tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7431701947176054789..comments2024-03-29T00:39:31.629-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Announcements, Articles and Stranger EyesDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2205710274536135912008-06-04T15:09:00.000-07:002008-06-04T15:09:00.000-07:00I strongly believe that a successful society needs...I strongly believe that a successful society needs an economic system that encompasses both capitalism and socialism. The argument is the balance between the two systems. Capitalistic systems create significant problems (The gap between the rich and the poor) (Health care for few) and it does not address problems that have no economic up-side. (Homelessness, lack of medical attention and lack of food for poor children.) <BR/><BR/>Socialism destroys the free market and the economy. That is why we need a combination of both, and that is what we have in the US. <BR/><BR/>Societies that can embrace government actions in the areas that the market can not function effectively are stronger. This of course requires those with much to pay for the programs for those that do not have enough to eat, or no shelter. <BR/><BR/>I find it odd that those who demand better roads and infrastructure, and better schools for our children also want to elect someone to lower their taxes.Craig Commentshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06484538529552376060noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-640643652379343892008-05-20T14:48:00.000-07:002008-05-20T14:48:00.000-07:00Of course you don't trust it. You don't have any ...Of course you don't trust it. You don't have any tools designed specifically to assist. Humans may not be good at that kind of design, but we have a process that tends to evolve designs that does occasionally work.<BR/><BR/>Attention allocation tools might help in game play, but I don't see them as game play. I'm not sure why someone would.<BR/><BR/>I used to chat with fellow software developers in IRC. I stopped after awhile, though, because it wasn't worth the effort to me. For others it obviously is, but my cost/benefit ratio didn't work. If I had good attention allocation tools I'm sure the ratio would change a bit. How much would depend on the tool and situation. I'm not just beating up on IRC, though. Usenet, email, and news sites offer the same problems to me with different ratios.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11656016897246506252008-05-20T10:26:00.000-07:002008-05-20T10:26:00.000-07:00Imagine that the attention-focusing capabilities o...Imagine that the attention-focusing capabilities of Holocene Chat were designed with the same competence as Microsoft Word. The first rule of software design is that people are horrible at software design.<BR/><BR/>I don't trust my computer to help me allocate my attention in any but the most trivial of ways.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77427392666916612492008-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:002008-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:00Listen, I've got nothing against Holocene. But I'...Listen, I've got nothing against Holocene. But I'm only incidently in the communication business, I'm in the *entertainment* business. Holocene doesn't add much entertainment value, from what I can see.<BR/><BR/>Eve has a far more robust system, that has multiple-tab chat. At any given time in Eve, a player will have: Local (people in the same system), Corporation (people in the same Corp/Guild), and Alliance. That's the minimum, if they are in a formed group they'll also have "Gang". 4 chat channels, non-toptional.<BR/><BR/>But they can add any number of user created channels, private or ad-hoc group chats, and permanent channelsfor a particular topic to that. Each goes into a different tab, and can be put into a separate window, sized differently, given different transparency settings, etc. Plus, if they're in a PvP operation they probably have Ventrillo or TeamSpeak running, which brings it's own package of channels, broadcasts, etc.<BR/><BR/>You've been hanging out with the 2L/Linden Labs crowd too long. I don't think I'm creating the 3D web, the replacement for every inferior communication method including pillow talk. I make games.<BR/><BR/>I don't see anything about Holocene that I can use to make games more fun, or make games that are distinctly different. Where's the fun, where's the gameplay?Dave Rickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02567136316289610947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87890705807609826652008-05-16T17:58:00.000-07:002008-05-16T17:58:00.000-07:00The problem with telling joke websites from real n...The problem with telling joke websites from real news sites is that the gibberish coming from the Red States and the Republican party is so crazy it's become impossible to tell where satire leaves off and reality starts.