Re: [unrev-II] Moving beyond the web...

From: Jack Park (jackpark@verticalnet.com)
Date: Wed May 03 2000 - 17:09:40 PDT

  • Next message: Jack Park: "Re: [unrev-II] Thoughts"

    From: Jon Winters <winters@obscurasite.com>

    > On Wed, 3 May 2000, Jack Park wrote:
    >
    > > It is worth considering such a move. But, there should, in the case of a
    > > DKR, be a central repository to which all the scattered nodes synch
    > > periodically. Remember, we're not about sharing files; rather we are
    about
    > > sharing knowledge. Knowledge accretion is a community effort that
    cannot
    > > stop when somebody is offline for one reason or another.
    >
    > I'm not suggesting that there will not be some big powerhouse computer
    > that is always connected storing most or all of our data, I'm just
    > suggesting that it does this running the same software that all the little
    > guys use.
    >
    > The Guntella kids have some compelling arguments against the gigantic
    > single point of failure that would be the uberserver. (Yahoo being taken
    > down by a ping-flood attack for example)
    >
    > Its also far less expensive to do things Gnutella style. We're all
    > servers and data moves around where it is needed most!
    >
    > Jon
    >

    The thesis behind your statements is certainly valid. Indeed, our brains are
    highly distributed as Gnutella would be. But, our brains depend on constant
    connectivity, and your home computer and mine are not necessarily on-line
    24x7 as I presume the individual "nodes" in my brain to be (after a fashion,
    of course).

    So, to take a file-shuffling approach seriously (and I think we should look
    at it seriously), we ought to take a bigger picture view. Here's mine.

    I see this functionally like a neural net. I see a gui in which one
    examines some kind of log of actions related to selected "threads of
    thought". I see one responding to those actions, not unlike an email
    thread, but perhaps cleaner. Here's why. In the background, there is much
    processing going on (at each node), making sense of the actions. When that
    sense is made, it is rendered presentable. That way, we don't deal with all
    the verbage present in emails, but rather, get presentations (views
    constructed according to view preferences), and we react accordingly.
    Periodically, each node makes contact with other nodes -- perhaps those for
    which there is a thread subscription (wiring, in the neurophysiological
    sense), and the nodes synch up (an action). Also periodically, each node
    gets synched with the big bertha node "out there" that keeps all threads
    (where you go to subscribe to a thread).

    Bertha performs analogical discovery by crosslinking threads. Interestingly
    enough, some of this may be done out in local nodes when one is subscribed
    to more than one thread, or when one downloads a new thread for study. In
    the long run, all of this finds its way back to big Bertha.

    What fun. Not sure it's even close to what Doug has in mind, however.

    Cheers

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