fledgling

RIP Lt. Andrew Nuttall, soldier and blogger

Pasted below is the final post on the blog kept by Lt. Andrew Nuttall ofthe Canadian Forces, who, together with his ANA partner, lost his life to an IED a few days ago. I will return to this and other passages from this moving artefact in due course.

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Update from Afghanistan 4

December 1st, 2009 Posted in Military, Personal/Website| No Comments »

(I’ve put some more pictures up on flickr!)

Hi all!

In order to be as open as I can i’m now going to post these updates on my website, although I am going to have to be a bit less specific, but i promise it won’t take away from the story. As well I’m posting some new pictures with this update so it should be a good one!

The last I left you was saying I was moving to a new house with no internet. Well many things have changed, yet many things stay the same. The new place was working out excellently for us, and a platoon of ANA (afghan national army) which we started to work with very closely. We spent many long days fixing and improving our compound, as well as the typical patroling around our AO. The situation around this new home was much more tense and fragile than our last, the last time the locals saw any uniformed troops was some americans who ran through the place guns blazing. As such they were quite wary, and so were we because of the high amount of insurgent presense we were expecting. Either way though during all of the days we’ve spent there nothing kinetic (aka fighting) has gone on, and that is relatively typical of the situation here. On one side the people are frightened, impoverished, and seek nothing but safety and prosperity for their families. On the other side is a very small subset of a combination of extreme Salafist muslims (aka seeking to impose an extremist version of islam on the entire world), anti-western mercenaries, and misguided brainwashed (generally) youths that utilize cowardice hit-and-run and ied tactics in order to sway the civilain population of afghanistan and north america to pull their troops out. Then there is us in the middle, an array of nations trying to combine our traditionally conventional forces and conduct combined operations with the young but capable ANA (and young but immature Afghan National Police, ANP), in a barren country with many more needs than just militaristic. Complicated, yes, confusing, only a bit, frustrating, unfortunatly too much.

But back to my situation, I spent my first bit of time there talking a lot to the locals together with the ANA. One of our biggest force multipliers is the combined arms team we’ve got working together, the CIMIC people (aka reconstruction and projects), PSYOPS (aka local messaging), engineers, armoured people, and the afghan government (ANA and ANP). Together we can really do some good, when the people are on board. Sometimes the people aren’t as what was happening with me, either their frightened or don’t realize what we can do and it takes time to convince them through actions that we are there to stay and not gone with the next change in winds. So as I was beginning to make some heady with the locals and get more information/weapon and ied caches and such, the platoon recieved another surprise. We had to move another time!

Now usually moving around is no big deal, but it definetly throws a wrench into the plans (plus we’ve got to fit in our foosball table!). Either way we found ourselves moving not too far down the road, which works out well as the new place is close to the village we’re trying to improve and is more comfortable. I tried to include as many pictures of the place we’re in now, most of the troops live in the mud hut, while the hq staff is outside in the tent. The mud hut themselves are only a bit dusty (and mouse infested), but are really warm at night and cooler during the day (perfect for afghanistan weather). Plus we’re slowly building up some other nice morale boosting amenities, warm water for showers, a dvd player, a gym with actual weights (instead of sandbags), and of course we’ve got the foosball table and dart board plus many board games. The longer we stay here the better it gets.

The other big event that happened was Eid. Its the muslim version of christmas, all of the locals will go home with their families and cook big meals. I had the lucky chance to be at 2 different Eid dinner celebrations with the ANA, where we butchered some local goat and sheep, boiled it in a curry like water, and had it with the best tasting basil i’ve had, of course lots of rice, and huge pomogranetes for desert. Wow it was so delicious, and so much food we all were stuffed! (Though i missed out on the heart and liver soup, and brain pate. Apperently it was delicious, i wanted to try).  After the first Eid meal there was a big dance party, the ANA put on a very scratchy speaker with the usual shrieky arab music. That is when the night started getting a bit gay, you could see that some of the ANA probably joined for the booty, luckily i had to run to attend to the radio. On the second Eid dinner afterwards we sat around and talked for almost 2 hours, it actually was fun sharing stories and jokes.

Another big (ish) piece of news that some of you may know already, but my tour is being extended over here. Since canada seems determined to pull out at the end of 2011, their going to extend the last three tours, starting with mine. The effect they’ve told us is only a 3 week extension. But from what I can infer, the effect it will have on me will turn my 6 month tour into almost 8 months. Since I have to be the first one in and last one out, I’m guessing i’ll be back sometime mid June (though thats a total guess now). All of us here (including me) are not worried about this extention. We all believe in what we’re doing and an extra few weeks isn’t going to hurt anyone in the long run (as long as we maintain our vigilance of course). Plus if I end up getting home then, i’ll get to celebrate my b-day with lots of friends and family. Also loop my post-deployment leave into summer leave and get my vacation mustache growing! Heh, but that is waay far away and i’m really not thinking of that. I tend to look about 72hrs to a week out, keeps me from getting distracted.

