Chapter 5:

This chapter has two main topics: tagging and knowledge. Weinberger talks about the revolutionary concept of tagging particularly through del.ici.ous which tags web pages for sharing. Tagging shows the vastly different way of organization in the third order of order. The author uses the example of trees, branches, and leaves once again, but this time he says that digitally, an item can have many places, or leaves. Thus, the concept of tagging. Wikipedia is one of the greatest example of tagging, due to any user being able to add an html link into a page. This can move the user from place to place in a manner completely different from alphabetical order.

The next section of chapter 5 discusses the concept of knowledge. Previously, there have been four concepts of knowledge: That there is just one reality, knowledge is not ambiguous, no one person can comprehend knowledge, and experts achieve their position through working their way up through social institutions. The new knowledge has four very different concepts: filter on the way out, not in, or the changes blogging has done to publishing; put a leave on as many branches as possible, or tag as many items as possible so they show up on different search terms; everything is metadata and everything can be a label, or how labels can exceed the information itself, so to better find something label it extensively; and finally, give up control, or letting users divide information themselves. These four concepts are greatly different from the original concepts of knowledge and exemplify the miscellaneous.

Quotes:

“Likewise, in classification systems, an overstuffed miscellaneous category can be a sign that the system isn’t using all the relevant information” p. 87.

“These physical limitations on how we have organized information have not only limited our vision, they have also given the people who control the organization of information more power than those who create the information” p. 89

“Classifications make strange bedfellows” p. 90.

“Together these links constitute a web of knowledge, communally constructed, ever shifting, and frequently extraordinarily useful” p. 100.

Examples:

Even though one of the main examples of this chapter was Wikipedia, I still thought about this concept the most, particularly about how many professors hate Wikipedia and think it’s an awful source of information. The concepts of the miscellaneous seem to contradict this way of thinking immensely.
I also thought about how Twitter has exemplified the concept of ‘flagging’ and creating tags. This book was originally published in 2007, so maybe it was before Twitter became known.

Chapter 6:
This chapter seems to focus on how the miscellaneous is organized and categorized. It begins with a discussion of bar codes, which revolutionized grocery stores in the 1970s. They allowed for more efficiency and easy identification of the ‘miscellaneous’ items on the world. The bar code has now moved to a new technology – the RFID tag. These tags become the third order of order because they can hold so much more information than a bar code can.
The next section focuses on three main concepts. The 2-pronged strategy for going miscellaneous: include and postpone, and essentialism. The first concept is based in science because while everything is included, some information is postponed simply because there isn’t an agreement or consensus on it. Essentialism is the idea that everything is defined by clear and knowable traits that make it into what it is.
The chapter continues with books, particularly with a book ISBN. This is connected in many places from libraries to Amazon. The ISBN is a universal code that can be used in a variety of places. Finally, the chapter ends with a look at the potential future, with Microsoft’s AURA project. This project focuses on people being able to take a picture of a bar code and then get information from it via the internet that goes far beyond what the bar code’s information initially has.

Quotes
“And that’s a problem, because as the world becomes more miscellaneous, if we can’t pin something down, we can’t coalesce information around it” p 117.

“People keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable, and sequential when they can’t” p. 125.

Examples
This chapter did not really inspire me to think of examples that weren’t already mentioned. I used to work in a grocery store as a checker, so it did make me think of how much easier my job is because of the invention of bar codes. I thought of RFID tags in clothing, particularly the ones with the ink in them to prevent stealing.

Blog Post #1

Prologue: This chapter is about an introduction to physical and digital organization. It begins with the example of Staple’s prototype lab, and how products are arranged. The lab is physical, and therefore is based on atoms – this makes space very limited in terms of shelving, store layout, and labeling of items. The people who work there study how customers wayfind. This is very important to study due to the limited physical space of the store.

