On 02/11/11 22:03, ruth catlow wrote: > > I note in all large institutions a move towards measuring things because > they can be measured - the data is then often presented as if there is
Bureaucracy and """scientific""" management love quantification. This is an argument in favour of the quantificational bent of the Digital Humanities, as the humanities historically exist as feeders for those occupations. ;-) > only one kind of '2'. (the equations lend great swagger potential). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/measurement-and-its-discontents.html "The problem is not that we don’t yet have precise enough tools for measuring such things; it’s that there are two wholly different ways of measuring." > Diagrams (I suppose some of these are just another expression of > equations) are just as dangerous. Diagrams are the intersection of text and image. Text is of course perfect, but image... > I got myself- continue to get myself into all kinds of trouble taking > network topologies too literally. I think that your take on network topographies is good, and a good basis for discussion. But you know what male nerds are like (hi!), there's always some little bit of information that demonstrates their mastery of the domain... ;-) Sure, there's the DNS system blahblahblah but as an ideal, guiding principle, or basic fact, the net is distributed. > After all most social networks are not flat. A node is not a node is > not a node and the links between nodes have different resistances > and qualities (again whether social or material). I really, really, really recommend this very clear and informative book on social networks (which covers a lot of useful graph/network theory): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Network-Analysis-John-Scott/dp/0761963391/ > My feeling is that economists understand this very well and that their > models are systems for gaining and maintaining temporary advantage- just > keep moving fast, inventing new refinements of the tools that only you > have access to. > > is it that scary? Power is knowledge... - Rob. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
