This is a podcast I recorded for Talis’ Nodalities series of talks. Because Facebook has recently made announcements about moving in a Semantic Web direction, I spoke with their Senior Open Programs Manager, David Recordon, about Facebook’s perspectives on many of the technologies they’re beginning to use. We ended up discussing Social Networking as a graph—that is: a network of related things. We also spoke about the Open Graph Protocol they’ve worked on and touched on privacy and walled gardens.

As you listen to the podcast, you can have a look at the source code for my site. (Just don’t run any validators on it and complain about what a poor developer I am: I already know ). In the head, you’ll notice a few lines of metadata that are discussed in the podcast:

<meta property="og:title" content="Blogging Perspective" />
<meta property="og:type" content="blog" />
<meta property="og:email" content="contact@zachbeauvais.com" />
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.zachbeauvais.com" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Zach Beauvais' home on the web: his perspective, images and ideas." />

For more information, you can also read the Nodalities Magazine article I wrote about Facebook’s announcements.

The Open Graph Protocol page has information about the protocol itself. Facebook’s f8 developers’ conference site also has links with more information for developers.

Many thanks to David Recordon for having this conversation with me for Nodalities, and to my employer Talis, who has made this podcast available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3 license.

Here are a few shots taken from around the place I grew up in Colorado. It’s been a long time since I lived here, but I have never forgotten just how arid and stark it can be. There is a beauty here, but it’s a harsh, unrelenting beauty. The plants are tortured and frail or designed to torture others. As are the animals. Behind everything is the backdrop of the mountains, from where our hope comes (here, in the form of water).

I hope you enjoy.

Following my post about using the iPad recently, I’ve spent some time using more of the content-focused apps. As I mentioned before, the iPad has turned out to be a great device for consuming, reading and just experiencing media. This has obvious benefits for video, and many of the examples I’ve seen have made use of multi-media and show off the screen. But I tend to read a lot. I tend to read news from content publishers (BBC, Guardian, Gizmodo) and blogs.

One of the first apps I downloaded was Stephen Fry’s “FryPaper” app. It’s basically Stephen Fry’s blog manifested as an iPad app, and it’s one of the most exciting things I’ve seen. This isn’t because it’s swish, flash, or gimmicky. Indeed, it is none of those things. It simply provides the content from Stephen’s blog in a format that is very, very easy to read on the iPad. It seems to focus on simple design, and that’s it. It’s got a very limited set of features, all of which I’ve used—like using the sharing feature to tweet or email links to individual articles.

So, why is this so exciting?

Because it’s a glimpse of the future of well-published stories. It’s a snapshot of a time when anyone can buy/download an app for a single blog, and get all this content beautifully laid out.

So, I contacted Stephen’s FryPaper person, Andrew Sampson of SamFry about building FryPaper.

Here is that quick interview:

Zach: Why make an app for a blog? What does the iPad bring to the table that a browser doesn’t?

Andrew: Stephenfry.com’s blog is a very popular website in its own right. We wanted to offer that content in a newspaper format, for free on the iPad. We wanted to show how you could strip back other contend and concentrate on what was popular. Less is more, was our rule. It was a good first stepping stone for our company to develop an iPad App on our own.

Zach: What did you have to consider in designing it?

Andrew: We considered that the iPad is a new device and that whilst newspapers and magazines are glamouring for it, many would argue that a user interface is yet to be defined. We went for the most elegant and simple user interface we could develop. We also wanted to make sharing it easy. I might add that I don’t see how magazines and papers will be able to sustain the large multimedia elements of their initial iPad offerings. It’s brilliant that they did but it cost them a fortune to produce the content, let alone the app itself.

Zach: Any major challenges or hurdles?

Andrew: Cost. We were very lucky to find a Canadian firm that presented their credentials and production pipeline from the beginning. We’ve had many false starts on app development in the last year, primarily because of cost. Marco Tabini and his team became SamFry’s partners for FryPaper.

We were also lucky to secure the sponsorship of G-Technology by Hitachi. This was the first time we’ve ever had another company believe in what we were doing. They showed extraordinary faith and trust in us, even to the degree of letting us design the sponsorship placements within the app. It only adds up to two ads but boy, it’s allowed us to fund the FryPaper for iPhone, which is due out in the next few weeks.

