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jschoen

Wired 13.08: We Are the Web - 0 views

www.wired.com/...tech_pr.html

shared by jschoen on 02 Mar 08 - Snapshot
  • supercomputers in part to advance us in that direction. He now believes the
    first real AI will emerge not in a stand-alone supercomputer like IBM's proposed
    23-teraflop Blue Brain, but in the vast digital tangle of the global Machine.
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      This scares me.
  • At its heart was a new kind of participation that has since developed into an emerging culture based on sharing. And the ways of participating unleashed by hyperlinks are creating a new type of thinking - part human and part machine - found nowhere else on the planet or in history.
  • Amish Web sites?
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      I used to think we could make fun of the Amish and they would never find out about it.
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • "The network is the computer."
  • It's on.
  • The human brain has no department full of programming cells that configure the mind. Rather, brain cells program themselves simply by being used. Likewise, our questions program the Machine to answer questions. We think we are merely wasting time when we surf mindlessly or blog an item, but each time we click a link we strengthen a node somewhere in the Web OS, thereby programming the Machine by using it.
  • it is the plausibility of the impossible
  • IPO
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 05 Mar 08
       
      What is an IPO? Just an appositive with the whole words for the acronym would be so helpful!
  • But that was just the beginning! Scribbling on index cards, he sketched out
    complicated notions of transferring authorship back to creators and tracking
    payments as readers hopped along networks of documents, what he called the
    docuverse.
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      Sounds like "Six Degrees of Separation," the technology version. I wonder if he's ever played the Kevin Bacon game?
  • Before the Netscape browser illuminated the Web, the Internet did not exist for
    most people
  • The revolution launched by Netscape's IPO was only marginally about hypertext
    and human knowledge. #6
    At its heart was a
    new kind of participation that has since developed into an emerging culture
    based on sharing. And the ways of participating unleashed by hyperlinks are
    creating a new type of thinking - part human and part machine - found nowhere
    else on the planet or in history.
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      This clarifies for me what Wenger and McCluhan say. The technological advances brought about in the last decade or so are changing the way our brains are wired, as well as our culture. Our children will not think the way we do.
  • He was certain that every document in the world should be a footnote to some
    other document, and computers could make the links between them visible and
    permanent.
  • The memories of an early enthusiast like myself can be unreliable, so I recently
    spent a few weeks reading stacks of old magazines and newspapers. Any promising
    new invention will have its naysayers, and the bigger the promises, the louder
    the nays. It's not hard to find smart people saying stupid things about the
    Internet on the morning of its birth. In late 1994, Time magazine
    explained why the Internet would never go mainstream: "It was not designed for
    doing commerce, and it does not gracefully accommodate new arrivals."
    Newsweek put the doubts more bluntly in a February 1995 headline:
    "THE INTERNET? BAH!" The article was written by astrophysicist and Net maven
    Cliff Stoll, who captured the prevailing skepticism of virtual communities and
    online shopping with one word: "baloney."
  • Stephen Weiswasser, a senior VP, delivered the ultimate putdown: "The Internet
    will be the CB radio of the '90s," he told me, a charge he later repeated to the
    press. Weiswasser summed up ABC's argument for ignoring the new medium: "You
    aren't going to turn passive consumers into active trollers on the Internet."
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      How funny. That is EXACTLY what has happened, as we forage for information, products, etc.
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 05 Mar 08
       
      How underestimated the intelligence and capabilities and interests of the public are! Clearly, people in charge assume they will stay in charge because they can not imagine things not being their way. Those who truly stay in charge have the foresight and good sense to know that their is more to life than one very narrow way of thinking or doing things.
  • Go down to your basement, find your most technical computer guy, and have him
    register abc.com immediately. Don't even think about it. It will be a
    good thing to do."
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 06 Mar 08
       
      For this reason, I love "computer people." They know things; they have a kind of electronic/technological intuition that I don't have. I find it rather easy to follow computer people blindly, the ones I trust, anyway.
  • It was hard to use
  • exceeds 600 billi
  • The domain was still unregistered.

  • This view is spookily godlike. You can switch your gaze of a spot in the
    world from map to satellite to 3-D just by clicking. Recall the past? It's
    there. Or listen to the daily complaints and travails of almost anyone who blogs
    (and doesn't everyone?). I doubt angels have a better view of humanity.


