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This is my dynamic, frequently updated homepage. This is a NewsLog, also known as a WebLog or Blog.
Everything is evolving, so don't assume too much.
People to watch:
Adina Levin
Andrius Kulikauskas
Britt Blaser
Catherine Austin Fitts
Chris Corrigan
Clay Shirky
Dan Gillmor
Dave Pollard
David Allen
David Weinberger
Dewayne Mikkelson
Dina Mehta
Doc Searls
Elisabet Sahtouris
Elizabeth Lawley
Euan Semple
Florian Brody
Frank Patrick
Gen Kenai
George Dafermos
George Por
Graham Hancock
Greg Elin
Hazel Henderson
Heiner Benking
Inspector Lohman
Jean Houston
Jerry Michalski
Jim McGee
Jim Moore
John Abbe
John Perry Barlow
John Robb
Joi Ito
Jon Husband
Jon Lebkowsky
Jon Udell
Jonathan Peterson
Judith Meskill
Julian Elvé
Julie Solheim
Kevin Marks
Lawrence Lessig
Leif Smith
Letecia Layson
Lilia Efimova
Lisa Rein
Marc Canter
Mark Oeltjenbruns
Mark Pilgrim
Mark Woods
Martin Dugage
Martin Roell
Mary Forest
Matt Mower
Max Sandor
Michael Fagan
Mike Owens
Mikel Maron
Mitch Kapor
Mitch Ratcliffe
Nathalie dArbeloff
Netron
Noam Chomsky
Paul Hughes
Peter Kaminski
Phil Wolff
Philippe Beaudoin
Ray Ozzie
Raymond Powers
Rebecca Blood
Roger Eaton
Roland Tanglao
Ross Mayfield
Scott Lemon
Sebastian Fiedler
Sebastien Paquet
Skip Lancaster
Spike Hall
Steven Johnson
Stuart Henshall
Thomas Burg
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal
Thomas Nicholls
Timothy Wilken
Todd Suomela
Tom Atlee
Tom Munnecke
Tom Tomorrow
Ton Zijlstra
Lionel Bruel
Loic Le Meur
Nancy White
Mark Frazier
Merlin Silk
Robert Paterson
Colby Stuart
Nova Spivack
Dan Brickley
Ariane Kiss
Vanessa Miemis
Bernd Nurnberger
Sites to watch:
Action without borders
BoingBoing
Co-intelligence Institute
Disclosure Project
Disinfopedia
Disinformation
Edge
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Explorers Foundation
Forbidden Science
Free Expression Network
Friendly Favors
FutureHi
Global Ideas Bank
Greater Democracy
HeadMap
Imaginify
Independent Media
Manufacturing Dissent
MetaFilter
Nanodot
Smart Mobs
ThoughtsOnThinking
WorldChanging
YES Magazine
Absara
Collective Intelligence
Collective Web
Do No Harm
Emergent by Design
Escape Velocity
Junto
NotThisBody
Openworld
Rhizome
Space Collective
Webcamorama
French:
Emmanuelle
Manur
Elanceur
Loeil de Mouche
IokanaaN
Blog d'Or
Le Petit Calepin
GeeBlog
Absara
Guillaume Beuvelot
Ming Chau
Serge Levan
Jean Michel Billaut
C'est pas Mécanique
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| Tuesday, November 19, 2002 |  |
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Kevin Werbach has an article on slate.com prophesizing that spam is juat about to kill e-mail as we know it. And I agree. E-mail stopped being useful to me already a couple of years ago, because the ratio of stuff I want to stuff I don't want had become just unacceptable. And now it is much worse. I get much more spam than mail from real people, and I do get a lot of real mail.
The only viable answer is going to be that people will accept mail only from people they specifically have allowed to send them mail. You will have a 'whitelist' in the form of, for example, your address book. There might be some mechanism for strangers to validate that indeed they are real people, but gone are the days where you can just get directly through to a stranger. Next I think we'll probably need that for phones too. I also get more phone calls from pushy telemarketers than from real people.
