Posted by on under mysterious circumstances, tiger woods, glee, friday morning, strengths and weaknesses, timeliness, crash, tiger, real time, perspective | 
As you likely know, Tiger Woods was in an accident under apparently mysterious circumstances early Friday morning. Predictably, the reports and reactions thereto pertaining varied somewhat in quality and timeliness, and predictably, this has led to paroxysms of futurist glee in some and sullen condemnation by others. Now that the smoke has cleared, we can examine the event, which is certainly worth a little inspection despite its obvious triviality, with a little perspective. I'm not going to speculate on Woods' injuries, the cause of the crash, or rumors of fights and affairs. I don't care, personally. But how the information proliferated makes for interesting dissection. And the fun part is that there's something for everybody's agenda! Many will choose to ignore or emphasize unduly one party's role in this drama, but the fact is that it very neatly exposes both the strengths and weaknesses of both traditional and so-called new media. I hope you're sitting comfortably.
Tagi: mysterious circumstances, tiger woods, glee, friday morning, strengths and weaknesses, timeliness, crash, tiger, real time, perspective
Posted by on under ezra klein, adam goldberg, hugh pickens, technological genius, smartest college, harvard name, facebook, cu community, inventis, blogging software, optis, mark zuckerberg, columbia university, store of knowledge, college kid, technology advances, cachet, |
Hugh Pickens writes "Ezra Klein has an interesting essay in the Washington Post about 'simultaneous invention,' where technology advances to the point that the next step is obvious to multiple people at once, and so they all push forward with the same or similar inventions. While the natural capabilities of human beings don't change much from year to year, their environments do, and so does the technology and store of knowledge they can access. 'The idea of the lone genius who has the eureka moment where they suddenly get a great idea that changes the world is not just the exception,' says Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, 'but almost nonexistent.' Consider Adam Goldberg's CU Community, created in 2003 at Columbia University, a social network that launched first and had cooler features than Facebook, with options for pictures and integrated blogging software. Klein writes, 'Zuckerberg's dominance can be attributed partly to the clean interface of his site, partly to the cachet of the Harvard name and partly to luck. But the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Goldberg was very small, while the difference between what Mark Zuckerberg could do and what the smartest college kid in 1999 could do was huge. It was the commons supporting them both that really mattered.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: ezra klein, adam goldberg, hugh pickens, technological genius, smartest college, harvard name, facebook, cu community, inventis, blogging software, optis, mark zuckerberg, columbia university, store of knowledge, college kid, technology advances, cachet,