Well, i’m off back to the command post to get back to the battle. I can’t believe that its almost December, feels like time is flying! Though its getting really cold now. The nights and morning it might even be 0 and even during the middle of the day its not super intense hot (though still those of us not on mission will try to get some rays on our pasty white farmer-tans). There’s even been a couple big rain and thunderstorms, very surprising as they came up really fast, though don’t usually last long (max an hour), and its nice to wet the ground and get the dust down. Though after we see lots of local activity as they will get out and tend to their crops because water is definetly a scarce commodity that these people are very efficient users of.

Thank you very much everyone for your emails and care packages! I will do my absolute best to answer every message, and every package recieved feels like christmas! (Actually my first happy day here was when i got a nice care package from a grandmother in greenwood, ns. A random one i definetly was not expecting, but definetly a huge lift of the spirits).  Keep sending me updates of all of the great times you will have in the winter. I hear that the west coast is getting an early snow, thats fantastic, wish i could be the for the snowboarding! Please all stay healthy and live everything to the fullest!!

Much love to all, andrew

Goethe's dying words

The fragmentary imperative attributed to Goethe as his dying words is "Mehr Licht," which translates as "more light," a characteristically rich turn of phrase with multiple possible senses (e.g. "Bring the candle closer, dammit, I can't see a thing," or "I see a reassuring glow on the far horizon").  With the passing of the winter solstice, as the days begin slowly to lengthen, I've reverted to Pico White as my backdrop here.  (A glance at my archive during the dark days revealed that highlighted passages disappear almost entirely under the Pico Dark Blue regime, which I otherwise enjoyed.)  The blank slate awaits.

Winter solstice

Readers may notice a minor design modification to fledgling, made in view of the impending winter solstice and the shortest days of 2009.  This too shall pass.  Between now and the new year I'll be posting mainly on makurrah's posterous.

A question for Clay Shirky

December 18, 2009

 

Turns out this is my first mobile posting, punched into my trusty BB as I wait in a cafe for my kid and her friend to exit the nearby cinema.
I've just re-read Clay Shirky's "A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority" for the fourth time - in hard copy, of course. Two colours of highlighter compete with scribbled marginalia at this point. Having already pasted up the OED definitions of "algorithm" and "authority" in an earlier post (when in doubt, adhere to etymology and historical usage), and reviewed what are in fact fairly tight arguments in what Clay terms a "placeholder" for a full-fledged formulation (would that still be speculative?), I find myself wanting to ask one question, fmi.

In what I take to be a key paragraph, Clay writes:
"There's a spectrum of authority from 'Good enough to settle a bar bet' to 'Evidence to include in a dissertation defense,' and most uses of algorithmic authority right now cluster around the inebriated end of that spectrum, but the important thing is that it is a spectrum, that algorithmic authority is on it, and that current forces seem set to push it further up the spectrum to an increasing number and variety of groups that regard these kinds of sources as authoritative."

So Clay, what forces do you have in mind? Some seem obvious, but others perhaps less so. And as I wrote the other day, this seems like front-burner stuff in the context of the "content farming" discussion.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

via makurrah.posterous.com

"Algorithmic authority": Keeping up with Clay Shirky

In the half hour or so that I have to devote to this blog today, I thought I'd try to put myself in a position to be able to contribute something by way of a gloss on or supplement to Clay Shirky's "Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority" (http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/11/a-speculative-post-on-the-idea-of-algorithmic-authority.html )  I've been thinking about it off and on for a couple of weeks now, and more intensively since my reading of the flurry of posts on the menace of "content farming" (cf "'Content farms'?  Can we parse this before we start to worry?", posted yesterday).  Clay's "rough and ready" idea is summarized in the final words of his speculative post:  "algorithmic authority handles the 'Garbage In, Garbage Out' problem by accepting the garbage as an input, rather than trying to clean the data first; it provides the output to the end user without any human supervisor checking it at the penultimate step; and these processes are eroding the previous institutional monopoly on the kind of authority we are used to in a number of public spheres, including the sphere of news."

Clay is clearly (obviously and with lucidity) working through the crux of the problematics that, to my mind, are obscured by the language of "content farming."  In an effort to follow in his footsteps (no easy task, I recognize) and earn for myself the insights he is making available to others [NB people: reading Cliff's Notes is no substitute for reading the original.  Reading Terry Eagleton is no substitute for reading Marx or Derrida or anyone else of significance], I decided to resort to an established authority whose basis is not, on the face of it, algorithmic - a source I have never failed to find productive in some way.  Thankfully, one can now access the Oxford English Dictionary without having to go to the reference room of the nearest library, or having to manoeuvre it from shelf to table at home and use the handy magnifying glass to read the miniscule print of the compact edition, less legible with every passing year.

