Papyrus 2.0

Web 2.0 (3D?) is a media-level improvement to a good communications tool – in a long line of improvements. Just as paper and ink are the media for both philosophy and pornography, so is the digital community of Web 2.0 a medium for the useful and useless, trivial and monumental. We can not blame the medium for the lack of message, but the community is the message, rather than the medium (McLuhan). As the community learns the power of the new medium, the level of creative involvement and utilitarian purposes will grow.

We are a pack species. Communicate and community have the same root, and Web 2.0 is about community in a virtual and digital sense. Even though we like to press the flesh at real life meetups, there is also a very strong sense of community in Web 2.0 as well. And it is growing. Eight months ago, I began blogging, networking, metaversing, tweeting, meeting. I have gathered a very active and robust core of new contacts and friends, and have reconnected with a few old treasures. Some of the connections I have never spoken with, or even emailed to, but only ‘friended’, or ‘tweeted’, or ‘myrled’. Is this real community? Yes, of course.

Adding a note here about Marvin Argyle (1909-1990). He instilled in me the burning curiosity that got me here, and taught me the most important lesson in my life: “You don’t have to know all the answers. But you do have to know how and where to find them. Look it up.” He was a crossword puzzle freak, knowing at least 17 different 3 letter words for a river in India. Here’s a picture of him from a half a century ago. He would have loved the Internet, since he was the living analog predecessor of Google. I’ve often thought that if I had invented a gozillion dollar search engine, I would have named it marvinargyle.com.

Just as the revolution of papyrus made communication and writing more mobile and accessible to more people, so will Web 2.0 and 3D bring the community to power in the digital revolution we are experiencing today. I’m in awe. A thousand lyrics from a thousand songs come to mind. I can’t wait for the next wave of gamers, philosophers, poets, artists, musicians, thinkerers to help the merely mundane world to its feet and show us how to walk under the water and fly through space where no parachutes work, or are even needed. Let’s rodeo.

Also posted on Myrl ~ See Wonderpeeps for more of the pack.

Through the Looking Glass of Virtual Reality

From “I think therefore I am” to “Thinking is the best way to travel” of so much of our knowledge base, VR and our perception of the real world is based upon the most fabulous, as yet unmatched, CPU - our brain. If we can imagine the power of taking a dizzying array of light pulses, sound waves, gaseous chemicals and electrical micro jolts that make up a real handshake, or hug, that our 2.5 lb friend turns into a life-long memory of someone we have met - then we can use that same process and build real sensory images/feelings/smells from the stored power of the brain to ‘replay’ or create new such handshakes from within the ultimate UI. Is “BrainStorm” possible? Maybe…

More discussion of the current efforts to add physical attributes to Virtual Reality - Getting “in touch” with Virtual Reality in the group Virtual Worlds of Tomorrow of the Association of Virtual Worlds.

Also, see the Knowledge Networking group, with meetings in SL.

Hello world! 2.0

26 Feb 2008 Update: Be sure to watch Download: The True History of the Internet on the Science Channel starting March 3…

Original posting 27 Dec 2007: The first computer program I typed in was on my VIC 20 (20K RAM) by Commodore, purchased from Sears, hooked up to a $10 B/W TV from a pawn shop. The language was Basic and the OS was CBM 1.0 (?) , with a copyright by Microsoft, one of Gates, Inc.’s first projects. The ubiquitous 10 PRINT ‘Hello, World.’ 20 END or something like it started many of us oldsters on the Road to Perdition. Actually, that was my first personal computer, my first FORTRAN IV stack went back a few years before that at UT Austin in 1967.

Knowledge Networking

Meet with the Knowledge Networking group of the Association of Virtual Worlds in Second Life.

“Wednesday at Work” WED 1100 a.m. SLT
(check the AVW site for location)

With all the talk, blogs, twitters, ads, chat, etc., about Social Networking, a la FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest… it has occurred to me that what we (myself and my colleagues) are really pursuing is better described as Knowledge Networking. Since we are in business, government, education and other serious pursuits, the ’social’ part of the Web 2.0 worlds seem to scare our managers, and somehow imply that we are playing games or watching TV (or worse) instead of doing real work. The totally serious and productive attributes of the new ‘web’ can be lost when we are briefing our bosses on the travel or training we just took and we pop up a browser of FaceBook or Second Life web pages and the silly stuff hides the good.

