From: MX%"ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu" 16-APR-1993 20:59:35.88 To: SYLVAR CC: Subj: FutureCulture Digest #364 Return-Path: Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by oak.circa.ufl.edu (MX V3.1C) with SMTP; Fri, 16 Apr 1993 20:59:33 EDT Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA24486; Fri, 16 Apr 93 17:31:13 MDT From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-ID: <9304162331.AA24486@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #364 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 17:31:12 MDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #364 Friday, April 16th 1993 Today's Topics: --------------- Bruce Sterling Talk @ UMass Cafe Net, pamphlet from, experiences, etc. Filming the cyporeal Phn0rd! Re: 500 Channels: The Sega Channel (fwd) Re: encouraging the outgrowth of net.culture Re: encouraging the outgrowth of net.culture && Cafe Net __________________________________________________________________________ From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Subject: Re: 500 Channels: The Sega Channel (fwd) Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 13:35:26 -0400 (EDT) Beyond the ultraworld of Joe Pollock: > > Well, if it works, this is the sort of thing that will push the home > data connection. > > This could be delivered by broadcast technology, where all games are > sent continuously, and the cable box picks off what you want, like a > Videotext system, or it could be interactive, where the subscriber > requests a specific game. The technique used offers clues about what > T-W is up to; I would guess that they are making another stab at > interactive cable, trying to find something with enough initial appeal In Quebec we have had "interactive" cable for some years now. I even got to play with prototypes several years back. The way it works is that "interactive" programs are recorded from different angles and/or different stories etc.... Basically you change channel when selecting one or another view/pov. You can also play interactive games with real people, again changing channels depending on your choices. There is also another feature with the control: you can access videotext services and play video games too (really dull like pacman, qbert and other stuff). There is also a daily dictation and other educational stuff. I think about 250000 people have this service. The cable provider (and developper), Videotron is preparing now to have a two way cable system with a much higher bandwidth. At some point they tried using the phone as input but it was not an elegant solution. BTW, some interactive programs: Habs hockey games, Jeopardy, newscasts etc... Ciao, -- Francois Dion ' _ _ _ CISM (_) (_) _) FM Montreal , Canada Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA (_) / . _) 10000 Watts Telephone no: (514) 343-7511 _______________________________________________________________________________ Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-... ______________________________ Date: 16 Apr 1993 13:03:49 -0600 (CST) From: Scotto Hey, kids, it's yer old pal Scotto here. Let's chat about this movie idear. I'm of two minds about this whole affair (Sartrians would call that scissiparity, by the way). The first mind quite cleverly tells me that nothing would be more non-entertaining than watching a bunch of yahoos type for an hour or so. Luckily, I only use that mind for, you know, non-Internet related activities. My other mind about this says that damn near everyone out there should start doing some video-ing of their netting. We need to get not only footage of people at terminals, but people wherever they go, *talking* about their terminals, interviews, people quoting stuff they got off the Net, walk throughs of the Net for new users, blah blah blah, but *in addition*, the film should be *highly* self-aware, we should all *know* we're making a film and we should let the audience *know* we're making a film, and let them know that we're only showing them what we want to, how we want to, and that it's up to them to grok the rest if they have the time and energy. The film should be as cutting edge as the Net; whoever mentioned lots of split screen, etc., was right on the money. And we need to show what Netheads do when they *aren't* on the Net. And what else...we need to have an IRC channel called #film, which we would all go to *as we're filming*, to talk *about the film*, which footage, collected and compiled from all over the globe, would then go *into* the film. Oh, sure, we'll also cover plenty of other groovy ideas, and FreeSide was right, we need to hit not just FC, but Leri, Extropians, Fnord, you name it. It'd be great if we could get video bytes from celebs on the Net, but