Alex Wright


See you in San Francisco?

June 27, 2007

If you're in the Bay Area and at loose ends Thursday evening (6/28), consider yourself invited to come hear me give a talk over at Adaptive Path (363 Brannan Street, between 2nd & 3rd). Happy hour starts at 6, followed by my talk at 7, followed by who knows what.

Here's the blurb:

Ancient Information Architecture
“Computer science is currently so successful,” wrote the philosopher Werner Kunzel, “that it has no use for its own history.” The technology industry’s relentless fixation on the future has led to a kind of collective historical amnesia, often blinding us to the rich history of information systems that preceded the digital age. In this presentation, writer and information architect Alex Wright will take us on a tour of the deep history of information systems, drawing on material from his recently published book Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages. From ancient folk taxonomies to Ice Age social networks, classical libraries to medieval memory palaces, Renaissance encyclopedias to early computer networks, people have spent tens of thousands of years developing strategies for coping with an ever-growing stream of data. Along the way, we will look for patterns of information-sharing that seem to recur throughout human history, examining the historical relationship between information technology and social change.
And some more details.


File under: Glut

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Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages

GLUT:
Mastering Information Through the Ages

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“A penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on the information age and its historical roots.”
—Los Angeles Times     

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