With the online version it's as simple as copy and paste.  I wanted to check the definitions of "algorithm" independently of Clay's work in any case, since my 11-year-old daughter asked me about it a couple of weeks ago, and I wasn't entirely confident of my reply. (They're doing algebra in grade 6 - I will soon be unqualified to help with math homework.  Hallelujah.)

Herewith the OED definitions, with my highlighting for future reference:

1. = ALGORISM 1a.

1699 Phil. Trans. XXI. 263 The Algorithm or Numeral Figures now in use. 1774 T. WARTON Hist. Eng. Poetry III. 46 The first who brought the algorithm from the Saracens. 1852 R. GRANT Hist. Phys. Astron. Introd. 9 The ingenious algorithm of the Indians.

2.Math. A process, or set of rules, usually one expressed in algebraic notation, now used esp. in computing, machine translation and linguistics.

1938 HARDY & WRIGHT Introd. Theory of Numbers x. 135 The system of equations..is known as Euclid's algorithm. 1960 E. DELAVENAY Introd. Machine Transl. 129 Algorithm or algorism.., used by computer programmers to designate the numerical or algebraic notations which express a given sequence of computer operations, define a programme or routine conceived to solve a given type of problem. 1964 F. L. WESTWATERElectronic Computers ix. 146 An Algorithm is a set of rules for performing a calculation. 1966 OWEN & ROSS tr. Revzin's Models of Lang. ii. 22 A..more convenient way of arranging the phonemes is suggested. It is given by an instruction (an ‘algorithm’) consisting of six points.

3. Med. A step-by-step procedure for reaching a clinical decision or diagnosis, often set out in the form of a flow chart, in which the answer to each question determines the next question to be asked.

[1968 L. B. LUSTED Introd. Med. Decision Making iii. 70 Two..[studies] show that an algorithm in terms of a computer program can be developed for a computer based medical history system.] 1970 Scottish Med. Jrnl. XV. 378 (heading) Flow charts, diagnostic keys and algorithms in the diagnosis of dysphagia. 1985 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 23 Mar. 916/1 The algorithm illustrates the steps towards establishing a functional and aetiological diagnosis.

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50005609?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=algorithm&first=max_to_show=10

 

 

 

In the spirit of due diligence I thought I'd go ahead and check on the definitions of "authority" as well.

 

  I.Power to enforce obedience.

1. a. Power or right to enforce obedience; moral or legal supremacy; the right to command, or give an ultimate decision.

1393 GOWER Conf. I. 257 The pope..Of his papall auctorite Hath made and yove the decre. 1480 CAXTON Chron. Eng. III. (1520) 20/1 They chose another man the whiche sholde have more auctoryte..and they called hym dictator. 1590 Harl. Misc. (Malh.) II. 176 He hath aucthoritie over all kinges and princes. 1598 BARRET Theor. Warres IV. iv. 113 Their Colours..represent the authoritie Royall. 1603 SHAKES. Meas. for M. II. ii. 118 Proud man, Drest in a little briefe authoritie,..Plaies such phantastique tricks before high heauen, As makes the Angels weepe. 1665 BOYLE Occas. Refl. IV. xi. (1675) 233, I allow lawful Authority a Jurisdiction over my Actions, that I deny it over my Opinions. a1680 BUTLER Rem. (1759) I. 251 Authority is a Disease and Cure, Which Men can neither want, nor well endure. 1872 RUSKIN Eagle's Nest §94 If ever you find yourselves set in positions of authority.

b.in authority: in a position of power; in possession of power over others.

c1460 FORTESCUE Abs. & Lim. Mon. (1714) 108 Men that were in grete Auctorite. 1551-6 ROBINSON tr. More's Utop. 15 Nowe placed in aucthorytye and called to honoure. 1611 BIBLE Prov. xxix. 2 When the righteous are in authoritie, the people rejoyce. 1722 SEWEL tr. Hist. Quakers (1795) I. Pref. 12 Speaking to persons in authority. 1878 HOPPS Jesus x. 36 The people in authority..would try to stop him.

2. a. Derived or delegated power; conferred right or title; authorization.
  (The relation to sense 1 is seen in ‘by the (king's) authority, by authority of the King.’)

c1375 WYCLIF Serm. Sel. Wks. 1869 I. 56 Reprovede him sharpli bi autorite of God. c1400 Apol. Loll. 8 If he pronounce wiout autorite..aennis e lordis wille. 1483 RICH. III in Ellis Orig. Lett. II. 49 I. 153 Upon auctorite or commission yeven unto him. 1535 COVERDALE Mark xi. 28 By what auctorite dost thou these things, and who gaue the this auctorite. 1790 BURKE Fr. Rev. 6 To open a formal public correspondence..without the express authority of the government under which I live. 1831 CARLYLE Sart. Res. III. vii, He carries in him an authority from God.

b. with inf. Conferred right to do something.