    Why aren't we more amazed by this fullness? Kings of old would have gone to
    war to win such abilities. Only small children would have dreamed such a magic
    window could be real. I have reviewed the expectations of waking adults and wise
    experts, and I can affirm that this comprehensive wealth of material, available
    on demand and free of charge, was not in anyone's scenario. Ten years ago,
    anyone silly enough to trumpet the above list as a vision of the near future
    would have been confronted by the evidence: There wasn't enough money in all the
    investment firms in the entire world to fund such a cornucopia. The success of
    the Web at this scale was impossible.

    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      Sometimes when things are so unbelievable, so hard to fathom, I think we under-react to them. We know it is too hard with our dinky human brains to really understand something so incredible that we put blinders on so the magic doesn't become too much to take in. Religion (how interesting that he refers to this as godlike) is like this, too. What is we really "got" it? I don't think humans are capable.
  • every two seconds
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      I didn't know Bill had that much pull.

  • When a company opens its databases to users, as Amazon, Google, and eBay have
    done with their Web services, it is encouraging participation at new levels. The
    corporation's data becomes part of the commons and an invitation to participate.
    People who take advantage of these capabilities are no longer customers; they're
    the company's developers, vendors, skunk works, and fan base.

    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      Perhaps we should all be paid for this!
  • What we all failed to see was how much of this new world would be manufactured
    by users, not corporate interests.
  • online culture is the culture
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 06 Mar 08
       
      The same can be said in business--you can collaborate for months without meeting your colleagues in person, but can we ever expect to replace the relationships that stem from physical interaction with online communication?
  • What could be a better mark of irreversible acceptance than adoption by the
    Amish?
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 06 Mar 08
       
      Good question. My answer: My father's adoption of the Internet. He is still unable (and proud!) to use a simple word processing program, still writes on paper and has my mother send e-mails from his notes. Yes, my father does have an e-mail account, but not one that he can use. My father, and many people his age (65), still believe that the world would be better off without computers. But I feel sad that such an intelligent, curious, global thinker like my father is missing out on all of the information that is right here in this little "box." Maybe if we get him out of his box... Does this mean that my father is less pliable than the Amish?
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      So what kind of a world are we creating where everyone will be talking and no one will be listening?
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      Hmm...
  • What happens
    when the data flow is asymmetrical - but in favor of creators?

    What happens
    when everyone is uploading far more than they download? If everyone


    is busy
    making, altering, mixing, and mashing, who will have time to sit back


    and veg out?
    Who will be a consumer?

  • What happens when the data flow is asymmetrical - but in favor of creators?
    What happens when everyone is uploading far more than they download? If everyone
    is busy making, altering, mixing, and mashing, who will have time to sit back
    and veg out? Who will be a consumer?

    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      So what kind of world are we creating where everyone will be talking but no one will be listening?
  • Another was affirmed by one-third: "By 2014, use of the Internet will increase
    the size of people's social networks far beyond what has traditionally been the
    case."
  • gift economy
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 06 Mar 08
       
      What a fascinating term "gift economy"! The idea that the sharing of information, creations, ideas, etc. is a type of economy. OK. So our minds are thinking in new ways and maybe Wenger and Fleck are beginning to make sense. And the idea of community takes on new dimensions.
  • The open source software movement is another example
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      "Open source" software has been crucial in the telecom industry as a lot of times open source code becomes the basis for other code that will have proprietary strings attached. It can sometimes make intellectual property protection complicated.

  • What will most surprise us is how dependent we will be on what the Machine
    knows - about us and about what we want to know. We already find it easier to
    Google something a second or third time rather than remember it ourselves. The
    more we teach this megacomputer, the more it will assume responsibility for our
    knowing. It will become our memory. Then it will become our identity. In 2015
    many people, when divorced from the Machine, won't feel like themselves - as if
    they'd had a lobotomy.

