FutureCulture Digest #373
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Subject: FutureCulture Digest #373
To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 11:33:17 MDT
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______________________________________________________________________
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Issue #373
Tuesday, April 20th 1993
Today's Topics:
---------------
On-Line Forum on Virtual Spaces & Humanities
On-Line Forum on Virtual Spaces & Humanities
Inequalities an' that...
RE- FilmVidOcuNetmentary Me
Re: Encryption Back Doors?!?
Re: low-speed connections
RE: MediaMOO & A Proposal.
Re: MediaMOO & A Proposal.
Re: son of film rant
Video News Release, not documentary
__________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 01:07:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: Grid Witch <battias@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Subject: Re: Encryption Back Doors?!?
Well spoken (typed), Patrick; I agree wholeheartedly and wish I had a
satisfying answer. Of course we need to do all these things, and I think
some of us are doing things. I think raising these issues on the net is
doing something, although, as you point out, it ain't enough by a long
stretch. But One of our problems is the media -- in a sense, the net is
one of the few ways a message can get "out there" that isn't a repetition
of a summary of a government press release or some ridiculous corporate
self-promotional kitsch, and unfortunately the net is still not accessible
to the overwhelming majority of people (oh sure, just about anyone can
walk into a college library, jack in through gopher, and browse thru
what's publicly available but how many people actually know that? or care?)
BTW, you said "I know that raves are happening and that society is
changing". I could be wrong about this, but I tend to doubt the drama and
hype I've heard about rave culture. The raves I've been to (in Chicago
warehouses) were fun, but nothing to write home about. Most of the
participants were about sixteen to eighteen (which may be why I couldn't
get that into them), and the atmosphere seemed kind of stifling to me.
Oh, it's great to thrash about in the mud listening to loud fast techno,
but in my "old age" (26) I can only do that for about a half hour and then
I need to kick back with a beer for another half hour and actually make
conversation. Which you can't do when the music is deafening and
repetitive and all you can see is what the strobes and spinning colored
lights allow you to see. And noone sells beer at these things (not a bad
thing in itself, of course, but the lack of beer is generally accounted
for by the presence of other things). While I know that rave culture is
bigger than raves themselves, I don't see a "movement" arising out of it
(and I mean movement in the sense of change, motion, rather than in the
sense of mass movements).
GW
______________________________
From: zamboni@ap.cl.msu.edu (happy zamboni)
Subject: Re: low-speed connections
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 1:26:09 EDT
Rob Sweeney says:
>
> I've always wondered: many places have untimed local telephone service,
> where you pay one charge for a local call, no matter how long the call
> lasts. Some places even have flat-rate local service, where all local
> calls are free.
>
> So..
>
> What if you make a local call (dialup SLIP call!) and >never hang up<?
> Will they cut the connection at some point, even though there will always
> be traffic on the line (the carrier)? Even if they did, you could always
> call right back. With 14.4kbps modems on either end, this would make
> quite a usable low-speed net connection, at least in areas with this
> kind of telephone service.
> --
> /rs Personal replies to: rsweeney@panix.com (please)
> ** WARNING: My outbound mailer munges addresses! CHECK ADDRESSES WHEN REPLYING!
At least in Michigan, no, they will never break the connection. Even
if it is an operator-initiated emergency break, they will not _purposely_
break the data connection. (Of course, having the operator say "Hello?
Hello?" into the bitstream can sorta munge things up, but...).
I say this from experience, as one of my roommates last year would
frequently stay logged in from our basement for 2-3 days at a time,
cueing up multi-hour file transfers for when he slept. So, that's not
_quite_ a permanent connection, but it's fairly close.
I believe that a quite a few SLIP connections are kept permanently up
over regular (in line grade and cost sense) phone lines. That's just
hearsay, though, I cannot quote a particular site.
-Eric
zamboni@ap.cl.msu.edu
.
______________________________
From: "Trond Buland" <Trond.Buland@ifim.sintef.no>
Date: 20 Apr 93 08:38:39 GMT-0100
Subject: On-Line Forum on Virtual Spaces & Humanities
I thought that this could interest at least some of us on
FutureCulture?
and btw, STS is "Science, Technology and Society",
the academic field of social and humanist studies of S and T.
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: weroush@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: sci-tech-studies@ucsd.edu
Subject: On-Line Forum on Virtual Spaces & Humanities
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 17:34:10 EDT
===========================================================
The Virtual STS Centre presents:
A Forum on the Use of Virtual Spaces
for Work-Related Interaction in the Humanities
"Location": The Summer and Autumn Conference Rooms
Virtual STS Centre, 2nd Level
MediaMOO
telnet address: purple-crayon@media.mit.edu 8888
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. EDT, Friday April 23, 1993.
