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Epic Redux

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Nick Thompson

Epic Redux

All,

I think this probably originally came to me from this list, but I found it so interesting, so HORRIFIC, that I thought it deserved another go. (Takes a few minutes to download).

http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/

did we ever discuss it? Or does it just seem par for the course to all of you.

I particularly would like to have Tom's view.

N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
[hidden email]
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
[hidden email]
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Russell Standish

Epic Redux

Interesting and classy presentation. To a certain extent these trends
are well underway in the scientific arena - I depend a lot on
technologies like arXiv, Comdig and email lists like Friam, everything
and complex-science to help manage and digest the torrent of
information being generated.

Epic sounds frightening by being a single point of news. How different
is that from watching the local commercial television news?

What is more interesting is if we each had personal control over the
news gathering agents - that I suspect is a better way of getting news
than relying overly on single news digests.

Cheers

On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 10:52:20AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> All,
>
> I think this probably originally came to me from this list, but I found it so interesting, so HORRIFIC, that I thought it deserved another go. (Takes a few minutes to download).
>
> http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/
>
> did we ever discuss it? Or does it just seem par for the course to all of you.
>
> I particularly would like to have Tom's view.
>
> N
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> [hidden email]
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> [hidden email]
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

--
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [hidden email]
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Johnson

Epic Redux

All:

Thanks for sending this "media history" link, Nick. Reportedly it's been
around for a couple months, but I and many of my journalism colleagues had
not seen it.

Though it is tongue in cheek, it is not far off the mark, especially in
terms of the decline of newspapers in the U.S. and Europe. (The developing
nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia are showing growing readership as
literacy and distribution infrastructure increase.) So we are caught in a
pincer movement: greater fragmentation of the media generates a decrease in
audience share for each sector and the players in those sectors; greater
demands on and alternative choices for an individual's time (long commutes
mean less time for reading, hence the disappearance of afternoon
newspapers); in trying to sell the physical product instead of its
intellectual content, i.e. "news", publications have reached for the lowest
common denominator to sell subscriptions. And that means that the news
media are losing relevance and respect, at least for thoughtful citizens.

All of these events -- along with changes in the U.S. tax laws 30-40 years
ago -- have led to greater concentration of ownership. Which brings us to a
complexity-related question, one especially appropriate for the Fourth of
July:

How many "nodes" of news media institutions/ownership is the minimum needed
to ensure sufficient diversity of data and views to fuel a robust democracy?

--tom

=============================================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism
http://www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646 (h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]

"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."
-John McCarthy, Stanford University mathematician
=============================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On
Behalf Of Russell Standish
Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2005 5:49 PM
To: [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Epic Redux

Interesting and classy presentation. To a certain extent these trends
are well underway in the scientific arena - I depend a lot on
technologies like arXiv, Comdig and email lists like Friam, everything
and complex-science to help manage and digest the torrent of
information being generated.

Epic sounds frightening by being a single point of news. How different
is that from watching the local commercial television news?

What is more interesting is if we each had personal control over the
news gathering agents - that I suspect is a better way of getting news
than relying overly on single news digests.

Cheers

On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 10:52:20AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> All,
>
> I think this probably originally came to me from this list, but I found it
so interesting, so HORRIFIC, that I thought it deserved another go. (Takes
a few minutes to download).
>
> http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/
>
> did we ever discuss it? Or does it just seem par for the course to all of
you.

>
> I particularly would like to have Tom's view.
>
> N
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> [hidden email]
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
> [hidden email]
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

Mikhail Gorelkin

Epic Redux

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

All,

If amazon.com learns to approximate accurately our odd likes and dislikes based on lists of our orders, it would means that

Matrix is evolving bigger and bigger:( Is it a stimuli for our evolution?

Mikhail

----- Original Message -----
From: Nicholas Thompson
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2005 12:52 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] Epic Redux

All,

I think this probably originally came to me from this list, but I found it so interesting, so HORRIFIC, that I thought it deserved another go. (Takes a few minutes to download).

http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/

did we ever discuss it? Or does it just seem par for the course to all of you.

I particularly would like to have Tom's view.

N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
[hidden email]
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
[hidden email]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org
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