I guess the guy's synaesthetic ...
Vaclav Halek - composer inspired by the plaintive cry...of the mushroom
via Experimental Music Tribe
Saturday, January 31, 2004
And what, prey, business is it of ThoughtStorms, an entirely move-forward medium without pictures, to presume to understand and comment on 2D spatial design?
ThoughtStorms: SpaceVsInformationFlows
ThoughtStorms: SpaceVsInformationFlows
One of the advantages of having a lousy connection is that it reminds you that 200K of gratuitous graphics is the difference between a page that downloads and is actually useful, and a frustrating wait that ends in the browser timing out.
So I've now turned graphics off in my browser. It also prompts me to start reading Jakob Nielsen again ... ok, here we go.
Within narrowly defined niches, usability enhancements percolate quickly. Interesting as always.
But suddenly I encounter this reason for doing usability studies ...
You can patent usability innovations to keep the competition from stealing them. Most Web projects are managed by marketing departments that have no experience with the patent system. Websites, however, are inventions and should be protected when you invest in developing something new. Talk to people in your legal department. They might know of a patent attorney who doesn't bite.
BLEEAAAHHH!!!!!!!
Competitive Testing of Website Usability
So I've now turned graphics off in my browser. It also prompts me to start reading Jakob Nielsen again ... ok, here we go.
Within narrowly defined niches, usability enhancements percolate quickly. Interesting as always.
But suddenly I encounter this reason for doing usability studies ...
You can patent usability innovations to keep the competition from stealing them. Most Web projects are managed by marketing departments that have no experience with the patent system. Websites, however, are inventions and should be protected when you invest in developing something new. Talk to people in your legal department. They might know of a patent attorney who doesn't bite.
BLEEAAAHHH!!!!!!!
Competitive Testing of Website Usability
Friday, January 30, 2004
Darius Sokolov is on a roll making criticisms of OPTIMAES. As Darius is a real, LSE trained economist, this is a good perspective to have. I need some time to read and absorb his comments, but I think they'll lead somewhere useful.
Optimaes: EconomicCriticism
Optimaes: EconomicCriticism
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Just discovered a fantastic paper (via Richard Macmanus via Seb)
"The Information Architecture of Cities", by L. Andrew Coward and Nikos A. Salingaros, which discusses InformationArchitecture of cities ie. it thinks about cities as information processing systems. Can't recommend this highly enough.
My summary is on ThoughtStorms: TheCityAsInformationSystem or a slightly delinked version below :
It treats cities as information processing architecture.
Journeys accomplish a primary information exchange. But ideally (for C+S) journeys have secondary, serendipitous information exchange. For examples, a pedestrian on the way to work visits shops, sees adverts, buys a newspaper, encounters a friend and has a quick word, and may have a coffee observing the behaviour and dress of those around her. This multiplicity of dimensions of information they call FractalLoading.
The authors make a second distinction between two kinds of succesful complex, information system.
"The Information Architecture of Cities", by L. Andrew Coward and Nikos A. Salingaros, which discusses InformationArchitecture of cities ie. it thinks about cities as information processing systems. Can't recommend this highly enough.
My summary is on ThoughtStorms: TheCityAsInformationSystem or a slightly delinked version below :
City as Information Processing Architecture
It treats cities as information processing architecture.
Movements of people and goods are interpretted as information flows. But an information system is considered to be one which doesn't just move information around. It also processes it. Alternatives are evaluated and decisions are made. For example, humans make decisions about what work to do, what business to invest time and money in according to the information they are fed by the city.
Fractal Loading
Journeys accomplish a primary information exchange. But ideally (for C+S) journeys have secondary, serendipitous information exchange. For examples, a pedestrian on the way to work visits shops, sees adverts, buys a newspaper, encounters a friend and has a quick word, and may have a coffee observing the behaviour and dress of those around her. This multiplicity of dimensions of information they call FractalLoading.
The virtue of cities is this dense, fractal, multilayered information exchange. It makes cities generate economic wealth and culture. Urban city planners should try to optimize the fractal loading of information.
In contrast, traditionally city planners have tried to
- visually simplify the structure of the city
- design "plug and play" modules, abstracted from their context
in the name of simplifying and optimizing the obvious, primary information flows.
For example, cities are zoned into commercial, living and shopping districts. Joined by high-speed, but informationally 1-dimensional, long distance connections. Large roads are driven through previously complex and rich urban centres, destroying their informational ecology.
These practices are all traditionally criticised by Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, Stewart Brand etc. But this paper offers another explanation of the problem. They reduce FractalLoading and therefore information exchange efficiency.
Systems Theory
Drawing on the Systems Theories of Herb Simon the paper points out that all successful complex systems are organized into hierarchies of modules at different scales. (A fractal organization) But cities which are zoned break this pattern.
Hardware and Software Complexity
The authors make a distinction between software and hardware types of complexity :
- Software complexity arises where you have a few types of homogenous modules, and a large number of potential links or flows. The complexity is in the configuration of the links.
