Albert Tanutama

I’m back from to real world now =) Thanks for the congrats and supports. It’s been rewarding experience for the past few days and especially today. Few days ago, I’ve coming out with this ‘great’ idea which I think could explain phenomenon of user behavior and I’m pretty excited about it because different theories and opinions I think it fits into this ‘theory’.

Well, I forgot one issue tho. It’s about being focused. I often move the focus of my dissertation. From emotion, cognitive, usability, weblogs, rss, to decision making and so on. I guess, I’m pretty much influenced by different opinions from my literature reviews.

The realization that both my sup brought me is about being practical and being focused. The idea is there, but I need to embrace it and ‘dirty’ my hands with the actual details. And yup, this might not be the best time to creating new model, but rather to look back about the original purpose of doing my dissertation.

So, here I am, back on earth again With three grateful thinking: of having good supervisor who concerned about me, of experiencing ‘eureka’ moments, and of having supportive weblog readers … So, let’s move on, shall we?

Yesterday night was the ‘conception’ – today is when it is first made known [I'm not ready to make it public yet. At least until I got the approval] … I’ll definitely make it known tho ^-^

Yay! I love this feeling!

Well, just realized how irregular I’ve been updating this weblog. Hmm, not because I’m getting tired of blogging. I think my dissertation should be the culprit . Nevertheless, life’s pretty much back on track (read: no more fever), I should concentrate more on my studies (and my blogs)

So, for the first news: welcome to a new member in my sidelinks: albert’s bloglines blog (I know it’s not really a fancy name). I like bloglines blog features. It’s like a personal bookmark with commentary. I just write something that pops into my mind, mostly within 5s before pressing “blog this” button. It’s really spontaneous.

Second news: I’m back to school. Quite unfortunate that I don’t think I’m able to complete dissertation on time to get into the new MSc in Digital Media Technology. But I think what I’m working on is as exciting. It’s about weblogs and RSS. And it’s always exciting to read this kind of news: Wired’s “The Empire Blogs Back” – that’s basically describe the influence of weblogs. Or Jeff Jarvis’ presentation on new media.

Third news: not yet… But yeah, you might visit those links posted on my new weblogs, they’re quite interesting (at least for me).

Just found new toy @ google lab site called Site-Flavored Google Search.

Site-flavored Google search uses a Google search box to deliver custom web search results, based on a profile filled out by a site’s webmaster. The profile reflects the content of the website, and when the site-flavored search box is placed within the pages of that site, users are able to view search results that are “flavored” to be more relevant to them. To put a site-flavored Google search box on your site, click the “Start here…” link above.

Strange, I do not see any difference and not able to reduce the whitespace :’( OK, life must goes on… Next!

I checked my URL referrer today and realized that I’m in scoble’s blogroll list and it seems pretty cool to know that I’ve been blogrolled someone beyond usual circle of friends.

It is interesting to know tho, how he decide to blogroll a blog, esp when there’re plenty of blogs subscribed. Is there any special category? Hmm, I sure have read when he mentioned those stuffs, too bad I can’t find it again there. The best match is this post – “Why RSS is more productive than Web“.

Being blogrolled gives a sense of responsibility I suppose. Regular update, and perhaps, write something that the audience want to hear. Greg from Social Twister blog highlighted this issue. For me? Hmm, it’ll be interesting to see how my writing change evolve over time. I just like to try new stuffs…

Anyway, that’s one of the pretty cool news of the day…

I’ve been pretty much out of touch with my blogging for the past few days accompanying my cousin. Really fun though… To sum up, I’ve visited Omnimax last saturday, as well as Singapore Science Center. I watched Whales, discovery channel kind of movie. Quite nice, but I guess we’ve chosen not so good seat. Maybe if we seated a bit lower, then the experience would be much much better. However, since we chose upper left side, hmmm, it was a bit dizzying.

