[thelist] What's causing a psychological block?

[rudy]

> Where am I going wrong? What psychological block is stopping people
> playing around with the box? Or, is the whole concept so boring that
> nobody bothers to see how it works?

it's probably the latter, although "boring" isn't the right word


i got this far:

     What are stigmergic systems?

     Stigmergic systems combine information technology
     with stigmergy and other ingenious computing structures
     found in nature - to create self-organizing Web sites and low
     cost knowledge management systems.


maybe that makes sense to you but it says absolutely nothing to me


no offence to you personally, but i find that sites that talk about
"information" and "knowledge" seem to have a really hard time explaining
themselves and getting ideas across in simple ways

"information technology" is a buzzword which might conjur up an idea in your
mind, but odds are good that the next person has a totally different
understanding

"knowledge management" is a crock if ever there was one (see brint.com, a
wonderful site that i first visited in 1996)

here's another excerpt:

        Organic, self-organizing systems are not products that
        can be packaged up and sold as ready-to-use applications.
        They have to be grown from a seed.

at this point, i'm thinking maybe a kempelen box is like a large egg carton
with little compartments of peat moss

so, you see, you have a communication problem

seriously, if i had to guess, i'd say a kempelen box was forum software like
vbulletin or fusetalk

and i'm not interested, so i'm gone


rudy