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10994509912655287453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10491842788927524352008-05-16T15:43:00.000-07:002008-05-16T15:43:00.000-07:00By the way, Zorgon, you should check your links.Yo...By the way, Zorgon, you should check your links.<BR/><BR/>Your link on Huckabee is to a joke site.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11507725932358099333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4286234431801039572008-05-16T10:20:00.000-07:002008-05-16T10:20:00.000-07:00"yoosook" is actually me... Sorry. My SO logged i..."yoosook" is actually me... <BR/>Sorry. My SO logged into gmail and I didn't notice.<BR/><BR/>She may well post here sometime (not likely, but certainly possible), so I shouldn't muddle up her identity.<BR/><BR/>Funny how this actually relates to Holocene ideas...Travchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12790548845692414891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46134898158298663392008-05-16T00:10:00.000-07:002008-05-16T00:10:00.000-07:00Shorter term, does anyone else think discussions o...Shorter term, does anyone else think discussions on this blog would be better served by something besides the linear, non-place-saving Blogger? I'm willing to scout around for alternatives if our host indicates an interest. Even in plain HTML and conventional ideas, we could do a lot better than this.<BR/><BR/>(Shameless plug: MediaWiki users should look at <A HREF="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:LiquidThreads" REL="nofollow">Liquid Threads</A>.)David McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16603857353437134459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33573131550296266922008-05-16T00:05:00.000-07:002008-05-16T00:05:00.000-07:00yoosook,Imagine an interface where a person could ...yoosook,<BR/><BR/><I>Imagine an interface where a person could 'hang out' in a large number of blogs/forums/news-sites simultaneously,</I><BR/><BR/>I sort of have this already in my Firefox interface.<BR/><BR/>Firefox has two nice features that allow it:<BR/>- multitabs, which allow several webpages to be accessed at once (including gmail, which updates the title when new mail arrives)<BR/>- RSS Feed tabs, which allow me to periodically check a list of blogs (like this one) and news sites for new articles. If the title sounds interesting, I can click on the link to display it. It can even display comment updates, (although I've been tending to send them on to gmail. Must give it more of a try... it would be nice if the timestamp was included). This captures the site history, too.<BR/><BR/>Being a little quiet, I've been messing with styling the elements of a selection box. It's actually quite easy to vary the font size of different elements and to emulate the 'time fade' of the HC chat box.<BR/>Unfortunately, IE6 doesn't support such new fangled ideas...<BR/> <BR/>There's a very primitive example <A HREF="http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~fiskhall/test.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>. The top few rows should appear smaller a la the Star Wars opening intro. Would anyone care to comment on how it looks to them on their browser (inparticular, Safari and IE7)?Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65136616216066480922008-05-15T23:37:00.000-07:002008-05-15T23:37:00.000-07:00ramarren makes a very salient point re Holocene......ramarren makes a very salient point re Holocene... Interface implementation is the real stumbling block, not just a detail to be sorted out later.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps 'chat' (or any fast high demand environ) isn't the best place to start. Attention prioritization is a big problem when dealing with large volumes of async info too. And as I read it, there is much better recognition of the importance of the idea and some prior-art (news aggregators, tag-clouds, and such). Though the big picture that these are instances of communication channel attention prioritization seems to have been pretty much missed.<BR/><BR/>Imagine an interface where a person could 'hang out' in a large number of blogs/forums/news-sites simultaneously, with new information (or at least 'new' since the last time the interface was fired up) streaming in as if they were conversations/social interactions. (No need that this has to be just real time... it should be possible to start at a time in the past and 'fast forward' to catch up on what has been going on and preserving the asynchronous nature even though the interface is kindof imposes a virtual sychronicity.)<BR/><BR/>That is perhaps a more webby way to hit at many of the same fundamental issues while avoiding the big practical hurdles.pUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04826206032468128410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18047430950237491192008-05-15T23:35:00.000-07:002008-05-15T23:35:00.000-07:00Thank you, Sociotard! You're right. The Repubs ar...Thank you, Sociotard! You're right. The Repubs are 9 for 10. If only they can manage to find some way of passing a bill that requires ordinary citizens to board & feed U.S. soldiers in their houses before Jan 20 2009, they'll have run the table. But don't give up hope...there are still 7 months left. They might yet be able to <I>violate every single provision of the Bill of Rights.