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October 31, 2004
Ambient Opportunity from BobF
"With Ambient Connectivity we define connectivity in terms of relationships, not network paths. These relationships don't depend upon a central authority, a physical path (such as a wire) or a dedicated "frequency" -- they are independent of such mechanisms! We can use any medium and any path to exchange packets. "
"---we have met the enemy and it is complexity. Simplicity is the result of effective systems architecture rather than limiting capabilities.
......
It's difficult enough to write about technical topics, I find it's even more difficult to write about social issues there are so many implicit assumptions. This is especially true for politics and next week's presidential election. George Lakoff has written about this problem. It helps me understand a shockingly incurious administration that doesn't admit to mistakes let alone learn from them. How can such an administration understand a world redefined by the end-to-end concepts? How does one deal with the idea that the bits on the Internet have no intrinsic meaning to people who see morality as fundamental? The point of science is that one must challenge ones assumptions and continue to refine ones understanding. It is a way of looking at ideas that is very threatening to those who seek only to reinforce preexisting assumptions. "
Posted by Xiao at 11:01 AM | TrackBack
October 16, 2004
After the Old German Town
Fourteen years has passed since you drove to the Old German Town in pouring rain. Have you expected this?
Posted by Xiao at 01:44 PM | TrackBack
October 13, 2004
Wiki profile
A profile for wiki, from Caslon Analytics.
Posted by Xiao at 02:05 PM | TrackBack
October 10, 2004
四十年以后
历史并不是记忆的幻影。
Posted by Xiao at 12:12 PM | TrackBack
Observation, structure and autonomy
From "Academic Resources : Autopoiesis": "Systems are structure determined. That is, anything a system does at any moment in time is determined by its structure - its component bits and pieces, and the relationships between them."
"Maturana and Varela are at pains to take account of the perspective of the observer when talking of systems and how they behave in relation to their environment. The behaviour of a system is something ascribed to it by someone observing it in interaction with its environment. Hence behaviour is not something that is 'in' a system, and to refer to how a system relates to its environment whilst trying to understand it as an autonomous entity violates that very notion of autonomy. This is why all of the mechanics of the process of Autopoiesis as described by Maturana and Varela are kept strictly within the bounds of the Autopoietic system. This strict requirement is enforced via concepts like 'operational closure' and 'organizational closure.'
The consequences of this perspective are not always obvious. A good example however, is the immune system's ability to distinguish between self and non-self. Varela has been pointing out for some time that this is an observed behaviour, produced by the operational dynamics of the immune system in its environment, and that it is wrong to look for some discriminatory recognition mechanism within the immune system. Attention should be focused on the internal dynamics of the immune system, and how this is affected by and affects its environment of operation in such a way as to give rise to the behaviour observed. A similar approach is taken to the nervous system.
Autopoietic theory of course recognises that systems exist within environments, relate to them, and at low enough material level are entirely open to them. "
Posted by Xiao at 11:56 AM | TrackBack
October 07, 2004
Counterculture and Cyberculture
Fred Turner started his talk with "In 64, computer is symbol of repression. Today, computer is the symbol of liberation."
How did the two worlds come together?
1990s. Techno-utopianism emerged.
Is it always true for new technologies, or it is the fact that new “virtual class” needed new idiologies?
Back to the Land movement: want to be whole again.
Technophilic
Reversionary
Communal:
Alternative
Empowering
The story of WELL
Brand was rock star in 70s. In 80s, he get in touch with computer industry
Back to land communities, hackers and journalists get together. (And dead heads.) These networks converged together in WELL.
Digital real time
Simultaneous rolesinteractive community
Distributed value
Posted by Xiao at 01:44 PM | TrackBack
October 06, 2004
The Long Tail
Mary shared an old article on Wired (by Chris Anderson) last year. You enjoyed reading it.
"For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.
The main problem, if that's the word, is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too. But that world puts two dramatic limitations on our entertainment. "
Posted by Xiao at 03:54 PM | TrackBack
October 05, 2004
隐喻无处不在
Lakoff的书是八零年发表的，影响仍然在扩展之中。隐喻不仅仅是在语言中，在思维和行为中也是无处不在。因为通讯是基于思维和行为的同一套概念系统，所以考察语言的使用，会得到关于观念系统细节和特征的知识。
隐喻的本质，是通过一类经验来理解和经历另一类经验。
当观念是隐喻地构成，行为亦隐喻地构成，于是语言也隐喻地构成。
Posted by Xiao at 10:34 AM | TrackBack
October 02, 2004
The locus of truth on the Web?
From Berkman Center news: "Wikipedia.org -- the grassroots encyclopedia -- has frozen edits to the page about George W. Bush because supporters and detractors were revising thepage at a head-spinning clip. Wikipedia's aim is to present an article that contains the core of acknowledged facts about the President, with links to pages that argue many sides of the issue. This assumes that there is an objective core, an idea that dedicated Post-Modernists would dispute. For the rest of us it raises interesting questions about the Web's effect on authority. Is the multiplicity of voices on the Web in fact leading us to a stronger division between fact and opinion than ever before, rather than the fusing of fact and values some have expected? And is authority moving to groups instead of to individuals? Are we seeing the development of "multi-subjectivity," that is, webs of subjective commentary that, because of their diverse viewpoints, can "compete for truth" with objective sources. What's the locus of truth on the Web? "
Posted by Xiao at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
The Two Pieces Social Software Must Have
From Clay Shirky on Many-to-Many:
I think there are in fact only two attributes — Groups and Conversations — which are on the ‘necessary and sufficient’ list (though I have expanded the latter to Conversations or Shared Awareness, for reasons described below.) I doubt there are other elements as fundamental as these two, or, put another way, software that supports these two elements is social, even if it supports none of the others. (Wikis actually come quite close to this theoretical minimum, for reasons also discussed below.)
Posted by Xiao at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
Wiki as collaboration tool
From Globeandmail technology section: "Wiki technology, invented by Oregon programmer Ward Cunningham, is server software that allows users to quickly create and edit on-line content using any Web browser ("wikiwiki" means "fast" in Hawaiian). The software is available from commercial developers, and there are also free open-source packages.
Typically, a Wiki website (referred to simply as a Wiki) is customized for a specific project such as a product manual or a report. Employees can organize, cross-link and hyperlink content, post comments or simply view a project in progress. The Wiki converts text entries into Web pages and requires no programming skills, so people usually don't have to take any special training to use one."