"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist."
The Internet is a big, strange, unique monster: one that all the usual suspects would have us carve up and lobotomize for all the usual reasons; we must prevent them from doing so.
Oliver
Bigtime Tommy: “In school, you are given the lesson first, then the test. But in life, you are given the test, and then you learn your lesson.” My commentary: “In bad science, you observe first then theorize. In good science, you theorize, then observe.
Oliver
Taleb: the casual investor who checks their portfolio too frequently will go berserk, worrying about minor price changes.
Lanier: if you prime a computer system to respond to quick changes in emotion, it will select for lust and anger (fast) over learning and friendship (slow).
Oliver
Hardware idea: scanners/copiers should, after each job, emit a beep and display an on-screen message saying: “Don’t forget your original document!”.
Oliver
When unimpeachably intelligent people literally “can’t find” the program (window, tab, etc.) that they were/are using, one must, I think, admit that it is the user interface that is unintelligent.
Oliver
Communications technology is the medium of modern consciousness: freedom of speech, thought and association are near synonyms for freedom of and with respect to the technology of communication.
Oliver
The devil is in the data structure.
Oliver
Before stating that you believe something, try to name something that you would accept as evidence not to believe that thing.
Oliver
Society remembers those who make a prescient, unpopular stand. We should remind ourselves that 1. today (as then) people like this seem quite odd or even dangerous to us, 2. there is a large, forgotten set who made a justified unpopular stand, but were wrong by chance.
Oliver
“The whole world’s living in a digital dream
It’s not really there
It’s all on the screen”
—Joe Walsh, “Analog Man”
True, but don’t forget that the first “screen” is the retina and its mapping to the brain: our concious experience derived thus isn’t “real” either.
Oliver