</I> <BR/><BR/>Dr. Brin, have you thought of filing a second patent or an amendement which hooks one of the laser eye-scanning devices into Holocene Chat and feeds the results into HC to automatically enlarge or change color or change fonts of various windows as the user's measured attention shifts? <A HREF="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070513084620.htm" REL="nofollow"> This long-range eye-tracking device uses lasers bounced from eyeballs to change the shape and type of ads sprayed out on billboards etc. as people's attention shifts.</A> Seems like that kind of technology could easily be married to HC to provide a user-controllable attention-organizing feedback loop to dynamically alter the displayed windows & text (viz., boldface, italics, larger fonts, smaller fonts, etc).<BR/><BR/>You might consider pitching this modified version of HC to the army as part of their <A HREF="https://www.fcs.army.mil/" REL="nofollow">Future Combat Systtem, which centers around advanced tactical communications.</A><BR/><BR/><BR/><I>Nota Bene: I have no interest in any rights direct or ancillary to this idea and freely give away any present or future copyrights or other rights. Dr. Brin is the originator of the Holocene idea and this suggestion represents an entirely trivial footnote.</I>Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10994509912655287453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-73049813171757812472008-05-15T22:42:00.000-07:002008-05-15T22:42:00.000-07:00Zorgon, if you want to add the 2nd ammendment to y...Zorgon, if you want to add the 2nd ammendment to your list, you might mention the people of New Orleans being forcibly disarmed by rescue workers.sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27507104493702553182008-05-15T21:01:00.000-07:002008-05-15T21:01:00.000-07:00adiffer:Have you read this NS article?It describes...adiffer:<BR/><BR/>Have you read this <A HREF="http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19426106.100-web-removes-social-barriers-for-those-with-autism.html" REL="nofollow" TITLE="Web removes social barriers for those with autism">NS article</A>?<BR/><BR/>It describes how some people with autism find it easier to communicate via apps like Second Life because it simplifies the conversation cues they have to cope with.<BR/><BR/>Would HC help? I don't know. I do know that it is almost impossible to guess what even a 'normal spectrum' user will really want from a user interface.<BR/><BR/>===<BR/><BR/>Speaking of attention allocation and prioritisation, the day ole' Zorg can give a brief answer will be an astonishingly news-free day!<BR/><BR/>I think the unholy gleam in the theocrat's eyes is quite an accurate description. I often wonder which Lord it is they follow, and usually conclude it is the one of husks and rinds (an allusion to Katherine Kerr's Deverry books). <BR/>At the risk of being tiresome, I'll just repost that link on Weber's account of being <A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php" REL="nofollow" TITLE="Dorks only!?">expelled from 'Expelled'</A>. It demonstrates a chillingly niggardly temperament and paucity of intellect on the part of the expellers, and the punchline is a hoot!Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34699173452749857092008-05-15T20:17:00.000-07:002008-05-15T20:17:00.000-07:00Dang, adiffer... whoosh! I never imagined that us...Dang, adiffer... whoosh! I never imagined that use. I'll have to ponder this... especially as autism plays a role in the novel I am working on. Of course, I cannot even remotely pretend to be an expert. My take is impressionistic, set in a near future when some kinds of autistics are highly empowered by... well... computer assistance tools.<BR/><BR/>This is already true of course. There is a viraled video out there of a severely autistic young woman, slapping windows and thrashing around. But subtitles THAT SHE CREATED HERSELF explain the meaning of every movement and in a kind of logic that is transfixing.<BR/><BR/>Can Holocene help in this process. I hadn't really connected these separate threads of my own thinking!<BR/><BR/>Surfacially, I must say that Holocene does nothing to actually measure the user's "attention" though it envisions responding to user preferences, choices, it does not claim to cover the means of collecting or analyzing those preference. Rather it is a simple attempt to get some momentum toward WANTING to collect environmental cues (like user attention) and applying them to altering how the information flow is presented.<BR/><BR/>On further consideration, I suppose that, if the Holocene ideas were ever executed, bigtime, there'd be systems in place that could then be easily modified to respond to the attention needs of those with unusual attention spans.