they will be second banana to ourselves, we who will create the movie about the communities that we've created. Then, when all the footage is shot, over a period of, say, one coordinated week, where everyone who can is filming that whole week, we then ship all the footage off to one central editing headquarters. And what we do is -- everyone who sends footage also sends a list saying stuff like, "Could you please make sure that this shot or that shot goes in for sure?" or "could you maybe do something with this shot, fuck with the color schema?" etc. And then the editors hack together a however-long piece of work -- which is Movie #1. Because (presumably) there will be more than one group who wants to edit, and there will be more than enough footage to play with (theoretically), and other perspectives will surely do it differently, and all these reasons and more -- we then send off to whoever the hell else wants a crack at editing it. I mean, fuck, ideally someday we'd just upload the footage into the Net and anyone who fucking wants to can edit their *own* little film, but in the meantime, this is as close as we get. We'll have to do some serious talking about formats, etc., for the video -- VHS is probably most handy for most people, but hi-8's a better camera, etc. -- but I think, heck, what the hell else have we got to do these days? Count me in in in. Yes, that's right -- three times. ______________________________ From: cmbecker@antioch.acns.nwu.edu (Canton Becker) Subject: Cafe Net, pamphlet from, experiences, etc. Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 13:28:48 -0500 (CDT) I visited SF about three weeks ago. After four days of net.deprivation, I found one of those SFnet terminals in a cafe. (By the way: San Francisco has to have the most wonderously diverse, eclectic set of cafes anywhere... Well worh examining.) They're pretty neat, presentation-wise; you sit at the first granite computer terminal you've ever seen. (Did I ever mention my stupid idea for selling a line of executive Macs set in oak and pine cases?) The interface is pretty friendy. Fido looks at you from the screen. You give him quarters, and poof: (1) You may enter into chat group one. (2) You may enter into chat group (guess!) two. (3) You may do other stuff. I was really hoping that I might be able to telnet somewhere real from the other stuff sections... (I tried out the chat groups a few times, and the signal to noise was worse than I had seen anywhere... Like a chaotic IRC, full of people who have a lot of nothing to say.) Anyhow, the short story is this: SFNet wouldn't let me do anything even VAGUELY global, informing me that since I was new to the net, and innocent to the social delicacies of world-wide-neighbordom, I couldn't go anywhere real until I had accrued five hours of SFNet ontime. I wasn't about to spend five hours reading newsgroups and chatgroups limited to cafe quarter-pumpers. (I'm a little bitter. I consider myself to be rather sensitive to the social workings of the Internet.) What I presume the SF NET people wanted to do was prevent people from posting to worldwide newsgroups without realizing what such an action really DID. (It all looks like letters on a screen... How could I be offending 30,000 people, giving them a bad impression of SF NET's policy of giving Internet access to the public?) SO, THE QUESTION: What do you all feel about full-priveledge public access terminals to the Internet? Would users have to have their names registered somewhere, so as to prevent anonyminity? By the way, in case anyone's curious enuf to sport some long distance charges, you can dial into SF NET with these: (415) 824-8747 589-2194 375-8478 (These were listed as access points for certain regions of the city... I don't know if it's kosher to call 'em from the world. Oh well.) SF NET , P.O. Box 460693, San Francisco, CA 94146 Voice: (415) 695-9824 -Canton Becker canton@nwu.edu -89.3 WNUR FM Chicagoland Sat Nite 2-3am: 10-Base-T Rave Radio ______________________________ Date: 16 Apr 1993 14:37:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Round Waffle Subject: Bruce Sterling Talk @ UMass Thought people in the Boston area who read FC might be interested in this little tidbit. --- Press Release --- Press Release --- Press Release --- Press Release --- BRUCE STERLING TO SPEAK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Anna Cadwell, Distinguished Visitors Program (413) 545-0920 Best-selling Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling will speak on April 26, 1993 at the University of Massachusetts in Bowker Auditorium at 8:00pm. He will speak on "Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier." Sterling is among the leaders of the Cyberpunk movement of