1535 COVERDALE Ezra vii. 24 Ye shall haue no auctorite to requyre taxinge & custome. 1559 BP. SCOT in Strype Ann. Ref. I. App. vii. 13 By commission from him, prestes hathe aucthorytie to forgyve sin. 1719 YOUNG Revenge IV. i, Am I not your wife? Have I not just authority to know That heart? 1855 PRESCOTT Philip II Pref. 8, I also obtained the authority of Prince Metternich to inspect the Archives of the Empire. 1858 LD. ST. LEONARDS Handy-bk. Prop. Law IV. 20 The authority to sell does not include a power to receive the purchase-money.

3. Those in authority; the body or persons exercising power or command. (Formerly in sing. = Government; a Local Sanitary Authority or similar body is also spoken of as ‘the authority.’)

1611 BIBLE 1 Pet. iii. 22 Angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject vnto him. 1652 NEEDHAM tr. Selden's Mare Cl. Ep. Ded. 1 The Supreme Autoritie of the Nation, the Parlament of the Common-wealth of England. 1682 LUTTRELL Brief Rel. I. 233 Authority has thought fitt..to prosecute the offenders for the same. 1760 T. HUTCHINSON Hist. Coll. Mass. Bay iii. (1765) 395 The authority treated him kindly, and sent him home. 1833 I. TAYLOR Fanat. x. 456 The conduct of the authorities. 1859 MILL Liberty 172 It is a proper office of public authority to guard against accidents. 1865 LIVINGSTONE Zambesi xx. 403 The Mozambique authorities. 1870 Statutes V (Tramways Act) 491 Orders authorising the construction of tramways..may be obtained by (1) The local authority of such district. 1880 Sat. Rev. 25 Dec. 809 The actual authorities of the Post Office. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 8 Sept. 2/3 The Port of London Authority is a thoroughly practical body of men. 1951 Good Housek. Home Encycl. 189/2 It is usually possible to obtain the free services of one through the local Health Authority.

II. Power to influence action, opinion, belief.

4. Power to influence the conduct and actions of others; personal or practical influence.

c1410 HOCCLEVE Mother of God 92 Syn thou art of swich auctoritee Lady pitious. c1449 PECOCK Repr. V. ix. 531 Hie in wisdom and in auctorite and in fame. 1542 BRINKLOW Complaynt i. (1874) 7 Them which beare any auctoryte..in the cowncel or Parlament. 1673 Lady's Call. I. i §20 Such an autority there is in vertue, that where 'tis eminent, 'tis apt to controle all loose desires. 1705 ADDISON Italy Ded., With your Lordship's Interest and Authority in England. 1792 Anecd. W. Pitt III. xliv. 202 It is your duty, my Lords, as the grand hereditary council of the nation..to feel your own weight and authority. 1818-60 WHATELYCommonpl. Bk. (1864) 125 The person, body, or book, in favour of whose decisions there is a certain presumption, is said to have, so far, authority.

5.Power over, or title to influence, the opinions of others; authoritative opinion; weight of judgement or opinion, intellectual influence.

c1386 CHAUCER Sqr.'s T. 474 Preued..As wel by werk as by Auctoritee. 1481 CAXTON Myrr. III. xii. 160 Good clerkes..of grete auctoryte. a1677 BARROW Serm. (1683) II. viii. 119 The auctority of the ancients doth more prevail with me. 1724 A. COLLINS Gr. Chr. Relig. Pref. 18 Is there anything that..stifles the light of truth, but autority? 1794 SULLIVAN View Nat. II. 231 The proper way of reasoning from authority, that what seems true to some wise men, may upon that account be esteemed somewhat probable. 1865 MILL Liberty ii. 21/2 He is either led by authority, or adopts..the side to which he feels most inclination.

6. Power to inspire belief, title to be believed; authoritative statement; weight of testimony. Sometimes weakened to: Authorship, testimony.

1303 R. BRUNNE Handl. Synne 1239 Seynt Poule at sagh Goddys pryvyte, He sey yn hys autoryte A feyre wurd vs for to save. 1494 FABYAN I. i. 8 Therof is founde lytell auctoryte. 1586 THYNNE in Animadv. Introd. 73 Untill I may see good authoritie to disproove it. 1710 PRIDEAUX Orig. Tithes v. 253, I deny not Ingulph's autority to be good, but for his Copy there is his autority only. 1875 SCRIVENER Lect. Grk. Test. 12, I have been recently informed on excellent authority. a1885 Mod. Do not accept news on the authority of the evening papers.

7. The quotation or book acknowledged, or alleged, to settle a question of opinion or give conclusive testimony.

c1230 Ancr. R. 78 en ilke autorite, et..schal beon vre strence..aein es deofles turnes. c1386 CHAUCER Friar's Prol. 12 Lete auctorités, in Goddes name, To preching and to scoles of clergie. a1535 MORE Confut. Barnes VIII. Wks. 770/2 Hys fyrst authorite be these words of saynte Austyne in hys fyftieth sermon. 1608 SHAKES. Per. III. ii. 33 By turning o'er authorities. 1706 POPE Lett. Wks. 1736 V. 55 To corroborate these observations by some great authorities..in Tully and Quintilian. 1876 GREEN Short Hist. Pref. 6 Giving in detail the authorities for every statement.

