Sorting things out - classification and its consequences

Our lives are henged round with systems of classification, limned by standard formats, prescriptions, and objects. Enter a modern home and you are surrounded by standards and categories spanning the color of paint on the walls and in the fabric of the furniture, the types of wires strung to appliances, the codes in the building permits allowing the kitchen sink to be properly plumbed and the walls to be adequately fireproofed. Ignore these forms at your peril � as a building owner, be sued by irate tenants; as an inspector, risk malpractice suits denying your proper application of the ideal to the case at hand; as a parent, risk toxic paint threatening your children.

To classify is human. Not all classifications take formal shape or are standardized in commercial and bureaucratic products. We all spend large parts of our days doing classification work, often tacitly, and make up and use a range of ad hoc classifications in order to do so. We sort dirty dishes from clean, white laundry from colorfast, important email to be answered from e-junk.

Finner anledning att läsa om denna pärla. Slår mig i eftermiddag att digitalisering är att mappa något analogt till diskreta kategorier. Alltså är denna bok (https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gbowker/classification/) helt applicerbar 15+ år efter sin utgivning, när det är 'bra' att digitalisera allt.
Peter Nõu @dkmj