===========================================================
PROSPECTUS
The potential usefulness of virtual spaces for work-related
interaction and the enhancement of professional community is
just beginning to be explored. MediaMOO, originally developed
at the MIT Media Lab for use by media researchers, is the first
"multi-user dungeon" or MUD dedicated to this kind of
communication. In keeping with its mission, MediaMOO is
now also the home of the Virtual STS Centre, a locus for on-line
gatherings and collaboration among researchers in science and
technology studies (including the history, philosophy, and social
study of science and technology and related fields).
It's only fitting, then, that the first on-line forum planned
for the Virtual STS Centre should be on the topic of "The Use
of Virtual Spaces for Work-Related Interaction in the Humanities."
Counter to the formal and didactic style of many real-life academic
gatherings, the virtual forum will consist of free-flowing
conversation among participants on the following questions
(and others):
** What are the barriers to the use of electronic forms of
communication by non-technically-oriented scholars? Can (and
should) these barriers be overcome?
** What kinds of interactions are MUDs best suited to foster? Are
these interactions of a sort that could be personally or
professionally useful to scholars in the humanities?
** How can the contributory, collaborative nature of the object-
oriented programming approach embodied in MediaMOO best
be used to foster valuable interactions among researchers with
common interests?
It is expected that as many questions will be raised as answered.
The forum itself -- because it will take place in virtual space --
will be a living experiment toward answering these questions.
The forum will be held in the Summer and Autumn Conference Rooms
of the Virtual STS Centre. The Summer Conference Room is equipped
with a function called "about" which allows users to prefix their
statements with a short label, facilitating multi-threaded
conversation. The Autumn Conference Room is equipped to facilitate
a moderated form of conversation known as "council" in which only
one person at a time may speak to the group; participants who wish
to speak must add their names to a queue.
The forum is open to both registered users of MediaMOO and guests.
For those who are unfamiliar with MediaMOO or with MUDs in general, more
information is given below. If you missed the original
announcements about the recent opening of the Virtual STS
Centre, send a request to: weroush@athena.mit.edu
***********************************
* GETTING A CHARACTER ON MEDIAMOO *
***********************************
MediaMOO is designed to enhance professional community amongst media
researchers, educators, and scholars in science and technology
studies. To connect to MediaMOO, type:
telnet purple-crayon.media.mit.edu 8888
(Local telnet protocols vary; check with your system's administrator
if you have difficulty connecting.)
Once connected, type:
connect guest
To get your own character, please send us the following information:
* A brief description of your research interests
* The name you want for your character
* An alternative name, if that name is taken
* Whether you want your real name to be known
ANONYMOUS AND IDENTIFIED CHARACTERS
Each character has a "character name" and may optionally have a
"real_name." For example, "Amy" is a character whose real_name is
"Amy Bruckman." On the other hand, "jaime" has no real name. Real
names don't normally appear, but can be seen with the @whois command.
Only janitors (administrators of the MOO) can set or change real names.
You may have an anonymous character, an identified character, or both.
Typically, people give their identified character their real name, and
give their anonymous character a fanciful, made-up name.
SUMMARY
Character creation requests should include:
* A brief description of your research interests
* The name you want for your character
* An alternative name, if that name is taken
* Whether you want your real name to be known
And should be sent to: MediaMOO-registration@media.mit.edu
PHILOSOPHY
Please help extend the virtual world! Nothing is there unless people
build it. The basic design is a virtual copy of the MIT Media Lab,
but folks from other places are invited to build their own offices
and connect them via the "virtual Internet" (Just find a computer
and step inside!) or at the STS Underwater Corridor.
MAILING LIST
If you would like to be on an email list for discussion of MediaMOO,
send mail to:
mediamoo-request@media-lab.media.mit.edu
GETTING STARTED
Once you have registered as a permanant character, there are a few
things you might want to do right away:
@password <old password> <new password>
@describe me as "...."
@gender <your gender here!>
@research me is "...."
Help on these and other commands is available in the online help system. Just
type "help" or "help <command name>." Please do take a look at
"help manners."
You can "look at <anything>" and "examine <anything>." Examining something
will give you a list of the things you can do with it. When in doubt,
use 'examine'!
Another useful help command is:
say Hi! I'm new here. Can you help me?
