There’s an IRC channel for Reboot: irc.freenode.net #reboot7.

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I read The Times of London this morning on my flight from London to Copenhagen for Reboot. There was an article about a squabble over who owns the “sandwich” domain name. And who gets quoted as a legal authority but John Palfrey of The Berkman. How far do I have to go before I can escape his evil influence? [Disclosure: In some sense, JP is my boss.] [Technorati tags: berkman JohnPalfrey]

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My laptop keeps getting set to the wrong time. For example, today after I forced a re-synch using XP’s built in facility, I got this response:

If I set the date correctly and use Windows’ own time server instead of NIST’s, it gets the time and date right. Is the national timepiece off by six days???

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David Tebbutt points to some images of neurons that are interesting on level, beautiful at another, and awe-inspiring at yet another. [Technorati tag: neurons]

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Tomorrow I leave for Copenhagen for the reboot conference. I’ll arrive just as it’s beginning on Friday, I hope in time to hear Doc’s opening keynote.The sessions look fabulous. This is an awesome group of, um, guys. Mainly guys.

On Saturday I give the lunchtime keynote, and I am still struggling with the presentation. The title is “The Natural Shape of Knowledge.” (Here‘s the blurb.) This is a very rough outline of what I think I’m going to say:

Knowledge (K from now on) has had a “natural shape” because it’s been tied to the physical. But now that the world’s going digital, it’s assuming a different shape closer to our nature. Less like nature and more like us, so to speak.

What does K look like? Like Wikipedia. Like blogs. Like etc.

How did K get into its current shape? Aristotle first described the shape of K: We organize ideas into trees. But trees result from the physical world’s constraints on organizing: You divide your laundry into a pile for each kid, then divide each kid’s into basic body parts, then divide the socks into sports and school socks. That’s a tree and it happens because in the real world, socks have to go in one pile or another.

So, if the shape of K has been determined by the limitations of the physical world, what comes out of that? A few things:

To know is x to see where it fits in a structure

That structure is divined by experts

Meaning gets confused with definitions — we can’t define “blog” perfectly but so what?

We think the real has to be unambiguous. Ambiguity is a sign that K has failed. (Not really.)

Gatekeepers think they have an ontological mandate

So, now we’re digitizing everything. Those points get undone. [I’m struggling to figure out how to organize the following.] So, what happens to K? Instead of asking about K, ask “How do we know stuff?” I know x if I can answer a question about it or talk about it sensibly. I know x if I can look it up or ask someone. So, here are some things that change:

Topics get smaller. Compare Wikipedia to Britannica.

We can no longer believe that K and the structures of K are rooted in nature. They are tools, not mirrors.

This is about a shift in power. That’s why Jon Stewart is the most respected journalist on TV: When the former authorities are the last to know that they’re not in charge any more, you have the conditions for farce. [Yes, I know this is a local reference.]

No more forced rationality: The Web is big enough to let us disagree without feeling we have to get everyone else to agree.

Multi-subjectivity replaces objectivity in many fields: Multiple points of view in conversation can have some of the heft of objectivity.

Finally, I think I want to point to the idea of “local revelation” in religion (particularly Judaism) as a way to co-exist. We can live together thinking that one group only has the truth, nor can we afford to conclude that all truth is merely relative. But suppose God reveals Himself differently to different people at different times. That means giving up the idea that knowledge lets us into a realm beyond awareness where we see things in themselves, but that was always a doody-headed idea anyway.

Let the singing of Kumbiyah commence.

[Ok, so I have to pare this down and try to make it interesting. Hah! Any and all help gratefully appreciated.]
[Technorati tags: taxonomy knowledge]

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Those of you who spent most of last summer playing Zuma will be distressed to learn that Reflexive has a knock-off called Luxor that’s almost as good. It’s $20. (Several elements of my family have also been enjoying playing around with the level designer of Reflexive’s Ricochet Lost Worlds, the game that breakout wanted to be.)

For that you could pre-order two copies of the Professional Edition of Bradsuck’s CD. You can also download his music for free, but, jeez, what more do you want from a one-person singer/songer band? He should come to your house personally and butter both sides of your whole wheat toast? Jeez! [Technorati tag: bradsucks]

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Some standard Windows dialogue boxes put a question mark button up next to the close box (the little one with the X in it). If you click on the question mark, you get a question mark cursor. Click on something in the dialogue box and it pops up an explanation. Except if you click on the question mark button up next to the close box, in which case you get nuthin’.

And — in a failure of meta-ness — if you click on the close box, it closes the window.

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Intrade, an opinion market, now reports that the money has moved to a guilty verdict for intoxicating the kid but acquittal on the charge of molesting him.

My own bet: Michael Jackson will moonwalk to Vegas and phone in a report that he’s been kidnapped, thus creating the Mother of All Media Non-stories. The only thing that could make it bigger would be if he were a pretty, white woman.

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I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but Halley’s interview of Megnut sounds like a good ‘un.

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Tom Matrullo begins a post with this:

Walter Benjamin notes that Malebranche called attentiveness “the natural prayer of the soul.”

It goes on from there, but you’ve got your money’s worth with that one line.

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