<BR/><BR/>Hrm... one more reason to wish I had a couple of million to spare. Or to wish I were the kind of inventor with the guts to mortgage his home, instead of starving his own project, then complaining alla time! ;-)<BR/><BR/>I know that Tony has sampled the Holocene demo. adiifer and jester, please feel free to contact me through http://www.davidbrin.com and get on a list to be shown around, some time. (just be prepared, the demo is fairly crude.) You can download some power point guided tours from http://www.holocenechat.com<BR/><BR/>And thanks for feedback that tries to see what it's about.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12714623732240395302008-05-15T20:09:00.000-07:002008-05-15T20:09:00.000-07:00More good news:Adobe introduces new p2p flash play...More good news:<BR/><BR/>Adobe introduces new p2p flash player that might hold out the promise of bypassing big content providers entirely and replacing them with a network of small peer machines. This could spell the beginning of the end of centralized big content providers entirely.<BR/><A HREF="http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/05/adobe-introduces-p2p-flash-player-kills.html" REL="nofollow">Link.</A><BR/><BR/>Scientists increasingly use Second Life to run simulations and gather data from simulated online ecologies:<BR/><A HREF="http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/31953/title/Scientists_Get_a_2nd_Life" REL="nofollow">Link.</A><BR/><BR/>Dr. Brin has long urged that government civil servants stand up against the sociopaths who've hijacked the executive branch and trashed the constitution. Meanwhile, I have long pointed out that there's evidence the civil servants are already doing this by throwing sand in the gears inside the system. Now, more evidence, this time from Guantanmo: notice the key role played by the Navy JAG lawyer. The Navy has been the outstanding service in fighting the erosion of the constitution tooth and nail, and this evidence appears to show that they've redoubled their efforts to preserve our constitutional system.<BR/><A HREF="http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2191301" REL="nofollow">Link.</A><BR/><BR/>In 1977 Jimmy Carter proposed a radical new energy policy which, in enacted, would have made unnecessary the current war in Iraq, our chronic dependence on foreign oil, and probably would have drastically slowed global warming. But, because the infantile spoiled American people didn't like hearing about a "malaise" and only wanted to hear happy news that told them the world was full of little ponies and rainbows and candy canes and nothing was wrong, the American people threw a hissy fit and banged their little spoons on their little high chairs in 1980 and elected the senile sociopath Ronald Reagan, the Cruel Man With the Constant Smile. Like three-year-old children, the American people doted on the senile sociopath Reagan because he opened the door of his car, told them to get in, offered them candy, and assured them that the world was indeed a happy happy place and nothing was wrong and life was full of rainbows and everything was wonderful, and he'd be glad to drive them home to mommy. So now, 31 years after their kindergarten tantrum, here the American people are, stuck, f**ked, and out of luck as they stare around them at catastrophic global warming, $200-a-barrel oil, and endless war in the middle east for endlessly more expensive oil. Read Jimmy Carter's 1977 energy proposal and weep:<BR/><A HREF="http://bsalert.com/news/2310/Jimmy_Carters_Proposed_Energy_Policy_In_1977.html" REL="nofollow">Link.</A><BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, in the turgid cesspool of Republican politics, the waters just keep getting murkier and murkier -- now Mike Huckabee, everyone's favorite creationist, has jumped back in the race.<BR/>Apparently it's not enough that the Ron Paul libertarians are plotting a coup at the Repub national convention, now the theocrats creep toward McCain with knives in their teeth and an unholy gleam in their eyes. Or should I see exceedingly holy?<BR/><A HREF="http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/OP03/285397815/-1/OP" REL="nofollow">Link.</A><BR/><BR/><I><B>"The thing they need to consider," said Huckabee about the delegate count, "is which of us is going to be the strongest nominee in November."</I></B><BR/><BR/>Well, that's true. Huckabee would be a very strong nominee.<BR/>Then again, smell isn't everything.<BR/><BR/>Oh, and it gets <B>better</B>.<BR/><BR/>The house subcommittee investigating Karl Rove has announced "We're closing in on Rove."<BR/><BR/><I>Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn’t, said Conyers, “We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.”<BR/><BR/>Conyers said the committee wants Rove to testify about his role in the imprisonment of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, among other things.<BR/><BR/>“We want him for so many things, it’s hard to keep track,” Conyers said.</I><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0508/Conyers_Were_closing_in_on_Rove.html" REL="nofollow">Link.