8. a. The person whose opinion or testimony is accepted; the author of an accepted statement. b. One whose opinion on or upon a subject is entitled to be accepted; an expert in any question.

1665 GLANVILL Sceps. Sci. 77 To confront such celebrated Authorities. 1855 PRESCOTT Philip II, I. II. vi. 210 Historians in a season of faction are not the best authorities. 1860 R. WILLIAMS Ess. & Rev. 59 Egyptian authorities continue the reign of Menephthah later. 1867 A. J. ELLIS E.E. Pronunc. I. iii. 65 Wallis is the great authority for the fully developed pronunciation of the XVIIth century. 1871 BLACKIE Four Phases i. 1 A great utilitarian authority. a1885 Mod. Who, may I ask, is your authority for the statement? A. B. He is no authority!

9. Comb., as authority-maker.

1678 CUDWORTH Intell. Syst. I. v. 893 These justice-makers and authority-makers pretend to derive their factitious justice from Pacts and Covenants.

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50015071?query_type=word&queryword=authority&first=18max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=4JJD-LVhmrr-3472&hilite=50015071

 

 

It turns out that "authority" is also a keyword in the OED's definition of "consensus."  More on this as time allows.

"Content farms"? Can we parse this before we start to worry?

Yesterday I retweeted (the user-generated way, which allowed me to editorialize "Nightmarish") the rww Sunday Editorial "Content Farms:  Why Media, Blogs & Google Should Be Worried"  (http://bit.ly/68LAmv ).  The fact that I follow Richard MacManus (author of the editorial) and Co. on Twitter demonstrates that I take them to be authorities of sorts, such that, if they are worried, perhaps I should be as well (though the last thing I need is more anxiety in my life). 

So I did a bit of homework on this pending threat to my relative tranquility as a blogger, and read a cluster of recent posts around the question of "content farming":  Michael Arrington's "The End of Hand Crafted Content" (http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/13/the-end-of-hand-crafted-content/ ); "Why Social Beats Search" by A VC (http://www.avc.com/a-vc/2009/12/why-social-beats-search.html.); "The Revolution Will Not Be Intermediated" on Doc Searls' Weblog (http://blog.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/12/13/the-revolution-will-not-be-intermediated/ ) - all of these posted on December 13, 2009.

Along the way, I realized a couple of things.  First, my anxious response to the notion of "content farms" was based in part on some unconscious association with cruelty to animals, and especially to horses (e.g. the invidious "PMU farms" where mares are relentlessly exploited to produce estrogen-based products for women).  But more importantly, my trouble has been with the word "content" in this context, and the slippery imprecision of its usage with reference to the Web.  In rww's editorial, for example, Richard MacManus writes that "companies like Demand Media and Answers.com...create thousands of pieces of content per day."  I get what he's talking about, but I also get the beginnings of a headache.

And what "really scares" Michael Arrington?  "It's the use of fast food content that will surely, over time, destroy the mom and pop operations that handcraft their content today.  It's the rise of cheap, disposable content on a mass scale, fed to us by the portals and search engines." I guess I resist the image of me (or any blogger I respect) with jaws wired open, ingesting whatever is coming down the pipeline.

Doc Searls' post of 12/13 came closest to making sense on this matter.  "...I've been hand-crafting (actually just typing) my "content" for about twenty years now, and I haven't been destroyed by a damn thing.  I kinda don't think FFC is going to shut down serious writers (no matter where and how they write) any more than McDonalds killed the market for serious chefs....  Nothing with real value is dead, so long as it can be found on the Web and there are links to it.  Humans are the ones with hands.  Not intermediaries.  Not AOL, or TechCrunch, or HuffPo, or Google or the New York Freaking Times.  The Net is the means to our ends, not The Media.... The Net and the Web liberate individuals.  They welcome intermediators, but do not require them.... what matters most is what each of us as individuals bring to the Net's table.  Not the freight system that helps us bring it there, no matter how established or disruptive that system is....  We seem to think that progress on the Net is the work of "brands" creating and disrupting and doing other cool stuff.  Those may help, but what matters most is what each of us does better than anybody or anything else.  The term "content" insults the nature of that work.  And of its sources."  [emphasis added]

Finally, a kindred view on the debased usage of "content" in this discussion, and more broadly in relation to the Web.  I underscored above the instance where the word marks a link to a much earlier post on Searls' blog, entitled "The personal platform" and dated January 31, 2008 (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2008/01/31/the-personal-platform/ )  It seems that the figure or model of "content" has been troubling Searls for some time:  "Until I read this piece by Adriana Lukas this morning I hadn't fully realized how the ubiquitous use of the word content, which I've griped about for years (and which Adriana quotes), frames our understanding of markets, and media, in ways that place presumed control in the hands of "providers" other than ourselves.  Even  UGC - "User Generated Content" - is not seen as ours, but as freight for media companies to forward for their own purposes.  As John Perry Barlow put it a few years back, "I didn't start hearing about 'content' until the container business felt threatened.'"

