Category: Uncategorized

A series of interviews by Matt Frei with journalists. bloggers and the YouTube team of under-21 Billionaires, and others across the US. The agenda is about the place of professional journalism in this media revolution … don’t worry Matt, there still is one.

One interesting discussion – a traditional journalist expressing the concern with blogging / social networking communities tending to be self-selecting amongst people who already agree / re-inforce their pre-conceived perspectives. Actually I don’t believe that is true. How to put this … I’m sure the “less intellectual” select their mainstream media channels to satisfy their prejudices too, and the media re-inforce that by pandering to their audience tastes. The more intellectually / experientially curious will always seek more channels of input – where different equals interesting. I’d suggest that’s true whatever the media, the difference is choice is simply easier with the bottom-up channels.

Again, third time today, 99% of blogging and social media content is crap, and 99% of mainstream media content is crap too because, repeat after me …. 99% of anything is crap. (If the idea of 99% crap offends, insert your own preferred interpretation of the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle. Despite the odds, the point is to treat the 1% nuggets as a “cup half full” – something to work with and build on.)

(Interestingly, the YouTube video parodying the YouTube business success story to the tune of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” is off the air …

“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by a third party.”

(Billy Joel’s music publisher presumably, not YouTube itself. Pity, it was an excellent piece of work.)

Interestingly ironic thread with Dave Snowden on Euan Semple’s Obvious about this Doris Lessing comment.

Referring a few posts ago, to Johnnie Moore commenting on the persistent inanity of most of what the evolving web technologies are used for.

Lest we forget, 99% of the internet is inane crap, because 99% of everything is crap. The important thing is knowing how to pan for the nuggets … peer-to-peer connections, context, etc …

Doubly ironic is Euan’s slightly later post on Gartner appearing to rubbish the investment value in Web2.0 … given Dave Pollard dubbing KM2.0 as KM0.0 (also reported by David Gurteen.) Interconnected enough for you ?

Did this back in 2003.

Sam picked up on it recently, and I was prompted to re-do and see how my outlook has changed.

Latest Result

	1.	Aquinas   (100%)  Information link
	2.	Aristotle   (94%)  Information link
	3.	Jeremy Bentham   (72%)  Information link
	4.	Plato   (71%)  Information link
	5.	John Stuart Mill   (55%)  Information link
	6.	St. Augustine   (53%)  Information link
	7.	Epicureans   (52%)  Information link
	8.	Spinoza   (51%)  Information link
	9.	Jean-Paul Sartre   (50%)  Information link
	10.	Ayn Rand   (46%)  Information link
	11.	Thomas Hobbes   (40%)  Information link
	12.	Stoics   (40%)  Information link
	13.	Nel Noddings   (38%)  Information link
	14.	David Hume   (38%)  Information link
	15.	Nietzsche   (37%)  Information link
	16.	Cynics   (29%)  Information link
	17.	Ockham   (14%)  Information link
	18.	Kant   (11%)  Information link
	19.	Prescriptivism   (3%)  Information link

Previous Result

1. Spinoza (100%)
2. Aquinas (89%)
3. Stoics (89%)
4. Aristotle (86%)
5. Nietzsche (85%)
6. Jeremy Bentham (70%)
7. Epicureans (68%)
8. Jean-Paul Sartre (68%)
9. Nel Noddings (65%)
10. Plato (64%)

Significant differences … the survey itself seems modified behind the scenes, certainly the reporting has.

Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato all up, Spinoza down, Nietzsche well down. Weird ? Re-reading Nietzsche and reading Spinoza both at the moment. Not sure if this is meaningful at all. Clearly there is a level of interpretation in the survey relationships to the specific philosophers introduced by whomever created it.

Shortly after Vonnegut’s death I came across this interview from June 06, but didn’t blog a link. Rectified that.

WTF. As a loyal fan of the Beeb, I have to call them out on this one.

Censoring the word “faggot” out of The Pogues and Kirsty McColl’s Fairy Tale of New York. Surely the very best of that dodgy genre of Christmas singles.

Response to the vote on censorship, and the “Have Your Say” comment thread is over 96% against, and over 115 pages of responses so far … all with the same message so far as  can see. Censorship does have a legitimate place in a society built on freedom of speech, but this isn’t one of them.

It’s pure poetry … a scene of an old married couple at Christmas, a time of family stress, and alcohol-fueled emotions, taking stock as one year ends and another looms  … throwing insults at each other only to discover how much they really are in love with each others dreams. A truly uplifting piece of work

The word “faggot” may have homophobic uses, but absolutely not in this context, the redeeming power of real love. So much more offensive language exists in other songs with misanthropic intent; it’s a travesty that Shane McGowan’s poetry should come in for this abuse.

Rectify your glaring mistake Auntie.

[Post Note : Oh wow they just did.
The power of the people. Well done Auntie Beeb.

Peter Tatchell I have a lot of respect for his brave stands on freedoms, not just gay rights, but I have to say he’s wrong on this one. Context matters.]

[Post Post Note – 2030 (!) comments on the “have your say” thread in under two days.]

This news story is the first time I’ve seen the sea-level rise due to global warming correctly described in popular media.

Melting of ice over land, and the thermal expansion of the sea-water itself. The “melting of polar ice-caps” meme makes me cringe every time I hear it … forgetting that more than half of that is floating on the sea, already displacing its own mass.

Ten years of blogging. As well as inspiring my own blogging style, Jorn Barger’s Robot Wisdom was responsible for my “timeline” view of any important subject.

Only caught part of this interview / debate involving Dawkins, but thought I’d better blog the link so I don’t lose it. Got the impression he was looking for compromise ground (?) based on what little I did hear, but reaction by those on the God side of the debate don’t seem to have made that iterpretation … need to find time for a closer listen.

(Post Note : The link is just a news report
… can’t see the link to hear the programme itself ?)

Link to the “Talking Point” video recording provided my Mardé.
December 2007 Link on this page.

Interestingly, the first caller’s point is the same as Dan Dennett’s. Atheist or agnostic, the existence of God is an uninteresting question. What good / bad is caused by professed religious faith in God’s name is the much more real, pragmatic issue. Dawkins still doesn’t seem to get that.

Some wonderfully dirty rhetorical tricks later on from the religious side trying to smear the atheist agenda with the authoritatian evils of Stalin and Hitler prepetrated “in the name of atheism”. Heh heh. I thought Dawkins was remarkably reserved in maintaining his moral high-ground – and as you know, I’m no fan of Dawkins.

Dawkins may be tolerant on comparative religion as historical cultural fact, but his pure scientific outlook means he misses other values in faith and denies any parallels with the “dogmas” of science itself – meta-dogmas.

Struck by the focus of stats in this news story on the illegal drug use in baseball. Stephen Jay Gould majors on baseball stats in “Life’s Grandeur”, if I remember correctly, to illustrate on the illusion of trends, and the psychological tendency to seek such number trends in explanations.

The tyranny of numbers.

Interesting little snapshot here via Johnnie Moore, originally from Marina’s Bloggariffic on the evolution of blogging. The technology changes like fashions come and go, but the evolution of use, uses that add value to humanity, is comically retarded. The ratio of nuggets to trivia is pretty static ….

90% of X is crap, because 90% of everything is crap

…. someone once said.

I have a theory about memetic evolution – the three generation rule – originally evident in “Kondratiev Waves”. However fast the technology itself, humans have to learn habits, exploit habits and unlearn habits, and we humans as a whole / in general / culturally have physiological limits to the pace of learning, and communicating / applying that learning.

Interestingly, Johnnie has a later post about the optimal load for a brain to take something new on board.