Sound of Silence

Friday is Skyday

. . .

Friday is Skyday

. . .

S/he's watching me

Eyes taking a rest.
Looking out of the window
I felt being watched.

Friday is Skyday

. . .

Beginning of an End

Alright, that was not precise.
The end does begin with the birth.
At least . . .

Bienenfreund

Phacelia;  scorpion weed.
We call this flower Bienenfreund.
There is a little mound in Seanhenge,
each days visited
by hundreds of bees and bumble-bees.
There is a humming and buzzing . . .
Listening to it is at least as beauteous
as is a poem by Shakespeare,
as is a Beethoven sympony.

 

De-Light

. . . – moment of . . .

Versus verbosity

Peony poems.
A feast of verbosity.
I took a photo.

Serendipity 25 years after

Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets
Tao Sun, Ming Zhang, Qiaozhu Mei

Last modified: 2013-06-28

Abstract

Serendipity is a beneficial discovery that happens in an unexpected way. It has been found spectacularly valuable in various contexts, including scientific discoveries, acquisition of business, and recommender systems. Although never formally proved with large-scale behavioral analysis, it is believed by scientists and practitioners that serendipity is an important factor of positive user experience and increased user engagement. In this paper, we take the initiative to study the ubiquitous occurrence of serendipitious information diffusion and its effect in the context of microblogging communities. We refer to serendipity as unexpected relevance, then propose a principled statistical method to test the unexpectedness and the relevance of information received by a microblogging user, which identifies a serendipitous diffusion of information to the user. Our findings based on large-scale behavioral analysis reveal that there is a surprisingly strong presence of serendipitous information diffusion in retweeting, which accounts for more than 25% of retweets in both Twitter and Weibo. Upon the identification of serendipity, we are able to conduct observational analysis that reveals the benefit of serendipity to microblogging users. Results show that both the discovery and provision of serendipity increase the level of user activities and social interactions, while the provision of serendipitous information also increases the influence of Twitter users.

In case you wish to read more: Here's the pdf.

Two kinds of idealists

The day after the Tiananmen massacre.

There does exist a video
of the so-called tankman.

Some years ago I embedded it.

But then certain people
calling themselves Educational Foundation
claimed copyright.

Now I wonder if those idealists *
will ask me
to pay them 300 billion dollar
for showing the photo
they did not take.

* ha ha ha

Bowing in front of the Brave

Tonight I am bowing to those people who 25 years ago in China – and not only on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing – peacefully demonstrated against suppression and corruption and for freedom and democracy and became victim of a ruthless bunch of criminal bastards in power.
And I am bowing to those who would not give up.


Very probably I'd be not such brave.

The peace of the night.

Chimneys

. . .