Month: November 2002

Identity Crisis ? Dave Weinberger at JOHO says ID’s are nice but not the centre of the universe. Well I beg to differ. On aspect of our “semantic web” is that the nodes become less significant than the links, in fact the nodes simply become “pointers” for the links to link to – just look at URI’s / RDF / RSS. Without identity (identifiers) the nodes disappear entirely.

Psybertron Goes RSS. RSS Feed available from today at www.psybertron.org/rss.xml
[And no surprise I need to validate my XML – escape my Ampersands etc.]

Internet Management Becomes Less Democratic. Should we be concerned about changes at ICANN ? [via Beeb]

Web is a Waste of Time. Depends on your definition of “waste”. [via Beeb] Not part of bookable / accountable effort, but without value ? I think not necessarily.

In The Navy ! Another case of “Many a true word …” ? [via Beeb]

Artistic License ?. BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning had an interview with the chairman of judges of the Turner Prize. The recent selection caused a stir when the UK Gov’t minister Kim Howell suggested it was 100% conceptual bullsh*t with pathetic rationalisations to justify it. Interestingly when Humphries was interviewing the chairman, he was getting at “but on what criteria” are the works selected. It was clear from the body language in the responses (oxymoron on the radio ?) that there were unspoken agendas that could not be expressed. A kind of “please don’t make me rationalise the irrational – it’ll spoil the art”. Reification kills art too then ?

String Theory of Semiology ! Ostensibly a hoax originating in France (via Jorn), full of gobbledygook pseudo-science linking quantum gravity and string theory with information models. The motive was probably originally to ridicule quantum information theories, but it succeeded in “fooling” learned publishing referees and escaped into the world as a serious scientific paper. However – could this be another case of “Many a true word …” ? (How many serious, respected theoreticians have produced suspect mathematics to justify their intuitions ? – Remember Einstein’s gaff, and see the Heisenberg link below.)

Hoax or Scam ?. Thanks to Rivets for this weird link. Someone going for the most linked site record ?