links for 2006-10-17

• Knowing More By Knowing Less (or, How Do You Learn?)
  We can now know more by knowing less…imagination and understanding of concepts create value in today’s world.
  - Learn to effectively use tools that allow you to forget.
  - Free your mind to understand concepts.
  - Leverage concepts against each other.
  (tags: memory learning)
• Homophily in Social Software
  “Homophily” is the phenomenon where birds of a feather flock together, which creates a tight circle of self-similar recommendations that support individual prejudices. Breaking out of this circle creates serendipity: pleasantly surprising the user.
  (tags: social software psychology)
• Prisoner of Redmond
  Why Paul Allen left Microsoft:
  “During one of the last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.”
  (tags: microsoft greed)
• Everybody’s an expert: Putting predictions to the test
  Experts suffer from knowing too much: the more facts one has, the more they can be enlisted in support of pet theories and more chains of causation can be found beguiling. Also, the future is seen to be indeterminate and the past as inevitable.
  (tags: predictions psychology)