At long last and overdue, I’ve posted the Prologue and Chapter 1 as samples.

Yahoo has posted a video of my discussion with Bradley Horowitz at Yahoo on Thursday. It’s also available in an iPod compatible form.

(Note: I should have credited Neil Degrasse Tyson for the Titan example. I usually do.)

Kermit Snelson writes about it in terms of identity and power. He concludes: “I suspect that its reflections on identity vs. location contain deep insights into profound questions of jurisprudence, such as the conflict between identitarian and territorial forms of sovereignty.”

If it does, they’re Kermit’s insights, not mine. But that’s one of the best things about having a book published: In the hands of readers, it becomes more than it is.

Terry Heaton reviews Everything is Miscellaneous very favorably, especially in light of Terry’s interests in the media industry: “I believe this is one of the most important books of the new age, because it so rationally explains the seeming irrationality of the chaos when the audience takes part in the process of information retrieval. It’s also a pretty threatening book, if you make your living in the world of ordered information.”

I had the good fortune to have a long talk with Scott Rosenberg yesterday. Putting together two pieces of the book, he asked me how Eleanor Rosch’s prototype theory applies to the planets, since I’ve been pointing to the row over Pluto as an illustration of our ancient desire to think there is a “real” order of the universe.

I stumbled around for an answer. I think now maybe the right answer is that we take one of the “normal” planets as our prototype — Jupiter is too big, Venus is too hot, Saturn has fancy-dancy rings — and use that as our idea of what a “real” planet should be like. We therefore want to call similar objects circling the Sun planets, in which case we’d end up with about 900 of them (according to one scientist I talked with). But, we also don’t want to have that many because we’ve been taught that planets aren’t a type so much as a particular set. Sort of like the Kennedy clan: No matter how much you make your hair look like JFK’s, even if your initials are JFK – are you listening, John F. Kerry? – you are not a member of  the Kennedy clan.

Which is to say that prototype theory isn’t the only theory we need. We sometimes need precise, Aristotelian definitions, as when we have to decide whether a boat trailer needs a vehicle license plate or not. And sometimes we have groups the membership of which is not governed by prototypicality.

Tom Matrullo lists some sites that do conversions not of the usual sort. (He even links this to the miscellanizing of information.) E.g., dollars into barrels of crude, and CO2 emissions to air flight info.

I really enjoyed the bloggers Everything Is Miscellaneous get-together last night. About 30 people showed up at the very-inviting Yahoo Brickhouse offices. Some were friends, some were bloggers I read, some were people I was meeting for the first time.

After about an hour of everyone hanging around, Mary Hodder (founder of Dabble and the party’s co-host, along with Salim Ismail), dinged a bottle and I talked for about ten minutes. Since everyone there already had a copy of the book — we gave them away — I said I would tell them the non-marketing explanation of what the book is about: It’s an argument against Aristotle. That is, it’s an argument against the idea that there is a single, right order of the world, and that that order is defined by clear definitions. After I’d gone on for a while, someone (sorry, I’m bad at names) asked what really motivated me. Very helpful question. I said that the Aristotelian assumptions, combined with the limitations of paper-based knowledge, lead to authority over knowledge being placed in the hands of a few. The few tend to be highly qualified and often selfless, but it still is a power regime. Although I didn’t say this last night, that’s why I am so enamored of the idea that fundamentally the Internet is ours. In fact, another way to say what the book is about would be: Everything Is Miscellaneous is about meaning becoming ours.

Anyway, I had a wonderful time. I only wish I could have gone out to dinner last night with some of the folks, but I had to be in bed by 9:30 so I could get up for a string of radio interviews starting at 3:30am. All part of the glamor of a book tour. Yeah, that and the stomach flu. [Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous aristotle blogs]

Dave Rogers writes his impressions based on reading a few sentences in a bookstore. interesting approach. He dislikes it, starting with the title.

And I mean that in the best sense. He is enthusiastic about the book, but finds lots to disagree with, pointing at omissions and places where I’m skating on ice that I haven’t let harden yet. Too much to chew on, at the moment, though, since I’m heading for a plane. But I’ll be back to re-read Frank’s review more than once.

Weblogg-ed writes about the book from the point of view of an educator, disappointed that there isn’t more in the book on that topic. There’s a useful discussion in the comments…