Blog Post 1: Everything is Micellaneous

Blog Post #1

I. Prologue
The prologue to Everything is Miscellaneous mainly discusses the way in which everything down to the way stores are laid out have to do with the way in which people expect to be able to find what they are looking for. It is interesting how much the internet and ability to shop online has effected the way products are directed towards us. They use iTunes as an example.

“Physical stores are laid out for a species that rarely has eyeballs more then six feet off the ground.” pg. 3 - How the hight layout of stores effects what we see when we are shopping aka walking down the aisles.

“Instead of having to be the same way for all people, it can instantly rearrange itself for each person and each person’s current task.” Pg. 6

I was in the Sprint store in Spokane this weekend when this chapter really sunk in. I was looking at the way the store was laid out and the fact that nothing in the store was really directed at children, so there weren’t any items at a lower level like the candy aisle would be arranged at a grocery store. The only things that were down low were the things that could potentially be knocked down. This could be a tactic to make parents stay in the store longer, or just layout.


II. Chapter 1

The New Order of Order (chapter 1) comments on the way things are laid out and archived now as apposed to the way they have been in the past. They include examples such as libraries, archives and the like.

“As soon as music went digital, we learned that the natural unit of music is the track... Apple captured more then 70 percent of the market.” pg. 9

“The problem with the first two orders of order go back to the fact that they arrange atoms...Now they have bits.” pg. 19

I am an avid user of iTunes, and have been for years. I often go online and buy one song versus an album which is what I would have done in the CD era. I also am able to look through millions of sources in the WSU library in a matter of seconds. In the past, such as in elementary school it would have taken me much longer using the card system that used to be in-place.

III. Chapter 2

This chapter discusses the three levels of order and how the first two arrange orders arrange things in “atoms” and the third in “bits”. This is a very interesting insight because atoms are unsustainable over time but bits are things that have a much lower chance of being lost or destroyed.

“...alphabetical order remains the very model of an arbitrary order. It tells us exactly nothing about the real relationships about things.” pg. 26

“Each and everything has its place, depending on how much spirit it contains, as opposed to mere matter.” pg.35

This chapter has a connection to my life in the sense that I remember when libraries were run by cards and the like. I have altered my way of thinking due to the new way of filing and looking up information. For example, when I need to find a short key for my macbook I can type in a full sentence and/or many other options to find what I am looking. The system of filing has turned in to millions if not millions of sub-categories that people have determined based on popular searches.