Tag: hive mind
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Whatever happened to… The Wisdom of Crowds?
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Andrew Orlowski
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Future social historians looking back at the web cult – which met in San Francisco this week for a $3,000-a-head “summit” – may wonder what made them tick. Scholars could do worse than examine their superstitions. We’ll bet that lurking on the bookshelf of almost every “delegate” was a copy of James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom…
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Management consultants on the march, powered by Junk Science
by
Andrew Orlowski
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AOL’s search logs: the ultimate “Database Of Intentions”
by
Andrew Orlowski
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AOL Labs prompted a weekend of hyperventilation in the ‘blogosphere’ by publishing the search queries from 650,000 users. This mini-scandal may yet prove valuable, however, as it reveals an intriguing psychological study of the boundaries of what is considered acceptable privacy. In his turgid book on Google – one so obsequious and unchallenging that Google…
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People more drunk at weekends, researchers discover
by
Andrew Orlowski
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It’s open season on Wikipedia these days. The project’s culture of hatred for experts and expertise has become the subject of widespread ridicule. Nick Carr christened it “the cult of the amateur”. But what has professional academia done for us lately? Here’s a study from the University of Amsterdam to ponder. New Scientist reports that…
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Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed … in 42 days
by
Andrew Orlowski
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In early 2003, the phrase “Second Superpower” became a popular way to refer to the street protests against the imminent invasion of Iraq. The metaphor had been used by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and on the cover of The Nation magazine. A small number of techno utopian webloggers hijacked the phrase. The narrower sense…
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The cost of an “Always On lifestyle”
by
Andrew Orlowski
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About a year ago, a man I’d never met before showed me pictures of a dramatic episode in his life. These showed him driving his wife to the hospital, where she was about to give birth. There were dozens and dozens of these pictures, and in each one his wife was looking progressively more grumpy.…