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January 29, 2004
市场是会话
Paul讲博客史，谈到当年网络热忱者们的宣言：“市场是会话。”
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新的热情
曾经有投入或介入（Engagement)到存在中去的热情，还有一种热情是关于系统、形式或者结构的。
“抵抗就是对邪恶说不。”
“那种深深浸透我们，那种在我们之前就已存在，那种把我们在时空中凝成一体的东西，的确就是系统。
‘我’被消灭了。我们现在关心的是发现‘有’（there is)。”
“语言是一种形式而非一个实体。”
而新的热情，是存在与结构、自由与意义在数位时代新的综合。
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GRAND
一转又转到了GARND，大概是昨天读《宇宙的创生》的缘故。
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又见台北
王丰告诉我这家新闻博客网点，上面也有他音像文字俱全的网志。于是又见台北。
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January 28, 2004
符号
结构主义理论认为：符号就是能指和所指之间的一种关系。能指和所指如一张纸的两面，是不可分割的存在，每一面都是另一面存在的充要条件。而这关系既是任意的，又必须倚赖社会成员对符号意义及使用的共同契约而存在。
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Syntagmatic and Associative Relations
How does the structure of language, or of any signifying system, operates? Everything in the system is based on the RELATIONS that can occur between the units in the system. These relations consist mainly of relations of DIFFERENCE 对立或歧异.
(在语言体系成分中存在两种关系：Paradigmatic （选择关系） & Syntagmatic （连锁关系）. 前者是词形变化，基于对立或歧异，而后者则是基于体系所能允许的组合类目。
要了解语言体系结构，就必须了解体系中的要素是如何不同，及统治这些组合的规则为何。）
The most important kind of relation between units in a signifying system, according to Saussure, is a SYNTAGMATIC relation. This means, basically, a LINEAR relation. In spoken or written language, words come out one by one. Because language is linear, it forms a chain, by which one unit is linked to the next.
An example of this is the fact that, in English, word order governs meaning. "The cat sat on the mat" means something different than "The mat sat on the cat" because word order--the position of a word in a chain of signification--contributes to meaning. (The sentences also differ in meaning because "mat" and "cat" are not the same words within the system).
English word order has a particular structure: subject-verb-object. Think of this sentence: "The adjectival noun verbed the direct object adverbially." Other languages have other structures; in German, that sentence might be "The adjective noun auxiliary verbed the direct object adverbially main verb." In French it might be "The noun adjective verbed adverbially the direct object ." In Latin, word order doesn't matter, since the meaning of the word is determined, not by its place in the sentence, but by its cases (nominative, ablative, etc.)
Combinations or relations formed by position within a chain (like where a word is in a sentence) are called SYNTAGMS. Examples of SYNTAGMS can be any phrase or sentence that makes a linear relation between two or more units: under-achiever; by the way; lend me your ears; when in the course of human events.
The terms within a syntagm acquire VALUE only because they stand in opposition to everything before or after them. Each term IS something because it is NOT something else in the sequence. Again, think of coins: a dime is a dime because it's not a quarter or a nickel or a penny or a $100 bill.
SYNTAGMATIC relations are most crucial in written and spoken language, in DISCOURSE, where the ideas of time, linearity, and syntactical meaning are important. There are other kinds of relations that exist outside of discourse.
Signs are stored in your memory, for example, not in syntagmatic links or sentences, but in ASSOCIATIVE groups. The word "education", for example, may get linked, not to verbs and adjectives, but to other words that end in "-tion":education, relation, association, deification. You may store the word education" with other words that have similar associations: education, teacher, textbook, college, expensive. Or you may store words in what looks like a completely random set of linkages: education, baseball, computer games, psychoanalysis (things I like). The idea of ASSOCIATIVE groups or linkages makes me think of pigeonholes, and what pigeonholes I put certain words or ideas in; when I pull out that word or idea, all the other things in that pigeonhole come tumbling out with it.
