On 1/16/06, Todd Walton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] > Blogging itself is a ghost that will disperse and vanish the closer > and closer we look at it. As more people apply their ideas to the > practice of blogging, it will splinter (speciate?) into a number of > different forms. Some of it will become the New World Order, and some > of it will seed the next system change.
Yes, this is almost certainly true. Progress is great! > The fact that blogging came > into existence and has taken such an important role in media today is > evidence that there is no central lock-in. Again, good point. Or, another way to put it: the "no lock-in" feature of the web allowed blogging to mature and take an important role. > That the peak of the power > law will track the thing that deserves to be there. Technology is > having the effect of making that tracking more responsive, and maybe > more accurate. > > Which all, I believe, logically follows from Shirky's essay. Well... okay. If I were to keep a blog, I'm sure it would be rarely updated and boring, but I still think it would still deserve to be there-- even if nobody chose to read it. But that's besides the point. I agree that the web's open architecture will bring new, better, cooler applications and, as Shirky points out, if there's a lot of people doing it, an "A-list" will emerge and set a new standard. > An essay > of his I don't like is "The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview". > He says: > > "The Semantic Web is a machine for creating syllogisms." > "Syllogisms are Not Very Useful" > > and concludes that therefore, "the Semantic Web will not be very useful > either". > > The essay is rife with logically messy inaccuracies. He claims that > because humans frequently use ambiguous statements, the Semantic Web > will never be able to parse them. I very much disagree. > > And he uses some of the written documentation of this very early stage > project to imply that the people thinking about it and working on it > don't know what they're doing. Of course they don't! If they did it > would be up and working already. > > Bah humbug, Clay Shirky. Heh. I havn't read that essay yet-- maybe tonight. Sounds like you think he's made a useless syllogism himself. At this point, I don't know what the semantic web is or is supposed to be so I'll make sure I read it with an open mind-- not to be taken as gospel. -jeff -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
