Miscellaneous Thoughts About Weinberger

As I am sitting here, the power goes off in the library. But I continue to work. Why? Because my internet connection is still live and the screen lights my fingers. I can’t see the book, true, but I can still explore what I want to write about. And I can still surf the net. That is a Faden, a string in German. A connection.


One of my favorite websites is Overheard in New York. It’s a place where New Yorkers go to post conversations that they overhear while in the city. It’s mostly shocking and outrageous, but also so funny in a wry, sad sense. And all I get is a little snippet. The good in me wants to believe that those people are really kind and loving and are rehearsing for a Broadway production or talking about something they overhead someone else say. But the site is one of those that you can’t help but look, and read. My husband doesn’t get it—he thinks the things posted on there are just sad commentary on the status of depraved human culture. But to me, it’s like looking in the medicine cabinet of some completely random stranger. These snippets of conversation (if accurately recorded, which is a whole nother Faden) are my way to see into some key, true aspect of their minds.  Here’s an example:

...So You Probably Shouldn't Insult Kuwait That Way.
Woman, gesturing angrily at new subway map: Did you see this? Look at this color! It looks like Kuwait! When I draw maps that's the color I use for desert wasteland!


Bystander: Well, it is Queens...

--1 Train; 
Overheard by: Rose Fox

To me, that’s the draw of the net. It’s nice that it’s being used commercially to make me buy books that I maybe didn’t want or need, and it’s also quite helpful if many Faden are able to connect the more important information that researchers and other bastions of society use to make their work more complete and productive. But it seems more valuable to me that I often make personal connections on the web with other like-minded people, which gives me a feeling of security and a sense of place. I am not alone in my randomly weird thoughts. I recently posted on my Facebook account for my friends to “sing” with me, one line per person, and I started the Faden:“I like mine with lettuce and tomato.” By noon, I had the song posted through the chorus by various friends. But, I was in a mood and I tossed it out there into the nexus of the internet. And before long, I was happy.

So what does this have to do with Weinberger? Well, honestly, the book is a few years old now, and many of the things that he’s talking about are no longer new concepts. But, commerce drives the advancement of many things, and it seems to be what is driving most of the miscellaneous development on the web. Google will now personalize your Google news page based on what you have been interested in the past. And if you don’t want a certain section, one quick click and it goes away.

Perhaps this all seems so un-new because we have finally made our computer experience sync more with the way our brains really work. For example, if I am driving down the street and I see a black Ford Ranger pickup, that makes me think of the car that my husband drove when he was in PA school. That leads me to think of PA school, which leads me to friends that we may not have heard from in a while, which makes me ask him how so-and-so is doing. And my husband may have seen the same black Ford Ranger and that truck led him down a similar path. If it did, then the question doesn’t seem misplaced in the context of our conversation. If he missed the pickup, he may ask me why I was thinking about that. I tell him, and relay the jumps that my mind made in getting to the question. So not only did the truck launch an inquiry into the status of one of our friends, it also potentially led to the disclosure of the metadata behind the question.