ASSOCIATIVE relations are only in your head, not in the structure of language itself, whereas SYNTAGMATIC relations are a product of linguistic structure.
Think of the columns of a building (or the rods in a Tinker-Toy "building"). The columns form syntagmatic, or structural, relation when you think about where in the building the columns are, what they support, what they're connected to. The columns form associative relations when you think of what else the columns make you think of: phallic symbols, rockets, popsicles, or whatever.
syntagmatic relations are important because they allow for new words--neologisms--to arise and be recognized and accepted into a linguistic community. "To office," for example (now used in a Kinko's commercial) has meaning because the noun "office" can be moved to the position of verb, and take on a new syntagmatic position and relation to other words. Associative relations are important because they break patterns established in strictly grammatical/linear (syntagmatic) relations and allow for metaphoric expressions.
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Dean's Dismal Campaign
Clay Shirky is commenting on Dean's dismal, this time essentially questioning the role of social software in this campaign. He wonder "whether Dean has accidentally created a movement (where what counts is believing) instead of a campaign (where what counts is voting.) "
"There are many reasons for this, but the main one seems to be that the pleasures of life online are precisely the way they provide a respite from the vagaries of the real world. Both the way the online environment flattens interaction and the way everything gets arranged for the convenience of the user makes the threshold between talking about changing the world and changing the world even steeper than usual.
We also know from usability testing that the difference between “would you” and “will you” is enormous — when “would you use this product?” changes to “will you use it?”, user behavior frequently changes dramatically. Apple’s eWorld imploded after the beta testers all dropped the service once it started charging, despite enthusiastically declaring that they would pay for such a service. "
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January 27, 2004
Corante
Read this carefully. This should give you some ideas for CDN.
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January 26, 2004
Social/cultural approaches to information and information systems
This is about social/cultural approaches to information and information systems. Nacy's current research is on camera phones, blogs and issues of trust and credibility on the Net. Today's reading is here. It is also on the class website.
Notes from Class:
(Political) decision and choices are made each time when technology designed. (e.g. Microsoft Windows.)
There are values embedded in technology.
How do we ask questions? How do we approach these issues?
Technology and human behavior are mutually constituting.
Social sciences ask questions such as how people create and recreate regularities in individual and in societies. They are more about process than outcome, more descriptive than explainary. But we can look at problems from multiple perspectives.
For example:
People clip things and give it to people. Why people do that? Information sharing, establishing commonality, self-expression etc…
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Diane Anbus in SFMOMA
Saw Diane Anbus' Exhibition at SFMOMA last Friday.
"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know. "
－－－－Quotes from Diane
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January 22, 2004
Dancing Rocks
You have never been Death Valley before. But now you knew the Dancing Rocks. Thanks, Jane.
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专制政府和信息通讯技术
Ruzena的关心源自她的成长背景，Steve概括目前这方面的研究大概有两类，一是关于政府对信息架构的控制比如对知识产权，软件，信息安全等方面的标准制订和管理。二是对简单技术决定论乐观预言的反驳。前者有些内容，后者流于肤浅。其实，重要的应当是关注使用者，因为他们是使用技术进行通讯和表达的个人，并且面对日益增长的选择。比如博客，他们是谁，为什么博，怎样博，博些什么？这些应是更有意义的问题。
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January 21, 2004
Voice from Sri Lanka
No firecracks here in New Year's eve, but a familiar voice from South Asia.
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P2P Cultural Impact Discussion
From Mary's blog, you noticed this discussion. Siva Vaidhyanathan and Miriam Rainsford wrote three months ago on Opendemocracy.net about p2p networks and its social and cultural impact.
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Blogtalk 2.0
The second European blog conference will be in Vienna in July.
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开课
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The Social Networking Industry
This article is called The Social Networking Industry Analyzed via the Value Framework. It is from VMS3.info.
