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Computer programs can be very good at textual pattern matching, but they are very bad at semantic matching. Finding every occurrence of 'rose' is no problem; finding every expression of love is impossible.
Given this, might it be the case that since information on the web is largely found by computer programs (like google,) will the web exert pressure (realized or not) on writers to standardize (fossilize?) their use of language?
In other words, will our dependence on google as a means of having our writing discovered by people who are looking for just such things, exert a pressure on us as authors to use language more uniformly? Or, again, will something like the semantic web emerge, not through marking up our writings with XML tags which specify what we "really mean", but through a general shift towards always using the same word or phrase for a single idea?
You might think of this as the emergent semantic web. Or the bottom up semantic web. But - and this is the point - you'll have trouble finding all documents on this or any other subject unless we stick to one name or the other.
Will this be good or bad for language? And for humans?
If you're experimenting with iTunes rendezvous sharing you probably want to grab this http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~lernvall/itdlgui2.tgz.
[update: just to be clear, since at least one person was confused, I didn't write this program. And I have no idea who did. Just passing along something I found useful.]
From the prurient link department: James Joyce's (really quite) dirty letters. Possibly not safe for work if your surfing is being monitored.
My friend T. bought the new 30 gig iPod. I haven't seen this reported elsewhere, but in playing with it for a few minutes I noted some severe sluggishness in the interface. Sometimes it wouldn't respond at all to the "wheel" for many seconds. This is troublesome. I wonder if he might have gotten a bad unit? Or is the 30 gig drive just too big? (He did have it full.) I'd be curious if anyone else can report on this.
The new Nokia 6800 is finally out in Europe. Soon in the States. Very interesting flip open keyboard for text entry. (Yeah, I linked to this one a long time ago.)
And the Danger HIptop (my mobile) is now out in color. Apparently, even with the color screen, battery life has slightly improved. And the seriously underpowered camera has also been slightly bumped, from 120x90 pixels to 320x240. I want more, but that's better than nothing.
But no word yet from T-Mobile on terms. Remember, they only promised flat rate data for the first year. What's going to happen? It's the flat rate pricing that makes this the current best device for me.
Here's a little something new for authors here. You can now break apart a long post, having only the first part show on your page, but the entire post show on the comment page, by inserting <more> inside your post. This will be replaced with a link to 'Read the rest of this post...' as in the post below this one.
This will only work if comments are enabled on your page.
Here's the convergence I'm watching: wireless networking, mobile computing devices, and digital identity.
I haven't said anything about digital identity, despite the numerous conversations on this topic in other blogs. (Here for instance.) The basic idea is that internet commerce is being held back because we lack strong digital identities on the web. In other words, there is no way for people on one side of a transaction to be sure who is on the other side.
I've been uninterested in this discussion mainly because I don't care that much about internet commerce. But with the rise of wireless networks I'm starting to see how important this issue will be. And not just for commerce.
"An experiment is under way in Paris that aims to turn the city into one huge Wi-Fi hot spot, making it what could be the first large wireless city in the world."
Hi Carol. Thanks for lunch.
An edited extracted from Thomas Pynchon's introduction to the new Plume (Penguin US) edition of George Orwell's 1984.