He provides a link to a post by Adriana Lukas for mediainfluencer under the title "Content is for container cargo business" (http://www.mediainfluencer.net/2008/01/content-is-for-container-cargo=business/ ), which in turn begins with two citations from Doc Searls on "content."

Doc Searls on Content in 2005:  "The word content connotes substance.  It's a material that can be made, shaped, bought, sold, shipped, stored and combined with other material.  "Content" is less human than "information" and less technical than "data," and more handy than either.  Like "solution" or the blank tiles in Scrabble, you can use it anywhere, though it adds no other value.

And again in 2007:  "Stop calling everything "content."  It's a bullshit word that the dot-commers started using back in the '90s as a wrapper for everthing that could be digitized and put online.  It's handy, but it masks and insults the true natures of writing, journalism, photography, and the rest of what we still, blessedly (if adjectivally) call "editorial."  Your job is journalism, not container cargo."

As Searls belatedly notes on his own post of 2008, "But rather than gripe some more, Adriana offers a useful way of framing the full worth of individuals, the creative goods they produce, and what they bring to both social and business relationships:  the concept of the person as the platform:

Content is media industry term.  The number of people talking about content grows every day as they assume roles that before only media could perform.  With more tools and ways of distributing, photos, videos, writings, cartoons etc. are being 'liberated' from the channel world.  Alas, often sliding into the platform and silo world.  As far as I am concerned there are only two platforms - the individual user and the web.

Years later, in light of the purported menace of "content farms" coming soon to a search engine near you, this might ring a bit naive, or utopian.  But at least Searls and Lukas reflect upon and resist the ways in which "content" has become radically debased coinage.  With its value so diminished before the fact, it's harder to worry about what little is left.

Chris Brogan v Makurrah on the language of blogging, part 2

It occurs to me that I might borrow a technique, and the language that makes it work, from someone I just began to follow on Twitter yesterday.  @danielbachhuber sent the following tweet on December 13:  "Two pieces, loosely joined: @jayrosen_nyu's explainthis.org and standard fare at the @guardiannews.  http://db.ly/71  The link is to a post on his blog, one that I highly recommend as (to quote him) "an entry point for deeper learning" about the possibilities inscribed in Jay Rosen's conceptual framework for explainthis.org.  For now I will simply borrow the "loosely joined" structure or relationship to tie today's post to yesterday's, which was on Chris Brogan's advice to bloggers to keep their words small and their language simple.

What I want to share today is something like the flip side of Chris' case (or just another piece of some greater question).  My source here is an article by Erin Anderssen for the Globe and Mail, published Saturday December 12 in the F (for "Focus") section of the paper, and online at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/gr8-news-were-entering-a-new-era-of-literacy/article13977421/

Under the title "GR8 news:  We're entering a new era of literacy," Anderssen reports on received wisdom about the dumbing-down of the English language, but also on the research of a number of academics across several disciplines that cuts against it.  Here are some of her findings.

Ever since the send button clicked on that first sloppy e-mail, digital technology has been accused of ruining the quality of writing.  Describing the fate that awaited prose in a world overrun by texting, John Sutherland, emeritus professor of modern English literature at University College, London, made a dire pronouncement:  Texters, he wrote in a column in the Daily Mail, are the 'Genghis Khans' of the written word, 'pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary.  And they must be stopped.

Clearly, Prof. Sutherland is no fan of the shorthand texters use - GOYHH, they might snipe back at the language scholar (as in, Get Off Your High Horse) - but more than a few worried academics share his gloomy prognosis, sugggesting that literature, as we know it, is doomed by pulpy Web-based pose [sic] and careless punctuation....

But take heart, dear scholars. A new study from California's Stanford University has produced some reassuring news:  Young people may not be writing so badly after all, and, in fact, their prose is evolving in some promising new ways.  They write more on their own time, their school essays are longer, their voices are more attuned to the people who will read their words.  They know better - at least by university - than to drop text-speak into a class paper.

[Permit me to insert an image here, one that I discovered during the year I spent at Stanford on a faculty fellowship.  I do this for myself and for any readers of this post who could use a visual break.]

[This is the men's gymnasium at Stanford, photographed on April 18, 1906 after the great earthquake struck at 5:13 a.m.  I'm also fond of the image below, depicting the entrance to the university at the end of Palm Drive before and after the quake.  Perhaps it goes without saying that I had a terrible time at Stanford....but that's for another post, probably another blog, entirely.]

Back to Erin in the Globe:

In the Stanford study, undergraduate students submitted pieces of writing over the course of five years, including everything they wrote for school.  Their contributions amounted to 15,000 samples - blog postings, journal entries, e-mails, PowerPoint presentations, honours theses, scripts and an astonishing amount of poetry.

