What, Why & How do we Know ?
Organica – What’s this ?
Remains of the Piano – Erstwhile Python Eric Idle’s costume drama spoof. [via Jorn]
A naive, but incisive question to Philip Greenspun from a 1st Year MBA student [via Jorn] about enterprise software. The whole thrust of blogs / social software et al has been the recognition that the flexibiliy of peer-to-peer arrangements actually affords a better picture of the true information content of the medium. Any monolithic centralised system is “doomed to misinform”, as I say in my manifesto summary in the page header. See recent computerworld story Enterprise Software’s End – this is already a mainstream issue.
Communication Intent – Fairly basic but intelligible paper by Dan Sperber [via Jorn] reminding us of the importance of the communication context as well as content if the “communicator’s meaning” is to be correctly inferred from the message received. In disembodied messages (web-pages / posts) we need to be sure we have some way of referencing or linking back to the issuers “intent” as I have said many times.
Born to be Wild – Liked this one. [via Curry]
Spurred by a couple of unconnected contacts. I blog therefore I am (someone said), so when I blog …
I blog links of interest (ie where I perceive value) in order to distribute that “knowledge” more widely and in doing so acknowledge the sources of such links.
I create new links, because new links are new knowledge, whether these are new links between my own thoughts and existing external links, or between two or more external links.
I rarely, if ever, blog a thought not connected to some existing link, though occasionally time pressure may mean that existing link is not immediately explicit.
(Excuse the self-indulgence.)
[Also via Apothecary][via MetaFilter]. The Memory Hole: named after the text disposal chute in Orwell’s 1984, this site notes and preserves expunged information. While the theme is mostly political (unacknowledged reversed policies, unpalatable war information, etc) it also covers wider cultural stuff: for instance, Sunflower, the character Disney removed from Fantasia and later denied having existed; the cigarette removed from a Beatles poster; and Oliver Sacks on recovering forgotten medical knowledge. (The Sacks item comes from a nice Wired biographical feature, The Fully Immersive Mind of Oliver Sacks).
Coincidentally business memory loss is an issue for customers in my day job at the moment. Is it accidental or a “convenient” re-writing of history, or simply compression of the messy – see previous post – I guess it depends whether you’re a cock-up or conspiracy person. Another issue I have is “mis-reporting” – systems which log useage of time and resources are often constrained by budgetary allocation rules. Recorded history is often (normally) lies, even though no-one involved intends to deceive. Same story as DeLorean’s “Committees of moral men often make immoral decisions.”