<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>Well I can certainly identify with the Yochai Benkler quote (picked almost at random):</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">"Information overload.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">A basic problem created when everyone can speak is that there will be too many</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">statements, or too much information. Too many observations and too many points</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">of view make the problem of sifting through them extremely difficult, leading</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">to an unmanageable din. This overall concern, a variant of the Babel objection,</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">underlies three more specific arguments: that money will end up dominating</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">anyway, that there will be fragmentation of discourse, and that fragmentation</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">of discourse will lead to its polarization." (p.233)</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">I guess the reference is to information in general on the Internet and elsewhere. Perhaps there is a third outcome evident in the particularities of certain informational contexts: a rise in information managerialism. I see this in my own institution, where there is a move to parcel everything into "information resources," "learning objects" and tag it with meta-data. The interesting area is the negotiation and agonistics in the space between the move to hyper-organise and the quest for the freely-formed. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Anyway, I'm Richard Coyne. I hope I'm following the instructions correctly. I research and teach in digital media and architecture. I'm currently trying to catch up on research into the human voice and space. I like thinking about Serres' observation: "Noise is the basic element of the software of all our logic, or it is to the logos what matter used to be to form. Noise is the background of information, the material of that form." <FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Serres, Michel. 1995. Genesis. Trans. G. James, and J. Nielson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, p.7.</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>- Richard</DIV><DIV>---------------------------------------------------------------------------</DIV><DIV>Richard Coyne </DIV><DIV>(Room 4.07) </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(Second Office: Graduate School, Alison House, Nicolson Square)</DIV><DIV>Architecture</DIV><DIV>School of Arts, Culture and Environment</DIV><DIV>The University of Edinburgh</DIV><DIV>Professor of Architectural Computing</DIV><DIV>20 Chambers Street EH1 1JZ Scotland</DIV><DIV>Tel: +44 131 650 2332; Fax: +44 131 650 8019; Mobile: 07968 728447</DIV><DIV>email: <A href="mailto:Richard.Coyne@ed.ac.uk">Richard.Coyne@ed.ac.uk</A></DIV><DIV>Department Home Page: <A href="http://www.architecture.ed.ac.uk">http://www.architecture.ed.ac.uk</A>/</DIV><DIV>Personal Home Page: <A href="http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/richard/">http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/richard/</A></DIV><DIV>MSc in Design and Digital Media: <A href="http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/postgradstudy/">http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/postgradstudy/</A></DIV><DIV>MSc by Research in Digital Media and Culture: <A href="http://ddm.caad.ed.ac.uk/research/">http://ddm.caad.ed.ac.uk/research/</A></DIV><DIV></DIV><DIV>MSc Work in Progress page: <A href="http://ddm.caad.ed.ac.uk">http://ddm.caad.ed.ac.uk</A>/</DIV><DIV>Non-Place project site: <A href="http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/NonPlace/">http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/NonPlace/</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>