Humans, FTW!

… at least, for now.

Thanks to Gina’s post “We’re still better than robots” and Natalie’s response, I was pumped up to read Dr. Weinberger’s post on UIDs.  First, Dr. Weinberger’s writing style is right up my alley (here is a look at a recent blog post by him on Nemo, the man is hilarious). But more importantly, as we are learning about unique IDs and not snowstorms, he uses humor to make the ideas more accessible.

Things I can see clearly now  (the rain and/or fog is gone) include ISBNs (I always wondered why there were different ones for one book, like Hamlet, and the need for humans to still be involved in the creating of UIDs.  Computers are smart, but they aren’t able to discern which nuanced differences are important and which are unimportant.  For that you need to know your audience! 

As he is talking about UIDs, he talks about ThingLinks.org (which is now, .com)… this actually reminds me a lot of pinterest (see this fellow student’s blog post)… a community that wants to share information will find a way, even if it is not the most organized or controlled way.

Regards,

annie