Thursday, November 04, 2004

Technologies of Cooperation: Simple, General Principles?. Can y'all help me come up with a list of simple, general principles that enable technologies of cooperation to work? The Web, distributed computing, mesh networks, open source production, blogs, wikis, the lazy web, all enable individuals to act in their own self-interest in ways that add up to a public good that benefits all. I've been attempting to inductively develop a list of simple, general principles. Here's what I have so far. Suggestions? Critiques? Digressions? Comments welcome! A powerful cooperation tool is: Simple: HTML, blogs, wikis are all simple enough to be used right away, by a large population this stimulates frequent use and makes it easier to achieve a critical mass of users quickly. Linkable: It connects individual efforts to an aggregate whole available to everybody. Putting up a web page with links to others, multiplied by millions of users, adds up to the web. Open: Tim Berners-Lee did not have to ask for permission or rewire the Internet to disseminate the Web. Open source production is powerful because the source code is available to anyone, and anyone who has a contribution to make can tinker. Is a lever for self interest: No individual thinks "I am helping Google engineer better searches," rather, each is simply trying to choose the best and most appropriate link for a web page. Google's PageRank algorithm is based on the emergent collective intelligence of many people's links. Self-teaching through imitation: Most of the early web was built quickly by people who used "view source" built into the structure of the web to inspect and copy other people's work. Wiki syntax becomes visible when editing a wiki page. (Continued at SmartMobs) [unmediated] 8:26:13 PM    comment []

The last word on Bush's bulge?. It's time to call off the conspiracy freaks, says The Hill, mystery solved: "Sources in the Secret Service told The Hill that Bush was wearing a bulletproof vest, as he does most of the time when appearing in public. The president’s handlers did not want to admit as much during the campaign, for fear of disclosing information related to his personal security while he was on the campaign trail." [Salon.com] I suspect that's in the ballpark but not quite correct. 8:23:23 PM    comment []

Workplace blues in election aftermath. Tech industry workers find that the election's outcome is affecting workplace morale, concentration. Photo: Company president holds morale meeting [CNET News.com] 8:22:36 PM    comment []

BNA News tells me BITTORRENT CONSUMING MORE THAN ONE THIRD OF NET BANDWIDTH According to British Web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet - more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined - and dwarfs mainstream traffic like Web pages. BitTorrent is rapidly emerging as the preferred means of distributing large amounts of legitimate content such as versions of the free computer operating system Linux, and these benign uses may give it some legal protection. 11:36:58 AM    comment []

20 Injured in Crash of 2 Red Line Trains in Washington, D.C. 10:36:49 AM    comment []