...more recent posts
Nothing like a good post-dot-com-bubble hyperlinked epic poem to put it all in perspective.
Here's a good resource for information on Claude Shannon, information theory, and entropy.
And I can never mention entropy without remembering the line Kesey has the young girl say in Demon Box: "Entropy? That's only a problem in a closed system."
Here are a few photos from the Laffoley exhibit we went to last night. I had no idea the painting were this large. Incredible. Great time. Happy birthday Bill! (Warning: the first page is sort of large. Approximately 400k.)
Well, despite the fact that I thought it was Tuesday today, things are going pretty well. I still have work to do on the site I'm getting up now for unmentioned "real people" (I like to keep that dirty business stuff off this page) but it has clearly passed out of my stewardship as of today. Still a lot of work bringing others up to speed, but that mostly involves writing documentation. Boring, sure, but not the sort of work where suddenly everything can unravel and leave you back at the beginning. Hopefully with a strong showing this weekend I can have all the decks cleared for a Monday morning start in on getting this site transfered to the new software. I don't really know how long that will take, but I guess I'm hoping for May day at this point. Wasn't that some sort of deadline last year? Anyway, I still have to get the archives working, and the new comment pages are only threaded at this point, and of course they need to be nested. Those shouldn't take too long, but both issues can be sort of tricky. Still, May 1 seems like a good bet. After that we should be able to grow a little more quickly, although, as I like to remind people, growing just for the sake of growing isn't really the point. Still, I hope it becomes more fun for people as we go. You'll all have a little more power in the new universe, and who can disagree with that?
Hey F. are you out there? I need your email for the electronic part of our correspondence. I think it's on my unbootable computer. (jimb at digitalmediatree.com) Thanks.
YAWVP (yet another web visualization project.) What does the web look like? A jellyfish perhaps?
Tim Berners-Lee has published an aritcle in the Scientific American explaning the "semantic web". Rather mundane examples, but I guess that's the cost of writing something technical that could be widely understood. I'm sure you can think of something more interesting than scheduling car pools. Still, all the background is in there. Very clear.
Like things could get any better. I think we're sprouting again. I've been hoping for this one since the beginning. Details to follow...
Hack the Planet has been getting more and more popular. The discussion board there has crossed some sort of threshold, and now seems like a very important public place. Is that what slashdot used to be like? I came too late to the party to be sure. Anyway, I guess it's the case that very smart computer programmers like to communicate with other very smart computer programmers. The technical stuff is largely over my head, but lately there hasn't been much technical stuff.
I can see now that this post is going to be a little long, but there is a payoff.
Anyway, Wes posted this picture on March 28, and 8 minutes later Aaron Swartz posted this reply. What happened next was probably the most interesting discussion thread I've ever watched unfold (and watching is all I do on that board.) Aaron, evidently, is a very bright 14 year old computer geek. He is very articulate. Maybe you remember him as the author of this great article (explaning the "semantic web") that I linked to a week and a half ago. And that's just one of his interests. Another is a more quixotic quest to change the american educational system which he sees as basically bankrupt, full of busy work, and signifying nothing. (Of course this is all to put words in his mouth which is a dangerous thing, but I have to summarize somehow.) Anyway, the discussion thread on Hack the Planet turned into a beautiful/frightning back and forth between the very outspoken and unfearful Swartz, and a variety of much older, more jaded, but also highly intelligent and outspoken programmer types. It was clearly evident that many saw Aaron as youger versions of themselves: overly smart in a specifically technical sense that makes it difficult to fit inside a strict bureaucracy (be it a corporate job, or american high school.) Many had very kind encouraging things to say to him. Many had what I thought very wise advice for growing up feeling you are a little different. A few thought he should quit complaining and just swallow his medicine. That's the way it is with internet conversations. They can get a little heated. They can get a little nasty. This is part of what makes them so interesting. Some of the social regulations which govern face to face communications are stripped away, and you can really get at what people think. Sometimes it's not so nice. O.K., here's the payoff. My favorite person to read on the site is David McCusker. His personal site is here. What he does is so far beyond me that I couldn't begin to judge his competence, but I can tell how the other people treat him, and let's just say he carries some weight. When the thread began to get a little personal I started wondering if someone would step in, and David McCusker did. Here's his reply (hint: that's the payoff, go read that entire post.) I say we put this guy in charge. If only every person new to the internet, and this particular way of communicating, could be persuaded to read his post. I think he makes the world a better place.
I now have two different, longer, and much harder to write posts that I want to make. I can't seem to crack either one though, so in the meantime I'll point out that google is starting to do language translation (from scripting news.)