Anyway, from Science Center to Night Safari, it was a bit unexpected that there will be very very long queue to buy the tickets. And unfortunately, the creatures of the night show has been fully booked. Too bad. Well, we’ve more time to explore the safari tho. Highlight of the day: face to face with the tiger, as well as the leopard. Watched flying squirel as well. Majestic!

On sunday, we went to Sentosa, with lots of construction works going on. It does not look that nice tho. But, maybe after all of this things over, it could be a great place to relax and enjoy. But the sun and the wind there got me. Feel feverish, and with this, I guess I’ve to end this post here….

This book rocks! Bill Bryson “A Short History of Nearly everything“, science couldn’t be more fun to learn. I’ve read some of the chapters (they are pretty independent chapters, thus you could skipping around to read them), and I could hardly put it down (except in the office tho). For example, do you know that the dawn of a new age in science came in 1905 when there appeared a series of paper by a swiss young bureaucrat who had no affiliation to university, to lab, with regular access to only library of national patent office in Bern as technical examiner third class? His paper called “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” has no footnotes, citations, maths, no mention of any works that preceeded it (read the original version). His name? Einstein. Boy! You won’t get this sort of description in any text book.

It’s worth reading book. And maybe if I remember one or two of them, I’d have more interesting stories to be told

Continuing my reading on Klein’s Source of Power, I’ve covered the power of intuition chapter, mental simulation, decision making, and spotting leverage points. Klein believes that intuition is the result of experience. It involves pattern matching and recognition. Those processes might appear subconsciously (and thus often attributed as sixth sense). I think it makes sense, since our human senses could actually grasp very subtle details without we (read: our mind) even realize it. Our body react (Norman include this at visceral level), and since we can’t really explain this, we attribute this as intuition. Intuition becomes source of ‘power’ because it allows us to make sense of situation in order to make decision and solve problems. It is the capability to represent a problem and judge the solvability of the problem – after which, our mental simulation should play a part in diagnosing problem, creating expentacies, and developing course of action… Most of the differences between experts and novices are because of these two factors. This leads me to think about interesting application of his model in explaining user behavior that I’m going to study.

Anyway, I’m excited to see this microsoft presentation. It is very cool! Love the pictures, sounds, and the stories. Yay!

Managed to read up to chapter 6 from Gary Klein’s book “Sources of Power: How people make decision” . He’s doing naturalistic decision making research, typically involving time pressure, high stakes, experience, inadequate information, ill-defined goals, poorly defined procedures, cue learning, context, and team coordination. He proposed “Recognition-primed decision model”, where decision makers experience situation in a changing context, recognize it, develop mental simulation and implement course of action… Still need additional round of readings to better grasp it.

Anyway, noted this website from my colleague Nutrition Data if you’re worried about calories intake Good site for health conscious people ( I can’t seem to find “jambu air” there. But I found that it is actually called “Water apple” here)

Visited new Lory Loft attraction @ Jurong Birdpark as part of Park Hopper Special. Really nice place. Suggestion: grab a cup of lory’s food – nectar. A min. donation SGD 2 is required. It will be a rewarding experience to see those lorries come and eat from it. Boy! Err, they might even walk on your hand. Yay! It is the first time up-close-and-personal encounter with birds. Kinda worried that those lorries will get hurt with so many people tried to pet them. However, it seems that lorries do actually like to be feed and pet. And the second thing, the All Star Birds show has been changed as well. Quite refreshing and pretty good as well. I like those talking parrots (too bad, no more “sayang-ee” song).

Other thingy, Scoble is taking a break. In his post, he mentioned that he’s looking for blogs that he has not linked yet, to find something new. Well, that’s actually a good way to ‘expand’ your comfort zone. I think I’d like to do that. Visit a random blog and find something new. How about this one? I found it when I’m searching for Lory foods. There are some birds soundclips as well. Hmm, that’s a good start… How about a new idea each day? On serious note, we can have a look @ University of Michigan Document Center. Or Ingenious: seeing things differently? Some of these links I attributed to Marylaine Block of Neat New Stuffs.

Next: back to my reading list…