Comments on: Humanism at the fringe http://snarkmarket.com/2009/3428 The stomping grounds of Tim Carmody, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It's a long-running conversation about media, journalism, technology, cities, culture, design, books, music, movies, the future and the past. Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:20:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Peter http://snarkmarket.com/2009/3428/comment-page-1#comment-6214 Peter Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:57:48 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=3428#comment-6214 The thing is, nowadays if anyone put their mind to it, couldn't they pretty easily index a network like this, thus simultaneously expanding the reach and exploding the resilience? It seems to be happening more frequently: information suddenly becomes, in a sense, <em>too</em> well indexed. E.g. when the publicly available campaign donation database was mashed up with neighborhood maps; very cool, but seemed to push the information to a point where many were uncomfortable. Also, the Federal Court Filings that were being indexed and made freely available; cool, but deprives the Court system of an important revenue source... The thing is, nowadays if anyone put their mind to it, couldn’t they pretty easily index a network like this, thus simultaneously expanding the reach and exploding the resilience?

It seems to be happening more frequently: information suddenly becomes, in a sense, too well indexed. E.g. when the publicly available campaign donation database was mashed up with neighborhood maps; very cool, but seemed to push the information to a point where many were uncomfortable. Also, the Federal Court Filings that were being indexed and made freely available; cool, but deprives the Court system of an important revenue source…

]]> By: Robin Sloan http://snarkmarket.com/2009/3428/comment-page-1#comment-6208 Robin Sloan Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:03:34 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=3428#comment-6208 I love this. Both because I didn't know this network existed, and because, as you point out, it's truly a network. Not a hub, not a library. Maybe even a network in the sense that al Qaeda is (was) a network: many of the cells are ignorant of each other. It's a really powerful structure—really <i>resilient</i>, as you point out. Kinda makes you want to register a weird Blogger site and start posting rogue PDFs, doesn't it? I love this. Both because I didn’t know this network existed, and because, as you point out, it’s truly a network. Not a hub, not a library. Maybe even a network in the sense that al Qaeda is (was) a network: many of the cells are ignorant of each other.

It’s a really powerful structure—really resilient, as you point out. Kinda makes you want to register a weird Blogger site and start posting rogue PDFs, doesn’t it?

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