[ Diary | 2002-11-19 23:22 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 DRM - Digital Rights Management - is a euphemism for media companies trying to control your behavior in order to maximize their own profits. It is in brief that big companies will be enabled to control when and how you look at THEIR stuff, and that they'll be able to tamper with your computer, or your car stereo, or your VCR, if there is any indication that you want to play their content in a different setting than they had in mind. It is a BAD thing. See an intro here from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Microsoft and the big record companies and movie studios love DRM. They've bribed some U.S. congress people to back them. They all think it is the solution to piracy and a rapidly changing marketplace. They can turn the clock back to the way it was, or rather, the way it always should have been, in their view. The hidden agenda seems to be to manipulate you into a position where you pay something whenever you read or view or listen to their copyrighted materials, and to pressure the hardware manufacturers and operating system manufacturers to make your hardware and software do their bidding. Apple is taking a stance against it, so buy a Mac. And read Chris Locke's righteous rage about not being able to quote a review about his own book, because of DRM.
[ Opinions | 2002-11-19 23:22 | 0 comments | PermaLink ]
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 One of my interests is to understand how we each construct our reality and how we might change that reality and how we might avoid having it manipulated against our best interests. For that matter, if I had to choose only one field of interest for myself, that would be it.
We make over-simplified conclusions about what reality we're living in, based on our incomplete perceptions and based on our abstract reasoning derived from what we previously have perceived and concluded. The neural pathways of our brains and the unspoken assumptions and fixed structures in our minds form filters that we experience the world through. Filters that make us experience only a very, very small portion of what is actually happening, and to interpret even that portion in a sketchy and generalized manner. Smart people who understand this well can provide us with manufactured scenarios that guide our perceptions into making certain conclusions about reality (which they'd like us to believe) and into avoiding certain other conclusions (which they'd like us not to know about).
Most people are so busy living IN the reality they believe they exist in so that they very rarely are able to even consider that it could be any different. So, I don't meet very many people I can talk to about these things, other than in a fairly general metaphysical context. And I'm interested in the more technical angle on it, of how we do it, and how we change it.
Right now I'm looking at organelle.org. Looks promising, like somebody delving deeply into these things.
[ Patterns | 2002-11-19 15:58 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Monday, November 18, 2002 | |
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 The Register writes about a recent SEC filing which shows that Microsoft is losing money in every business area except Windows (86% profit) and Office (79% profit). Also see Financial Times. As Slashdot points out: The full version of Windows XP costs about $300.00. Microsoft could sell it for $45 and still make a profit. The difference between the $45 price and the $300 price is what economists call "monopoly rents". So, let me spell it out one more time: Microsoft has a de facto monopoly in two areas, where they harvest huge profits. They use those profits to try to run competitors out of business in many, many other areas, by deliberately selling products at a loss.
[ Information | 2002-11-18 17:17 | | PermaLink ] More >
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A group of 50 women from the Bay area are serious enough about peace to spell it out with their bodies, wearing nothing but afternoon rain. They're speaking out against war with Iraq, calling attention to the vulnerability of innocent civilians.
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-18 17:17 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 "'Living Machines' are whole systems approaches to treating wastewater. They are solar-powered, accelerated versions of the water treatment facilities found in mature natural systems. Incorporating helpful microbes, plants, snails and fish into diverse, self-organizing and responsive communities, Living Machines are site-specific, biological solutions that re-route waste streams into resources." That is from this introduction. See companies like Ocean Arks or Living Machines that create ecologically sound ways of dealing with waste water, often better than any purely technological solution could accomplish. A lot of good stuff seems to be going on in the State of Vermont, with companies such as Ben & Jerry's leading the way.
[ Nature | 2002-11-18 22:24 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Sunday, November 17, 2002 | |
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 One of my strong beliefs is that we each hold an important piece of a bigger puzzle, or we ARE that piece. The Earth needs all of us to do what we're here to do. We each need to find out where we fit, and what we need to do there. The world will not completely work without you doing your particular thing, in your particular way.
