Steven Johnson blogged, "This week's edition of the Times Book Review features an essay that I wrote about the research system I've used for the past few years: a tool for exploring the couple thousand notes and quotations that I've assembled over the past decade -- along with the text of finished essays and books. I suspect there will be a number of you curious about the technical details, so I've put together a little overview here, along with some specific observations. For starters, though, go read the essay and then come back once you've got an overview."

See the blog. Link to the NWT articles therein:

Just finishing up here in Singapore. It was a very successfull trip. I was able to finish everything that I came here to do. I was also able to see a lot of stuff. They have a favorite fruit here called Durian. I found out about it from the hotel. There was a sign that said, "No Durians Allowed!" At first I thought it was some sort of animal or something, so I thought "No monkey's allowed". I can understand that, but when I found out it was a fruit I knew I had to try one. The reason it is a banned substance in hotels is that it has a very distinct fragrance. Some people say it stinks, but to me it doesn't stink at all! Very good. I tried one at a fruit stand. They have Durian ice cream and Durian bubble tea, all very good. So what I want to know is why Durian's are banned, but very stinky perfumes are totally OK. I haven't heard of anyone allergic to Durians, but lots of people are alergic to perfume. Ah, the many contradictions of our society.

Well, I'm off to Singapore as part of my job with Matrikon. I will be debugging some communication problems that they are having there and doing some training on how to trackdown problems with OPC. I have never been to Singapore, so it will be entirely new. I will be back in Vancouver in a week for 2 days, and then I fly back to Edmonton.

I just installed Google Desktop and I'm very impressed:
http://desktop.google.com/

It immediately started indexing all of my files and I was able to search. It indexes my word docs, text files and my browser history. So it will actually search webpages that I recently viewed.

It bailed on me the first time because I didn't have 1GB of free space. They don't call it Google for nothing!

First caught this on the Invent-L list at UFL.

Transcript of an aricle from NYT with a good summary of Derrida's life:
http://www.lists.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind04&L=invent-l&F=&S=&P=26477

English:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3729844.stm
Francais:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3382,36-382445,0.html

Shirky has an excellent piece on why the Semantic Web doesn't work, or at least is overstated.

He describes the science of syllogisms and deductive reasoning is inappropriate for the non-mathematic or everyday use of languages. The system breaks down with the use of generalizations.

His arguments puts the idea to rest permanantly for me. I can already imagine the ways that the semantic web could be destroyed by spammers, not unlike the way google is being taken out right now.

I can see the idea of "frames" overcoming some of the problems that he talks about, however the Semantic Web is not Frames. You can deduct the result.

Finally, a real productivity tool: X1

What does X1 do?
"X1 is business productivity software that finds any content in email,
attachments, files and contacts on your Windows® PC.
With each keystroke, X1 lists and refines the results (and every keyword's
in a highlighted color). Just select a listed item, and its contents are
displayed instantaneously in the files' native format even if the
application's not on your machine. It's what makes X1 The Fastest Way to
Find What You're Looking For.

Free Trial Download

I love how bloggers find the information I want faster than I ever can. Blogs are restricted to hypertext, and perhaps images from time to time. What if you could subscribe to a playlist of daily news clips. A article from infoworld talks about the new trend in Broadcatching, a leap from the RSSification of text to the RSSification of audio/video.

What does this mean? It means big media won't control were I get my information. Well they don't anyways. But with this anyone can broadcast their selection of important a

Webcast on "The Present and Future of Work". Present are:

* Thomas W. Malone: Author of the book "The Future of Work"

* Ray Ozzie: Founder, Chairman and CEO of Groove Networks, creator of Lotus Notes.

* John Stenbit: "recently retired chief information officer and assistant
secretary for command, control, communication and intelligence for the
Defense Department."

* Chris Thomas: "considered one of Intel's visionaries. He drives the key
e-business marketing and architecture activities within Intel."

* John Parkinson: VP and CTO for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in the Americas

How does one miss something like this?

Don't suppose you can pick this up at blockbuster:

Derrida The Movie!
http://www.derridathemovie.com/