Letters from the Sea Floor, 1970

Letters from the seafloor

Originally uploaded by Tom Clifton

I was a ’shrinklet’ (behavior observer) on Tektite 2, and was assigned there when the 2nd letter was postmarked (May 8, 1970). One of my secondary duties involved shuttling items to and from the habitat, command van, and base camp. There’s a possibility that I (or one of my fellow UT Austin peons) delivered the letter to base camp, to speed it on its way. Far Out! WW’s Dad… (Barry)

Tektite Man in the Sea Project

The fall and winter of 2007 seem to be dedicated to searching for information about my life and activities 40 years ago. One of the events in my life as a young man that has influenced my professional and personal life, was my participation in 1970 in a research project called Tektite. I have reconnected with one of my colleagues in Tektite, Kenny Meyer, and in my cerfing the web for more information, I found this excellent photo on Flickr.com, taken by aquanaut Ed Clifton, whom I have never met. Further research actually found a description of the beginnings of the project in 1969, from a personal view, by the photographer of this photo and aquanaut who was involved in Tektite from the beginning. Tektite Habitat Uploaded by Tom Clifton

An Evening on a Tropical Beach by Ed Clifton (Tektite I & II)

Multi-Media Shows at UT Austin - Media 70

OK, here’s some ancient history, to mix in with the future history. In the late 60’s a group of UT Student Orientation Advisers put together a ‘multi-media’ show for new students arriving in the summer before their entry into life on the Austin campus. The show was designed to be entertainment after dinner in the dormitory, at the new Academic Center Auditorium (AC 21). AC 21 was a wonderful gallery type lecture hall with 4 giant rear projection screens, a center stage level film screen, and clear walls above the stage for more front projection from the booth. People filed into the darkened room tentatively, wondering what was going on, here?

With the room still dark, a rock and roll sound track started off with the raucous voices of the Stones (She’s a Rainbow) and ended with the sweet tones of Judy Collins (Who Knows Where the Time Goes), and for 30-40 minutes the kiddies were pounded with multiple screen images (35mm slides, film, TV) of campus life, anti-war protests, football (Go, ‘Horns), parties, and oh yeah, classrooms. The sons and daughters of Texas and the world got a dazzling taste of life in the new world of 1968-70 in Austin.

… Not in Kansas Anymore, Toto. The times were definitely changing, and for the group calling itself Media 70, it was like a prehistoric version of Second Life, with mind expanding ’stuff’, music, images, issues, people. The group went on to do other shows for different venues, on and off campus. The most ambitious was a theatrical show that brought live actors on stage (and on film) into the AC 21 for a psychedelic Moog version of the Wizard of Oz, called The Wozard of Iz (written by Jacques Wilson with music composed and performed by Mort Garson). Students being what they are, very little survived of the images, sound track or script for this and other shows, but here is replicated the flier produced to handout all over campus to fill the house for the 8 night, 24 performances of The Wozard. Wow.

A Purposeful Life

While browsing the stuff available to put in my FaceBook profile, I ran across “Which Chinese Philosopher Are You?” Hmmmm, what an interesting concept. So I took the short quiz, and up popped my new ‘old’ mentor. Mo-Ztu (Mozi) lived 410-390 BCE, during the Warring State Period and was known as a pacifist and a hard worker. He argued against Confucianism and Taoism. His teachings (Mohism) were stamped out later by Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi and in the 20th century have been re-examined as more important than earlier thought. In the short time that I have been looking at information about Mo-Tzu, I have found some concepts of Mohism that could have been written for me, about me, by my father.

Forty Four Years - jfk

On November 22, 1963, I was in my high school General Science class 16 miles south of the Texas School Book Depository. Today, I drive by Dealy Plaza on my home from work. There are always lots of tourists standing around, talking, pointing, taking pictures. As I pick my way through the intersection, I see the grassy knoll, the wooden fence, the railroad overpass, and the curb storm drain where the final shot was delivered, 44 years ago. Whew…it still seems like a bad dream, but it was just the beginning, and it goes on today.

Good Grief

After viewing the 2002 American Masters program on PBS last night, I started early this morning looking for more information on what I now recognize in Peanuts as the single most important cultural feature influencing my youth and quest for maturity. Sounds impressive and self important, huh?

In grade school and high school, I was Charlie Brown - always happy with 2nd place, the A- was good enough, the self deprecating style seemed to keep the bullies at bay, the Sunday night paralysis of facing another Monday without confidence in my self or