DOCUMENTATION
A programmers manual and a very helpful file called "Tutorial"
are available via anonymous ftp from parcftp.xerox.com in
/pub/MOO/ProgrammersManual.{dvi,ps,texinfo,txt}
/pub/MOO/contrib/Tutorial
/pub/MOO/contrib/quick-reference
There are also some client programs (which improve your interface to MOO) in:
/pub/MOO/clients
Other client programs are available via anonymous ftp from media.mit.edu in
/pub/MediaMOO/clients. Type "help clients" for more information.
Lots of useful information about MUDding is available from
the USENET news group rec.games.mud.announce.
Enjoy!
--------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
| trond buland |
| (research scientist/sociologist) |
| sintef ifim (institute of social research in industry) |
| n-7035 trondheim, norway |
| phone: +47 7 59 25 65 |
| e-mail: trond.buland@ifim.sintef.no |
------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________
From: Mr G R Evans <mld013@central1.lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject: Inequalities an' that...
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 10:42:38 +0100 (BST)
> I guess that most of what I am saying is that ALL these things exist.
> Police State tactics, Corruption of officials in power, a shitty
> existance for minorities and the poor, racial hatred...etc.
And (correct me if I'm wrong), the people who are actually on the receiving
end of all these things aren't reading this.
> But, here we are. What do we do about it? Do we just talk? Do
> we create mailing lists and take drugs to block out the noise? Or
> do we do something? Try to make it better. Most of us just want to
> get our job after school and keep on talking about the problems. Some
> actually do something, however this number is VERY few. Someday, maybe
> people will realize, after they have taken away the right to own and
> operate a bbs, or the right to net access without a plastic card and five
> forms of id, that what is needed is action. A political lobby, the eff, the
> coming together of this futureculture into a gestalt that says "we will
> not take this shit anymore".
Maybe the futureculture gestalt should be saying this now. We can't move
into the future until the past has caught up with the present, otherwise the
inequality gap in our society will simply widen. We may be pushing forward
for increased net access for more people, but the "minorities" and the poor
won't be getting it. And we'll be even further across the divide.
> Why waste our time dreaming of what may be, why not make it happen?
> I don't know if this is right, but, so far I all I can see is net.talk.
> I know that raves are happening and that society is changing, but I live
> in arkansas and nothing is happening here, at least nothing worth note.
> We need to make the news, not be the news. I just feel that as I sit here
> at work and ponder all this shit on a daily basis that if we do not start
> making news, GOOD news, then we will not garner any more than a minority
> of people. And we know what happens to minorities. As to making it happen
> I know that some of the people on this list are making things happen. This
> is just a call for more political (good political) propaganda about what
> our culture is changing into. We have to make the dweebs want it. We have
> to romanticize our existance. We have to get good publicity. We have to make
> the news! Without a good communication wagon, we will fade or just become
> the lost heroes, those that could have been.
You're right.
Solutions to my nagging worries? Well, I can't think of any, which in itself
adds to my worries. Yes, we do have to make good political propaganda about
all this. We've got to show that it's not elitist or inhuman. And (I think)
we shouldn't really be presenting ourselves as "heroes", because that harks
back too much to the media image of _Wargames_ dorks.
We know the media are wrong, and we know that FutureCulture et al are not
elitist and inhuman. Wehave to show this somehow to the people it's difficult
to reach. We've got to show that we're not simply _against_ authority, but
that we do have reason to be. We have to show that we're _for_ a more human,
personal society, where all these inequalities, all the secrecy, and all the
institutional power that results from them, are eroded. Of course it's
utopian, but if you don't try for Utopia, dystopia is where you stay.
> I have a recurring nightmare in which I am a hobo of the 22nd century and
> I am telling a story to some young kids about the dream we had....
You are not alone...
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Glyn Evans -- mld013@lancaster.ac.uk -- Peace, love, and loud guitars --
-- -- mld013@uk.ac.lancaster -- --
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________
From: zamboni@ap.cl.msu.edu (happy zamboni)
Subject: RE: MediaMOO & A Proposal.
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 4:50:44 EDT
In regards to Trond Buland's passing along of an article about the
MIT MediaMOO:
{no quotes- go back and read it again}
Doesn't this sound AWFULLY close to the recurring FC theme of integrating
a variety of Net Services (irc, mail, some sort of News services, ad
naseum..)? AND, coindentally enough, I stuck my head in on the Leri-L list
last week, and there was a post there from the esteemed Mr. Hawks about how
try as he might, his image of this concept kept on fading back to the general
MUD-type environment...although he expressed some unhappiness with the fact
that most MUD-environments were still just treated as "game" settings rather
than settings for communication. (Realize that I'm paraphrasing here..the post
is long since gone to that infoheaven in the sky).