Zach: From your experience, is there any advice you’d give to someone wanting to build a similar content-focused app?

Andrew: Be confident in the depth of your content. Stephen, Nicole, our graphic designer and I, have a strong focus on design. We think content and the user interface synergy is the single most important aspect in delivering electronic content. It harks back to our traditional theatrical beginnings.

Zach: Thank you Andrew!

Image taken from stephenfry.com.

Two weeks ago, I counted myself one among the hoards of silly sods who queued early in the morning for the chance to see, touch and indeed buy the much-hyped iPad. My justification for this lameness is that the next day, I was scheduled to fly out for a week-long conference and wanted to try the new device in that context. Talis, my employer, has purchased a few now, but I was the only fool to queue for one. No doubt this is something the support team continues to find justifiably humorous.

Standing in the line and being offered croissants, coffee and advice by brightly T-shirted and strangely too-good-looking Apple staff, my expectations were mixed. As I’ve tweeted before ever actually seeing an iPad, I’m not entirely convinced by the form: the tablet layout and touch screen. It looks slightly awkward to hold, and even that huge keyboard doesn’t look particularly useful for anything beyond quick notes. A screen that big that you’re supposed to touch pretty well continuously will surely be begrimed very quickly. I kept trying to work out what the iPad would be for. Does it replace the laptop for most things? Does it replace the TV, the book, the bedside lamp? (In fact, the thing it’s most usefully and utterly replaced is the shaving mirror, but more on that below.) The fact that it needs the now hugely-inflated iTunes to sync and run, and the fact that it’s running iPhone OS are both factors I’ve been unhappily anticipating for a few months.

But I was exceedingly interested in trying it out, in seeing the way the designs are different, and the way content feels when it’s not part of a computer. The idea of holding a page in your hands, and flicking through images, text and ideas does appeal enormously. Also, the power behind the device, the clear display and proven track-history of innovation piqued my curiosity to see how clever developers will put them to use.

So, with all these factors swirling around in my mind, and the desire for my not having to take a stack of printed books, papers and PDF files with me overseas, I looked into the Kindle and a few other e-readers. The Kindle is expensive, virtually impossible to justify given the multi-purpose nature of the iPad. Even if it proved to be a poor overall experience, the iPad would at least allow me to do everything the Kindle does, plus check email, twitter, blog and browse the whole web of content for only a little more money. The Kindle’s main advantage in the market, however, is access to far more books and resources than any other. So, with the announcement of the Kindle for iPad app, and my boss’s suggestion I pick up an iPad to test for Talis, I found myself among 50 or so pony-tailed die-hards and chirpy Apple Geniuses waiting for my chance to be kitted out with the most lusted-for piece of kit since the last Apple device.

Below are the notes I sent to the Sysadmin team after two weeks of use.

The iPad has been a very interesting thing to use, with it’s novel form-factor and innovative UI (though it’s like nothing more than a big iPhone…). It’s a brilliant device for consuming information, so long as one is indoors. I’ve been very happy to read whole academic papers and about 1/4 of a novel so far on it, and for that alone, it’s been a useful tool for travelling and research. Also, it’s more interactive than the iPhone for email/twitter and, surprisingly, colloquy [IRC client].

So, for being exceedingly portable and present at conferences, it’s been great. Also, because the battery life is actually up to scratch, you don’t have to join the fray of geeks fighting over the single power strip in an undignified yet necessary battle in the corner of any given keynote presentation.

It’s got some strong shortcomings which have proven annoying, however.

While it’s great for consuming, it’s cumbersome and slow for producing. It’s OK for taking quick notes, and perfect for tweeting/short emails, but I wouldn’t want to write a whole blog post on it. (I got the bluetooth keyboard and WordPress app, which together work a treat, but require you to drag around an external keyboard).

It fails in even the tiniest bit of sunlight. So, on Crete [where I was for a week at the ESWC conference], it made a fantastic shaving mirror.

I think there may be some potential for RSI, too, if one types for any extended period of time on it. I touch-type, meaning that I end up resting my fingers on the screen, printing many ffffffffffffffffff’s and llllllllllllllll’s and needing to tap the backspace again and again.