"Human networking has been around since the dawn of civilization, but new technology promises to bring it into the Internet age. New companies are quickly forming around the idea that networks can be created, traversed, searched, and analyzed for the benefit of social and business users. The new breed of companies may help you find the right Saturday night date or a trusted partner for your next business venture. "
"The Interactive Social Networking Industry comprises companies seeking to navigate, analyze, or display social connections of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. The more advanced features allow weak links and friend-of-a-friend links to be exploited for social or business networking purposes. A user may use these applications to find contacts, or to understand what relationships exist.
This analysis examines nine firms in the industry, exploring their similarities and differences. Each firm brings a new perspective or feature to the mix. The users, members, and customers decide which are valuable and which are not. "
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January 20, 2004
民族国家的出现
“民族国家的出现，正是集权崩溃的征兆。当神圣罗马帝国的一统宗教瓦解的时候，民族国家主义于焉兴起，众人瞩目。但是东方，我们仍然只见集权存在。”
－－－－加谬（1936）
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Frida
She fascinates with herself and the revolution, while turning life's pain into her paintings.
"I have suffered two accidents in my life, One in which a streetcar ran over me [at age 18]. The other is Diego."
----Frida
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Trees at Slades Corner Road
Imagine, there is a perfect snowfield.
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January 19, 2004
说“剑”
“如此数月，他便在荒谷中与神雕为伴。这日闲着无事，漫步来到独孤求败埋剑的山崖
之前。纵跃上崖，看到朽烂木剑下的石刻："四十岁后，不滞于物，草木竹石，均可
为剑。自此精修，渐而进于无剑胜有剑之境。"心想："我持玄铁重剑，几可无敌于天
下，但瞧独孤前辈遗言，显是木剑可胜玄铁重剑，而最后无剑却又胜于木剑。龙儿既
说须十六年后方得相见，这漫漫十余年中，我就来钻研这木剑胜铁剑、无剑胜有剑之
法便了。"
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January 18, 2004
Whale Culture?
The Institute for the Future has a weblog called Future Now. A brief visit found this link: Whale Culture?
"Scientists who study whales are starting to notice signs that these giant creatures may be exhibiting signs of what we humans would call culture. As this ScienCentral News video reports, it's the latest research into a question that has puzzled scientists for years. "
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Theory is practice
Theory does not express, translate or serve to apply practice: it is practice. But it is local and regional...not totalizing...it is not to "awaken consciousness" that we struggle, but to sap power... it is an activity conducted along side those who struggle for power and not their illumination from a safe distance.
----Michel Foucault
He was here in the Fall term of 1983, giving six lectures on "Discourse and truth: the problematization of parrhesia."
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Goat Rock
Yesterday. moss on the rocks, sounds of flowing water, light in the trees, mountains and ocean afar, and the rock up close.
On the way back, driving on the Skyline Boulevard, you saw the Black Mountain floating in the sea of clouds.
Here is the trip.
First time belaying from the top. Remenber: always double security, always!
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January 16, 2004
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Join the Tribe
You joined the Tribe through Arthur. Another experiment.
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巴赫和Piranesi
读索绪尔，理解二项对立：共时与历时，语言与言语，连锁与选择（也称组合与聚合），（符号）能指与所指，加上价值与关系。
对任何符号体系，确定基元，分析其对立、联系和转换，是建立文化的模式和其系统的结构主义方式。
比如建筑学中，门，内室，走道，后墙等构成连锁关系，不同式样的门，走道构成选择关系。音乐亦是如此，还记得友友试图探索表现的巴赫和Piranesi的联系吗？
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January 15, 2004
From implicit to explicit
Listening to Ouverture-Allegro from Bach's Partita No. 4 in D Major.
Reflecting upon today's conversation.
It's getting dark outside.
Mary:
"....from implicit to explicit."
"...all about more connections, deeper meaning for life, right?"
What is "right" ? A feeling of "connected'? Can we escape from 'structure"? Maybe not, since existence itself is within time which is constantly changing. But there are all kinds of different system/network/structure at different level. "deeper meaning"? At which level? "from implicit to explicit" means transform structure from one level to another. Right?
