Chapter 5 Textbook

      1. On p. 88 Weinberger writes that order often hides more than it reveals, which may be yet another reason why people prefer the search engine over the library catalog. What experiences have you had in which you discover something of interest through Google or a library OPAC while looking for something else?

      I participated in a parade as a saxophone player the other day. In order to learn how to march, I searched through Google how to march in a parade. Majority results were marching related to military. It was interesting to me because I did not relate marching in a parade to military; however, on the parade day, I saw many groups that were related to military. I realized searching through Google is like looking up a dictionary because people naturally get to see related items through the keywords.

      2. What do you think of Weinberger's statement on page 89 in the first full paragraph about how the way we organize information limits our vision and gives more power to those who control the organization of information than to those who create it?

      I agree with Weinberger’s statement. The first full paragraph on page 89 reminds me Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel by George Orwell. He writes "if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting."

       I think that the Party slogan is a great example of the technique of using false history to break down the psychological independence of its subjects. This alerts us that control of the past enables to control of the future. I believe that limiting information to people creates greater chances to control information as Weinberger stated.

      3. From your experience of working with Flickr or another web based photo archive for your second assignment, do you agree with Weinberger's statement "that the bigger the mess the more accurate is Flickr's analysis (p. 95)?

      Yes, I agree with Weinberger’s statement. When I was working, my teammates and I put many pictures in one shared file. Since it was a regular file and people named pictures differently, we could not find pictures we needed. What I like about Flickr is that it enables to sort and tag. I think these techniques help organize pictures and avoid a mess.