</A><BR/><BR/>I've always predicted that the political career of the drunk-driving C student in the Oval Office would end like the final minutes of the 1980 de Palma remake of <I>Scarface</I>. His last words will be "Let me introduce you to my leetle friend!"<BR/>Now I predict that the political career of Karl Rove will end like the final few minutes of the 1949 film <I>The Third Man</I> as Rove runs through the sewers with armed men on his heels. He'll claw frantically at the sewer grate that leads up to the street...but there'll be no way out.<BR/><BR/>Gotta tell ya, I'm lovin' this. <BR/><A HREF="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10349.html" REL="nofollow">“When you lose three of these [special elections] in a row, you have to go beyond campaign tactics,” Cole said. “A large segment of the American public doesn't have confidence in the Republican Party to deal with the issues in front of us. What we have to do is look in the mirror bit and ask how we lost our way."</A><BR/>Let's see if I can help you out. Where'd the Republican party lose their way?<BR/><B>* Torture (violation of the 8th amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Abolition of habeas corpus (violation of the due process clause of the 5th amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Abolition of jury trials (violation of the 6th and 7th amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Suspension of freedom of speech (violation of the first amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Abolition of the fourth amendment against unreasonable search and seizure (violation of the 4th amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Abolition of the right of kidnapped prisoners to decline to testify on the grounds that the testimony might incriminate them (violation of the fifth amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Running roughshod over the states' rights with the Real ID act, the Patriot Act, etc. (violation of the 9th and 10th amendments)</B><BR/><B>* Systematic violation of the civil rights of kidnapped tortured prisoners (violation of the 14th amendment)</B><BR/><B>* Legal government kidnapping AKA "extraordinary rendition" (violation of amendments 5 and 6)</B><BR/><B>* Lies, lies, lies, lies, and more lies. Oh, and did I mention...lies?</B><BR/><B>* Waging an unprovoked war of aggression by means of systematic lies -- a crime which the Nuremberg tribunal specified as "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."</B><BR/><B>* The incidental murder of one million (1,000,000) Iraqi civilians as "collateral damage" during air strikes, JDAM bombardment, white phosphorus artillery strikes, cluster bombing, sustained aerial minigun strafing, and 20mm cannon bombardment with depleted uranium munitions of densely populated civilian Iraqi areas by U.S. forces</B><BR/><BR/>I've left out minor crimes like treason: Viz., the outing of Valerie Plame as an active CIA agent, massive lies about Iraq's alleged WMD program before the U.N. and the international community, corruption, bribery, destruction of government documents (White House emails), obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, conspiracy, conspiracy to suborn perjury, contempt of Congress, and on and on and on.<BR/>After all, the <I><B>big</I></B> crimes, the really <I>huge <B>monstrous</I></B> crimes so vast they blot out the sun, are the big three crimes identified by the Nuremberg tribunal as the worst of all crimes against humanity:<BR/><A HREF="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-17856340.html" REL="nofollow">"The Charter empowered the tribunal to try three crimes: "crimes against peace"--waging or conspiring to wage a war of aggression [the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003]; "war crimes"--inhumane wartime treatment of civilians and prisoners [Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo, the murder of Dilawar, ad infinitum]; and "crimes against humanity"--murder, extermination, enslavement or other inhumane treatment of or discrimination against any civilian population, before or during the war. [Causing the deaths of 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians during the occupation.]"</A><BR/><BR/>Of the first 10 amendments comprising the Bill of Rights of the constitution of the United States of America, the Repubs have violated all but two -- the 3rd amendment which prohibits quartering soldiers in civilian homes, and the second amendment which mandates the right to keep and bear arms. Every other amendment of the bill of rights, the Repubs have wiped their asses on and then thrown in the garbage.<BR/><BR/>I think that covers it. You want a quick answer why the Republican party is circling the toilet bowl and the suction is drawing is down?<BR/>There you go. Systematic violation of the constitution, corruption, pathological lies, theft on a Brobdingnagian scale, and the big three -- crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.<BR/><BR/>Any questions, Repubs?