The Staple’s prototype lab is then compared to the digital world. The organization of the store and the organization of information digitally can be very fundamentally different. This is because atoms no longer limit how items can be organized. This brings the author to the main concept of the book – that everything is miscellaneous.

Quotes: “Physical objects can be in only one spot at any one time” p. 5

“ As we invent new principles of organization that make sense in a world of knowledge free from physical constraints, information doesn’t just want to be free. It wants to be miscellaneous . p. 7

Examples: This chapter made me think about the organization of shelves in stores – often the most expensive items are eye-level. I also thought about the price tags on items – Not too much information, but not too little either.

Chapter 1: This chapter seems to describe the battle between the world of physical organization and the world of digital organization. It mentions the Library of Congress’s strenuous organization tactics and the Bettmann Archive’s organization of photos. From there it goes into the three orders of order – First: Organizing the things themselves, Second: Information about the objects themselves, and Third: The Digital organization where atoms are no object. The third order is the most important concept because it is a completely different way of organization. Corbis’s collection of digital images is an example of the third order of order. However, it is not the best example because it is still professionals making the organizational judgments for us.

Quotes: “The digital world thereby allows us to transcend the most fundamental rule of ordering the real world: Instead of everything having its place, it’s better if things can get assigned multiple places simultaneously.” P. 14

“The third order removes the limitations we’ve assumed were inevitable in how we organize information” p. 19.

Examples: This chapters emphasis on photos made my think of my own “My Pictures” folder on my computer. I have mine organized into folders by event e.g. New Years 2009, camping trip. I thought about how the camera assigns a completely ambigious name to the photo (DCM00101). Weinberger seemed very annoyed with this, but since my computer can assign that number a thumbnail it doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t feel inclined to tag all the photos like on flickr. I wonder if this is more ‘second order’ or ‘third order.’

Chapter 2: This chapter spends the majority discussing the use of alphabetization to classify items. In the beginning of the chapter Weinberger discusses Charles Luthy, who wholly disagrees with the use of the alphabet as a way of organization. He felt that the order of letters was not natural and therefore tried to come up with an alphabet that was more natural. The main argument I saw against alphabetization was in the example with AAAAA Towing. They got to be put in the phonebook first because they ‘duped’ the system. Other than that, I had trouble drawing the problems with alphabetization. Honestly, I found this chapter rather annoying. Moving on: A guy named Mortimer Adler decided he hated the concept of alphabetization so much that he spent a large amount of time pissing off the rest of the board of Encyclopedia Britannica and trying to make them change their organizational structure. He essentially failed, but did manage to harass the board into allowing him to create the Propaedia, which organized by topic. The chapter then mentions the ‘joints of nature’ which is essentially the natural division of topics – they use the delightful topic of butchering an animal as an example. After this the chapter gets all theological with the ‘perfect order’ of things. “God left no holes in his organization.” Next, Weinberger reminds me of how the International Astronomical Union decided to kill Pluto as a planet in 2006. While it makes sense to have a classification system for planets, I didn’t like being reminded of the death of Pluto. The chapter ends with a discussion of the periodic table, and how there was a big battle over the charting of properties. In my opinion, while there were many different organizations of the periodic table mentioned, I think Moseley’s table works just fine: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Quotes: “The great joke is, of course, that Adler’s projects already feel hopelessly outdated. From the selection of the Great Books to the 102 Great Ideas to the confident way the Propaedia divides and links topics, it all seems so clearly rooted in one man’s vision of knowledge” p. 30-31.

“In the third order of order, though, ideas come unglued, Adler’s learned way of organizing the great books is of value, but other scholars shelve them differently, as may anyone who enters a bookstore to browse” p. 31.

Examples: This chapter made me think of the different ways information is organized physically and digitally. I think alphabetization works just find for some things like phone books, even if someone can ‘dupe’ the system most don’t. However this chapter made me notice how different digital organization is. For example, Amazon.com does not have topics organized from A to Z, instead they have topics and this is much more efficient for their retail purpose.

First Post

ZOMG.