  • In
    2015

    many
    people, when divorced from the Machine, won't feel like themselves - as
    if

    they'd
    had a lobotomy.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 06 Mar 08
       
      I already feel nervous when I don't have computer access. In fact, I recently upgraded my cellphone and service to enable web access as well as ease of web usability on my phone (you know, bigger screen, more buttons). I am not necessarily the techie type, but the extent to which I rely on technology in my everyday life is astounding!
  • marvel
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 06 Mar 08
       
      I do!
  • What matters is the network of social creation, the community of collaborative
    interaction that futurist Alvin Toffler called prosumption. As with blogging and
    BitTorrent, prosumers produce and consume at once. The producers are the
    audience, the act of making is the act of watching, and every link is both a
    point of departure and a destination.
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 06 Mar 08
       
      What would Veblen (conspicuous consumption) think of Toffler's prosumption? Producers are the audience. Producers are the consumers. This is fascinating.
  • Our Machine is born
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      This machine may be born, but it will be interesting to see what it turns into as it grows up.
klynch84

January 6, 1998: Some Thoughts on Writing Hypertext Fiction - 0 views

www.unknownhypertext.com/owlhypertext.htm

shared by klynch84 on 09 Mar 08 - Snapshot
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 10 Mar 08
       
      Like Landow says, hypertext will not necessarily follow Aristotles "Poetic" view of linear story line. A story that has a plot as well as a definitive beginning, middle and end. Hypertext does away with linear organization and would probably make Aristotle cringe. (Landow, pages 218-221
    • unshrouded2
      unshrouded2 on 11 Mar 08
       
      or, maybe change his view!
ksbanks

Don Barthelme Was Way Ahead of His Time - 0 views

www.unknownhypertext.com/barthelme.htm

shared by ksbanks on 11 Mar 08 - Snapshot
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 11 Mar 08
       
      Help! I'm stuck in this story and I can't get out!!!! I can only read this in small bits. Sustained reading is giving me a headache!
ksbanks

A Wandering Rock, A Wandering Island - 0 views

www.unknownhypertext.com/dublin2.htm

shared by ksbanks on 11 Mar 08 - Snapshot
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 11 Mar 08
       
      This story is the most bizarre thing. I have figured out a system for reading it. You must read the entire page before clicking on a link, otherwise you might never get through an entire page. The reading of the page first made some sort of normalcy to the reading. Then I started clicking on the links. This is where the most bizarre things happened. Sometimes you had to read to the bottom to figure out what was the connection to the link. Sometimes the musing on writing or whatever the topic were interesting. One thing is clear. This piece was certainly written as hypertext. To me, hypertext seems to be stream-of-consciousness gone rampant.
klynch84

The Atlantic Online | July 1945 | As We May Think | Vannevar Bush - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...bush

shared by klynch84 on 29 Feb 08 - Snapshot
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 29 Feb 08
       
      Just seeing if this sticky note works, sorry guys.

  • As We May Think











    As Director of the Office of Scientific Researc

    • jschoen
      jschoen on 29 Feb 08
       
      Did you guys know you can blog your sticky notes? Far out.
  • It is the physicists who have been thrown most violently off stride, who have
    left academic pursuits for the making of strange destructive gadgets, who have
    had to devise new methods for their unanticipated assignments. They have done
    their part on the devices that made it possible to turn back the enemy, have
    worked in combined effort with the physicists of our allies. They have felt
    within themselves the stir of achievement. They have been part of a great team.
    Now, as peace approaches, one asks where they will find objectives worthy of
    their best.
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Of what lasting benefit has been man's use of science and of the new instruments
    which his research brought into existence?
    • gfhurley
      gfhurley on 04 Mar 08
       
      Does anyone think this sentence is terribly written??? What an atrocity.
  • Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.
    • blandable b
      blandable b on 06 Mar 08
       
      ah but beware specialization, Nature's rules declare that generalists always survive, specialists become extinct. With the fast paced existence of technology, why specialize if your area of knowledge will quickly become outdated?
  • publication has
    been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record
  • Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, could not produce
    his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough, but construction and
    maintenance costs were then too heavy. Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and
    explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it
    would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of
    parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to
    Giza.
  • Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of
    effort.
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 05 Mar 08
       
      Oh my God! I finally understand the significance of the Industrial Revolution! Slow but steady, that's me!
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 29 Feb 08
       
      Ahhhh...So it looks like I will be keeping Fleck on my nightstand. Here is the economical version of Fleck's thought styles. While Fleck has it that we are not culturally/socially ready for some advancements, Bush brings up the same concept from an economical standpoint. Obvious, yes, but interesting to ponder.
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      Your writing voice is so authentic that I could actually hear you speaking as I read this (lol)
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      By the way...is this Diigo thing the coolest gadget you have ever seen? This alone is worth the $2000 for the class!!
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 04 Mar 08
       