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10994509912655287453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81054538996136238182008-05-15T18:29:00.000-07:002008-05-15T18:29:00.000-07:00It seems like the logical "first" users for Holoce...It seems like the logical "first" users for Holocene are those that have a very high premium on Guided Allocation of Attention. <BR/><BR/>What about emergency C&C (911 operators), large-scale blog operator - writers (Hello, Kos!), or *military* uses? How are your concepts translatable to these kinds of high-pressure, high-reward environments? What about our traditional intelligence-gathering operations where there is much "noise" and a few important "nuggets" hidden away in GB of chaff?<BR/>Just free-associating, looking for another way to shake the tree down to get at those juicy bananas up there somewhere...matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68016032598333796492008-05-15T17:24:00.000-07:002008-05-15T17:24:00.000-07:00It took a while for the Holocene idea to sink in w...It took a while for the Holocene idea to sink in with me, but once I got it it made a lot of sense. There is a quantum leap needed here for those trying to understand it.<BR/><BR/>My son is autistic, so I know how attention allocation problems can radically alter a life. Kids on that spectrum and the one for ADHD don't have the brain resources the rest of us have for dealing with cocktail parties, job environments, and crowded shopping malls. Even if the pattern recognition capabilities exist, attention allocation issues can dominate. <BR/><BR/>When I finally got the Holocene concept my first thought was that it would be a good tool for actually measuring attention allocation issues without having to stick a kid inside a big MRI machine. If the algorithms involved can adjust to optimize an outcome for a particular set of attention demands, then children with different issues would wind up with different 'coupling' constants. This reduces human observer bias risks. <BR/><BR/>Any of us who know science history even a little bit know that once something becomes measurable, researchers adapt and new testable hypotheses emerge. While I think this concept could make my life a whole lot better, I think a better proving ground can be found among those researchers. There are a lot of lesser disorders that might become quantifiable too.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28721465260289344052008-05-15T17:20:00.000-07:002008-05-15T17:20:00.000-07:00Oh, re uplift movies... great dream...See the grap...Oh, re uplift movies... great dream...<BR/><BR/>See the graphics challenge:<BR/>http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/uplift_universe/<BR/><BR/>Two years ago the result was three great movie trailers for Greg Bear's EON.<BR/><BR/>But it looks as if I worked hard to help the artists this time for nothing. Out of 80 or so still image entries, just three had anything at all to do with Uplift. Alas.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36065082380498459502008-05-15T17:12:00.000-07:002008-05-15T17:12:00.000-07:00Wow, another great descriptive missive. I have alw...Wow, another great descriptive missive. I have always felt that games were the most likely place to find people who "get" the importance of attention allocation...<BR/><BR/>...for precisely the reasons you gave, Jester... because of a sense of adrenaline-rich NEED to parse information quickly, at variable levels of priority and detail. The fact that the "need" is ersatz and recreational does not at all affect the basics. These are people who have turned on the parts of their brain dedicated to getting things done, communicating with other members of a team, formulating creative plans on the fly and cooperatively solving problems.<BR/><BR/>In other words, just like busy adults in business and government and science. The very same adults who would not be caught dead wasting lifespan on 2nd Life or MySpace... even though fad-ridden coporations are investing $$$ setting up sites there, in hope of getting "business" done.<BR/><BR/>Those who shrug and dismiss any thought of offering better communications, because 2nd Life is just for flirting, don't get it. Even if 98% of visitors just want lobotomized fun, lobotomies should not be compulsory!<BR/><BR/>It should be possible to make "lands" where adults can do online the sorts of discourse they do in real life.<BR/><BR/>The importance of this cannot be overstated. We need better attention and discourse tools desperately. See my Google Tech Talk: http://tinyurl.com/yy7yxm<BR/><BR/>Even more intensely:<BR/>http://www.davidbrin.com/disputationarticle1.html<BR/><BR/>The parallel with the GUI and the web browser is apt, I think. Before the Macintosh and before Andreeson, you could not find anyone willing to credit even the remote possibility that mice and hypercard would go anywhere, meet any need or find any market. Now the things are obvious, as it will be obvious that attention allocation was vital on the web.<BR/><BR/>Herd wisdom isn't wisdom.