Finally, as a team device, I’m not sure how useful they’d be. So far, the majority of the benefit this has made has been through personalising it a lot. So, if I wanted to share a quick photo with folk, I need to sync it with my photos. If I wanted to blog, I’d need to sync with flickr or similar to have a ready supply of licensed images to use. Likewise with reading (Dropbox, Kindle and Goodreader) all need to know who I am and what I want to read. Same with video, Keynote etc… Unless Talis made them into extremely corporate-oriented devices (which would suck, methinks) and filled them all with Talis-only designs, images, videos and generic slides, they’re pretty person-specific.

So, after just under two weeks of use, I’d say it’s great for travel (I’m looking forward to having it on the 14hr flight to and from San Francisco in a couple weeks, for example), and it’s great for reading (Kindle App, GoodReader and Dropbox). I could see, with additional apps, it being an interesting device for sharing information to a small group. As another colleague pointed out, as a presenting tool for a large audience, it fails at a few hurdles. Firstly, the Keynote app that is so fantastic to use on OS X is woefully lacking on the iPad. Any presentations imported from the Mac lose fonts and transitions (even if they’re possible to re-create in the iPad itself!), and the presenter’s screen doesn’t display next slide and presenters notes. It lacks all the things that make Keynote so great to use. The VGA tie-in means it’s even more awkward to hold, so you’re left leaning it against the lectern in exactly the place your laptop would have been. The form factor is exceedingly social, however, so showing a bunch of select slides at a table, or having a shared mini-whiteboard could be cool.

It’s made much, much better with the bluetooth keyboard, and I couldn’t imagine using it without the Apple cover (which props it up in a variety of ways, and makes it less slipperyf). Some key apps are: sketchbookpro (for white-boarding), Kindle, Goodreader, Dropbox, Colloquy and the twitterrific twitter client.

I couldn’t see it replacing a laptop at any time soon, and if it weren’t for the vast amount of reading I tend to do, I probably wouldn’t feel particularly comfortable with Talis buying this one for my sole use. As it is, I’m happy to use this one for the trip over to the States, and it is growing on me the more I use it for reading and consuming information on.

I hope, as has been said, that version 2 will be more useful, and that OS4 will be a lot more useful even before then.

|This is based on a post which appeared on formspring.me/zbeauvais

I think the instinct—for lack of a better word—that draws people to act religiously can also affect people with no official religion. While there may be no organised creed, there is organisation in a sort of tribal way. This may be in some way related to a culture of the tribe. It’s the same thing that allows me to identify the tribes of midwestern Christians from America by their handshake, clothing, and sociolect. It’s the instinct that makes people buy into a group mentality like Apple fanboys, football supporters, and wine snobs.

I believe there to be a culture developing around Dawkins and Hitchens and others. There are events like Godless and books like An Atheist’s guide to Christmas which are somewhat organising, I suppose. Also, given the list of people who have contributed (among whom are many people I admire) I would be surprised if they don’t make compelling, interesting and probably very funny reading. But I think the compelling and funny part of the atheist culture is not part of being fundamentally against others’ beliefs, or against God or “a god”. I think the idea of “antitheism” is a far less compelling mindset. I don’t like the idea that one sets their belief and rhetoric as an antithesis.

A possibly relevant illustration would be to look at this in terms of other antithesis positions, like political rhetoric based entirely on the principle of “not being them.” It makes your position one relative to the existence, status, and nature of your opposition, which I think is at least silly and at most dangerous. If I were to consider myself to be an “antiTory,” then I am simply diametrically opposed to the ideas of a party over which I have forfeited any constructive influence. What then for instance, if they do something I agree with? Being convinced for yourself that there is no god is different from setting yourself against the whole notion as the basis of your beliefs.

I don’t think all people who disbelieve in God are “fundamentalist atheists.” I don’t equate a person’s belief and perspective with religiosity. What I do think is that people can religiously follow a group or concept. The word fundamentalist itself is difficult to work with. It’s something that is understood to be positive by people I wouldn’t always think of as fundamentally fundamentalist themselves. For some, the idea of being fundamental is to be true to an idea, and this is not a bad thing in itself. I can fundamentally believe it is best to to act selflessly, to edify others, and this would clearly not be negative.

