[-empyre-] introduction();

[ben syverson <ben@bensyverson.com>]

Hi,

I just thought I'd introduce myself and liken too. I'm bensyverson, one 
of the coreDevelopers of criticalartware, and the developer of liken. 
liken is a really cool system that we started talking about when 
criticalartware was first formed. We wanted discussions on our site to 
overlap, crossbreed and surprise people. About two years later, liken 
was ready to release.

There are so many ways to [talk/think] about liken that sometimes it's 
rather difficult to begin. It's an online forum, a special-interest 
encyclopedia, a [genetic/iterative] search engine, a repository of 
parallel subjective [his/her]stories, the broadest social networking 
site ever (since you can be friends with concepts, bits of information 
and "people"), and the world's best research database.

As ChristinaMcPhee() touched on, we are interested in connecting 
various existing discussions and mindsets to the current moment. At 
SFPCS, where we met Christina, there was one speaker who actually said, 
with absolute sincerity, "we have an amazing opportunity here to 
reinvent the wheel." criticalartware discussed it later, and our 
general conclusion was that we should *avoid* reinventing the wheel. We 
invoke cybernetics not to seem retro or ironic, but because we see that 
dialog as being amazingly relevant within the current context.

After all, if anything, liken is a giant responsive feedback loop. 
Looking at a global map of its nodes and connections, you can visually 
see the human/machine symbiosis:
http://www.criticalartware.net/lib/liken/interfaces/nodemap/index.php

I look forward to this month on empyre, and want to remind everyone 
that criticalartware plans to archive all posts this month to liken. If 
you register on liken with the [name/identity] you use on empyre, we'll 
be able to connect your empyre posts to your node on liken. That would 
be really cool, and would help keep the discussion going after our time 
on empyre has ended.

More about the history of liken can be found at the following address 
(liken registration required):
http://www.criticalartware.net/lib/liken/goto.php?id=332

- ben