<BR/><BR/>(Jester, speaking of priorities, your thread is far more important to me... so I neglected poor BD. Alas ;-)David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77874339499082610592008-05-15T16:31:00.000-07:002008-05-15T16:31:00.000-07:00Most of this developed over time during the first ...Most of this developed over time during the first three years of Everquest.<BR/><BR/>Like I said, seems to me to be a *clunky* version of the Holocene concept. <BR/><BR/>The casual player just "trying out" any of the MMORPGs probably wouldn't even realize that a lot of these options existed, but then the casual player ussually doesn't engage in the kind of attention absorbing large group activities we're talking about when we refer to raids.<BR/><BR/>I'm a casual player of Lord of the Rings Online these days (5-15 hours a week, the upper range being the spouse agreed maximum), and I find that I don't make use of half the attention mangement tools I did as a rather...erm...excessively involved player in Everquest, even though I'm fully aware of how I could set them up.<BR/><BR/>I think part of the problem with purely social sites like 2nd Life is that they lack urgency, shared objectives, and a need for cooperative problem solving.<BR/><BR/>It's obviously these demands that led to the development of language, after all, and it's these demands that have pushed development in MMORPG communication.<BR/><BR/>My set-up in my Everquest raid days was a bit more complex than described above, but the general gist is there. <BR/><BR/>Voice = TOP level. In a raid, anyway. In easy loot/experience churning small group situations, Voice becomes the chitter chat channel and text tends to become the "operational" channel.<BR/><BR/>"Battle spam", or combat information, is filtered differently by different classes who need to know different things. Also, seperate chat channels can easily be created, so that (as an example) there is one channel just for the healers in the raid to coordinate their efforts so that they don't waste effort "double healing".<BR/><BR/>Traveling around, waiting around, /auction might be on...definately not in a hard fight. /say is a proximity only thing, /shout goes to a broad area, ect.<BR/><BR/>Most games tell you when your Friends and or Guild/Kinmates log on or off. You have the ability to ignore people. You have the ability to report spammers easily.<BR/><BR/>You can click the name of any speaker, and see their class/gear, whether they're looking to group, ect.<BR/><BR/>All games let you send private messages to guild/friends/anyone whose name you know, support "looking for group" channels, ect.<BR/><BR/>I never got that deeply into WoW...because it was a poorly written cartoon as far as I was concerned, and far too focused on PvP, so I can't speak to that specifically.<BR/><BR/>I only go into all these details because I think you can see how easily they're transferable to other situations - the accountants talking about their concerns in one channel over here, while the engineers talk over here, and the marketing guys over there, while all watch the main presentation...and then presenting their primary concerns as groups at the end. <BR/><BR/>They could also be getting different information feeds to their groups, comparable to "battle spam" filtering - engineers getting technical specs that would just be boring gibberish to the accountants.<BR/><BR/>*Part* of the crux of the idea of Holocene, if I'm understanding it.<BR/><BR/>I do understand both your frustration and your point, but I think that people go to 2nd life to flirt, or to be @Holes, ect. It's about the last place to look for superior attention allocation tools.<BR/><BR/>More dance club than Physics Department cocktail party...and people don't mind the music drowning out conversation at the dance club.<BR/><BR/>I don't mean to imply, by any stretch, that MMORPGs are full of geniuses...but to play any of these games at a high level you have to be able to sight-read. Based on my limited exposure to 2nd life...that's not the case.<BR/><BR/>I'm starting to see some more of the "Elephant" here, in terms of casual use, too. <BR/><BR/>It would be lovely if my browser automatically ignored any post, anywhere, that was more than 50% caps, or more than 10% exclamation points by volume.<BR/><BR/>I know that's not the elephant, but lord, it would at least make for the bristles on the end of the tail.<BR/><BR/>If you think it's worth your time, and have a fairly modern PC handy, you can download a slightly crippled free version of Lord of The Rings on-line and play with the communication features...the bad part is that you're blocked from several channels in the free version...and I just don't think a lower level character can really "get" the experience of large group/raid play while conversing with friends and cutting in-game business deals and so on and so on.<BR/><BR/>Sorry for long ramble, and sorry to any 2nd life players I offended. I go to clubs once in awhile.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Totally Unrealted -<BR/><BR/>I don't know if you've had any nibbles on the concept of Uplift movies, but have you ever considered pitching a high quality late-teen/adult animated series sticking to the books?