That is not just an inspiring thing to say to people to motivate them. It is more than a metaphor. More like a principle of self-organization, albeit an intuitively derived one.
 The puzzle would be how we all work together as a global brain, I suppose. Which relates to how we develop a planetary organizational system that works for everyone. I postulate that, since we each posses individual consciousness and will, it can only be done in a self-organizing way. I.e. by honoring all of our diverse perspectives, and letting them negotiate the details amongst themselves. And, since we all share the same space and the same components that sustain life, we're inherently inseparable, so our solution has to form a unified non-exclusive fabric.
Chances are that you know something, or you see something, or you feel something that nobody else is feeling or seeing or knowing. If you don't think so, you might have to dig deeper into who you really are. If you don't sharpen up your unique awareness and act on it, nobody else will. And there will be a blank spot or a blind spot in our shared fabric, and your piece will not be connected.
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-17 19:03 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite.
A finite game is a game that has fixed rules and boundaries, that is played for the purpose of winning and thereby ending the game.
An infinite game has no fixed rules or boundaries. In an infinite game you play with the boundaries and the purpose is to continue the game.
Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.
Finite players try to control the game, predict everything that will happen, and set the outcome in advance. They are serious and determined about getting that outcome. They try to fix the future based on the past.
Infinite players enjoy being surprised. Continuously running into something one didn't know will ensure that the game will go on. The meaning of the past changes depending on what happens in the future.
[ Diary | 2002-11-17 20:03 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Friday, November 15, 2002 | |
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 Communities of Practice is something more people are talking about. See a primary article by Etienne Wenger, who is a key proponent of the concept. It is essentially a loosely organized group of people who are sharing some kind of activity, and who are learning together. That is different from a Community of Interest, which would be people interested in a certain subject or having a shared concern or desired outcome. It is also different from a geographical community, where people are linked by the fact that they live or work in the same place. None of those necessarily involve that people are sharing the same activity. In a Community of Practice people recognize that they're doing the same kinds of things, that they need the same kinds of tools and the same knowledge about using them well, but they might very well belong to different organizations or different departments in a company. So, it is not a team or a unit or a business. It is not a set of relationships or contracts, but rather it is about the activity that people share. People belong to communities of practice at the same time as they belong to other organizational structures. The community is maintained to the degree that people contribute to the activity, adding value to it as a whole. Wenger talks about the cycles associated with such a community, from discovering a need for it, towards engaging in developing the shared practice, towards it dispersing when no longer needed. There are some examples in this article.
[ Patterns | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I'm very interested in how different design patterns in online environments will inspire different kinds of outcomes. You know, if things are arranged one way it fosters creativity and brainstorming, and if they're arranged in another way it might foster convergent results and agreement. I'd like to understand that better, and I'd like to create different environments for different purposes.
I was just looking at OpenSpace Online, which is a system developed by Gabriela Ender in Germany, for coordinating an online conference based on Open Space principles. Look at the demo. Very nice system it seems, but fairly expensive for the settings I would probably think of.
[ Patterns | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Two Australian scientists believe they've found signs of a parallel mirror universe, by studying craters on the asteroid Eros. Apparently the only available explanation for the layout of the craters is that they've been splattered by mirror-matter. The Near-Shoemaker spaceprobe touched down on Eros briefly in 2000.
[ Science | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 I have for years asked people to optionally fill in a Myers-Briggs or Keirsey personality test when filling in a membership profile in NCN. But the last couple of years I've just referred people to Keirsey's site, which is rather cumbersome and self-serving and asking people to register, etc. I just noticed a very simple version at Bloginality. It is kind of simple and obvious, but I'd say it works pretty well. So I'm considering switching over to something like that. It identified me as an ENTP in a minute or two. .. Ah and here's another short one.
[ Information | 2002-11-15 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Thursday, November 14, 2002 | |
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 Leif Smith:"Weavers of freeorder are pattern seers, connection makers, thinkers, artists, entrepreneurs who work for all who discover that their home is Open Network.
Open Network names a freeorder comprised of and arising from all aspects of the world in which an explorer of sovereign spirit may rejoice.