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命中注定？
梅罗－庞帝：“我们是命中注定为意义而生存的。”
萨特：“我们是命中注定为自由而生存的。”
前年在农场，伴随你的除了Kauffman，还有列维－斯特劳斯和加缪。
今天在伯克莱，二十年后重读《结构主义》。
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January 14, 2004
语言，棋和价值
索绪尔（Saussure）关于语言的比喻很多，代数，交响乐章，川流不息的长河，还有“一件袍子，历尽岁月，缝满了补丁，补丁所用的布是从衣服本身剪下来的。”等等。最妙的一个是：下棋。
许国璋先生在《论语言和语言学》中如下介绍了索绪尔的观念：
做模子的材料可以比做是语言的外部研究，棋法可以比做是内部研究。
全局棋的走法可比历时态（diachronie)，静止的棋阵可比共时态（synchronie）；所谓历时态，就是一个共时态进入又一个新的共时态。
语言里每一个单位（例如：词）看起来是实体，其实不是。如国际象棋缺少一个“车“，只要再找一块小方木代替即可。是否是“车”的样子不要紧，只要按“车”和其他棋子的关系去走，就是“车”，就具有“车”的价值。只有具有价值的车，才是实体，孤立的单位不是实体。
“有资格称做"实体"的东西来自价值，价值来自关系，关系构成系统。”
这是结构主义的精华吗？
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January 13, 2004
Dyson and Fang
Why our universe is hospitable to life? Freeman Dyson talked on this subject on March 9, 2000 in Berkeley. You only knew this during the dinner with Fang in New York Chinatown last Friday. You talked about Six Degrees, Biocosm, Slashdot, SFI and Dyson's Disturbing the Universe. He smiled and sent you this link two days later.
From Freeman Dyson's speech in Berkeley:
"The best popular account of the science that explains how the universe can be friendly to life is a book, "Creation of the Universe", by the Chinese astronomers Fang Li Zhi and Li Shu Xian. The book was translated into English and published by World Scientific Publishing Company of Singapore in 1989. Fang Li Zhi is the famous dissident astronomer now living in exile in the United States. I particularly recommend Chapter 6, with the title "How Order was born of Chaos". This tells the same story that I am telling you today, but with more detail and more depth. "
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Distributed Political Activism
Just came back from the Commonwealth Club, where words such as "agents for social change", "absence of power", "critical service that really can change the equation", "tipping point" etc. floating in the air for entire morning. Here is the eworld again.
Mary Hodder has followed the issue of Napsterization of political activism, including Move On for a while, in her napterization.org. Today she blogged not only the Move On "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest, but also a theoretical paper entitled Shifting the Lens, written by Hermann Maiba in U of IL/Chicago.
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January 12, 2004
精神号
只有在新世界壮丽的怀抱里
你的灵魂才能安息
（《波茜星咏叹调》1986)
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New office
What's up? South.
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丹佛机场 （补昨天）
又见白色的群山。
你坐在餐车车厢里，听一位越战护士谈沙门。火车驶过一九九零年科罗拉多的青山绿水，到丹佛时夜色已深，只记得是个大站。
初次来到机场是九七年的落矶山之行。两年以后又在这里租车，作为西南之旅的起点，（第一站：阿斯本）。
回望群山，那是开始的终结，还是终结的开始？
前天你们在纽约重见，一切依然。
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January 07, 2004
Nature and Beauty
"If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing.
If nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living." Henri Poincare
"Beauty is the internal conformation of the various items of experience with each other, for the production of maximum effectiveness…. Thus the parts contribute to the massive feeling of the whole, and the whole contributes to the intensity of feeling of the parts…. The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of beauty.
Creation is the intensification of beauty"
Whitehead, "Adventure of Ideas." (pgs. 341, 324)
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高山流水
布鲁伦，泠冽夜，听“高山流水”
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Blogs and justice?
Joi Ito has been blogging about "blog justice" in last two days.
