Nonaka’s Knowledge Model

Nonaka’s Knowledge Model. Thanks to Spike for this link to the Knowledge Board summary of Nonaka’s stuff.
Made several references to Nonaka earlier but this is a neat summary.
[Added Spike’s blog to the side bar links – looks like some thoughtful contributions to the debate.]

The Rhetoric of Economics

Given the number of figures and stats quoted by economists and economic commentators, it is refreshing to find one (Gavin Davies of the Beeb speaking on More or Less yesterday) who recognises that what matters is telling a good (convincing) story – irrespective of the figures. No economist worth his salt believes the numbers etc. He quoted a reference to a 1998 publication called The Rhetoric of Economics by Deirdre McCloskey. (Pretty close to Argyris’ “Budgetary Games” “Creative Accounting” organisational behaviour stuff.)

The Memory of Water

The Memory of Water. The office chat around here is last night’s Beeb programme on Homeopathy, and several mentions of the 1984 Jacques Benvensita theory on “The Memory of Water” . The dilution levels at finite numbers of molecules of active agents per unit volume of solution makes it seem preposterous that a sample further diluted can have any amount of the active ingredient present in a physical sense. All sorts of issues with truly controllable, repeatable test conditions to prove homeopathic benefit, not to mention timescale and overlap issues with all the previous “contaminants” any part of any body of water may have been in contact since …. well, coming into existence / condensing from vapour ?

In any other light I’d have to count myself as a total sceptic on homeopathy …… however could the homeopathic property be some quantum non-locality effect of the contaminant and an emergent macro property chaotically determined by the micro component ? Perhaps worth a brief contemplation and then again perhaps not.[Homourous homeopathic antidote here.] [Many a true word here.]

Why Did I Vote for Brunel ?

…. in the BBC “Great Britons” poll. Well I’d like to have voted for an original genius thinker with an important legacy, given my current line of research, but I have to say the Brits in the top 100, all seemed a bit “derivative” of others. Our “revolution” never quite went the way of the French or the US. Is it part of the British Disease that I can’t quite hold Newton and Darwin to be the creators of important new ideas, however Newtonian and Darwinian the world Brunel operated in ?

Zen River Crossing

Zen River Crossing. Nice one from Gimbo. I voted for Brunel (came 2nd) WTF ? Anyway Zen, bridges and Klogging, I couldn’t resist this one. [Quote] Interesting… I’d always thought of the Second Severn Crossing as just another suspension bridge (like the first one), but it is in fact a “cable-stayed” bridge. I think I always had a dull realisation in my mind that it was unlike other suspension bridges I’d crossed, but in that zen-like state we all drive in, I never really thought hard enough about it. *shrug* [Unquote] – Driving in a zen-like state – another one right from my “many a true word” thread.

Skilled Incompetence

Skilled Incompetence. Thanks to Danny for this 1995 essay on “Structured Procrastination” by John Perry. Magic. This is my main theme about information models Danny. Spot on the Argyris thread about how normal (western) culture in organisations institutionalises bad practices justified by rationalisations. I have a colleague that regularly characterises “displacement activities” when it is obvious there is something to do (some decision to be made) which is more difficult that some other more interesting tasks, and guess what ? Manana.

Wayback Machine

Wayback Machine. New Scientist article via Danny about the 100 tera-bytes of web archives. [Quote] The average life of a web page is 100 days. [Unquote] See my broken links plea below.
[Quote] And where is the Wayback archive ? physically? It’s now in three places, two in the San Francisco Bay Area and one at the new Library of Alexandria in Egypt. If you ask someone, “What do you know about the Great Library of Alexandria?” they mostly say, “Isn’t that the one that fried?” So don’t just have one copy. Take special care of collections that are really important to the definition of cultures. [Unquote] I have soft spot for the Alexandria Library since I was there when it opened to the public. Blogged a link earlier since I had in my hands (in Alexandria, but not in the library) an important first edition relating to T. E. Lawrence (one of my obsessions) which I enquired about bringing home to UK, but discovered the new library had the enlightened policy of maintaining Egypt’s legacy of published texts and forbidding export. – (link here later !).