Osprey - 7-9-2011 at 10:08 AM
“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
Wiki Notes
About 25 years ago my wife and I took a nice open Jeep trip down the blue highways and dirt roads and Jeep trails around the Four Corners area of
western U.S. At the visitor’s center in Monument Valley I spent some time checking out the audio diorama – the geologic display took up one whole wall
of the huge center. As I walked from one exhibit to the next my head was spinning, overwhelmed by the many changes in the landscape over the last few
million years.
I pulled the park up on Wiki encyclopedia on my computer yesterday and learned there that the place was once an ancient seabed, was thrust up to be a
plateau over millions of years, then wind and water eroded, wore down the landscape over millions more years leaving only the magnificent buttes.
Wiki left out all the beginnings and in-betweens on the diorama. That’s the way we like our information now – direct, to the point.
Now we are used to filtering the Too Much Information we get bogged down in; we have remotes to help us jump right over stuff we deem superfluous. At
an art museum most of us want to see famous paintings by famous artists – for most of us that’s not the venue for 20 minute bios of the artists that
one must sit through to view the work. Now we want things clear, uncluttered – we want info, then the payoff, period.
I guess I’m saying there are a google more of googles, billions more history notes inside Wiki. Google calls the something more Google Scholar and
perhaps one day that part may become important for the recklessly curious. When I research for a story I want to go back a ways on the story setting,
see if there’s anything noteworthy about the place because of its history. I don’t get to meet many new people down here in this little Mexican
village so when a newcomer arrives I let my filters down, invite them to open up.
That brings me to the dating thing – what’s going on at the Meet Markets on the internet? If one client interacts with another what’s the process
like? If Sally H from Escondido, 27, blond, loves to surf tells the guy she once went to Burning Man but stayed 2 ½ months sampling the sexual skills
and thrills of attendees who chose to be hangers-on should he have filtered that out, changed the subject to hiking and The Sierra Club?
With an eye to the future maybe we will find more value in prefiltered info. Maybe dating sites (and their clients) could boast “NO PAST OVER 30
DAYS”. I’m thinking WikiNotes and googleweek.
I’m thinking “Esther, if you have known for almost a year that your brother and his whole platoon will muster out of the Army at the same time and
they’re coming to stay with us, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, Mr. smarty pants, you said you didn’t need to know all about my past, what came before. You said now is what’s important. Remember?”