Author: Psybertron

Blogging Categorisation / Taxonomies – Been corresponding with Paul Kelly on this subject. I remember starting a similar thread with Seb at least a year ago, and notice [via Paul] that Tim Bray [ongoing] is well on top of this subject. (By the way guys, when we have the tools I have some good sources of very generic taxonomy frameworks, rather than fixed taxonomies – being based on the nature of the relationships rather than intrinsic classification of the nodes.)

Questia $100 per year plus for a subscription, but this looks like a really well designed research tool. Cannot tell how good the library itself is (except its size) – no preview of its index. Tempting – maybe a trial anyway. (See the flash demo.)

Where is Jorn Barger ? I queried this a couple of weeks ago on the WebSeitz Wiki, and it seems the grandaddy of blogging is truly AWOL. Eric Wagoner has created a Jorn search page too. Keep ’em peeled.

Last time he went AWOL in July, it created a lot of chatter about his personal traits and politics. Personally, as someone who finds him a pain communication-wise , having been on the wrong side of his kill-file from the outset, I find that although his views are extreme, idiosynchratic, arrogant and obsessive by any standards, I think he’s close to genius – it’s a fine line anyway. Less of a fine line is the distinction between anti-Israeli-politics and ant-semitism, but some people just cannot see past this taboo subject.

The web is a poorer place without this pain in the a*se.

McLuhan’s Next – Noticed earlier that Paul Kelly had many references to McLuhan, and others who refer to him, Levinson and Postman for example. Recently I’ve been intrigued by the level to which McLuhan’s aphorisms turn up in day-to-day day-job contexts, not least in a recent white-paper by a Canadian day-job colleague. What is it with Canada and knowledge management / blogging generally, a hotbed I think I remarked previously ?

Anyway, well into Rorty now, so preparing for my next foray, into McLuhan I expect.
This McLuhan web-site has a good timeline, biography and bibliography, so it looks like a good place to start. Must also ask Paul where he would advise diving in to McLuhan.
[See also Manitoba Author Index][And also Toronto University]

And also a Toronto University Blogger-based blog with exactly the same template as my original KM Blog Spooky ! or was this a blogger template ? A lot of overlapping links in the blogosphere too. Presumably “Mark” is Mark Federman, McLuhan Toronto course tutor and co-author of “McLuhan for Managers”]

I was ignorant of the Cambridge connection (Trinity 1936/39) until I read the above – must have crossed with C S Lewis judging by the timing ? What was it he said about the Global Village ? You’ll be telling me his regular was the Pickerell next ?

Another common theme in this space is late conversion to religion, Catholicism and a pontifical appointment in McLuhan’s case.

[Spooky coincidence no 347 in a series of thousands … the Genesis / Peter Gabriel song I quote in the footnote, includes a memorable McLuhan line too.]

Reminded by Dave Pollard’s reaction in the previous post, to an ongoing difference of opinion with a colleague, which I guess is a variation of the cup-half-full / cup-half-empty syndrome.

Life’s a bitch, …. and then you die ? or
Life’s a bitch, …. unless you change it.
Which are you ?

Dave’s “How to save the world” blog wears its colours on its sleeve.

Fourth Turning – Pre-9/11 (1997 in fact) study on cultural / political global cycles – no obvious mention of underlying technological / economic cycles, but worth looking for parallels I suspect. Doomsday / holocaust prediction of 9/11-esque triggered events – it was ever thus etc. Salutory. [via Dave Pollard] Dave throws his hands up in horror at the fatalistic conclusions of the paper – I suspect I’ll feel the same if we can’t learn something more pro-actively useful from this.

Emperor’s Suit of Clothes – News just in – apparently it’s an age old problem – no really ? Is incompetence the last taboo ? asks Seb. Now we’re getting somewhere. Incompetence wins where it is rationally justifiable.

Personal Knowledge Emergence – Great summary from Luigi / Sharewood Tidings (Robin Good) on effectiveness of knowledge emergence thorugh blogs and other de-centralised / peer-to-peer / interactive systems. Links to many other KM’ers in blogland. [Also via Seb]. You can spot the angle from the opening paragraph referring to Autonomy and Siebel as “useless shelfware systems”.

Oliver Wrede also picked-up this thread, and highlights this summary quote “In other words, content providers should not be trying to guess how I want to interact with their information. They should just be providing the information. I will customize my experience as I see fit.” Interesting in a day-job context where we are working on de-coupling “acquisition” from “characterisation”, and saying to source applications – give me your raw data – tell me what you know in your own words – ie don’t second guess how you think I want to see or use it.

John Patrick on Blogs – Ex senior IBM’er has his own blog and is interviewed here on Jay Cross’ Internet Time about the significance of blogs in knowledge management. Nothing new under the sun but …. etc …. [via Seb] CIO’s wake up and smell the coffee.

(Broad-band internet link from Aotou, China enables this post !) Finished Barfield’s History in English Words and started Rorty’s Contingency, Irony and Solidarity on the flight.

Barfield uses etymology of English words to paint a picture of the history of thought through language, not just through the stems and origins of the individual words, but most importatly through their evolving useage and semantics. (See the Aryans post below) He comes down very heavily on the side of the poets who’ve contributed the most – Shakespeare, Coleridge and Wordsworth in particular, and the Oxford English Dictionary as the best source there is (1953). How does one get access to the full OED, rather than all the various “concise” forms ?

As for Wordsworth he quotes the lines from Tables Turned …. Our meddling intellect, rhyming with, We murder to dissect. Apart from re-inforcing the death of / through logic angle – I couln’t help hearing “analysis paralysis” in murder to dissect.

“Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mishapes the beauteous forms of things;
—We murder to dissect.”

(Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned”, 1800)

Rorty – this is the first I’ve read since struggling with his Mirror of Nature, apart from his autobiographical essay Wild Orchids and Trotsky – Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Apart from the preface and intro, I’ve read only the “Contingency of Language” chapter so far. Absolutely brilliant – natural follow on from Barfield. He very much supports the line that if its human nature you’re interested in it’s a work of fiction you should be reading, prose or poetry. Apart from the usual Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kirkegaard, Heidegger, Dewey, James, etc, he relies strongly on Donald Davidson here. [Quote] Davidson breaks with the notion of language as a medium , and not for either representation or expression.[Unquote] Very much the same as Lakoff’s conduit metaphor rant, and evocative of McLuhan [and Wittgenstein of course, little did I know then.]

Also, of more than passing day-job interest [Quote] … the term intrinsic is one which it would pay us not to use, one which has caused more trouble than it has been worth.[Unquote] Tell me about it.