But I think the word has been used commonly to refer to a kind of self-subsumation into the tribe, culture and ideology of a group. News reports of “fundamentalist terrorists,” which is probably unhelpful, but the word seems to convey a meaning that is useful sometimes, when talking about individuals who surrender their own perspectives to the tribe.

So, in a similar way to how I think of fundamentalist religious people, I would probably consider a “fundamentalist atheist” to be one who believes strongly that there is no god. One who believes that he is in a superior position for believing this way, and that those who believe otherwise are in some sense inferior (pagan, heathen, barbaric perhaps?). And, it would be a person for whom atheism fills a sociological need to belong to a tribe more than it fills the answer to a personal question about the meaning(s) of life.

I fully understand the desire to break free from religious thinking and teaching, and the need to feel unconstrained by a tribal group. I also understand the social desire to feel looked after, cherished and loved and affirmed by being part of something bigger than myself. These tensions are difficult to balance, and I think people find their own ways to do so. I think the balance shifting uncontrollably toward seeking the approval or support of a social group organised around a set of ideas (teaching, creed, reasoning, books and the rest) can only lead to a loss of one’s own, unique perspective. It’s a loss to the world.

For the past few months, I’ve been a member of the Shropshire Community flickr group, where a bunch of friendly photo-folk share pics and tips via the excellent networking features on flickr. Saturday, I was privileged to join them for the first time in person as twenty or so of us took a photo-romp around the Long Mynd and Church Stretton.

Below are a few of the photos I took on the day, and I apologise in advance for the number of buttercups: the sun was just so bright they lit right up.

I don’t believe in it. I don’t know what I think about the afterlife entirely—it’s not something I feel I can know; but everything I have experienced, read and encountered leads me to believe that it’s the end of (at least) communication.

I don’t believe mediums can communicate with the dead, nor that they can receive information from those who have died. I tend to think of them as either showpeople or charlatans, and feel something beyond skepticism. I think it can be dangerous to make such claims, because it plays on the vulnerable and particularly on vulnerable topics. The loss of someone we know is one of our life-story’s saddest parts, and grief often overwhelms judgement: leaving us open to suggestion and trickery.

I think the claim is either nonsensical or despicable, and the people who make it are either vulnerable themselves or preying upon the credulous for control or money.

Clearly, the point, is for people who are negatively affected by caffeine to be able to enjoy the taste of coffee or tea.

Decaffeination leaches much of the flavour from tea or coffee, though, leaving it tasting washed out and watery. Decaff tea, to me, tastes papery and flat. Decaff coffee loses many of the higher and lower notes to the flavour, and ends up tasting somewhat bandwidth-limited. (That is, acids and sugars which, to me, taste high and low are reduced, leaving some general “coffee” flavours, but without much in the way of nuance.)

The temptation, with decaff coffee, is to brew it longer or with more grounds. This might help with the feeling of weakness or watery characteristics, but it also gives it an overextracted flavour, leaving it bitter and harsh.

To me, there is not much point. I don’t want to drink overextracted, watery coffee or papery tea, so if I don’t want caffeine, I tend not to drink either.

I’m not entirely sure I understand the question. It’s pretty broad.

I think the US has things that make it what it is, some of them good, many poor; but a direct one-for-one swap would not—from my perspective—necessarily bring the benefits they might have in the US. There is, for example, a culture of respect for teachers in the US which I would have liked to have experienced here. Students, still, feel the need to listen to and obey teachers.

However, the things about the society which make this possible are myriad, confusing and far from straightforward. A general respect for authority does, seemingly, exist to a greater extent in the US. But the respect can also manifest as fear, as of police. I instinctively felt fearful around police officers in my home town, probably because I was stopped many times as a teenager for no offense. This has not happened since I moved to the UK, and the culture here seems to be one of the police (generally) respecting citizens.

This, however manifests itself in a state which imposes itself in different, less obvious ways, and a culture in education of active disrespect from students of teachers.

These are gross generalisations, but I think my most basic answer is that the differences are complex, and a simple move from one to the other couldn’t work.

Oh, except coffee… there is generally better coffee available in the US. Though, US influence has given some roasters here a good foundation for great beans too.

