Friam

Separate Vacations This Summer

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Douglas Roberts-2

Separate Vacations This Summer

Dear FRIAMers (even those of you who are a bit of an asshole now & then)

I've come to the conclusion that it is best if we take separate vacations this summer. Accordingly, I have adjusted my incoming stream of email to skillfully detect any missives that originate from the FRIAM list, and have arranged things so that they proceed directly on to the archives without dallying around in my inbox.

Have a great summer V, and we'll pick things up again on the flip side. Or not!

--Doug

Doug Roberts
[hidden email]

http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile

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Nick Thompson

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

According to the Village Pragmatist, this is a defeat. We have to stick together at all cost.

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 7:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Separate Vacations This Summer

Dear FRIAMers (even those of you who are a bit of an asshole now & then)

Have a great summer V, and we'll pick things up again on the flip side. Or not!

--Doug

Doug Roberts
[hidden email]

http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile

Steve Smith

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

N -

According to the Village Pragmatist, this is a defeat. We have to stick together at all cost.

I trust Doug to stay out of trouble while vacationing on his own. He has practice.

And we do have to stick together at all costs, up to and including taking separate vacations now and again.

IMO auto-routing one's e-mail to Archive is more like a separation or time-out than a divorce (aka "unsubscribe"). I'm not sure if he plans to see other Mail lists during his vacation, he might be choosing mail-list celibacy for the moment.

I took a separate vacation this summer/fall (trip to Europe as well as to death's gate to deliver my father) and I suspect most of you barely noticed (well, maybe your mailbox wasn't quite as full for a bit there).

Besides, I've already promised Doug I would CC: him directly with any of my more philosophical musings so he won't feel left out ;^)

- S

N

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 7:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Separate Vacations This Summer

Dear FRIAMers (even those of you who are a bit of an asshole now & then)

I've come to the conclusion that it is best if we take separate vacations this summer. Accordingly, I have adjusted my incoming stream of email to skillfully detect any missives that originate from the FRIAM list, and have arranged things so that they proceed directly on to the archives without dallying around in my inbox.

Have a great summer V, and we'll pick things up again on the flip side. Or not!

--Doug

--

Doug Roberts
[hidden email]

http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Stephen Guerin

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

Doug,

Your quips will be missed in the interim. Make it a quick one. Get a tan, have some pina coladas and come back rested and ready.

-S

On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear FRIAMers (even those of you who are a bit of an asshole now & then)

I've come to the conclusion that it is best if we take separate vacations this summer. Accordingly, I have adjusted my incoming stream of email to skillfully detect any missives that originate from the FRIAM list, and have arranged things so that they proceed directly on to the archives without dallying around in my inbox.

Have a great summer V, and we'll pick things up again on the flip side. Or not!

--Doug

--
Doug Roberts
[hidden email]
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins

<a href="tel:505-455-7333" value="+15054557333" target="_blank">505-455-7333 - Office
<a href="tel:505-672-8213" value="+15056728213" target="_blank">505-672-8213 - Mobile

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Arlo Barnes

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

Get a tan, have some pina coladas and come back rested and ready.

rAmen. I subscribed to the Discuss list at about the same time as I subscribed to another list, that of the Aerican Empire (there is a strong sense of community there, and a lot of noisy signal). A year or so ago we had the most posts in a month of any month in the list's 15-year history, because of several controversial threads where many lurkers chimed in, and the list's frequent mailers had intense arguments (some very edifying, some ending in flame wars such that the Emperor had to put a moratorium on posts for a day or so to let people cool down). Although everything was quite interesting, it was somewhat tedious to read and very difficult after the initial stretch of conversation because the discussions had boiled themselves down to very specific topics, and members who had wanted to make a more general comment missed their chance.
Although recent events here have been a lot more amicable and mild by comparison, I felt a little like there was not much I could contribute to the threads that most interested me, which is not always a bad thing - for example, I was asked by name (among others) to comment on the tautology discussion a week or two ago, but I felt I did not know enough about the topic without some substantial research to add anything that had not already been said. It was OK, because the thread continued on to some fascinating areas. (For the record, I used 'tautology' because it had been used previously in the thread, not because I necessarily thought it was the best word for the definition I was thinking of. My knowledge about how I conceive of 'tautology' is currently limited to XKCD and the ensuing discussion [particularly here]).
The Aerican discussion simmered down because people got tired, stopped posting, and then started posting about more mundane stuff, which seemed to give some relief, an outlet for social interaction without obligation. Here I guess people agreed to disagree (Your Interpretation May Vary). So I wonder if [online] communities consistently tend to have cycles like this, and whether the nature of the autoredirection across groups is similar (for instance, in periodicity).
-Arlo James Barnes