Seems like a curious sync to me.
Just a thought-
It doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to move FC to a more inter-
active environment, like a MOO or MUD or whathaveyou. It would have the
following advantages:
-Greater interaction (ala IRC)
-the ability to create a custom environment if it was MUSH or MOO
based, which (although I have not played on those flavors), I believe
allows for customization of the setting/objects. No need to ask what
everyone is wearing, you could just wander up to them and look. :>
-I shouldn't say "move FC", because that implies that it would supercede
the mailing list, but it wouldn't have to. Rather it could compliment
it in the following ways:
-I have been on many muds of varying flavors that allowed for
A)Internal MUD-mail, B)Inter-MUD mail, C)Mail to the outside (Non-
MUD world), and D)public bulletin boards. Also E)Chat rooms
(usually restricted to MUD admins) that for hashing out
policy that had "recording" features, to take document of the
conversations therein.
-This would allow for several new variety of FC subscribers. Instead
of just Real-time or Digest mail subscribers, if you simply gated
everything posted on the public bulleten boards to the current
mailing list, you could have real-time mail, digest-mail, real-time
MUD, or any combination thereof, subscribers. Likewise, the people
posting on the public bulletin boards in the environment would have
the option of reading all the current messages on the list (regard-
less of point of origination). So, the mail-only people would still
be directly involved, the telnet crowd could chat _and_ read current
mailing list posts, and masochists could do all the above.
-In addition, it seems like it would be not too hard to add a "lib-
rary" area to the environment. The library could have a variety of
text files/articles stored and available for perusing. (Again, ala
IRCbot.) Hell, it's probably possible to setup a full-blown
file-server in this context, allowing for a full variety of files/
pictures/sounds/programs/etc to be available for downloading at each
users discression. (Although I will admit that we are way past my
level of knowledge at this point.) Users would be able to put
new items here as well as take the current available ones.
Problems:
Coding the damn thing:
-Well, MUD code of a variety of types is available at manymany FTP
sites, so rather than starting from scratch, it seems like it would
just be a matter of modifying an existing skeleton. So this
doesn't seem like it would be a major problem. However, _my_
programming skills are...well....increasing by the day, but
probably not up to a task of this sort. Then again, I've never
tried anything of this sort, and would be more than willing to
try. But, and I'll come right out and admit it folks, I'm more or
less a peon, so other people would definitly have to be involved.
Any MUD programmers out there?
Getting a site/Overhead:
-This seems like the real problem. A MUD does take up a lot of
disc space + CPU time, so we would have to find a receptive site
to loan us these resources.
Other thoughts:
-There might be other related lists/groups that would be interested
in participating in this. (I'm thinking maybe Leri, since there is
a fair amount of cross-over between there and FC. Maybe I should cross-
post this to them as well...but i'm sure there's others as well.)
Getting them in on something like this makes sense to me, although
it _would_ increase the amount of size/users on the thing/so on.
Still, if a site could be found, the amount of interaction between
the different groups, I think, would be worthwhile.
---------------------------------------------------
This started out as just a note of "gee, what a coincidence", and has
seemed to mutated into a sort of proposal. What do you all think?
Does this sound at all interesting/appealing to anyone? Any major flaws
that you see?
-Eric
zamboni@ap.cl.msu.edu
:
______________________________
From: Mr G R Evans <mld013@central1.lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: son of film rant
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 11:04:51 +0100 (BST)
Scotto says:
> This gets back to one of the main issues that we haven't really discussed:
> what in fact *is* the aim of this film? Is it indeed to present the Net as
> others expect it to be presented, or is it, as I've suggested, something more
> aesthetically interesting? I of course have an opinion on this, but I'd like
> to see what you all think as well.
Aesthetically interesting. Without doubt. To my mind, anything else would
be worthless. Or rather, any aim which didn't include aesthetic interest.
This is just my theory of art, but I hope it's of some value. I don't see it
as an either / or thing. As I've said in another post, I think that a good aim
would be to demonstrate that the FC in general is not elitist or inhuman -
which seems to be the persistent mass media image.
