A Wikipedia banner ad for a paid survey?

In the early hours of today, while researching Yippies on Wikipedia my report for the Communication Skills and Professional Issues modules, I stumbled upon a banner that was quite different from the usual "personal appeal"s.

Banner ad on Wikipedia for a Harvard public goods game

"Please help advance research", it said, "with a quick interactive online experiment". Sure, why not? I clicked the banner, and it took me to a website, which told me that I would be paid at least $10 for my participation. How nice of them. I continued to the survey, and was delighted to find that it was a public goods game. I had learned of these from the Behavioural and Experimental Economics module while writing notes for a student, and I was happy about the opportunity I had received to actually take part in such an experiment, and perhaps utilise some of what I learned in the module.

The first round had three or four members contributing some part of their $10 allowance. I decided that since I was given this money for no other reason, I might was well be trusting, and contribute. I think I contributed $9, as did another member. Someone else contributed a mere $3. I got $13 in total from that round. Another round had an ultimatum game. I split the cash 50-50, which turned out to be the minimum limit the other participant had set. Yet another round had a rather interesting game that I do not recall encountering before. It was one where I could transfer some amount from my $10 allowance to the other player. This amount is tripled when they receive it. So if I transfer all of my $10, they get $30. I transferred $7, and correctly anticipated a return of $10. So they got $11 and I got $13.

There were also a few other rounds about splitting money, and finally some questions about how much I trusted the participants and the surveyors. I expected a punishment game, but there were none, unfortunately. Anyway, I got $23, $2 of which I donated to the Red Cross, and $1 to the Wikimedia Foundation, keeping $20 for myself. It was really interesting to take part in the survey, and it's nice to have been paid for taking it. Thank you Harvard, Sciences Po and Wikimedia!

Facebook recycles old newspaper articles

It came as a convenient feature. Stories finding you, instead of you finding stories. A few clicks, and suddenly, the Guardian, the Independent, the Washington Post; all are integrated into your Facebook "timeline". You read an article, and a post pops up on your friends' feeds, saying "Joshua Issac read '50 worst universities in Britain'". No surprises there, considering how much Facebook values your privacy. But then, we have one of those really annoying bugs inherent to computing. In this case, we get old articles—and by old, I mean articles over 20 years old—appearing as though they are news. And people commenting on them, pushing them up even higher. The Independent appears to be the worst culprit, but others papers have also fallen victim to poor AI. Talking about AI, I am glad I got ~75% in the AI-class mid-term exam. Very good score, considering I guessed most of it. ;)

Well, I think that's it for now. Until next time!

I am most productive at night

It appears that I am most productive at night, from about 1am to 7am (which is really early morning). I could spend hours during the day working on something, and it would take so long to accomplish something of relatively average quality. Compare that to last year's Computer Science projects, all of which were done in one night, or two at most, when the given interval was from one week, up to four. The same goes for Maths homework assignments last year and this year. Just now, I've completed an article on Dennis Ritchie and Unix for the university newspaper, which I've been trying to complete with no success for the past few days. I'm not saying that procrastination is a good thing, or that starting late yields better results; a vast majority of the marks I have lost have been because I left the homework or the revision a bit too late. What I am saying is that, during the night, I am much less likely to get distracted than in the day, except by sleep. Then the question is about working at night, rather than leaving things late. This causes problems for people who have to wake up early and start at 9.00 am. People like me. Well, that's what Pepsi is for. And like Mao Zedong once said, "rather than keeping your eyes open and listening to boring lectures, it is better to get some refreshing sleep".

Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi and C creator Dennis Ritchie dead

It must be the time of the year. Famous people dying left and right. Or maybe it is happening all the time, and I've only just noticed.

Last Thursday, Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, was captured in Sirte, and killed shortly afterwards. Apparently, NATO shot a convoy and injured Gaddafi, who was then captured and killed by the NTC.

But Gaddafi wasn't the only person to die in the recent times. No, I'm not talking about Steve Jobs. I'm talking about Dennis Ritchie, co-founder of UNIX, inventor of C, defender of the faith. OK, I made up the last one. But the other two are true. C, one of the most popular computer programming languages there is, owes its existence to this man, who also co-created UNIX, the upon which Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X are modelled. UNIX is one of the most influential operating system that has ever been created. C became the basic of C++, Java, C#, Python, ... and the list goes on. Not VB, though; that was based on BASIC, which preceded C. Dennis Ritchie changed the world of computing altogether. But the news of his death won't receive nearly as much media attention as Steve Jobs'. I'll admit, I have never heard of him before, either. Sad.

On a more personal note, I am looking forward to the Birmingham Financial Forum tomorrow. I hope I will find it at least somewhat useful. I hope the food will be good!

My Thoughts on Windows 8 Developer Preview

Last night, I decided that I was going to install Windows 8 on my computer. The installation wizard took the language, country and keyboard layout details, before telling me that I am missing device drivers. Trying to make the wizard recognize drivers from Vista's system and system32 folders to no avail, I closed the installation wizard and tried again. It worked and I was offered a choice between an express and a custom installation of Windows. Choosing "Custom", I picked the 30 GB partition that I had recently deleted Windows 7 from. Then, the installation began.

I don't know how long it took, but considering that I had a 9.00 am lecture the next morning, and that the time was probably around 2 am, I was in a hurry for the installation to complete, so that I could go to sleep. Unfortunately, it seemed to go on and on. So I had to turn off the laptop without completing the installation.

After lunch today, I decided to give it another try. I did everything as before, and when it had enough input from me, I left it and came back after about 45 minutes. This time, the installation had completed successfully. Windows listed the available wireless networks for me to join, and then prompted for my Windows Live ID to log in. After providing my credentials, Windows pulled my photo from my MSN profile and created me a local account.

Windows 8 Metro Start screen

The major change I noticed was the Metro look and apps. The classic Windows desktop was still there, but the start menu was gone, replaced by the Metro interface. IE10 now sports a spellchecker and AutoCorrect like Microsoft Word. One thing that annoyed me was the inability to close Metro apps (except using the task manager). It might be to prevent the user from managing memory—after all, that's the OS's job. But it still clutters up the Alt+Tab panels.

I'll try to keep posting updates about my experiences of using Windows 8.

Hello World!

Hello world!

If this works, it means that I've managed to successfully connect my 2005 Blogger account to my Google account. If not, I'll probably make a new account or something.

So why have I finally started posting, after more than half a decade of inactivity? Well, a lecturer at my university believes that we ought to have a blog about "lectures", "life as a student at Birmingham", etc. I guess that's as good a reason as any, or not.

I'm thinking of moving this blog from joshuaissac.blogspot.com to blog.joshuaissac.com. Or maybe I'll keep it here...I don't know.

What else shall I write in my first blog post? Important events? Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, one of the most influential people in personal computing, parted with the world yesterday. His death is truly a loss to the IT industry.

I think I will end this post with some quotations:

Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor. His legacy will extend far beyond the products he created. [...] Steve was such an "original," with a thoroughly creative, imaginative mind that defined an era. [...] I have lost a great friend. —Bill Gates

Naked a man comes from his mothers womb, and as he comes, so he departs. —Solomon