      Is it really?
    • blandable b
      blandable b on 06 Mar 08
       
      I love virtual sticky notes, I have them on my laptop and use them all the time. Amazing how we can change a physical item and make a virtual remediated version that can be used with as much effect as the real artifact. Remediation is wicked.
  • something is bound to come of it
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 04 Mar 08
       
      Yeah, China as a superpower.
  • Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the
    picture immediately.
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 05 Mar 08
       
      Was or is Vannevar alive to see just how close his predictions were and to see how much further photography and other electronics have gone? It's hard to believe that this article was published in 1945.
  • It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain
    clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 29 Feb 08
       
      The use of the word "brave" here is interesting. Often, we think of those who are forward thinking, risk-taking types as being brave. Here, Bush considers bravery to be that of a person who has what I would consider a lot of nerve to try to predict that a process such as photography cease to progress. Brave as in, "You're brave for counting on such an illogical prediction."


  • Much needs to occur, however, between the collection of data and observations,
    the extraction of parallel material from the existing record, and the final
    insertion of new material into the general body of the common record. For
    mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and
    essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there
    are, and may be, powerful mechanical aids.
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 04 Mar 08
       
      Maybe Al Gore didn't invent the internet.
  • whereupon scientific jargon would become
    still less intelligible to the layman.
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      But. . . but if the scientific jargon become used so much that it becomes part of the layman's language, then the jargon may become more easily understood.
  • His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature,
    so that he projects them for examination.
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      It also is cool that now there are some programs that will allow for the investigator's spoken word to be transferred into typed text. Also, is it Apple's notebook computer that allows handwritten notes to be transferred into typed text?
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 05 Mar 08
       
      Artificial Intelligence is what immediately came to my mind. Just who was this guy?
  • The scientist, however, is not the only person who manipulates data and
    examines the world about him by the use of logical processes, although he
    sometimes preserves this appearance by adopting into the fold anyone who
    becomes logical, much in the manner in which a British labor leader is elevated
    to knighthood. Whenever logical processes of thought are employed—that is,
    whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove—there is an
    opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the
    hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible
    to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal
    logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into
    such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after
    conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than
    would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 04 Mar 08
       
      I'm fascinated reading Bush's predictions of the future. But in this particular scenario, the author prophesies a machine whose "clever use of relay circuits" will produce logical conclusions based on established premises. But unless those premises and their conclusive outcomes have already been established, that is - unless the information was already pre-programmed like the moves in a computerized chess game - the machine wouldn't work. Perhaps Bush was thinking about artificial intelligence. Creepy.


  • It is a far cry from the abacus to the modern keyboard accounting machine.
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 05 Mar 08
       
      Oh!!!! I did it! How cool is this? It is even a farther cry to wordprocesor, computer, and microsoft money.
  • The salesman places on a stand the customer's identification card, his own card,
    and the card taken from the article sold—all punched cards. When he pulls a
    lever, contacts are made through the holes, machinery at a central point makes
    the necessary computations and entries, and the proper receipt is printed for
    the salesman to pass to the customer.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 29 Feb 08
       
      Remember this?
  • name
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 04 Mar 08
       
      How about "introweb"? No? Ok, how about... inter... web... net... the internet! That's it! The "Internet."
  • The process of tying two items together
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 04 Mar 08
       
      Web links.
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      This really ties in theoretically with what McLuhan, Wenger, and Fleck point out about thought. On a practical level, it's why we link on our blogs.

  • The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in
    the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for
    their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the
    artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in
    storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found
    (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one
    place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will
    locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one
    has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.


    The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one
    item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the
    association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried
    by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that
    are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent,
    memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the
    detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.

    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 05 Mar 08
       
      This is quoted in Landow. So, if Landow's book were in an electronic version and for this quote there was a link, or even not the quote but mention of this article with a link, then this would be a form of hypertext? I love it when everything comes together!


  • Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion.
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      Is this the beginning of the "Deep Web"?
  • Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady
    past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has
    built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more
    fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely
    become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His
    excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting
    the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some
    assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 29 Feb 08
       
      Regarding public education and the use of the "record," I think it is important to recognize that, because of technology, information is readily available at the touch of a few buttons. So, doesn't that make way for students to be able to "forget the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand" (every miniscule fact and figure) and concentrate on analysis and synthesis of information, thus de-emphasizing the importance of memorization and beginning to concentrate more on practical use and application of information? I champion open-note and take home tests for this reason: the information is there, but I need to know if and how well you can use it!