It is very old.
No one invented it.
Freeorder is a balance among designed and spontaneous orders conducive to quest. ..." continued ..
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 One of the officially oldest known cities is Çatal Hüyük in Turkey, which is partially excavated. It was apparently home to around 10,000 people 9,000 years ago. "But it doesnÂ’t quite add up. There seem to be no signs of hierarchy; no high-status homes, public buildings or even public open spaces. The small houses were so tightly packed together that entry was through the roof! Above all, Çatal Hüyük was in the middle of a swamp and dry pasture and wheat fields must have been 12 kilometres away or more. Aubrey Manning visits the site to try to solve these mysteries."
[ History | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Rocky Mountain Institute argues that it is no longer economical to generate electricity in large centralized plants, because the distribution grid is more costly than the plants.
"In today's electricity market, however, the economies of scale that justified building big coal-fired and nuclear power plants have been outrun by diseconomies of scale, both in the grid and in generating plants. Mass production of smaller generating units offers greater economies than big plants can gain through unit size. Centralized power generation is no longer cheaper even on its own—and when supply is expanded, new power plants now cost less than the grid linking them to customers."
[ Technology | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 A tiny battery developed by researchers at Cornell will provide power continuously for decades. It is only a cubic millimeter. Imagine never having to charge your cellphone or your laptop computer. Only problem is that ..eh .. it is radioactive.
[ Technology | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Lisa Rein points out that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney apparently pocketed several million dollars last year in compensation from defense related companies he's had an interest in, and there will be more this year, based on a little accounting trick of 'deferred' compensation. One of the companies in question built a certain well-known prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for one thing.
[ Information | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 President Eisenhower's farewell address to the citizens of the United States, January 1961: "In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-14 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Wednesday, November 13, 2002 | |
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 Ray Kurzweil: "The universe has been set up in an exquisitely specific way so that evolution could produce the people that are sitting here today and we could use our intelligence to talk about the universe. We see a formidable power in the ability to use our minds and the tools we've created to gather evidence, to use our inferential abilities to develop theories, to test the theories, and to understand the universe at increasingly precise levels"...
[ Inspiration | 2002-11-13 23:36 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Chris Corrigan provides some hints from Open Space Technology about how one might intentionally create the conditions for group/community formation, by invoking the laws of self-organization.
"[...] Stuart Kauffman distilled down those laws to these five conditions which need to be in place to invoke self-organizing systems:A nutrient environment
Diversity and complexity
A drive for improvement
Sparse connections
Activity at the edge of chaos In Open Space the nutrient environment is provided by a theme and an invitation that nurtures participation. Diversity and complexity is embodied by the invitation list and a complex organizing idea ("How do we form a community?" is a good question). A drive for improvement is the inherent passion that people bring to the work. Sparse connections mean that people come to an Open Space meeting without an agenda, and not knowing what will happen. This allows them to be free to establish the connections they need to make to create communities or groups. And finally activity at the edge of chaos finds its purest expression in the group of people all standing in front of the agenda wall searching for the conversations they want to have. It is out of the rolling and boiling chaos that order comes, as people settle into conversations and establish deep connections that lead to groups and communities forming."
[ Organization | 2002-11-13 23:36 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Researchers have found that a microbe found in the mud of the Hudson River is capable of neutralizing the hazardous industrial chemical TCA (trichloroethane), which pollutes groundwater in many places. The microbe lives without oxygen and actually requires TCA in order to thrive.
[ Nature | 2002-11-13 23:36 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 There is power in numbers. A few thousand people who sign a petition can sometimes accomplish a lot. And nowadays with the Internet it is easier than ever to express an opinion, and maybe persuade change to happen. See for example The Petition Site, and see a list of successes. Also Petitions.org, PetitionOnline, WebPetitions and more.
[ Information | 2002-11-13 23:36 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Andrius Kulikauskas dared me to put my weblog here into the "Primarily Public Domain", and after a bit of thought I decided that, yes, of course that would be the right thing.