I’m not sure how to frame a response to this one…

I’ve lived in the UK for all but a few months of my voting-eligible life, and this is not the first general election I’ve been present for. I remember watching the Swing-o-meter and wrapping my head around marginal constituencies, door-to-door canvassing, and the implied outcome of an apathetic society turning out to be a surprisingly well-informed populous. So I’m not sure how foreign I feel, really.

I’d like to think I think of this election as anyone with an education and interest in the future would.

But what DO I think of this election?

I think that the parties are too strong. I watched my first Parliamentary reading a couple weeks ago, as the Digital Economy Bill became the Digital Economy Act through a process of washup and rush toward as this government hurridly tied off it’s loose ends. It was the first time I delved into the Whip system, and surprised myself by how incredibly simple it is: vote the way the party agreed, or your club membership will be revoked (along with your parking permit and gym membership, I like to imagine.) I was appalled that the Members of Parliament, elected to represent the best interests of their constituents, were simply corralled to put up their hands at the right minute, then sauntered off again to continue canvassing. I knew this kind of behaviour existed (I’ve seen Yes, Minister), but I wasn’t aware just how BAD and SHABBY the whole process appears.

There are three clubs, all fighting a terrifyingly expensive popularity contest: all struggling to appear the most like someone You and I might want to be friends with. None seems to realise, of course, that You and Me are different, have widely divergent lives, tastes and perspectives; and that none has a chance in hell of appealing completely to both You and Me, so they split the vast differences by trying to appear as least like someone both of us might hate. The result being very little substantial discusion of policy and potential consequences of slightly-different political machines, with the focus going instead to well-rehearsed catchphrases.

Individual MP’s are discouraged from standing out, and indeed, probably don’t want to for fear of coming under intense pressure from their Whip, the tabloid press or Jeremy Paxman. This is illustrated by the fact that my local MP, a Mr. Phillip Dunne (Conservative), replied to my concerned letter with one which was identical to one sent out to a friend from a different constituency. Indeed, his letter expressing his concern and the evils of a future Labour government was a replica—verbatum—of one sent to many others across the country. Writing to your MP is like asking for a copy of a printed policy list.

None of the parties seems to exist in the present world. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that someone might, for example, Google a few lines from their heartfelt letter to find thousands of results showing the same words coming back to them; because the Labour MP’s did exactly the same thing. It’s all a reflection of committees to which we’re not invited.

The parties seem to be driven by a somewhat shadowy aristocracy, and the well-connected and powerful of the world are as present here as they are in other “democracies”: Murdoch, Mandelson, and other kingmakers. But I think the real problem is that we’re all asked to choose between three closed-door groups.

We could perhaps make a difference to the future of the country by joining one of these groups, I suppose. I guess if enough “normal” people were to be well-enough qualified to raise informed objections, and listen to the other sides of problems; we might, slowly etch our own individual influence into the fabric of our particular club. But we won’t, mostly. Because we’re already occupied with the choices we’ve made, and we don’t feel particularly drawn to a life of defending our view under ever-increasing scrutiny. The clubs attract the clubby, so we shouldn’t be surprised that most politicians appear similar. They’re a self-selected population of like-minded or like-skilled individuals, and the outcome is a similar-seeming facade.

That sounds extremely cynical, like it doesn’t matter what we do. I don’t believe that’s true, but I do believe that the system’s various checks, balances and inertias prevent us from impacting it very heavily.

Maybe this heavy machinery is a good thing. Maybe they stop radicalisation and the “balance” may be some sort of stabiliser?

So, I’m not sure WHAT to think about this election. Judging from the conversations I’ve had with colleagues and friends, and from the perspectives on programmes, I’m guessing that’s not a particularly foreign state of mind, either.

Blogging Perspective Podcast

Today, I spoke with Jeremy Torz from Union Hand-Roasted Coffee, and recorded part of our conversation as a podcast. I am interested in ways people can get the most out of the pleasurable experience that is coffee, without being daunted by anything hugely technical, expensive or difficult to operate. I asked Jeremy about normal people wanting to learn a bit more about the coffee they drink.

I also recorded this in the presence of Jeremy’s lovely (but whiny) German Shorthaired Pointer Casper, so the jangling and occasional whine are nothing to do with me or Jeremy.