[Thank god I was out of there before this avalanche of writing came in - I might have been conscripted to read some of it.]

Only 62 per cent of the writing was done for class assignments - the rest of the samples were other items the students submitted voluntarily.  On their own time, the students - half of whom were pursuing science or engineering degrees - were remarkably prolific, says Andrea Lunsford, director of Stanford's Program in Writing and Rhetoric, who spearheaded the study.

Much of the personal work was intended to be active, to make a case or argue a point.  For this generation, she says, "writing if performative.  It gets up off the pages, walks off and does something."

[I will keep my own sense of the performative function of language to myself at this point, in deference to the prof who actually did all this work.]

While students at Stanford may be a select group, Prof. Lunsford has also completed a similar study by amassing a random collection of essays by first-year university students across the United States.  In a sample of more than 800 papers, there was not an LOL (or any other text lingo) to be found - though other English professors say they do crop up.

And her research showed that over the past century the length of student essays has increased dramatically - from an average of 162 words in 1917 to 422 words in 1986 and 1,038 words in 2006.

In addition, while 25 years ago, the most common assignment was a personal narrative, first-year students today are most often assigned papers requiring a thesis and sources - and consequently, Prof. Lunsford concludes, more "higher-order thinking skills and complexity"....

There is more worth reading in this thoughtful piece.  Perhaps the most interesting outcome of Lunsford's research is that she credits the students whose work she studied with kairos, the ancient Greek term for the ability to say the right thing at the right time.  This is surely a hopeful sign.  And she is right on the mark when she argues that teaching proper punctuation and the ability to make a cohesive written argument is first of all the responsibility of educators.  "If we want students to sustain dense, richly sourced arguments then we will have to teach those skills throughout schooling," she argues.

I expect to encounter some of those dense, richly sourced arguments in blog posts, in the near and longer term.  And I can hope, can't I, that some of those savvy students might one day find their way to my blog, and not mind if I use words with more than two syllables to make my case.

Chris Brogan v Makurrah on the blogger's vocabulary

This a.m. my inbox yielded another post from the prolific Chris Brogan:  "Write Better Blog Posts Today."  The "today" was an effective hook - of course I want to start writing better posts today, right away, now - so I read with attention, finding myself admiring once again Chris' willingness to share the benefit of his experience.  He offers a good deal of solid advice, succinctly put, and I would recommend the post to novice as well as more experienced bloggers.  Read it at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/write-better-blog-posts-today/

But I had to disagree on one point, which I reproduce below:

A caution about choice of words: a great piece of advice a professor once gave me was this: “tell it to me like I’m 6 years old.” Ken Hadge said that’s what he told anyone trying to sell him something the moment they used a large word. The other day, I spoke in front of a huge international audience. I used the smallest words I had, except for one: serendipity. I had never considered how hard to translate that word might be to other cultures. The definition of serendipity is: the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. I could’ve found another way to say it, or could have bolstered up the original use of the word with a simple definition. Because I missed this, I lost some small part of my audience.

Words matter. Choose yours for an inclusive audience. Everyone knows you’re smart already. Save the big words for your crossword puzzles.

For the moment, I will simply append here the comment I left for Chris earlier today:

This is a great post, Chris - lots of wit and wisdom. I disagree, however, on one thing - I think that the professor who gave the advice about addressing him like he's a 6-year old misses something important. One thing a dedicated blogger can give his/her readers is language, including words they might not know, but might want to know. Your example of serendipity is a great one: use the word, gloss it in another clause - you're giving the gift of new words that others can turn around and regift. It doesn't have to be an either-or: go ahead and use more complicated or sophisticated language (which may in fact be required to make your point precisely), but provide the meaning or sense as well. Surely we're not under pressure to leave out the better part of our vocabulary to reach an audience.

I haven't heard back yet, but I know from my Twitter feed that Chris is in transit and will be offline all day.  But there is more to be said about the language of blogging in what some are calling a new era of literacy.  I'll return to this in tomorrow's post.

Journalism: a prognosis (from the Nieman Lab)

A link provided by Dave Winer on protoblogger.com led me to a useful piece by C.W Anderson on the NiemanJournalismLab site, entitled "Next year's news about the news:  What we'll be fighting about in 2010."   http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/12/next-years-news-about-the-news-what-well-be-fighting-about-in-2010/

 

Following a handy summary of "What we kinda-sorta know" at this stage (e.g., "'bloggers' versus 'journalists' is (really, really) over," "Some information won't be free, but probably not enough to save big news organizations," "The news will increasingly be produced by smaller, de-institutionalized organizations"), Anderson tries to "pretend (just for a moment) that all those fights are settled," in order to reflect on the possibilities for discussion and argument in the year to come.  The following are his candidates:

1. What kind of politics will be facilitated by this new world? In the old world, the relationship between journalism and politics was fairly clear, and expressed in an endless series of (occasionally meaningful) cliches. But changes on one side of the equation inevitably mean changes on the other. The most optimistic amongst usargue that we might be headed for a new era of citizen participation. Pessimists see the angry town halls unleashed this summerand lament the days when the passions of the multitude could be moderated by large informational institutions. Others, like my colleague Rasmus Kleis Nielsenat Columbia, take a more nuanced view. Whatever the eventual answer, this is a question we should be trying to articulate.