  • The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and
    properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short
    Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of
    the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his
    memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy
    article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent
    item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items.
    Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main
    trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes
    evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to
    do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through
    textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of
    longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the
    maze of materials available to him.

    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      Amazing how he really "got" the concept of surfing the Net...in 1945 no less!
  • The owner of
    the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and

    properties of
    the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short

    Turkish bow
    was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of


    the Crusades.
    He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his

    memex. First
    he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy

    article,
    leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent


    item, and ties
    the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items.

    Occasionally
    he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main

    trail or
    joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes

    evident that
    the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to

    do with the
    bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through

    textbooks on
    elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of

    longhand
    analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the


    maze of
    materials available to him.
    • boomerspeak
      boomerspeak on 02 Mar 08
       
      So true. We are on information overload. We can either give up and remain ignorant or learn to store and manage all this information for when we need it.
klynch84

http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle_vv.html - 0 views

www.juliandibbell.com/...bungle_vv.html

shared by klynch84 on 04 Mar 08 - Snapshot
  • They say he raped them that night
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      I'm creeped out by this!
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      I'm creeped out by this! If this guy is looking for shock value, he got it. Hopefully, he has something more substantial to say than this!
  • the community so many of them already
    believed they were. 
  • It's the story of a man named Mr. Bungle, and of the ghostly sexual violence he
    committed in the halls
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      Why? I'm still not getting why it's cool to write about stuff like this. So far, it's still not working.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • weapons
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      If the virtual community condemns virtual violence, why include a gun in the first place, or make one available?
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 05 Mar 08
       
      How is "control" being defined here?
  • over which he or she has sole control). 
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 05 Mar 08
       
      How is control being defined here?
  • as directed by its user-owner
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      Do you guys remember Tron? Word.
  • the only thing you really see when you visit LambdaMOO is a kind of
    slow-crawling script, lines of dialogue and stage direction creeping steadily up
    your computer screen.
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 05 Mar 08
       
      I question the degree to which "reality" is misconstrued in a virtual world constructed through text. Images leave enough room for ambiguity--I would think text prompting images would increase the gap between perception and reality. However reality is being defined...
  • Which is all just to say that, to the extent that Mr. Bungle's assault happened
    in real life at all, it happened as a sort of Punch-and-Judy show, in which the
    puppets and the scenery were made of nothing more substantial than digital code
    and snippets of creative writing.
    • gfhurley
      gfhurley on 04 Mar 08
       
      In the future, how will law deal with "crimes" committed in VR communities? I'm sure there will be some very interesting court cases in the future when VR becomes more mainstream.
  • Mostly, [this type of thing] doesn't happen here. Mostly, perhaps I thought it
    wouldn't happen to me. Mostly, I trust people to conduct themselves with some
    veneer of civility. Mostly, I want his ass." 
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 05 Mar 08
       
      Is there a way to protect users without compromising the freedom to participate in these VRs authentically? If policies are not desirable and freedom within the online community valued most of all, does "mostly" safe suffice?
  • Where virtual reality and its conventions would have
    us believe that legba and Starsinger were brutally raped
    in their own living room, here was the victim legba
    scolding Mr. Bungle for a breach of "civility."
    Where real life, on the other hand, insists the incident
    was only an episode in a free-form version of Dungeons
    and Dragons, confined to the realm of the symbolic and at
    no point threatening any player's life, limb, or material
    well-being, here now was the player legba issuing
    aggrieved and heartfelt calls for Mr. Bungle's
    dismemberment. Ludicrously excessive by RL's lights,
    woefully understated by VR's, the tone of legba's
    response made sense only in the buzzing, dissonant gap
    between them. 
  • ethereal
    universe may march in straight, tandem lines separated
    neatly into the virtual and the real, its meaning lies
    always in that gap.
  • To participate, therefore, in this disembodied
    enactment of life's most body-centered activity is to
    risk the realization that when it comes to sex, perhaps
    the body in question is not the physical one at all, but
    its psychic double, the bodylike self-representation we
    carry around in our heads.
    • jemurphy
      jemurphy on 06 Mar 08
       
      hmmmm, interesting
  • From then on, they would make no decisions affecting the social life of the MOO,
    but only implement whatever decisions the community as a whole directed them to.
    From then on, it was decreed, LambdaMOO would just have to grow up and solve its
    problems on its own. 
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 05 Mar 08
       
