Small Pieces: The Gang Blog

• Small Pieces From 2003-03-06 •

Ceci n'est pas une vache

This not a link to the Raging Cow blog.

• Small Pieces From 2002-08-13 •

Um, where is the post I posted here earlier today? Anyway, I thought I had psoted an advance notice, taken from Scott Rosenberg's weblog, of a Salon dual-review of two books, one of which is Small Pieces. But that post doesn't seem to be here. Maybe I fucked it up. But the article is up now, lead story on salon.com -- an excerpt:

But the same people who got the Internet business so wrong got the Internet story wrong, too. IPOs and e-commerce and "network effect" growth rates were dazzling ephemera. But while magazine editors' eyes were transfixed by the business's convulsions, big things were happening under their noses: E-mail was transforming the workplace and the social landscape. Personal Web sites became "advertisements for myself" for the masses. "Communities of interest" -- devotees of certain obscure handicrafts; critics of certain large companies; followers of certain public policy debates -- formed and splintered and reformed in numbers too great to compile. New galaxies of communication coalesced, far off the familiar big-media grid.

It's this story that's addressed by "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" -- an odd but wonderful series of essays by David Weinberger about how profoundly the Net is changing our lives. "Bamboozled at the Revolution" is trade-magazine reporting; "Small Pieces" is armchair philosophy. Still, you can learn far more about why and how the media lost their way online from Weinberger's musings on the nature of Web reality than from Motavalli's chronicles of boardroom chaos.

Loosely joined by Anonymous • 02:57 UTC

• Small Pieces From 2002-07-14 •

That metaphor seems strangely apt. If you put a million monkeys without diapers in a room filled with word processors, surely it wouldn't belong before they produced a book better than this one.

I don't know about that. The book has been out for awhile now. And it seems to have taken the above solitary monkey a rather long time to start flinging his shit around.

Loosely joined by Anonymous • 04:49 UTC

• Small Pieces From 2002-07-10 •

Judging by the stuff a google search for his byline uncovers, Mr Futrelle specialises in whinging his way from one fluffy dotcom mag to another without ever saying anything worth remembering.

You can get away with writing sniping pieces , but only if you are witty and the target deserves it.

Brush off this gnat and move on to those who appreciate you- apart from AKMA, I said nice things about you here for example...

Loosely joined by Kevin Marks • 08:04 UTC

• Small Pieces From 2002-07-07 •

You want some David-baiting? There's a savage review in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26278-2002Jul4.html Now that's David-baiting!

Loosely joined by David • 20:25 UTC

• Small Pieces From 2002-06-25 •

SHAMELESS MEMIC PROPAGATION...
The Andrea James Interview is available today for your reading enjoyment. Check it out, and link-it-if-ya-like-it! Thanks
-fp-

Loosely joined by fpaynter • 14:38 UTC

• Small Pieces From 2002-06-18 •

An article today shows how Bush invented the hyperlink.

(Dave baiting? Moi?)

Loosely joined by Kevin Marks • 21:47 UTC

Dave, I was referring to Tom's use of 'links' in the sense of connections or correlations, perceptions of affinity (at least, that is what I think he meant). Tom, in response to your earlier point about literary critics anticipating the virtualisation of real place, I can see what you are getting at, but Brad's point was that while the deconstructers were inventing ever wordier and more reflexive jargon to describe the putative social construction of reality, a different reality was indubitably being socially constructed online. Another quote from late 1995:
Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.

The Web is going to be very important. Is it going to be a life-changing event for millions of people? No. I mean, maybe. But it's not an assured Yes at this point. And it'll probably creep up on people.

Steve Jobs in late 1995

Loosely joined by Kevin Marks • 09:14 UTC