Comments on: Stepping into the river with Heraclitus http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/ Strategies for Internet citizens Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:16:31 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: osimod http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127344 osimod Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:06:36 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127344 This post stimulates many disparate thoughts, connected to philosophical ancient and modern ideas: - the notion of "liquid modernity" by Bauman: post-industrial world is liquid and personal, while industrial world was solid, with strong institutions and organisations. - the "maieutic" tecnique of Socrates which aims at reaching the the truth via dialogue (reminding of the importance of blogs as conversations). Socrates refusal to write any essay has some kind of connection with blogs vs academic papers. - the "stream of consciousness" of Joyce - the increasing attention to the notions of "iteration", "emergence" and "serendipity" as tools to manage complexity (in software development just as in policy-making) Yes, these are very disparate and disconnected ideas as such. But maybe I see an emerging pattern. And blogs are good for detecting this kind of weak signals. Also in ideas, it's time for flows rather than stocks. This post stimulates many disparate thoughts, connected to philosophical ancient and modern ideas:
- the notion of “liquid modernity” by Bauman: post-industrial world is liquid and personal, while industrial world was solid, with strong institutions and organisations.
- the “maieutic” tecnique of Socrates which aims at reaching the the truth via dialogue (reminding of the importance of blogs as conversations). Socrates refusal to write any essay has some kind of connection with blogs vs academic papers.
- the “stream of consciousness” of Joyce
- the increasing attention to the notions of “iteration”, “emergence” and “serendipity” as tools to manage complexity (in software development just as in policy-making)
Yes, these are very disparate and disconnected ideas as such. But maybe I see an emerging pattern. And blogs are good for detecting this kind of weak signals. Also in ideas, it’s time for flows rather than stocks.

]]> By: Jon Udell http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127259 Jon Udell Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:13:56 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127259 Doug Kaye adds (quoted from email with permission): "One interesting point: Most prospective (non-archival) RSS feeds have some limit like 20 or 30 items. SpokenWord.org maintains a record of all items we've *ever* received from those feeds. In some cases (LibriVox, Audible and few others) we've been able to get a one-time archival RSS feed so that we could ingest old stuff not in the current RSS feeds. Unfortunately, some publishers remove the audio or video files from their servers once those items are no longer in the RSS feeds. Lost forever." Doug Kaye adds (quoted from email with permission):

“One interesting point: Most prospective (non-archival) RSS feeds have some limit like 20 or 30 items. SpokenWord.org maintains a record of all items we’ve *ever* received from those feeds. In some cases (LibriVox, Audible and few others) we’ve been able to get a one-time archival RSS feed so that we could ingest old stuff not in the current RSS feeds. Unfortunately, some publishers remove the audio or video files from their servers once those items are no longer in the RSS feeds. Lost forever.”

]]> By: Jon Udell http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127253 Jon Udell Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:05:57 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127253 > I wonder if a gossip mill might be a > useful analogy? It's familiar, but I'm not sure how useful. Missing ingredients: - Fidelity. A syndication network can transmit information with perfect fidelity. A gossip network notoriously distorts the message. - Authority. In a syndication network you can follow links back to the authoritative source. On the one hand, people do need and want real world analogies for cyberspace concepts. But often those analogies mislead. And for some of the key properties of cyberspace, there may simply not be appropriate real world analogies. > I wonder if a gossip mill might be a
> useful analogy?

It’s familiar, but I’m not sure how useful.

Missing ingredients:

- Fidelity. A syndication network can transmit information with perfect fidelity. A gossip network notoriously distorts the message.

- Authority. In a syndication network you can follow links back to the authoritative source.

On the one hand, people do need and want real world analogies for cyberspace concepts. But often those analogies mislead. And for some of the key properties of cyberspace, there may simply not be appropriate real world analogies.

]]> By: James C http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127245 James C Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:37:28 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127245 "hubs like elmcity.cloudapp.net are like the Rachels of calendar even gossip. " that was meant to be hubs like elmcity.cloudapp.net are like the Rachels of calendar _event_ gossip. “hubs like elmcity.cloudapp.net are like the Rachels of calendar even gossip. ”

that was meant to be

hubs like elmcity.cloudapp.net are like the Rachels of calendar _event_ gossip.

]]> By: James C http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127244 James C Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:36:07 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127244 Just thinking out loud, but I wonder if a gossip mill might be a useful analogy? Imainge a small-town gossip-mill where - Joe passes on everything he hears from Mike, Mira and Melissa. - Belinda passes on everything she hears from Fred, Francine and Felicia. - Rachel passes on everything she hears from Joe and Belinda. If you want to know what's happening you talk to Rachel. In the analogy - people gossip by publishing a feed - people can listen in by subscribing - there's kinda "automatic" passing-on of gossip (Joe, Belinda and Rachel are all doing it) hubs like elmcity.cloudapp.net are like the Rachels of calendar even gossip. They pass on gossip. They're automated super-gossipers. anyway, just thoughts... i'm not sure how well this might help communicate the idea Just thinking out loud, but I wonder if a gossip mill might be a useful analogy?