- "Hardware" complexity arises from a wider variety of heterogenous modules with fewer links.
Von Neuman and Recommendation Architectures
The authors make a second distinction between two kinds of succesful complex, information system.
- The "von Neuman" architecture of separated functional modules (eg. memory and processing) with fixed purposes and relationships
- A "Recommendation Architecture" where similar modules explore and compete. (Similar to competitive layers in a Neural Network, especially something like Adaptive Resonance Theory)
The first of these is closer to hardware complexity, the second, software complexity.
Chaotic and Homeostatic
A third distinction is made between two dynamic trends in systems :
- chaotic ie. the usual sensitive dependency on initial conditions
and
- and that trend where complex dynamics fall into a point or basin of attraction, converging from widely different starting points
Why Hierarchies
From Herb Simon, they argue that complex systems seek hierarchies for two reasons :
- to simplify the information required to describe and build the system
- to centralize knowledge of problems and the resources to deal with them. Knowledge of problems needs to be at a high level, but execution needs to be applied at the low, local level. Thus the two levels are forced into a relationship, whier the higher controls or guides the lower.
Thus the systems need to be hierarchies of modules.
Module boundaries
Modules are defined not as spatial regions as typically thought of as modules by urban planners. (What C+S call non-modules) But by information flows. A module is a network of information, who's boundary is best defined as the place where external communication is simplified, formalized or standardized ie. is an interface. Elements within the module are highly connected / dependent but modules themselves are weakly connected.
Plug and Play
Attempts to build "plug and play" modules abstracted from their context (eg. a business park) are flawed. They typically misunderstand the nature of modules as defined above. Often urban modules are defined as a spatial region, combining many identical elements eg. office block, business parks, residential districts. These are not real modules at all. Most people interact with elements of different types ie. people live in residential apartments, work in offices and socialize in bars.
Few people travel from house to house. And few companies buy from the company next door in the business park.
On the other hand, these modules are connected to the rest of the city through simplified interfaces eg. one road for the business park. The simplicity is based on the assumption that this spatial area is a module. But it needs to be used for the high bandwidth connections between the elements and the rest of their true modules elsewhere. The result, conjestion.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
GYWO : I have mixed feelings about invading Iraq. I'm a little glad we did it, but I'm also relieved to know I wasn't an idiot FOR FEELING TOTALLY SAFE FROM SADDAM HUSSAIN for the past twenty years.
GYWO : page thirty-one
GYWO : page thirty-one
Clay Shirky is blogging sceptically on YASNSs
Partly a reaction to the hype I suppose.
I still think I get good value from Tribe. The tribes (discussion groups) are good. Most of the people I encounter are interesting. But the killer app is that Tribe messaging is becoming like spam-free mail. I'm trying to migrate all my email connections to Tribe, simply because my mailbox is filled with messages from people I want to hear from, unlike my real email box.
Update : Geekbox likes the group forming.
via Seb Paquet
Partly a reaction to the hype I suppose.
I still think I get good value from Tribe. The tribes (discussion groups) are good. Most of the people I encounter are interesting. But the killer app is that Tribe messaging is becoming like spam-free mail. I'm trying to migrate all my email connections to Tribe, simply because my mailbox is filled with messages from people I want to hear from, unlike my real email box.
Update : Geekbox likes the group forming.
via Seb Paquet
Ghost Universe by Phil Jones (2004)
Yes, thanks to the wonder of The Gimp you too can put
together a mini-art exhibition in 3 minutes of faffing time.
Lost Universe
(All images donated to Creative Commons so you can use 'em for your next CD cover etc.)
Ulises Ali Mejas :
- We need to acknowlege that tools that allow people to organize themselves are not as important as the agendas that people are supposed to pursue once they organize themselves. We need not just programmers, designers and enterpreneurs, but citizens who are politically conscious and active.
- We need to acknowlege that getting information about the world is not as important as acting upon the world. We have to move away from the idea of defining individuals as intersections of information circuits and back to the idea of individuals as ensembles of social relations, to paraphrase Lorenzo Simpson. We have to ask ourselves honestly to what extent 'social software' is not in fact an oxymoron.
- We have to admit that there will be no Napster-like application that will magically fix or improve democracy. This means abondoning the worldview that technological and scientific progress can fix any problem, given enough time, and that we must therefore uncritically support and trust it.
i d e a n t: The limits of e-Democracy: Between Public and Mass
via Many2Many
- We need to acknowlege that tools that allow people to organize themselves are not as important as the agendas that people are supposed to pursue once they organize themselves. We need not just programmers, designers and enterpreneurs, but citizens who are politically conscious and active.
- We need to acknowlege that getting information about the world is not as important as acting upon the world. We have to move away from the idea of defining individuals as intersections of information circuits and back to the idea of individuals as ensembles of social relations, to paraphrase Lorenzo Simpson. We have to ask ourselves honestly to what extent 'social software' is not in fact an oxymoron.