science and technology. His most recent book, _The Hacker Crackdown_, is a non-fiction investigation of the high-tech computer crimes that resulted in the massive crackdowns of 1990. His other writings include, _Involution Ocean_, _Schismatrix_, _The Artificial Kid_, and _Islands in the Net_. He also co-authored _The Difference Engine_ and edited _Mirrorshades_, the definitive Cyberpunk anthology. The Distinguished Visitors Program is a student organization of the University of Massachusetts that brings speakers on a variety of issues important to the campus and the Pioneer Valley Community. Admission is free. There will be a reception to follow for the public to meet Mr. Sterling. This lecture will be signed for the hearing impaired. ______________________________ Date: 16 Apr 1993 14:42:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Round Waffle Subject: Phn0rd! I'm the co-founder of a recently started student group at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst called Phn0rd. What are we? We consider it cyberdiscordianism: not cyberpunk, not discordians, not anything. Our members are as varied as our goals: to promote the computer underground, chaos, and the future. If interested, please contact us. This is just a little disclaimer that we ARE a very varied group, so don't expect just one "scene". Here's our official propaganda blurb: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blender, Chaos, Television, Cyberculture, "Bob", Cows, Virtuality, Pork, Eris, Sound, Elvis, Punk, 'Zines, Industrial, Vision, Random, Postmodern, Fools, Confusion, Redline, Corporations, Slack, Frontiers, Shatter, Networks, Sporks, Memes, Giveaways, Illuminati, Uvula, DIY, Telecommunication, Cthulhu, Textfiles, Experimental, Propaganda, Nootropics, Bork-Bork-Bork, Scanning, Discordianism, Toys, Truth, Cypher, Lies, Amusement, 2600, Spiders, Morphs, Devolution, Assembly, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Here, Now, Mondoperplexion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does this list have in common? One word: ********** **** **** ***** **** ******* ********* ******** **** ***** **** **** ****** **** *** *** **** ***** **** *** **** **** **** **** ******* **** *** ** ** **** **** **** *** **** ***** *********** ******** **** *** ** *** **** ***** **** **** ********** *********** **** ******** *** ** *** ********** **** **** **** **** **** **** ******* ** ** *** **** **** **** *** **** **** **** **** ****** *** *** **** **** **** *** **** **** **** **** ***** ******* **** **** ******** Phn0rd! --><-- So hip, it hurts. Do you really need a reason? --><-- Phn0rd! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phn0rd, Box 11, 416 Student Union, UMass Amherst, MA 01003 Tel: 413-546-1327 Join The Phn0rd Mailing List! Send mail to: phn0rd-request@student.umass.edu Get Involved -- Everything you need in a group and so much more -- Contact us ______________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 13:47:34 EDT From: rjs@devsrv1 (Rob Sweeney) Subject: Re: encouraging the outgrowth of net.culture ** (WARNING! Don't (R)eply - mail to rjs doesn't work! Edit the To field!!) ** Patrick McKee posits: > > [rjs] It also all depends on your motives - if you're going for the college > > coffeehouse style, where profit isn't the real goal, then all you > ^^^^^^what! > Profit is always the goal. even if your just trying to attract a certain > cool crowd, that could be considered profitable. But to be realistic I > have met several college coffehouse ex-owners that got out because they > could not make it financially. I know, limited experience does not a > universal make, but if you can not re-coup costs plus living and the means > to get a little something extra, it gets awfully tiring. Having a > non-profit business with this kind of traffic does not make sense. Unless you > have the ducks to quack. Agreed - but that's from your, and my, view of what makes sense and what doesn't. There are plenty of volunteer operations out there that provide considerable levels of service for free, even at cost to their providers. BBSes are familiar examples. There are also many services out there that charge only enough to cover costs - charging BBSes are also examples. >From my own experience, long-term provision of a quality service requires that the owner/operator make a comfortable profit to make it worth hir while. You are right to note that without ".. a little something extra, it gets awfully tiring." I was one of the founders, and eventually the owner/operator of Big Electric Cat, which was the first (relatively) large- scale public-access net site in New York City. BEC was owned and operated by 4 college students, myself included, and charged minimal fees