Steve Smith

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

Arlo sed:

My knowledge about how I conceive of 'tautology' is currently limited to XKCD and the ensuing discussion [particularly here]).

I am rapidly becoming envious of a "generation" (there I said it) who will have the option of saying "everything I know, I learned from XKCD". I'm already guilty of imagining that "everything I know, I learned from Wikipedia". Wikipedia having it's own feeling of being self-generating.

I also appreciate the comparison made here between FRIAM and "the Aerican Empire", though I have no idea what said Empire might be other than a virtual/game world created by a combination of individual genius and the combined imagination of thousands of internet-mediated game play or storytelling.

- Steve

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Arlo Barnes

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

I am rapidly becoming envious of a "generation" (there I said it) who will have the option of saying "everything I know, I learned from XKCD". I'm already guilty of imagining that "everything I know, I learned from Wikipedia". Wikipedia having it's own feeling of being self-generating.

Well, it always feels convenient to obtain a consistent body of knowledge from a single source, but as we have (I think) discussed before, learning widely and in a varied manner gives you at least the best sense for how information flows through society, if not an education; and any monolithic source doubtless has it's roots in a similarly variegated assortment of origins. This is why teachers always tell you to read the sources on Wikipedia immediately after you have read the article, a rare piece of good advice seldom followed. Just today on the radio, I heard a story about an author finding the existence of a "women's" subcategory under the "novels" category without an accompanying "men's" subcategory sexist (a quick Google search turns up little because searches with 'Wikipedia' included turn up Wikipedia articles foremost).

Basing my judgement only on what I heard in the news report, it sounded like she was quite right about it being sexist, but her subsequent action, threatening to sue Wikipedia, confused me. Why not just reorganise the category and scold the editor who first organised it that way? Do people not understand where stuff on Wikipedia comes from? Perhaps this is another case of assuming a single origin when in fact the origins are myriad - all the editors and the notable external sources they cite. Though one could make the argument that the author was merely trying to create a wider awareness of how we act when constructing public information resources by bringing the attention of the world to a small case study, but in my opinion it sours the public perception of her issue with the situation as pedantic.

I also appreciate the comparison made here between FRIAM and "the Aerican Empire", though I have no idea what said Empire might be other than a virtual/game world created by a combination of individual genius and the combined imagination of thousands of internet-mediated game play or storytelling.

I should have linked it. The site explains it and here is the mailing list. I presume you didn't Google it, in which case you made a spot-on guess. Less roleplay than community discussion, though.
-Arlo James Barnes

Nick Thompson

Re: Separate Vacations This Summer

Arlo,

More grist for your mill:

There is a chess site called Tactics Trainer (at chess.com). It presents you with rated, timed tactics problems. You are rated on the basis of how quickly you solve the problems and how highly rated the problems are and the problems are rated on how quickly they are solved and the ratings of the people who solved them. No person is involved. Ok. So all of that is clear, and above board.

Now, each problem has a puzzle has a comment space, and people use it to boast or tear their hair, depending on how well they did. But, for almost every problem, there is somebody who comments – with a straight face – that a given problem’s rating “should” be higher or later.

People are desperate to believe that somebody is in charge.

Nick

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 10:54 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Separate Vacations This Summer

I am rapidly becoming envious of a "generation" (there I said it) who will have the option of saying "everything I know, I learned from XKCD". I'm already guilty of imagining that "everything I know, I learned from Wikipedia". Wikipedia having it's own feeling of being self-generating.

I also appreciate the comparison made here between FRIAM and "the Aerican Empire", though I have no idea what said Empire might be other than a virtual/game world created by a combination of individual genius and the combined imagination of thousands of internet-mediated game play or storytelling.