Sunday, June 2, 2002

We all create lists, and nested lists (lists of lists). It is claimed that the earliest writing was used for lists. Dictionaries are lists. Directories are lists. Tables of contents are nested lists. Lists, nested or not, are the first and still most pervasive knowledge structuring technology. Dave Winer has a cool idea: what if search engines knew how to index outlines, which are a simple, effective way of managing nested lists? We get an instant way of finding and cross-referencing decentralized knowledge structures. Without needing to deal with the philosophical, cultural, economic, and technical obstacles to the Semantic Web (The new Loglan, or yet another utopian attempt to formalize language and knowledge). 3:40:42 PM

Dave Winer has some issues with Tom Friedman. To mix black and white further, Friedman today writes intelligently about one of Winer's recent concerns. [New York Times: Opinion] 1:44:23 PM