Posted by Xiao at 09:53 AM | TrackBack
Theories about theories
Still Mitchel Resnick: "....move away from the notion of a single, absolute, unifying conception of knowledge, arguing instead that knowledge is constantly constructed and reconstructed in a more decentralized way."
Example: Literary Criticism
"Traditional theory of literature assumed that meaning was created by an author and conveyed through the author's writings. According to this view, reading is a search for inherent meaning in a document, an attempt to decipher the intention of the author. But modern school of literary criticism -- such as poststructuralism, reader-response theory, and deconstructionism - adopt a very different stance. These movements all focus on readers (not authors) as the main constructors of meaning. In this new view, text have little or no inherent meaning. Rather, meaning are constantly reconstructed by communities of readers through their interactions with the text. Meaning itself has become decentralized."
Another example: feminist studies
"Since different voices are often valued differently in our society, the idea of multiple voices takes on a political edge. Formal, logical, abstract, and analytical ways of thinking, typically associated with men, have been privileged in our society -- viewed as superior, more advanced, more likely to lead to "truth." On the other hand, relational and contextual ways of thinking, typically associated with women, have been undervalued and discouraged. "
" the "dominant epistemology" that grants privileged status to abstract, formal, and logical ways of thinking" are now being challenged. The idea of "alternative epistemology" is that there are multiple ways of thinking and knowing. "People are recognizing that knowledge speaks not with a single voice but with many."
Posted by Xiao at 09:24 AM | TrackBack
Self and Mind
From Resnick: "Relationships with people in the world are internalized as agents or objects within the mind. ......the self emerges from the interactions among the internalized objects."
"Current models of the mind differ significantly from one another. For example, neural networks are based on an architecture of simple, homogeneous, highly connected components, while the Society of Mind is based on an architecture of complex, specialized, semi-insulated subsystems."
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January 06, 2004
Images of Networks
This is the image gallery of Self-Organized networks.
And this is from
Physics Department, University of Notre Dame.
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"Mediology" Link
You cannot say you like the sound of this word but curious about what it means. From another Norweigian blogger Joe Hoem you have found this old article in 1995 Wired and this relatively new book by Lev Manovich.
Twenty-seven years ago, French radical theoretician Régis Debray was sentenced by a Bolivian military tribunal to 30 years in jail. He had been captured with the guerrilla band led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Fidel Castro's legendary lieutenant. Released after three years, largely because of the intervention of compatriots such as President Charles de Gaulle, André Malraux, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Debray returned to writing. (His 1967 Revolution in the Revolution is considered a primer for guerrilla insurrection.) He spent five years in the early '80s as a special advisor on Latin American relations to French President François Mitterrand.
Creating a discipline he calls "mediology," Debray has investigated how it is that abstract ideas can end up as world-changing ideologies. Today, he is developing a new theory of the transmission of ideas through history, to grasp how words become flesh, ideas ideologies.
(X: Coming back to Six Degree again. Ring a bell?)
Régis Debray: "I would make an analogy between what I call mediology and the strategy of the neurosciences. While the neurosciences are dedicated to overcoming the inherited duality between mind and brain, mediology tries to view history by hybridizing technology and culture. It focuses on the intersections between technology and intellectual life."
"As Thomas Edison said a century ago, "whoever controls the film industry will control the most powerful influence over people." And today that means everyone on the planet. Images govern our dreams, and our dreams drive our actions. "
(X: Freeman Dyson had a same point about beauty in his Disturbing the Universe.)
Posted by Xiao at 02:29 PM | TrackBack
从五十七街到Meteora
在东五十七街的星巴克，为什么记起十年前雪中的修道院？
因为那句话吗？
“那谦卑的有福了。”
Posted by Xiao at 08:51 AM | TrackBack
January 05, 2004
eLiterature
Electronic Literature Organization has been there for a while. You just heard this project from tonight's dinner.
......a new, reader-influenced way of story-reading......Often thought of as a mere resource for fact-finding, the Web is fast becoming a place where cutting-edge authors and poets can create literature using hypertext as a whole new set of tools -- with a whole new set of problems.
