Sandhill Trek

Are you weird or tiered?

RB, reminded of the old Wired Magazine feature "Wired versus Tired,"  proposed a new approach:  "Weird versus Tiered."  Here's my first stab at it...  more agile minds will undoubtedly find funnier pairings.  As for me, I am old and slow, my head hurts, my feet stink, and I don't love Jesus...  that's my excuse...

Weird                           Tiered
cladistics                       Linnaen taxonomy
orgone therapy               org charts
sacher-masoch              maslow
demolition derby            deductible insurance
the Dow                        the Tao
the Tao                         the Dow
quakers                        catholics

Why don't you give it a try?

Glocalization and the Info-sheds

danah boyd brings us a discussion of "Glocalization" in the context of Web 2.0.  Danah says,

...there is a global influence that is altered by local culture and re-inserted into the global in a constant cycle. Think of it as a complex tango with information constantly flowing between the global and the local, altered at each junction.

During the boom, there was a rush to get everything and everyone online. It was about creating a global village. Yet, packing everyone into the town square is utter chaos. People have different needs, different goals. People manipulate given structures to meet their desires. We are faced with a digital environment that has collective values. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in search. For example, is there a best result to the query "breasts"? It's all about context, right? I might be looking for information on cancer, what are you looking for?

To this I'd like to add the concept of the info-shed.  I'll use Luxembourg and wholIy contrived data as an example.  I suspect -- but cannot prove today -- that most of the bits originating in Luxembourg stay in Luxembourg.  And that the searches, the retrievals to Luxembourg have a uniquely Lux-ish quality.   Luxembourg is an info-basin within its own info-shed.  There is probably a larger info-shed that is the EU, and the Brits may help fill a transatlantic basin, their traffic combined with Canada and the US.  Both of these examples reflect a pernicious assumption about language as a dominant force on the info-shed and I have only started to unwrap the concept.  I could be way wrong, in which case it will be back to slamming the post moderns and other productive activities for me.  More on this later...

 

 

 

 

Looters

Harry makes the linkage between looting behavior and genetics.  The Tutor suggests the remedy.

Momma told you not to Spam...

"Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head."

Stole-a-joke

Okay... I already cut and pasted this into email and sent it around some.  No reason not to lift it straight into the blog, it being so scientific and all... thanx for the laffs to sweet Betsy D. Vine

GV
Berkeley just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium".

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy, since it has half as many peons, but twice as many morons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. It can be detected, however, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A reaction that normally takes one minute or less will require a week or more if contaminated by any Governmentium.

The half-life of Governmentium is 4 years. It does not, however, decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutron exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. The characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is called "Critical Morass".

Divine Right of Meta-bling

For god's sake read this.  It answers all your questions.  Is cleavage work-safe?  A whip?  Michel Foucault? Hurry through those parts.   Get the graphics off the screen.  This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

I finally understand post-modernism.  It's about what came next after "Fascist modernism."  Why didn't I get that before?

Don't teach in parables then...

It's not working... even your staff doesn't understand them.  [Good advice nobody gave to Jesus.]

If you don't have a sword, sell your clothes and buy one.  Jesus pissed off at a fig tree?  Not exactly the prince of peace who taught us to turn the other cheek.

Here's a half hour audio that's a good listen...  thanks to Norm Jenson.  (Norm's hard drive crashed.  he has a back up.  I'm thinking Norm probably flosses too.  That's just an aside.)

"The clue to the insanity is a book that's in every hotel room, the biggest best seller of all time." Julia Sweeney's "Letting go of God."

The downside of no god is that our loved ones didn't go to heaven and Hitler didn't go to hell.  Oops.  Another downside...  if we all just die, then (ulp), I'm going to die.

Academic Quiz Competition

Back in the good old days of black and white TV there was a weekly show, the College Bowl, that pitted two panels of trivia experts from US colleges and universities head to head against each other.  Forty years ago I was a sparring partner for the University of Wisconsin team that won five in a row against such intellectual powerhouses as Clarkson.  There was some thought that I should have been on the UW team, but there was that awkward matter of academic probation.  I learned the hard way that there are consequences associated with blasting off to San Francisco and cutting final exams.  Kids: don't do it.  A 1.6 GPA limits your high end possibilities. 

Still, I'm glad I went, even if my televised team mates did go on to become university presidents and law school deans and all I got was the stinking t-shirt.  I digress...

Checking into the hotel we were overrun by intellectual adolescents here for the 2005 National Academic Quiz Tournament high school championship.  This is too cool.  I'll have to watch the final rounds!

We Make Money Not Art

Steenson links to a great site - We Make Money Not Art.

Willie Bobo or Tom Joad

Take a trip to Harry's place for some fine music.