So, let me know what you think of the service, the podcast and the coffee you’re going to try.

I hope you enjoy.

I don’t see history as linearly-progressive. I believe we learn much from our past, and value history. Our story is an accumulation of our thoughts, our lives and our predecessors’ ways of living: and it contains many, many truths. We don’t always learn from the past, and often forget what used to be known. There have been many darker periods in our stories when we acted foolishly despite the “progress” of generations. So, I do not see any thought as “outmoded,” especially in the context of its time. That’s not to say I don’t think some things should change (we SHOULD learn from our past), and so learn to treat women as equals—a lesson we still have not learned—to be careful with our resources, and to test practices to see which ring true (i.e. homeopathic remedies).

Nor do I see the Enlightenment period as anything that was a total disregard of religious thought. I am not an expert, and most of my historical interest lies further back (I love reading/learning about Anglo-Saxon England, for example), so I’m probably not very well qualified to answer your question. But that period is full of beautiful writing and interesting ways of thinking (such as existentialism). Some even embraced traditional stories and truths (Søren Kierkegaard, for example). So, different ways of thinking took a precedent over past, but no total divorce occurred.

I have a difficult time with the tone of this question, I must confess. It feels superior, as if we (or he/she for having asked it) is so much better than our predecessors. We’ve conquered religion! We don’t need to “cling to outmoded ways”.

It sounds hubristic.

We live in a world where we are slowly destroying our own climate through greed and disregard. We, in the past 100 years, have amassed more than enough destructive power to obliterate the surface of our planet. We fight open-ended wars with remote-controlled devices and fill our minds with thoughts of fear, and death, and destruction. We are less egalitarian than many civilisations from our past: looking back at the Saxons, who—even owning slaves—seem somehow less politically crippled than we seem to be now. We watch gladiatorial displays in which losers are humiliated and scorned and winners enthroned, for a short time, in our media and consciousnesses. We grow enough food to feed the planet and more, yet people starve, and the difference between the world’s richest and poorest seems bigger than at any time in our story. And, for the first time in decades, we are leaving our children with fewer years to live than ourselves.

I’m afraid I don’t see this current reality as superior to all that’s past, and I don’t rush to disregard something because it is not currently fashionable.

I hope that we do learn, and that we learn to dismantle the structures of religion which allow terrible things to happen behind sacredly-closed doors. And I hope power people wield through controlling thoughts and feelings as with religious dogma lessens.

But I do cling to many ways of thinking. I don’t think the world would be better without faith. Without the embodiment of Love, nor the teachings of selfless giving I learned as a kid.

No, I haven’t mistaken, though I do wish whoever you are had read my response in its entirety. I did not say that atheism *is* a religion, I said that atheists “can be religious themselves.”

I don’t really want to get into an impassioned, anonymous argument about atheism and deism. I feel the world confirms my rational belief in design and benign order. I believe that selfless love is a better way to live than pseudo-altruistic opportunity, and that God exists. I don’t call all atheists evil, nor do I think their belief system inferior to mine. I disagree with it, and I have experienced a God of Love greater than my own doubt (which is often the greatest thing in my own life).

I do, however, think that there is a religion of atheism. To me, religion is evident whenever people flock to an order (and hierarchy, perhaps) to be exclusive. They tend to disparage others. The implied insult—that I, as a believer in God am superstitious—in the question makes me wonder whether the questioner may have religious tendencies him/herself.

I don’t know, sounds like a clinical trial might be in order?

I’m uncomfortable with the idea of religion, and that discomfort is growing into something akin to distrust.

I sort of see “religion” as a way to organise faith and belief into a structure. Traditionally, this structure has been a default in many cultures—because the organised belief and faith were heavily integrated into the social structures too. In the West, this tradition has become eroded. I don’t see this as bad in itself. It may prove to be hugely good, because it makes a person’s faith their own responsibility and maybe allows for a stronger connection with Love. Religion can get in the way of faith, and in the way of Love, especially if the structure of the religion is particularly authoritarian or the ideas closely controlled.

I do believe in a loving, creative God, and I follo the teachings of Jesus, but I’m uncomfortable with the structures and manifestations of “religion”. The way I see it, I think, is that if God is infinite and also benign (Loving), then those who want to Love, and those who question will ultimately find Love somehow. Religion might limit this questioning, and limit our own understanding of Love.