Imainge a small-town gossip-mill where

- Joe passes on everything he hears from Mike, Mira and Melissa.
- Belinda passes on everything she hears from Fred, Francine and Felicia.
- Rachel passes on everything she hears from Joe and Belinda.

If you want to know what’s happening you talk to Rachel.

In the analogy
- people gossip by publishing a feed
- people can listen in by subscribing
- there’s kinda “automatic” passing-on of gossip (Joe, Belinda and Rachel are all doing it)

hubs like elmcity.cloudapp.net are like the Rachels of calendar even gossip. They pass on gossip. They’re automated super-gossipers.

anyway, just thoughts… i’m not sure how well this might help communicate the idea

]]> By: Ian Bicking http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127242 Ian Bicking Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:53:34 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127242 The simplest integration would be some way of asking for notification of completion. So you could send a user to http://genericblogservice.com/signup?return_to=http://myservice.com/registerfeed%3Furl=%7Bfeed-url%7D and when they are finished with the sign-up, they'd get redirected back. That "redirection" might just be a link you offer the user (maybe a redirection title is sensible then). The simplest integration would be some way of asking for notification of completion. So you could send a user to http://genericblogservice.com/signup?return_to=http://myservice.com/registerfeed%3Furl=%7Bfeed-url%7D and when they are finished with the sign-up, they’d get redirected back. That “redirection” might just be a link you offer the user (maybe a redirection title is sensible then).

]]> By: Jon Udell http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127241 Jon Udell Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:24:56 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127241 > But a little help from just one > complementary service would be better. That's an interesting notion. What would it involve to get two services to complement one another in that way, and what would it enable? > But a little help from just one
> complementary service would be better.

That’s an interesting notion. What would it involve to get two services to complement one another in that way, and what would it enable?

]]> By: Ian Bicking http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/04/08/stepping-into-the-river-with-heraclitu/#comment-127239 Ian Bicking Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:46:25 +0000 http://blog.jonudell.net/?p=1360#comment-127239 A couple thoughts: There's a difference between stories split into items, and a stream of items. A stream is best read newest-first (you might never bother reading them all), but a story is best read oldest-first (and without feed truncation). If feeds simply had a flag for that it'd be nice. (It frustrates me when readers have a global setting for newest-or-oldest first, when it should be a sticky feed property.) An issue I find... just hard, is the inability to extract the content of a single page. If you get a feed item you can pass it around, make new feeds, etc., but given a page there's no decent way to get the item. I wish, for instance, that we could get full text out of delicious bookmark feeds. I wish there was a widely used [link rel="alternate" type="application/xml+atom; type=entry" href="atom-representation-of-this-page"] (with angle brackets). For the problem of explaining tools that complement other tools, I wish there was better support for workflows (ad hoc would be good enough). I'd like to be able to say "add events" and have that link to an appropriate (preferred) service that generates a feed, and have the process go all the way through signup and then come back and register the feed with the original aggregation service, in a way that makes the user think this isn't crazy. I played around with the idea of simply using documentation (https://svn.openplans.org/svn/standalone/WebClippy/trunk/ -- checkout required to get it to work, and bit rot may have occurred), with documentation that can follow you around to different sites, but I never really followed through with actually documenting cross-site stuff. But a little help from just one complementary service would be better. A couple thoughts:

There’s a difference between stories split into items, and a stream of items. A stream is best read newest-first (you might never bother reading them all), but a story is best read oldest-first (and without feed truncation). If feeds simply had a flag for that it’d be nice. (It frustrates me when readers have a global setting for newest-or-oldest first, when it should be a sticky feed property.)

An issue I find… just hard, is the inability to extract the content of a single page. If you get a feed item you can pass it around, make new feeds, etc., but given a page there’s no decent way to get the item. I wish, for instance, that we could get full text out of delicious bookmark feeds. I wish there was a widely used [link rel="alternate" type="application/xml+atom; type=entry" href="atom-representation-of-this-page"] (with angle brackets).

For the problem of explaining tools that complement other tools, I wish there was better support for workflows (ad hoc would be good enough). I’d like to be able to say “add events” and have that link to an appropriate (preferred) service that generates a feed, and have the process go all the way through signup and then come back and register the feed with the original aggregation service, in a way that makes the user think this isn’t crazy. I played around with the idea of simply using documentation (https://svn.openplans.org/svn/standalone/WebClippy/trunk/ — checkout required to get it to work, and bit rot may have occurred), with documentation that can follow you around to different sites, but I never really followed through with actually documenting cross-site stuff. But a little help from just one complementary service would be better.

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