I believe very much in ideas and writings and creative works being in the public domain. Public domain means that there are no copyrights, no exclusive rights, and that the resource is owned by the community at large. That's the easiest way of ensuring that the resource is available for anybody who needs or wants it, and that it can be automatically included in libraries gathered for the common good.
For software there are some additional concerns. Specifically, if one desires free software to remain free, even when modified, the "copy-left" license might be the best idea.
With substantial things I've written in the past, like my Transformational Processing books, I've previously chosen to mark them as copyrighted, adding that they can be freely copied and distributed for any non-commercial purpose. But I think public domain probably makes it more clear to people that they're free to use it. Many people contact me, asking for permission, just because they see the word "copyright". And I really don't mind at all that people quote or copy what I write, even in books that people pay for, or classes that cost money. As a matter of fact I'm flattered that they would want to.
For good public domain resources see for example: ibiblio or Wikipedia
[ Knowledge | 2002-11-13 04:38 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Tuesday, November 12, 2002 | |
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 Dan Winter is a sacred geometry genius. He speaks and writes a mile a minute and I can't exactly follow most of what he's saying. But some of it intuitively makes great sense. One thing he often talks about is self embedding, and there's a point there which I think is very important. I can't grasp the math, so bear with my more simplistic and possibly naive version.
Multiple waves can co-exist in the same space, if they're in harmony, so to speak. If they're not in harmony they might sort of collide, but under certain circumstances the waves all sort of fit into the same space. Multiple harmonics form a unified tone. Multiple waves form one wave form which represents all of them at once.
Potentially you can pack a lot of information into a very small place if it all embeds into each other. It can travel together in a very compact form. And you can reverse it and get it all back again. So, it is non-destructive.
Fractals fit in here. A very simple recursive formula might produce something very complex. The complexity is embedded into itself in the form of a simplicity, so to speak.
Now, metaphysically or spiritually speaking, that might have something to do with self-awareness and with eternal life. If you can embed all that you are into itself in a non-destructive way, you can go through the eye of the needle, and remain intact and conscious even if you travel to another universe. Through a black hole, say.
And the point I wanted to get to here right now is that a group of diverse people with diverse talents might function well as a group if the characteristics of the members embed well into each other. Or, reversely, if they can all function as variations of the same fractal principle. There's a harmony that might take place, which isn't agreement per se. It is more that everything sort of fits together in a very economical way.
If you come in during the day and I come in during the night, we can fit in the same office. If I get a lot of mail from foreign lands, and you collect stamps, and another person recycles paper, it all fits together. If I walk across a chasm, I don't really need a 20,000 ton bridge - I just need something under my foot in the exact place where I put it at any given moment. Am I making any sense?
[ Patterns | 2002-11-12 14:10 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 When we interact with other people, or we form groups with them, we might often not realize at first how we have different ways of doing things. If we notice and appreciate how our different ways are complementing and supporting each other - that can be a great thing. If we don't, we might speak past each other, and misunderstand each other's intentions.
I originally set up NCN as a gathering space and a set of tools for people who're out there working on building a better world. Not any end in itself, and no agenda, but a bit of infrastructure that might help people do what they do, or that might help them find what to do if they don't know.
The way I personally use NCN features, such as this NewsLog program here, is as a way of addressing the world, a way of working with the people I work with, and a place to get inspiration or feedback when I need it. But my attention is mostly outwards, towards what might be needed in the world, or what might need to be said, or who else I ought to work with.
I suppose that the people I most enjoy working with are those that I can comfortably work back-to-back with. You know, I work on this piece, and you work on that piece, and we don't have to talk a whole lot about it, other than when our pieces overlap. But I trust that our pieces will probably fit together eventually. And we're somehow in sync.
It is my own fault, I'm sure, but I often forget that other people work quite differently. Of course we need all sorts of ways of doing things. If some people have their attention out on the big world, others will have to pay attention to keeping the house in order. But what I still don't get is why some people sort of get stuck in the middle.
