrisis. Maar we weten toch eigenlijk al veel langer, dat we in een vertrouwenscrisis zitten.Het 'volk' vertrouwt immers de overheid niet (linkse lui, lullen maar niet doen), de regering vertrouwt de bevolking niet (wet bewaarplicht telecommunicatiegegevens, almaar toenemende aantal camera's op straat, anti-terrorisme wetgeving). De mensen vertrouwen de bedrijven niet meer (de rechtsbijstandsverzekering is de sterkst in populariteit stijgende verzekering, en aanbod van allerhande aanko…

The better interface: Is it about fun, or about identity?

Ryan, at the 37 signals' signal vs. noise blog, quotes an article at techradar about 'Why Apple is great at interfaces when others are not':I like how Nick draws a connection between good UI and ‘fun’. We don’t talk much about fun in usability circles.In the techradar article, elements like the nodding password entry box when a faulty password is entered, and other supposedly minor adjustments to the interface are making the interface more 'fun' to work with. But I'd say that that isn't really about fun, but has more to do with 'identity'? The computer can be made more personal with only slight tweaks. It can be made to have character.Fun to me is more like little features that may make you smile every now and then… that, however, doesn't make a great interface. Character, identity, on the other hand, could. It allows you to get to know the beast in front of you. Connect. Understand. Understandable interfaces make usable, user friendly, machines. Machines you…

Effect of quality loss on the perception of emotion

The central question in this document is whether sound quality degradation affects the perception of emotion. Based on this short review of literature I believe that it is safe to assume that as long as the contents of speech is intelligible, emotions can be heard.Note: This document one of the 'darlings' that I had to kill to keep my thesis focussed. I've invested little effort in making this a great piece for reading… (This document was written as an early summary of my literature review that was part of my graduation project. As a result of this investigation I decided not to dive into this matter any further)"Sound quality" has been analyzed systematically in emotion perception research in the form of inference studies (Scherer, 2003) which have been employed to investigate which properties of a sound are most important for the communication of emotions. One methodology for analyzing the respective contribution In one of these studies, of each parame…

Wish you were here

Communication between far away friends, or between family, can become (emotionally) intense from time to time. Although developments like internet based video telephony seem to be an improvement over regular, voice only, telephony, little is known about what is exactly important in these type of communication settings. If optimal communication quality is the main goal, it is of importance to know what to optimize, record, and what to play back, and how and when.Research conducted so far in this area is sparse and mainly focused on matching face-to-face communication as closely as possible, a situation where both are being situated at the same location; a feeling of being there (Hollan & Stornetta, 1992). Since video telephony communicates a visual image of the person, one may assume that it is better than voice only telephony considering this feeling of being there. Hollan and Stornetta (1992) found, however, that social presence and information rich…