- We have to admit that there will be no Napster-like application that will magically fix or improve democracy. This means abondoning the worldview that technological and scientific progress can fix any problem, given enough time, and that we must therefore uncritically support and trust it.
i d e a n t: The limits of e-Democracy: Between Public and Mass
via Many2Many
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Clay Shirky on the dangers of social software for political organization.
Executive summary : too much talking to like minded people lulls you into a false sense of security and doesn't actually equal action, though you might have the illusion it does.
Many-to-Many: Is Social Software Bad for the Dean Campaign?
Worth thinking about at the moment. I talked with Jean-Francois on Sunday, a great, positive guy, and someone with connections to more alt.money people. But it's worth remembering the dangers of only talking with other believers . (That's one of the reasons I like the Misesians on the alt.money tribe. To get a sense of perspective of how different other people's beliefs are.)
Executive summary : too much talking to like minded people lulls you into a false sense of security and doesn't actually equal action, though you might have the illusion it does.
Many-to-Many: Is Social Software Bad for the Dean Campaign?
Worth thinking about at the moment. I talked with Jean-Francois on Sunday, a great, positive guy, and someone with connections to more alt.money people. But it's worth remembering the dangers of only talking with other believers . (That's one of the reasons I like the Misesians on the alt.money tribe. To get a sense of perspective of how different other people's beliefs are.)
Friday, January 23, 2004
US turns the "terrorism" witch-hunt on Chavez. It's pretty clear that there is no country in the world, which if not sympathetic to the US, that the US government won't try to tar as a "failed state" willing to support terrorism. The war is coming to South America.
Terror Close to Home In Venezuela, a volatile leader befriends Mideast, Colombia and Cuba
Terror Close to Home In Venezuela, a volatile leader befriends Mideast, Colombia and Cuba
Discussing on Alternative Money tribe.
Sure, everyone can get behind the idea that money evolved through various stages of abstraction out of some kind of commodity.
But the money we have now *isn't* commodity backed. And yet it still works as money. It's still perceived as money. So today's fiat money doesn't have it's value simply because of the past value of commodities backing it.
That leaves open the question, what is sustaining the value of money *now* as opposed to the idealized money as Misesians think it ought to be?
I'd suggest we can say that the value of money has 3 inter-related bases :
1) history : it's based on what people remember money being worth before, ultimately back to the commodity.
2) culture : people value money because they believe they can spend it tomorrow.
3) faith in the future stability of society and the economy : people believe that next year, the system will hold up.
This last is very obvious. When people stop believing this, the currency collapses, so this faith must be doing some work in sustaining the value of money.
Now I believe that government has some role in maintaining 3). People believe that there'll be a civil society next year because they trust the government to maintain certain pre-requisites of civil society such as the rule of law, security from foreign attack, services to cope with emergencies, welfare to help the unfortunate cope with economic disaster etc.
I don't believe it *has* to be government that maintains these things, could be companies or NGOs or local communities or internet mediated social networks. But there has to be *some* political and civil infrastructure which is itself not the market, and this is *causal* in maintaining people's faith in, and therefore the value of, money.
A good book to read on this is Keit Hart's "Money in an Unequal World".
Hart was an anthropologist studying the evolution of the market in traditional African society. It's a good book, which challenges almost every standard political position on money, and changed many of my earlier preconceptions.
Alternative Money and Economics : How does money acquire it's value?
Sure, everyone can get behind the idea that money evolved through various stages of abstraction out of some kind of commodity.
But the money we have now *isn't* commodity backed. And yet it still works as money. It's still perceived as money. So today's fiat money doesn't have it's value simply because of the past value of commodities backing it.
That leaves open the question, what is sustaining the value of money *now* as opposed to the idealized money as Misesians think it ought to be?
I'd suggest we can say that the value of money has 3 inter-related bases :
1) history : it's based on what people remember money being worth before, ultimately back to the commodity.
2) culture : people value money because they believe they can spend it tomorrow.
3) faith in the future stability of society and the economy : people believe that next year, the system will hold up.
This last is very obvious. When people stop believing this, the currency collapses, so this faith must be doing some work in sustaining the value of money.
Now I believe that government has some role in maintaining 3). People believe that there'll be a civil society next year because they trust the government to maintain certain pre-requisites of civil society such as the rule of law, security from foreign attack, services to cope with emergencies, welfare to help the unfortunate cope with economic disaster etc.
I don't believe it *has* to be government that maintains these things, could be companies or NGOs or local communities or internet mediated social networks. But there has to be *some* political and civil infrastructure which is itself not the market, and this is *causal* in maintaining people's faith in, and therefore the value of, money.
A good book to read on this is Keit Hart's "Money in an Unequal World".
Hart was an anthropologist studying the evolution of the market in traditional African society. It's a good book, which challenges almost every standard political position on money, and changed many of my earlier preconceptions.
Alternative Money and Economics : How does money acquire it's value?
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