According to Robert Coover, "......hypertext, in its most simple way, is a multi-linear set of images or texts navigated by links. And it's the link that's the key to hypertext. A link is also that very peculiar element of the computer itself. "
Posted by Xiao at 08:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
游戏高手初听关联论
《复杂》节选 ：“他记得这项研究始于1952年春季，当时他正在听麻省理工学院心理学家利克莱德（J．C．R．Licklider）的演讲。利克莱德前来访问普夫吉普斯实验室，同意就当时该领域最热门的话题，蒙特利尔麦克吉尔大学的神经生理学家唐纳德·希伯（Donald O．Hebb）关于学习和记忆的新理论，做这个演讲。”
”利克莱德解释说，问题是，在显微镜下，大脑的大部分都呈现出一片混沌，每一个细胞都随意发出数千条纤维，与数千计其他神经细胞随意相连。然而，这些稠密相连的网络又显然不是随意组成的。一个健康的大脑能够前后连贯地形成感觉、思想和行动。更重要的是，大脑显然不是静止不变的。它可以通过吸取经验来改善和调整自己的行为。它可以学习。但问题是，它是怎样学习的？
在三年前的1949年，希伯在他出版的《行为组织》（The Organization of Behavior）一书中作出了他的回答。他的基本思想是，假设大脑经常在“突触”上做些微妙的变化。突触是神经冲动从这个细胞跳到那个细胞的连接点。这个假设对希伯来说是非常大胆的，因为当时他对此还没有任何证据。但希伯为这一假设阐述说，这些突触上的变化正是所有学习和记忆的基础。比如说，通过眼睛视觉的感官冲动会通过加强沿途所有突触的方式在它的神经网络上留下痕迹。差不多的情形同样会发生在由耳进入的听觉神经系统、或大脑内其它脑际活动。结果是，随意启动的网络会迅速将自己组织起来。通过某种正反馈，经验被积累了起来：强健的、经常被使用的突触会变得更强健，而弱小、不经常使用的突触会萎缩。被经常使用的突触最后强健到一定程度以后，记忆就被锁定了。这些记忆反过来又会布满整个大脑，每一个突触都与一个复杂的突触形态相对应，这些突触形态包含了成千上万个神经元。（希伯是最先描述这种分布记忆的人之一，这种描述后来被称为“关联论”（connectionist）。）
但希伯的思想还不止这些。利克莱德在演讲中还解释了希伯的第二个假设：有选择的突触强化会导致大脑自组成“细胞集合”——几千个神经元的子结合，其中循环神经冲动会自我强化，继续循环。希伯认为这些细胞集合就是大脑基本的信息建设砖块。每一个细胞集合都与一种声调、一束光线或某种思想的一闪念相对应。但这种细胞集合在生理上并没有特别之处。确实，它们相互重叠，任何一个神经元同属于好几个细胞集合。而且因为如此，一个细胞集合的行动势必带动其他细胞集合的动作，这样，这些基本的建设砖块就会迅速自组成为更大规模的概念和更复杂的行为。总之，细胞集合就是思想的基本量子。
荷兰德坐在听众席上听得呆若木鸡。 “
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January 04, 2004
人工蚂蚁的补充
在集智俱乐部网站看到这个程序，和上次的是补充，而且更加详细生动。
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A brief crack of light
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more clam than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour)."
----- Vladimir Nabokov 《Speak Memory》p19
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January 02, 2004
Writing Tips for the "Living Web"
Mark Bernstein had some tips for web writers (I am not sure about this ww word, but "blogger" is no better. "networked writing"? not quite. "open writing"? what does that mean?!) Anyway, here is Mark's article, thanks for Jill.
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Gage的微笑
今天读到Dan Gillmor的这一篇，明白上次Gage的微笑是这样来的。
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冬晨
早起。读Castells的《互联网星系》，顺便博来一篇印度农业的文章。听昨天录的《黄河》，“我站在高山之上”......
源绵厚密的雪花，落在新英格兰的林野上。
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