2. What kind of public policies and laws will govern this new world? Law and public policy usually move a few steps “behind” reality, often to the frustration of those on the ground floor of big, social changes. There’s a reason why people have been frustrated with the endless congressional debates over the journalism shield law, and with the FTC hearingson journalism — we’re frustrated because, as far as we’re concerned (and as I noted above), we think we have it all figured out. But our government and legal system don’t work that way. Instead, they act as “consolidating institutions,” institutions that both ratify a social consensus that’s already been achieved and also tilt the playing field in one direction or another — towards incumbent newspapers, for example. So the FTC, the FCC, the Congress, the Supreme Court — all these bodies will eventually be weighing in on what they want this new journalistic world to look like. We should be paying attention to that conversation.

3. What kind of networks will emerge in this new media ecosystem? It’s a strong tenet amongst most journalism futurists that “the future of news is networked,” that the new media ecosystem will be the kind of collaborative, do-what-you-do-best-and-link-to-the-rest model most recently analyzed by the CUNY “New Business Models” project. But what if the future of news lies in networks of a different kind? What if the news networks we’re starting to see emerge are basically the surviving media companies (or big portals) diversifying and branding themselves locally? This is already going on with the Huffington Post local initiative, and we can see national newspapers like The New York Times trying out variations of this local strategy. A series of “local networks,” ultimately accountable to larger, centralized, branded organizations may not be what “networked news” theorists have in mind when they talk about networks, but it seems just as likely to happen as more “ecosystem-esque” approach.

4. What’s the future of journalism school? This one’s fairly self-explanatory. But as the profession it serves mutates, what’s in store for the venerable institution of j-school? Dave Winer thinks we might see the emergence of journalism school for all; Cody Brown thinks j-school might someday look like the MIT Center For Collective Intelligence. Either way, though, j-school probably won’t look like it does now. Even more profoundly, perhaps, the question of j-school’s future is inseparable from questions about the future of the university in general, which, much like the news and music industries, might be on the verge of its own massive shake-up.

5. Human beings, data, and “the algorithm.” This one fascinates me, and it seems more important every day. In a world of Demand Media, computational journalism, and AOL’s news production strategy, questions about the lines between quantitative, qualitative, and human journalism seem ever more pressing. If we are moving towards some kind of semantic web, what does that mean for the future of news? What role are programmers and developers playing? How will they interact with journalists? Is journalism about data, about narrative, or both? Is journalism moving from a liberal art to an information science? And so on.

These, as Anderson attests, are "big, big questions."  But we've been preparing ourselves to tackle them for a while now.  There are more than a handful of folks I trust to undertake this daunting task - in fact, some of them are well underway already.

The self-flagellator's monthly report

With no expectation that this post will garner many page views, I am nonetheless pleased to announce that I have finally completed the masochistic task I set myself, namely a re-reading of all the posts published on fledgling during the month of November, in hard copy and with red pen in hand.  And while during much of the time that I was conducting this review I felt like I'd rather be reading someone else's blog (I wonder what Dave Winer is up to?), it was an enlightening exercise nonetheless.

 
As I began this accounting, I kept the language of my TypePad profile as a frame of reference, and specifically its enumeration of my "interests":  "Blogging in all its manifestations, including Twitter; journalism; historiography; literary and cultural theory; history of aesthetics."  If this is the equivalent of an ad for my blog, I wanted to see (for one thing) whether the product was delivering on its promise.

In brief, then:  The total number of posts for November is 25.  An analysis of their predominant themes yielded the following:

Blogging (8 posts)

Twitter (7 posts)

Blogging and Twitter (2 posts)

Social media in general (1 post)

Breaking news/current events (3)

Print journalism (1)

Other (3)

For the most part, then, the content is in line with the terms of my profile.  What the numbers alone don't convey is that, as the month unfolded, more and more of the posts were devoted to blogging, even at the expense of micro-blogging.  This was unanticipated, since Twitter was my focus when I began the project.

The other matter that does not register in this number-crunch, but that has had an irrevocable impact on fledgling, is my signing on to posterous in late November, to embark on a companion blog, makurrah's posterous.  My hopes for that site are bound up with my hopes for this one, and I have already begun utilizing it as (among other things) a gloss or set of marginalia on this, the "macro" effort.

So my profile on posterous can serve as a gloss on my TypePad profile: "Practitioner and critic of micro-, macro- and meso-blogging.  Find me in Toronto, Grand Manan, Briland, @Makurrah...."