[Inquiry] Re: Arisbe -> Inquiry

[Jon Awbrey]

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elijah wright wrote:
> 
> started this quite a while ago, and forgot to finish and send it:
> 
> > Subject: Arisbe -> Inquiry
> >
> > EW = Elijah Wright
> > JA = Jon Awbrey
> >
> > JA: Mind still fuzzy/flexible on the collab idea, just the notion that it
> >     would involve something a little bit more like "working together" on a
> >     common concern or toward a common goal, and something a little bit less
> >     like combat.
> >
> > EW: more thoughts/details would probably be good ;)
> >
> > they never learn ...
> 
> of course not.  my task in life is to provoke those around me into action.
> (i consider this a good thing, one that is generally very useful ;) )

be careful.
for every provocation,
there is an opposite
and irrevocable
revocation.

> > EW: it might be a good idea to start a new space here, rather than trying
> >     to layer it onto the top of the Arisbe list.  I can make a new list
> >     rather quickly, if you let me know what you want to call it.  ...
> >     and am happy to do so.
> >
> > JA: Hmmm, the word "inquiry" comes to mind ...
> >
> > EW: list created.
> >
> > EW: http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/inquiry
> >
> > wow!  thanks!  and so nifty, too!
> > i've already unblanked the slate.
> 
> i noticed.  was greatly entertained by the "how will i answer this
> question" post sent to a list called, "inquiry".  very recursive.

it's an oldie but a goodie.

> > EW: what sort of collaboratory experiments do you have in mind?
> >
> > JA: Pretty open, I guess.  Jack Park had a nice idea with his
> >     Nexist project, and I put a half-year's work into that,
> >     but after a while the database system just couldn't
> >     handle the load, complexity, connectivity,
> >     or something, we never could figure.
> >
> > EW: i have some loose familiarity with jack park's stuff ...
> >     fairly interesting.
> >
> > yes, he's onto version 2+ last i heard,
> > but the idea of retyping the text and
> > rebuilding the structure i had before --
> > brrr! -- so he was supposed to let me
> > know when he got a good export package
> > up and running ...
> 
> can he dump his database out so that i can re-import it and then do useful
> things with it?  (is he working in SQL these days or what?  or is it still
> wiki-text?  if he can just give me a dump of the whole directory, i might
> be able to suck it into some other system.  it would probably break all
> the links, sadly...)

i hope to hear more pretty soon.  incidentally, this whole business of
maintaining a complex linkage system in portable form is one of those
things that i began addressing in my theme-one program way.bak when.
i called it "content addressable relative memory access" (carma),
or "graphically abstract structure" (gas), and this came up again
when jack started to talk about building desktop modules that you
would then have to keep coordinated with each other and with the
master/mirror copies.  it's really just virtual copies, or even
more archtypical, the theory of manifolds all over again.
we are yet to finish that conversation/story.

> > EW: episodically -> narrative, at least for me.
> >     or maybe i'm just inured in that tradition.
> >
> > yes, chunking and storytelling, stepwise e-laboration by any other name ...
> 
> e-labor-ation ;)
> 
> > EW: tools to support narrative would be fairly interesting to
> > investigate. especially across very complicated problem domains.
> > (like peirce :) )
> >
> > i used to lurk a lot on ohs & unrev & various satellite sites of engelbart's planet,
> > where people are always talking about the fancy new tools that they have in the works,
> > but it has always been a bit hard for me to see the transition from talk to action ---
> > though i know that it always happens, eventually --- still, i have grown impatient ...
> 
> a couple of my fellow students here (chris dent and kathryn labarre)
> were working on integrating 'purple numbers' into mailing list archives
> through post-email annotation by the participants.  i seem to recall that
> this had something to do with collaboratively developed systems for faceted
> classification (or something similar), though i confess to not seeing how ;)
> [i don't understand - not that there's anything wrong with their work ;) ]

yes, i remember their names.  i gather that jack's notion of
"addressable information resource" (air) is in that ballpark.

> > where was i?
> >
> > idea 1, was to try and develop a working "theory of inquiry" further.
> > this is what i'm supposed to be doing in my dissertation, and i still
> > have some slim hope left of making that more understandable and viable.
> 
> i think that this is a Hard project, but one that is probably worthwhile.
> 
> > idea 2, that i had started up at the nexist work site, if you know anybody
> > who is up for a transport from pascal to a web-footed language, would be
> > to documnet and develop the ideas in my "theme one" program.
> > i may try that again soon.
> 
> i need to read it.  (the nexist site, i mean...)

that's dormitive right now ---

http://www.nexist.org/wiki/

yup, it's still sleeping ...
but he says any day now  ...

i have been looking at my wordpad files and
trying to think about how i might recreate
something with this archive system that
might be analogous to the "glossarium"
that i built before at the nexist site.
the big catch is the lack of ability
to edit stuff after you have sent it,
and so that demands more think-ahead
than i am accustomed to muster up.

i can send raw source code and exe
if you want to play around with it.

jon

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