Quotes

"Dialogue is mutual search for a new reality, not debate to win with stronger arguments. In a dialogue propositions are pointers toward a common new reality; not against each other to win a verbal battle, but complementing each other in an effort to accommodate legitimate goals of all parties, inspired by theories and values, and constructive-creative-concrete enough to become a causa finalis". Galtuung


"I use the concept of affect as away of talking about a margin of manouverability, the 'where we might be able to go' and 'what we might be able to do' in every present situation. I guess 'affect' is a word I use for 'hope': Massumi


"A discourse is a system of words, actions, rules, beliefs, and institutions that share common values. Particular discourses sustain particular worldviews. We might even think of a discourse as a worldview in action. Discourses tend to be invisible--taken for granted as part of the fabric of reality."Fairclough


Emergence is “the principle that entities exhibit properties which are meaningful only when attributed to the whole, not to its parts.” Checkland


"What the designer cares about is whether the user perceives that some action is possible (or in the case of perceived non-affordances, not possible)." Norman




Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Guttenberg: Mcluhan

McLuhan says in The Gutenberg Galaxy, "the most obvious character of print is repetition." Among its consequences, according to McLuhan, are:


  • Individualism


  • The scientific method


  • The sense of the universe as uniform and predictable (following Isaac Newton)


  • Linear reasoning (selon Descartes)


  • Industrialism


  • Fixed prices that allow global trade
All this is so essential and pervasive that it would never have been examined by anybody, but for an equally fundamental revolution taking place now with electronic media: the telegraph, the telephone, radio, phonograph, television, and (the medium to which the final chapter of McLuhan's Understanding Media is devoted) the digital computer.


...

McLuhan says that media cause the world to change just as relationships between our senses change. And digitization certainly fits the model.
Given open standards, easy scripting languages, and cheap, versatile devices, digitization could allow users a degree of control over content never before imaginable in history. Conversely, given welded-case devices and access controls, they could allow the owners of content a degree of control over users never before imaginable in history.
A closed, unprogrammable device fits McLuhan's most dire assessment of automation and its numbing effect. But once a hacker breaks open the device and reprograms it, he reclaims not only the device itself but all media with which it comes in contact. We have seen the potential of new media. Let us now reach out and grasp it.
Andy Oram is an editor for O'Reilly Media, specializing in Linux and free software books, and a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. His web site iswww.praxagora.com/andyo.


http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/07/08/platform.html?page=2
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