      Good. This decision seems to be in the best interest of a social network. Let the group decide. No ONE person should control the group dynamic, right? On a website called "rateyourteacher.com" there is (or used to be) a teacher who had administrative control. She would decide which comments got posted, thus, it was rumored that she would actually sabotage those teachers she didn't like and protect the ones she did. I don't think that is the intention or spirit of the site.
  • hen the community itself would have to be
    defined;
  • And then there were what I'll call the technolibertarians. For them, MUD rapists
    were of course assholes, but the presence of assholes on the system was a
    technical inevitability, like noise on a phone line, and best dealt with not
    through repressive social disciplinary mechanisms but through the timely
    deployment of defensive software tools. Some asshole blasting violent, graphic
    language at you? Don't whine to the authorities about it -- hit the @gag command
    and the asshole's statements will be blocked from your screen (and only yours).
    It's simple, it's effective, and it censors no one
    • pjsabatini
      pjsabatini on 06 Mar 08
       
      While I can in now way vouch for sexual molestation of any kind, we cannot ignore the importance of personal responsibility here. There will always be bad people in the world that will do bad things to other people if they have the opportunity. This should be a surprise to no one. If i'm passed out somewhere, around strangers, I would expect to be taken advantage of. If not sexually, because I'm a man and everyone knows that men are unattractive, haha, but at least I'd expect for any valuables to be stolen. I don't let this happen, and take steps to ensure that it doesn't.
    • pjsabatini
      pjsabatini on 06 Mar 08
       
      rape-text? what? I'm having trouble getting through this article. i find some of these things absurd in the highest degree.
  • You might want to argue that what those victims didn't directly experience
    couldn't hurt them, but consider how that wisdom would sound to a woman who'd
    been, say, fondled by strangers while passed out drunk and you have a rough idea
    how it might go over with a crowd of hard-core MOOers.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 05 Mar 08
       
      Real life situation: If there are other than flattering pictures (damaging, even) of you on the Internet, does your inability to access those pictures on a certain network (I don't know, maybe you have set up some blocks or something) ultimately protect you from the damage that is being done by or because of people who CAN view those pictures?
  • rape-text
  • around 30
    • jschoen
      jschoen on 05 Mar 08
       
      What? That's all?
    • pjsabatini
      pjsabatini on 06 Mar 08
       
      ditto
  • I was fascinated by the concept of virtual rape, but I couldn't quite take it
    seriously. 
  • you've read Foucault
    • klynch84
      klynch84 on 06 Mar 08
       
      Foucault? I'm not sure I get why he's involved in this?
  • many in the room had probably already surmised: Mr. Bungle was a psycho. Not,
    perhaps, in real life -- but then in real life it's possible for reasonable
    people to assume, as Bungle clearly did, that what transpires between
    word-costumed characters within the boundaries of a make-believe world is, if
    not mere play, then at most some kind of emotional laboratory experiment.
  • Mr. Bungle had risen from the grave
    • pjsabatini
      pjsabatini on 06 Mar 08
       
      was this at all surprising?
  • it was hard for me to understand why RL society classifies RL rape alongside
    crimes against person or property. Since rape can occur without any physical
    pain or damage, I found myself reasoning, then it must be classed as a crime
    against the mind
  • head back to the mansion, to see some friends.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 05 Mar 08
       
      I'm officially fascinated by the concept of the VR world. I can see how people become obsessed and adicted to VR worlds...there is so much going on here socially, psychologically, electronically, technologically. Wow. I had no idea.
ksbanks

4.01: Who Am We? - 0 views

www.wired.com/...turkle_pr.html

shared by ksbanks on 05 Mar 08 - Snapshot

  • What has she found? That the Internet links millions of people in new spaces that are changing the way we think and the way we form our communities. That we are moving from "a modernist culture of calculation toward a postmodernist culture of simulation." That life on the screen permits us to "project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star.... Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity."





    Turkle's own metaphor of windows serves well to introduce the following samplings from her new book. Those boxed-off areas on the screen, Turkle writes, allow us to cycle through cyberspace and real life, over and over. Windows allow us to be in several contexts at the same time - in a MUD, in a word-processing program, in a chat room, in e-mail.





    "Windows have become a powerful metaphor for thinking about the self as a multiple, distributed system," Turkle writes. "The self is no longer simply playing different roles in different settings at different times. The life practice of windows is that of a decentered self that exists in many worlds, that plays many roles at the same time." Now real life itself may be, as one of Turkle's subjects says, "just one more window."

