Via kottke.org comes this sad story: a German fighter pilot from WWII, now 88 years old, has just discovered that he killed Antoine de Saint Exupéry (who happened to be his favorite author) in the skies over southern France. — J
(0)Monthly Archive for March, 2008
Page 4 of 8
In Tropophilia‘s first guest post, Dan wrote about information saturation in our increasingly connected world:
Will we ever reach a point in which our desire for information, for advances in technology, science, medicine, etc. is quenched, where the demand weakens, and the bubble bursts? It seems that an ever-increasing demand for knowledge has fueled, since the beginning of time, most of our scientific and technological advances. And at the beginning, our needs necessitated these advances. But have we, or will we ever reach a point when our daily lives have no direct needs that can’t be satisfied by previously existing knowledge? What do we need to know now, that we didn’t know before, to help us be better humans or citizens?
Interesting questions indeed, and it seems that Dan hasn’t been the only one posing them. In his “Portals” column for the Wall Street Journal, Lee Gomes wrote last week about how human beings are more or less “wired” to consume endless amounts of information.
Gomes cites a study where researchers found “increased production of the brain’s pleasure-enhancing neurotransmitters called opioids” when test subjects were shown certain images. Those images were determined to contain more processable information than others, and so a correlation arose between the consumption of information and pleasure experienced by the brain. As lead researcher Dr. Irving Biederman put it:
When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those. You might call us ‘infovores.’
So it appears we crave information just like we crave food. But as Dan asked, doesn’t basic economic theory tell us that “every market can reach a point in which demand is decreased due to abundant availability”? Why doesn’t our demand for information decrease as the scarcity of information decreases?
Continue reading ‘Addicted to Information, or Wired For It?’
We’ve determined that the “ShareThis” feature was breaking the search and archive functions. We’ve disabled ShareThis for now, but we’ll have it up as soon as we resolve the compatibility issues. Thanks for your patience! — J
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It’s a pleasure for me to present a guest post submitted by Jarry Taylor, a partner with Maynard, Cooper & Gale PC — one of Alabama’s leading law firms located in scenic Birmingham. And… he’s my dad! Thanks to Jarry/Dad for contributing to Tropophilia!
The American Bar Association’s Litigation News reports on a recent phenomenon many of us law types have been talking about, namely the change in the way investigations are performed and how to get information about people involved in legal cases. Forget the old style gum shoe black cloak, long-lens photographer investigator (although they do still come in handy sometimes). We’re now talking about finding out all sorts of neat and interesting stuff from MySpace, Facebook and even Match.com.
Have a witness you’re about to depose in a case coming to trial next month? Worried you might not know all there is to know about him? Think you should fork out money for an investigator to dig up information about him? Nah, it’s all right there on the internet and in the social networking world where nothing is sacred.
“They” tell you to be careful what you post as a student because colleges, grad schools and employers will check out those crazy photos you thought it would be fun to share with your buds. But, those beyond those years or the witless still include information that, sometimes, can be very helpful to the inquiring lawyer on the other side of a case. Courts are now having to deal with evidentiary questions, and report decisions on whether such information is admissible in court or not. Even if it’s not substantive information relevant to your case, it can always go to the credibility of that witness.
“I solemly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Google.” Oh, and that applies to lawyers, too!
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