confused of calcutta

a blog about information

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Entries from March 2006

Welcome to the Pleasure Dome

March 31st, 2006 · No Comments · Four pillars , Music, Poetry, Retarded hippie, Social software

No, not the album by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I’m a tad too old for that.
Instead, it’s about this. A 1949 album, “an audible anthology of modern poetry read by its creators”, edited by someone called Lloyd Frankenberg. And the album is a Long Playing Microgroove Record, the first I’ve bought in twenty years.
Amazing stuff. [...]

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Judy Breck and Open Content

March 31st, 2006 · No Comments · Education, Four pillars , Social software

Some of you may have read my earlier post on Michael Schrage’s recent article in the Financial Times, pointing out some of the pitfalls associated with computers in classrooms. Some of you may even have seen Clarence Fisher’s almost-angry but later calmer response, a reaction similar to mine.
Why did we respond initially that way? Because [...]

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Couched in our indifference

March 31st, 2006 · No Comments · Music, Poetry, Retarded hippie

….Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the Dangling Conversation
And the superficial lives
The borders of our lives……Simon and Garfunkel, The Dangling Conversation
 
Doesn’t that describe everything a blog shouldn’t be?
The words “You can hear the ocean roar” came zooming into my head when I read Malc’s Steve Wozniak telephone story. An absolute hoot.

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Four Pillars: Identity: Please flame this post

March 31st, 2006 · 2 Comments · Four pillars , Identity, Social software, Trust

There continues to be movement in the microformats meets identity space. Doc Searls’s IT Garage recently had a piece on MicroID; comments and conversations took me to Claimid as well; so the space which I always associate with Subterranean Homesick Hardt is beginning to get busier.
As with search and with syndication, we can get as [...]

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Keep computers out of the classroom?

March 30th, 2006 · 4 Comments · Education

I look for situations where someone I like and trust has a radically different view from me on any particular subject. Because I think I can learn from it.
Here’s a recent example. Michael Schrage, someone I’ve never met, but whose works I have enjoyed reading, wrote recently in the Financial Times: The “edutainers” merit a [...]

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Four Pillars: Time for a recap

March 30th, 2006 · 2 Comments · Four pillars , Introductory

We have a Foundation.
The Foundation covers tin and wire and connectedness and storage; it deals with the bits and bytes; it is independent of vendor or device, agnostic on platforms and driven by community standards. Any device any connect mechanism any form of information anywhere anytime. All recorded and archived and searchable and retrievable.
On top [...]

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Form follows funding

March 29th, 2006 · No Comments · Four pillars , Opensource

I was looking for Doc’s D-I-Y IT article in Release 1.0, couldn’t find it in a shareable form and went for a ramble on the net as a result. Found Doc’s IT Conversations piece on the same subject. Read it. Again. And I saw the Stewart Brand quote again.
Form follows funding.
Fascinating.
So, when we buy opensource, what [...]

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Four Pillars: Preparing the Foundations: On opensource

March 29th, 2006 · 1 Comment · Four pillars , Opensource

As part of Foundation and Empire, I have already signalled that I wanted to look at the impact of opensource on the IT construction industry (something Doc Searls covered in detail a few years ago in Release 1; I hope to link to it sometime tomorrow).
Humour me and come along for a slight detour.
In a [...]

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The Importance of Being Average

March 29th, 2006 · No Comments · Management

Or not, as the case may be.
One of my favourite pieces of apocrypha. (Ex-boss, if this is not true, blame Stu Berwick). And even if it is not true, it should be. So there. Ex-boss of mine on stage somewhere, part of a panel. Some other member of panel unwittingly says something like “With [...]

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Four Pillars: More on search

March 29th, 2006 · No Comments · Four pillars , Search

I was pretty upset at not being able to make PC Forum this year (conflicting priorities at work). Nevertheless I kept in touch with it by reading what I could in Release 1 and in Rafe  Needleman. [Esther: I’ll still try and make Flight School on my own time and money, it was great last [...]

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