    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 06 Mar 08
       
      Is this "projecting ourselves into our own dramas" the reason that Tukle is talking about herself in the third person? Does the individual have any "self"?
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 06 Mar 08
       
      So, going back to Wenger, a person is just a nexus of all of his or her selfs. Does this make sense?
  • MUDders
    • ksbanks
      ksbanks on 06 Mar 08
       
      What is MUD? Again, an appositive that explained the acronym would be so helpful. OR a link to a definition/explanation of the term would be helpful.

  • The orgot issue will not die: "Your fig orgot moved to another species," the
    game informs us. This time I say nothing, but Tim reads my mind: "Don't let it
    bother you if you don't understand. I just say to myself that I probably won't
    be able to understand the whole game any time soon. So I just play it."

  • ...6 more annotations...
  • MUDs are a new kind of virtual parlor game and a new form of community. In
    addition, text-based MUDs are a new form of collaboratively written literature.
    MUD players are MUD authors, the creators as well as consumers of media content.
    In this, participating in a MUD has much in common with scriptwriting,
    performance art, street theater, improvisational theater, or even commedia
    dell'arte. But MUDs are something else as well.
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 05 Mar 08
       
      How does participation in these online communities influence other social interactions? If the liberty that accompanies cyperspace grants freedom from consequence, how will this filter into "reality"?
  • Stewart, playing on MUDs led to a net drop in self-esteem. MUDs did help Stewart
    talk about his troubles while they were still emotionally relevant;
    nevertheless, he is emphatic that MUDding has ultimately made him feel worse
    about himself. MUDding did not alter Stewart's sense of himself as withdrawn,
    unappealing, and flawed.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 05 Mar 08
       
      I was just about to highlight in a previous paragraph and comment about the RL advantages to MUDs. Oh, well. No success story here; are there success stories of people who use MUDs to help themselve in RL?
  • How am I going to dig my persona's self out of this mess? Because I don't want
    to go on like this. I want to get out of it.... You can see that playing this
    woman lets me see what I have in my psychological repertoire, what is hard and
    what is easy for me. And I can also see how some of the things that work when
    you're a man just backfire when you're a woman."
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 05 Mar 08
       
      Could the Internet (MUDs specifically) be the answer to gender equality (or at least appreciation of sorts???). Is the Internet where we will actually go to unlock the mysteries of the opposite sex?
    • khaggerty
      khaggerty on 05 Mar 08
       
      That's a good point, but I question whether it's unlocking mysteries of the opposite sex or reinforcing social expectations of gender. Either way, if Case's experience makes him see/treat women differently, it may be an answer or step toward gender equality...
  • Other partners of virtual adulterers do not share Beth's accepting attitude.
    Janet, 24, a secretary at a New York law firm, is very upset by her husband
    Tim's sex life in cyberspace. After Tim's first online affair, he confessed his
    virtual infidelity. When Janet objected, Tim told her that he would stop
    "seeing" his online mistress. Janet says that she is not sure that he actually
    did stop.
    • mbrinkmann
      mbrinkmann on 05 Mar 08
       
      I am with Janet here, I think. It is the DESIRE to partake in extramarital affaris that worries me, not necessarily the cyber adventure. I am uncomfortable with the psychological implications of such a desire...that it so needs to be filled outside of marriage. That it is fulfilled in VR is not a comfort to me at all. I seems to me that affairs of the heart and mind have the potential be more damaging than purely physical ones (if there is such a thing).
  • TinySex poses the question of what is at the heart of sex and fidelity. Is it
    the physical action? Is it emotional intimacy with someone other than one's
    primary partner? Is infidelity in the head or in the body? Is it in the desire
    or in the action? What constitutes the violation of trust?
  • We, too, are vulnerable to using our screens in these ways. People can get lost
    in virtual worlds. Some are tempted to think of life in cyberspace as
    insignificant, as escape or meaningless diversion. It is not. Our experiences
    there are serious play. We belittle them at our risk. We must understand the
    dynamics of virtual experience both to foresee who might be in danger and to put
    these experiences to best use. Without a deep understanding of the many selves
    that we express in the virtual, we cannot use our experiences there to enrich
    the real. If we cultivate our awareness of what stands behind our screen
    personae, we are more likely to succeed in using virtual experience for personal
    transformation.
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