Issue 5
We are in the midst of trying to schedule the in-person retreat for SoP researchers, and are running into the usual challenges. It's interesting how hard it is to find a place and time that works for a group of 30 people from around the world, with issues of visa restrictions, conflicting commitments, competing events, and personal tastes. But it's also interesting to recall that just a hundred years ago, such gatherings would basically have been impossible to pull together this rapidly. And two hundred or three hundred years ago, would have constituted a major and risky adventure. Scheduling protocols continue to evolve. Today we use a mix of in-person and digital technologies to make far more complex forms of gathering possible, but there's still a lot of room for improvement.
Meet a Researcher - Drew Austin
Drew Austin is a writer whose work explores the relationship between technology, culture, and cities. His newsletter, Kneeling Bus, investigates the complicated relationship between physical and digital space, inquiring how those spaces evolve together and how they interact. Drew is trained as an urban planner and has spent his career looking for ways to make transportation better, including the design of protocols like ridesharing. He lives in Brooklyn.
How to start a dance party
Discoursed (Thoughts from the SoP server)
"According to Max Boisot's I-Space, private (secret) protocols will generate maximum value. Makes sense; hedge funds, freemasonry"
- John Grant
Three Links
Eliminating Grades - The education grading system meets its de-protocolization moment
How Complex Systems Fail - A treatise on the nature of failure
Big Ball of Mud - Why good programmers build messy systems