It is like if I put up a big notice board, and I say: "Here you can post notices for your friends to find them and read them". Some people will go off and do things, and will use the notice board to stay in touch with some of their friends and will be quite happy with it. A few people might volunteer to keep the notice board in good shape, removing notices that are too old and forgotten, and emptying the trash can. But some people will also just keep standing in front of the notice board. For some, that's because it is fun, and there's a lot of activity, and they can read all the notices, and create inventive notices themselves, and they thrive in that, and that's cool. But other people somehow think they're actually supposed to be standing there, and that something will happen. And after a few months they say: "Hey, I've been standing here for several months, and nothing is happening. This sucks. Screw your notice board. I'm gonna go out and do some real things."
And that makes me sad. By all means, go out and do the things you see need doing. Do them sooner rather than later. If you need a notice board or a meeting room or a megaphone or a newspaper, it is here, you can come and get it at any time, and its free. And please share the stories of your successes and failures when you have time. But first of all, do your thing. And I'll do mine. If necessary, we'll talk. Cover my back and I'll cover yours.
[ NCN | 2002-11-12 17:46 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Monday, November 11, 2002 | |
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 Seb Paquet mentions there's a group for group-forming discussion, which grew our of his own inquiries into the subject. On the table are questions like: "How are new communities born?
How can we make it easier to form groups?" Those are big questions indeed. Creating the circumstances for productive groups to form is a non-trivial problem. Particularly when we're talking about self-organizing groups. If I have the resources to pay some people to do certain things, I can create a group. If I stand on a street corner and hand out free beer, I'll have a group quickly too. But the interesting question is how groups will come together in a less pavlovian way, where it isn't just a matter of lining up to get your treat, and doing whatever it takes to get it. If there are just a number of possible interest areas, or a number of tasks at hand, or there's just a number of people who exist in the same space, who have different interests - what facilitates that they self-organize in a useful way?
I can guess at many things. Of course it helps a lot to have some tools freely available. In a physical space, some different meeting rooms, some comfortable chairs, and some whiteboards to write on, would help a lot. In a virtual space it would work in similar ways. If there are spaces available you can move into, on your own impulse, and start drawing on the boards, some fundamental groundwork is in place. And if you can easily see who is around, who's available, and what their interests are, that certainly helps greatly too. But it takes more.
It takes purpose. A group needs to exist for something. A common interest or a shared space might be a trigger, but it doesn't provide the purpose. The purpose can't be faked. There needs to be something REAL that these people are together for. It might not be important to anybody else in the world, but it has to be important for the people in that group.
[ Organization | 2002-11-11 23:48 | | PermaLink ] More >
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Tom Atlee has gathered a lot of resources about the phenomenon of "co-intelligence". See the compact vision of co-intelligence. Co-intelligence is essentially that a group of people somehow becomes much more than the sum of its parts. The group itself, as a whole, starts acting intelligently at a higher level. Imagine that happening in small teams, in organizations, in communities and in whole societies. Read these stories and examples of collaboration and wholeness.
"What really interests me is that when I tell people about co-intelligence, they usually look at me blankly. But then I ask them if they've ever seen co-stupidity -- and they start to chuckle! What a commentary on our culture, that people who have never heard either word can't imagine co-intelligence, but are already familiar with co-stupidity."
[ Organization | 2002-11-11 23:48 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 "Wealth is when small efforts produce big results.
Poverty is when big efforts produce small results."
--quoted by Robert Allen Well, that is maybe a lot more profound than it seems. OK, its a cool thing to quote when you're selling get-rich programs. But it is a lot more, and it applies to any kind of effort, not just to money making. Some people predominantly produce a lot of hard work and effort that doesn't accomplish much. Others do some relatively simple things that make much bigger things happen. That is leverage. Doing more with less.
Is it maybe a driver for human evolution? Is it what we're here to do - to accomplish more, more and more easily? Those who get the most done with the least effort are spearheading evolution?
