Speaking of networks, here’s a way into network theory – a few videos from Clay Shirky that make a good introduction: Ten Truths About Social… Read More »Scrapbook: Clay Shirky, Niall Ferguson – a spot of network theory
Interface A discipline, culture or scene is a network: a mesh of people, things, ideas and ways of doing things. It might be tightly defined,… Read More »Ways in: ravelling the network
The network effect is powerful, and a source of tremendous value, and we need to understand how it works. Networks depend on standardisation – a… Read More »The trampoline: networks, standards and freedom
One telephone – in the whole world – is useless. Who would you call? The more telephones there are – and especially the more telephones… Read More »Network opportunities
This image we know and love – the classic ukiyo-e woodblock print, as Japanese as Tsunamis and Mount Fuji, one of the launchpads of Japonisme,… Read More »New Wave: the Hybrid Hokusai
Highlights from Cowen and Roberts’ recent conversation on Econtalk. On reading for love Cowen: …don’t read stuff you don’t love reading. That’s the simplest point… Read More »Love and Clusters: (more from) Tyler Cowen and Russ Roberts on Reading and How to Read
CX. There are, moreover, some inventions which render it probable that men may pass and hurry over the most noble discoveries which lie immediately before… Read More »Technology (22): Francis Bacon on Combinatorial Innovation, the Big Three Technologies of the Renaissance, and Pure Science
The Uncertain Paternity of Invention The father of invention must be laziness … or play.* 10 magic points if you already knew that the world’s… Read More »Innovation at Play: Webcam 1.0
This is an extract from a much longer article by Dan Wang. His point about the learning-doing feedback loop applies to just about everything, of… Read More »Technology (21): Dan Wang on Technology as Process and Learning by Doing
Two long quotations on a theme I’ve been mulling over for the last few weeks. We value excellence and equality (moral equality for sure, and… Read More »Elites: Oligarchy, Aristocracy, Decline and Fall