for access - we were more interested in making the system happen than in making serious money, at least back then. As with many public-access operations, much of the work was done by self-appointed volunteers on an ad-hoc basis. But.. the system grew and grew, and eventually wore out volunteer after volunteer. Even though I handled the money and owned the system, I was basically a volunteer - the thing wasn't making enough that I could pay myself for the (large) amount of my life it was consuming. Eventually we had a nasty, expensive hardware failure, and I couldn't justify resurrecting the system - because in the end, there wasn't anything *for me* (other than the dubious glory of sysophood and the accompanying coolness of being the pillar of a virtual community, as it were). A group of former BEC users had in the meantime got together to form the Panix node here in NYC, which eventually attracted most of the Cat's userbase. Panix was apparently organized along more realistic financial lines, and appears to be prospering, at least for people who can deal with the level of access it provides. I think what happened to me and the BEC is the same thing that happens to coffeehouse operators - it's work without >adequate< reward, which is a sure path to burnout. Look at the average lifetimes of quality, not-for- profit BBSes - especially those which for whatever reason require a lot of sysop or volunteer intervention. They're short - rarely more than a few years (although I'm sure I'll be flooded with replies listing favorite exceptions). So we're back to the same problem: a cafe+net will cost more than a comparable cafe - net, and regular cafes are pricey as it is. While we recognize the realities of volunteerism versus the human profit motive, we have to ask if we want to create what will be an environment limited by access to $$$. I have no *philosophical* problems at all with people paying their share, and paying a premium for something better, but somehow I don't think this jives with what adamfast was thinking of. (which I don't think is realistic as presented: it takes a lot more work - read "money" and "time" - to run a good public-access net node than is generally appreciated. I *know*.) /rs Applied Wizardry, Inc. Personal replies to: rsweeney@panix.com (please) ** WARNING: My outbound mailer munges addresses! Check addresses when replying! ______________________________ Subject: Filming the cyporeal Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 16:19:30 CDT From: Ed Scotto happened to formulate... > scissiparity, by the way).The first mind quite cleverly tells me that nothing > would be more nonentertaining than watching a bunch of yahoos type for an hour > or so. Luckily, I only use that mind for, you know, non-Internet related Oh oh oh! How so correct thou art. It just wouldn't be a meaty film without the surrounding ambience of REAL LIVES to spice the virtual existance we so proudly tote. I'm thinking of raves, drawing, magazine planning meetings, debates, brainstorm sessions at 3am whilst imbibing far too much caffeine, firstime fleshmeets of netfriends, flamewar faces, mundane jobs/school work to contrast the hyperchillin' cyberwacky technobabble...etc. > communities that we've created. Then, when all the footage is shot, over a I'm stuck between these two approaches... linear - just a montage of time as it marches on...showing what people are doing at a certain time of day...all over the world... OR modular - sorta a subject oriented documentary...focussing on certain projects and aspects of the netlife...an IRC segment, an FC segment, a multimedia segment, etc...like a snapshot/portrait of 1993 netlife. > We'll have to do some serious talking about formats, etc., for the video -- > VHS is probably mosthandy for most people,but hi-8's a better camera, etc. -- I think VHS should be the standard...hi-8 can always dub into VHS (not to mention the fact that I don't have access to hi-8 but own a VHS camcorder). ...e Ed Stastny | OTIS Project, END PROCESS, SOUND News and Arts PO BX 241113 | FTP: sunsite.unc.edu (/pub/multimedia/pictures/OTIS) Omaha, NE 68124-1113 | 141.214.4.135 (projects/otis) ---------------------- EMail: ed@cwis.unomaha.edu, ed@sunsite.unc.edu ______________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 18:10:19 EDT From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips) Subject: Re: encouraging the outgrowth of net.culture && Cafe Net rjs@devsrv1 (Rob Sweeney) writes: +It also all depends on your motives - if you're going for the college +coffeehouse style, where profit isn't the real goal, then all you +want to do is cover costs and attract a cool crowd. This would obviously +be cheaper to do. Yes, I think motives are important to get