Therefore, such a demonstration would be subverting others' expectations and,
hopefully, changing their views of the net. To get back to the plot idea
(which I like because I like road movies, and I think Wenders' film can be
improved upon), I think this type of scenario would be a good vehicle for such
an aim, as well as being aesthetically interesting. Of course, as has been
mentioned, it's quite unlikely that there will be one single plot, which is
also a very good idea. After all, we're not just talking about one film here,
are we? Or even more than one film made at one point in time. The people
involved will gain expertise and make more films, and the opportunities here
for exploring every single aspect of this developing culture are enormous.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Glyn Evans -- mld013@lancaster.ac.uk -- Peace, love, and loud guitars --
-- -- mld013@uk.ac.lancaster -- --
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________
Date: 20 Apr 1993 09:21:26 U
From: "Michael Maier" <michael_maier@qmgate.anl.gov>
Subject: RE- FilmVidOcuNetmentary Me
Subject: Time:8:14 AM
OFFICE MEMO RE: FilmVidOcuNetmentary Meme Date:4/20/93
Wow!
What a great response! I'm going to sit down this weekend and put together a
more coherrent game plan of what I was imagining-- ie How/WHEN would might
actually pull this off, Who might want to see/present/distribute this and/or
fund part or all of this, Visual/contexual theme (what R we trying to say),
Editing, Working with different formats, etc etc etc.
I'll post that on Monady 29 1993.
Michael Unscene Maier : michael_maier@qmgate.anl.gov 708-252-5298
"Sometimes you get the _job_ because you step forward instead of back."
Check out IRC #leri
______________________________
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 08:35:03 -0600 (MDT)
From: BOTTGERBRET@yvax.byu.edu
Subject: Video News Release, not documentary
About this film idea,
If we want to make something that will jack in to the REAL matrix -- the cable
television industry -- we need to make a 90-second Video News Release (VNR) for
distribution on the broadcast media outlets. I'm a public relations student
who'
s just finished a class on this subject. Believe me, CNN, the major
networks and the cable channels are starving for pre-packaged free stories like
ours. It would allow them to seem like they have cutting-edge reporters.
Over half the TV news stories you see were not done by reporters, they were
done by professional corporate public relations people to advance some kind of
agenda. We can use the same tools to push future culture into the spotlight.
Believe me, with issues like the Clipper Chip getting rammed onto us, we have a
duty to advance the technical knowledge of the public so they can protect
themselves.
We need to ask ourselves: "what is the goal of this film?" Is is #1 -
entertainment: I think this is okay, but is not a very noble purpose. We could
make a fun little film... Is it #2 - documentary: This would be okay too,
because I think that the I-net is a valuable part of our culture than needs to
be remembered... Is it #3 - educational: to teach non-cybers about our way of
life to proselyte new recruits into the matrix. This is a very important
mission to future culture, in my opinion... Is it #4 - public relations
propaganda - to help pressure polititians into advancing electronic freedom by
letting people know of our good activities and of citizens' electronic rights.
If we are going to go to the trouble of making a movie, let's make a movie that
will help our cause by making us look as "normal" and "righteous" as possible.
Why not show off the BENEFITS and EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES of the net?
On another subject, I will soon be losing my net.access node for 4 months
because I am leaving college for a while. It's been pfun and phunky. Bye.
BADGER
______________________________
Date: 20 Apr 1993 10:45:53 -0500 (CDT)
From: Orpheus 23 <DICKENJD@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>
Subject: Re: MediaMOO & A Proposal.
I have had similar ideas, especially since discovering MicroMuse at
MIT... I also am interested in using MUD-like interfaces to achive more
interesting goals than killing monsters . . .
Regarding the sharing of such a resource with other lists, I would
say that it would probably be best if such a thing were shared with ALL
of the more visionary lists (FC, Leri, the plethora of Rave Lists, etc.).
I think that the potential of such a MUSH would only be truly efficient (not
to mention justification of the expense) if it were a shared resource, and
had as wide of a scope as possible.
As far as functionality, one important capability would be to
write a plug-in that made such a site an e-mail gateway, to allow posting/
receiving messages from the various lists available from the MUSH itself.
Considering that I doubt it has been done, it would be a pain to do this,
but would be the root of such a system's concept. The drawback to this, beyond
writing the code, would be the additional disk space such a thing would
require. However, I think that the trouble would be well justified. This would
also better allow for the IRCbot-like construct idea, giving the servers the
ability to mail requested files to users at their home mailbox. This would also
make the MUSH functional and practical to the user, which is the primary
complaint against MUDs/MUSHs in the first place.
O23
:Orpheus23::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Fuzzy Logic Laboratories:::::
:dickenjd@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu:::::::::::Musick/Occulture/Words/Events::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::1509 Beechwood Ave:::::::::
:Noise/Ambient Industrial Mailinglist:::::::Nashville, TN 37212-5516:::::
::::noise-request@nin.wariat.org:::::::::::::::::(615)298-9495:::::::::::
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