Maybe. But we need to sort out some kinks. The easiest way of getting the biggest result with the least effort is to steal the result of somebody else's work. It is easier to pump oil out of the ground than to figure out how to make our own energy. It is easier to steal a car than to design and build one. Is it ethical to have people work hard for you, for little money, while you go on vacation in the corporate jet? Where's the line between intelligent doing-more-with-less leverage and the buy-low-sell-high exploitation of others?
[ Patterns | 2002-11-11 23:48 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Sunday, November 10, 2002 | |
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 David Reed talks about Group Forming.
David Reed is an Internet veteran credited with what is sometimes called Reed's Law, which says, essentially, that networks that facilitate easy group forming are subject to potentially exponential growth. So, here's a little bit of math:
Broadcast media or traditional industrial age businesses grow roughly in ratio to how many listeners or customers they have. Twice as many listeners/viewers means twice as good. Twice as many people who see your ad means twice as many customers which means twice as good. We can use the symbol N for the value. N number of people gives a value of N. That is called proportional growth.
But if we're talking about a network, where the participants can communicate with each other, the rules change. Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, noticed that, and it is known as Metcalfe's Law that the value of a network increases with the square of the number of members. Think about the phone system. If you can only talk with a few people it isn't worth much. The more people you can call, the more valuable it is. Twice as many people make it not just twice as good, but four times (the square) as good. Roughly. So, the value is N2.
And now David Reed says that if we're talking about not just a network, but a community, the rules change again. The number of different interactions that might happen within a group of N people would be 2N. That is what is called exponential growth. So, if the members of the network can't just communicate one-to-one, but they can get together in groups of all kinds of sizes, the potential value is huge.
That's maybe a bit tenuous, as there's nothing at all automatic about it. It is what potentially can happen. But useful groups don't necessarily form just because it is possible for them to do so. I am, however, extremely interested in discovering factors that help groups to form and to self-organize. So, what it is that actually creates a Group Forming Network (GFN)? I'm not sure if Reed has an answer, but I'll keep looking.
One third of a century ago in an article entitled "The Computer as a Communication Medium," J.C.R. Licklider and Bob Taylor wrote the following, which was part of what inspired David Reed and others to build the first Internet:What will on-line interactive communities be like? Â… they will consist of geographically separated members Â… communities not of common location, but of common interest. Â… The whole will constitute a labile network of networks-ever changing in both content and configuration. Â… the impact Â… will be very great-both on the individual and on society. Â… First, Â… because the people with whom one interacts will be selected more by commonality Â… than by accidents of proximity.
[ Organization | 2002-11-10 19:09 | | PermaLink ] More >
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| Saturday, November 9, 2002 | |
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 I just discovered Meetup.com. Great idea, which actually seems to be working. It is simply a system that facilitates that people meet likeminded folks in their local area. You can choose from many different topics, and meeting dates have already been set, and you can vote on what location you prefer. I signed up for futurists and webloggers to see what will happen. It seems that part of what makes this work is the team behind it. I.e. there are real people behind it, who pay attention to how to build up these various areas. The trick is in how to hit the ground running. Many people will not show up for something unless they're pretty confident that a bunch of other people will, and that it will be successful.
[ Culture | 2002-11-09 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 Project Gutenberg is a non-profit organization that maintains an online archive of a large number of freely available books. For example, the many classics that now are in the public domain. Distributed Proofreaders is a project that supports Project Gutenberg by spreading out the work of proofreading the texts that are on their way into the archive. The work gets farmed out to many online volunteers who will receive pages that have been scanned, and send them back with corrections. Charles Franks, the originator of the effort, asks for as many people as possible to commit to doing a page a day. Look at the graph on the page. He put out his request for more people on SlashDot two days ago, and now the number of volunteers are skyrocketing.
[ Culture | 2002-11-09 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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 The small far north town of Hammerfest in Norway is the first to put a sub-sea tidal energy plant into production. It is a relatively tiny 300kW plant, but it is a start. Underwater tidal forces is a huge untapped resource, in part because of the difficulties in installing turbines in those exact areas that have the most tidal current.
[ Energy | 2002-11-09 23:59 | | PermaLink ] More >
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