out into the open. If you are talking about retrofitting existing cafes, then there are political/economic (mainly w.r.t. the owner(s)) and resultant technical issues (metering, pricing) which may be affected. But, if you are talking about opening a new space, then the integration of cafe-net tech will be much higher and other issues may surface. quark@asylum.sf.ca.us (Rebel Without a Meme) writes: +You'd get people gathered around the terminal commenting sometimes. +It had a lot of the same feel that a chess game at a cafe does. I'm +not sure I'd want to read personal mail in that type of situation +though. On the other hand, it might have a lot to do with the +general charecter Of The Horseshoe (where I used it) than id did the +net in a cafe medium. I think this touches on another "design" issue to be looked at. What kind of interactions should the interfaces be structured for. I can see reasons to go either way (public, private). Perhaps the ideal situation would be to allow the same setup to be used either way. Something that would allow congregating, such as a separate from the tables unit, might also be privitizable. Putting units into the tables might make congregating more difficult, since that might seem (to me anyway) to be more a violation of privacy/personal-space. John Frost writes: +What I'd been thinking of is running a bbs out of the cafe...the +kiosks in the coffeehouse would have a graphical shell with +limited news and chat areas (but include hook ups to other cafenet +type places). That sounds good. It could easily serve both as a local/regional bulliten board replacement/adjunct to the supermarket physical I-have/I-want stuff, as well as providing a way to organize politically around local issues. Shannon John Clark writes: +continuing source of revenue. Indeed the longer that they use the net the +better it is for the Cafe owner who presumably makes some profit on the +charge per minute. I think that has some possibilities. Perhaps even short-term and long-term interfaces (though the rates could be the same), so that if you want to check or send a quick piece of mail, you'd have some clue as to how long you might have to wait for access. Ed writes: +Optional jacks and add-ons... +-headphone jack for sound emission +-phone jack to link laptops for downloads +-diskdrive for downloads/uploads +-eyephone jack +-line printer at cafe +-keyboard jack(s) I think those are good ideas. One thing that might be a problem is accidental zapping due to static elect. or to someone trying to plug the wrong cord into the wrong socket type of thing. I do think that headphones would be appropriate, both for the privacy of the user and for sanity of the rest of the clientelle. Having output services could also be nice and would be easy to recoup the costs of. -Doug dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us ______________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 15:32:01 PST From: Adam Feuer Subject: Re: encouraging the outgrowth of net.culture Rob Sweeney wrote: >I have no *philosophical* problems at all with people >paying their share, and paying a premium for something better, but somehow >I don't think this jives with what adamfast was thinking of. actually, fuck yes, it is exactly what i am talking about. you do have to pay the folx who run the system. i am not into administering a million unix shell accounts, but instead providing direct iNet access... i too am somewhat skeptical about cafe+net, but am willing to try. as i said i would rather provide network jacks in the cafe instead of providing the software, the terminal, etc., which are all administrtion nightmares. providing an internet gateway is less of a hassle (tho still a hassle.) i am also concerned that this will provide access for the elite only (those who can buy laptops) but... the elite can buy a lot of coffee ;-) also this provides a base to start providing more direct access to remote users. slow speed access, admitedly. i don't know. all this press from the big orgs about providing universal hi bandwidth services is just keeping us all from organizing access now, and letting them get their shit together while we wait... buys them a lot of time. masters of hype. why can't we get in on this too? another thot. they want to separate communities, provide access to individuals. we want to provide access to communities, after all that is what the iNet is about, virtual communities. (like fc.) we need to work on the social skills building communities will need, when hundreds of millions of folx are connected... (curses that i can't afford the well, they have all those virtual community gods over there don't they?) grrrr. adam ------- _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|