That’t not to say I don’t see truth in religious teaching, or that I am a complete non-traditionalist (my instinct is to embrace tradition, though my conscious thought is conflicted where I don’t see the truth in a tradition). Some traditions are good, or contain good or are useful or are beautiful. I think the ones which are narrative rather than proscriptive are most close to Love, at least for me.

So, I might surprise you by saying perhaps a religious person can hide behind an institutionalised version of the truth to justify not thinking for themselves?

Oh, I also think many athiests can be “religious” themselves, by the way. If the profound belief that nothing beyond their potential state of empirical knowledge becomes a structure, then it resembles nothing more than religious thought-laziness. So, be athiest, be religious, but don’t hide behind either. Be you, and I pray you find Love.

I was recently asked a very interesting question via formspring. An anonymous person asked me:

I think the ability to “filter” — to absorb information from many sources and produce a useful result, quickly — is what really defines the “digital native.” Your thoughts?

Below is my response. I’d be interested in what you think.

Interesting…

Ok, so this idea is pretty loaded: it’s full of meaning. “digital native” is a phrase which is semantically rich, and possibly not very precise. It sounds like the kind of topic which could have an entire book’s worth of words written to describe the meanings.

I’ll take one crack at it, though, by using a subject I better understand: linguistics.

In linguistics, we talk about different kinds of language users. Generally, there are native users and non-native, with many exceptions and all sorts of complications when you start looking into the ethnography of the topic. But, essentially, native language users absorb a language through their childhood (the ability to “acquire” language in this way seems to disappear around puberty), and they develop a fluency in it. Many linguists believe that this also shapes their thought patterns—i.e.: a native of English *thinks* in English in some way. Most at least agree that there is also cultural acquisition of some nature too. It’s all context.

Now, if I don’t speak a language and I want to learn, I can learn through what many linguists call “competencies”. The idea is, very basically, that people think and learn in different ways, so develop different tactics. So, some might have a natural tendency to learn words, grammatical forms and therefore develop strategies which allow them to learn vocabulary. Others use a communicative competency, and learn by trying to communicate rather than learn a form and learn basically through trial and error. (It’s closely tied with personality: some people are happy to make mistakes verbally, others are more happy to learn on their own etc…).

I’m going this circuitous route, because I think the way someone learns a non-native language might be a helpful metaphor for the way people work with trends with which they’re unfamiliar. So, in this metaphor, a “digital native” will have the natural acquisition and competencies which come from existing in an online (I assume that’s at least part of what you mean by “digital, by the way) world. They’re used to many sources, ubiquitous connection, visual information on any topic instantly, multi-media content and hardware that’s actually quite complex to use. The thing is, to a native, it’s not a very conscious thing. Someone born into an interconnected world would be more frustrated with NOT being able to find out about anything, about not having some form of connection to information and by being unable to understand their hardware. Filtering information is less of a conscious act and more of a subconscious process. They live in a very full world, so they have already developed ways to work with all this information.

You might see more clearly the idea of native and non-native through different competencies, and perhaps whether the way someone thinks and frames their conscious efforts are affected by the presence of connection. Does a “digital native” think to try terribly hard to remember someone’s phone number, working out some sort of pneumonic or rhythm to memorise it? Or would they only have to if their connection were severed?

So, this is a long road to one context in which filtering might be a part of the competency of a “digital native”. I don’t, however, think it’s definitive; any more than saying someone who can pronounce the “th” sound is therefore defined as a “Native of English”. There are myriad concepts which are begged to be explored in the idea of being a native anything: context, competencies, aspirations, metaphorical constructs etc etc etc. But, I think the idea that someone born into a community which has lots of information will develop a certain fluency in dealing with it. They might think differently, or simply have had the tools in their “hands” for longer—moving from conscious cerebral thought about information to more subconscious, automatic use of digital tools. Filtering, in this construct, is a competency—a skillset and general tendency of a digital world. Natives would be better, non-natives would have to learn by comparing with their own skills and adapting.

But, I think the phrase “digital native” could be too full of loosely-encoded meaning to be very precise, or even useful without a wider, shared understanding of what you mean by it.