Disordered Cogitations

• it
• seems
• to
• work

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 7:17:00 AM 0 comments

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[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 7:27:00 AM 1 comments

• The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra
• The Living Company by Arie de Geus
• Exporer's Guide to the Semantic Web by Thomas Passin

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 7:18:00 AM 0 comments

There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'. Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defense. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle; these last lead lives, perform acts, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision. The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzak, Joyce are foxes.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 3:28:00 PM 0 comments

My friends,

I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But;

If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 3:14:00 PM 0 comments

Arghh, I'll wagger you didn't know that...

From Uncyclopedia's roughest captains:

• ... it is disrespectful to teach beliefs about the Flying Spaghetti Monster without wearing full pirate regalia?

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 6:59:00 AM 0 comments

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 8:35:00 AM 2 comments

• Autonomic Computing Systems
• Jonathan Schwartz at Supernova 2005
• The Genographic Project

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 8:06:00 AM 0 comments

Bartle, Richard (1996) Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit MUDs.

Morningstar, Chip and Farmer, Randall (1990) The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat.

Epstein, Josh and Axtel, Rob (1996) Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up.

Herz, JC (2002) Harnessing the Hive. (Abstract and Full Text.)

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 6:25:00 AM 0 comments

CNet reports:

A site called 10x10 offers a very cool way to track current events for all you visual types.

Every hour, the site automatically scans RSS feeds from several major news sources and calculates the 100 most important words and images from that hour. The site is then updated and appears as a collection of 100 images next to an ordered list of words, all of which are clickable and lead users to the news stories they relate to. 10x10 archives its findings on a daily, monthly and yearly basis, and using its "History" feature, users can look back at any hour of any day, going back to November 4, 2004.

Rquires Flash 6.0.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 9:41:00 AM 0 comments

Did you know that any cell phone in the US, whether it's been "activated" or not with a calling plan, can make a 911 call. Know why? Because there is an overriding public interest in the provisioning of emergency services - that supercedes the interest of any individual corporation. Personally, I appreciate the availability of the service. I've never used it, but I'm glad it's there.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 6:08:00 AM 0 comments

I've been taking turns manning the virtual call centre we have set up using Skype linked to KatrinaHelp, to help cover 24 hours of the day. I am beginning to understand what it feels like to be a call-centre operator :).

What amazes me though, is that I can volunteer my time, sitting in my living room at home in Mumbai India, and be of use to help those seeking information about their loved ones who are missing on that other side of the world. This morning, I was on a shift for a couple of hours, and I received about 8 calls on our Skypein number, and made a few on SkypeOut. It was really rewarding to be able to point the callers to resources and hook them up with those offering help. And they were so grateful someone was listening to them, and that they did not have to figure out how to navigate pages on websites and wikis.

Imagine how it would be to have a virtual Skype phone bank. One that is not just virtual, but ad hoc. Just-in-time emergent support. Always on when we have a bank of volunteers from all over the world, and at all hours. Our way of reaching out and helping those in distress.

Just-in-time emergent support! Complexity Theory doesn't get any better than this.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 4:46:00 PM 0 comments

The scores of successful virtual teams the authors examined didn't have many of the psychological and practical obstacles that plagued their more traditional, face-to-face counterparts. Team members felt freer to contribute--especially outside their established areas of expertise. The fact that such groups could not assemble easily actually made their projects go faster, as people did not wait for meetings to make decisions, and individuals, in the comfort of their own offices, had full access to their files and the complementary knowledge of their local colleagues. Reaping those advantages, though, demanded shrewd management of a virtual team's work processes and social dynamics.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 11:26:00 AM 0 comments

NerdTV is a new weekly online TV show from PBS.org technology columnist Robert X. Cringely. NerdTV is essentially Charlie Rose for geeks - a one-hour interview show with a single guest from the world of technology. Guests like Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy or Apple computer inventor Steve Wozniak are household names if your household is nerdy enough, but as historical figures and geniuses in their own right, they have plenty to say to ALL of us. NerdTV is distributed under a Creative Commons license so viewers can legally share the shows with their friends and even edit their own versions. If not THE future of television, NerdTV represents A future of television for niche audiences that have deep interest in certain topics.

[PermaLink] posted by acadac @ 4:27:00 PM 0 comments