I’d like to encourage you to read two things featuring David Weinberger. I’ve been meaning to post about his new book for some time, but just recently ran across his “Web 2.0” debate with Andrew Keen over at the WSJ Online, and if you care at all about this here Web thang, you really ought to go take it in. Not because it’ll educate and inform you (though it will) but because it’s good fun. I find the Net-centered life sufficiently fulfilling and self-supporting that I wouldn’t take the time to react to a provocateur like Keen, but it’s nice that David does so, while entertaining us.
Also, you should read David’s Everything is Miscellaneous. I finished it a couple weeks back and have been struggling for a review angle. You should see my copy, there are scribbled-on post-it notes sticking out on average every three pages or so, and some of the notes leak onto the page itself (Lauren objects to this and will be mad if she notices).
The problem is that my roots and David’s are too close, we’ve both been thinking about the same things in the same contexts for too many years, and so if I wrote a real review it would be nearly book-length and address his arguments at a level of detail that only an fellow-obsessive would appreciate.
So, I give up. It’s on an important subject. It’s beautifully written, full of humorous and graceful turns of phrase. It’s wrong about some things, there are baffling omissions, and one or two horses flogged into dog-food. But if you care about how one ought to go about organizing information (and given the increasing volume and centrality of the stuff, you ought to) go read Everything is Miscellaneous.
[Disclosure: I’ve known David since, uh, 1990 or so, and consider him a friend.]