<BR/><BR/>Also...there sure is a lot of room for adventure in the Uplift Universe...and a glut of Fantasy MMORPGs and a derth of decent Sci-Fi MMORPGs...and a writer with a big interest in revolutionary on-line communication technology...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-172870432582353502008-05-15T11:10:00.000-07:002008-05-15T11:10:00.000-07:00"This here asynchronous medium (blogging) is affec..."This here asynchronous medium (blogging) is affecting deliberative processes in politics, science, media... crudely so far, with a long way to go, and that's compatible with 90% of blogs being drivel. It's not either-or."<BR/><BR/>Here is a bit from another blog I consider not drivel. A different expression of a theme that has come up a few times here on "Contrary Brin". Slightly edited to make my excerpt "self contained". From Scott Aaronson's blog Shtetl-Optimized:<BR/><BR/>----------------------------------<BR/><BR/>My own hypothesis has to do with bullet-dodgers versus bullet-swallowers. A bullet-dodger is a person who says things like:<BR/><BR/>"Sure, obviously if you pursued that particular line of reasoning to an extreme, then you’d get such-and-such an absurd-seeming conclusion. But that very fact suggests that other forces might come into play that we don’t understand yet or haven’t accounted for. So let’s just make a mental note of it and move on."<BR/><BR/>Faced with exactly the same situation, a bullet-swallower will exclaim:<BR/><BR/>"The entire world should follow the line of reasoning to precisely this extreme, and this is the conclusion, and if a 'consensus of educated opinion' finds it disagreeable or absurd, then so much the worse for educated opinion! Those who accept this are intellectual heroes; those who don't are cowards."<BR/><BR/>...<BR/><BR/>Here's a favorite analogy. The world is a real-valued function that's almost completely unknown to us, and that we only observe in the vicinity of a single point x0. To our surprise, we find that, within that tiny vicinity, we can approximate the function extremely well by a Taylor series.<BR/><BR/>"Aha!" exclaim the bullet-swallowers. "So then the function must be the infinite series, neither more nor less."<BR/><BR/>"Not so fast," reply the bullet-dodgers. "All we know is that we can approximate the function in a small open interval around x0. Who knows what unsuspected phenomena might be lurking beyond it?"<BR/><BR/>"Intellectual cowardice!" the first group snorts. "You're just like the Jesuit schoolmen, who dismissed the Copernican system as a mere calculational device! Why can't you accept what our best theory is clearly telling us?"<BR/><BR/>So who's right: the [bullet swallowers], or the [bullet-dodgers}? Well, that depends on whether the function is sin(x) or log(x).<BR/><BR/>----------------------------------<BR/><BR/>http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=326Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-952682541506341002008-05-15T11:04:00.000-07:002008-05-15T11:04:00.000-07:00Ramarren makes an excellent point. YES! People ar...Ramarren makes an excellent point. YES! People are already doing the hard work of attention allocation and prioritization themselves!<BR/><BR/>And they are getting headaches, missing a myriad potentially important details, skim misinterpreting other people and getting into flame wars, failing to keep notes and losing track...<BR/><BR/>Still, you have cast a slightly fresh angle on this and I need to think about it. I have seen so many cases in which a net or web service replicated a service that our natural body (eyes, ears, pointing fingers) provides in real life, that I actually thought that people would want this process to continue... <BR/><BR/>to get online-computerized services that replicate and emulate some of the vast number of sophisticated services our brains do for us in the real world.<BR/><BR/>I carefully parsed out dozens of those basic services, found them lacking anywhere online... and failed to elicit the slightest interest in them, anywhere. So I patented them... thinking that would prove these services aren’t being emulated online... and that that would make somebody interested in making a buck providing them.<BR/><BR/>I was wrong, clearly! Still I find your explanation saddening. That we would rather do all these things for ourselves VERY BADLY than get a little help from friendly cyber prosthetics? That sounds an awful lot like the folks who said that the mouse and GUI were absurd toys.... and that hypercard was a silly little fad. <BR/><BR/> (And let’s not forget there WERE such people! In fact, they were a vast majority of “smart guys” who torpedoed GUI at PARC and those who delayed the Web by a decade.)<BR/><BR/><BR/>Jester yes, you seem to be having a stab at comparisons that have some validity. It has been a few years since I looked into WoW. Can you tell me when these contextually responsive info-exchange features were introduced?David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-821846477838665312008-05-15T00:33:00.000-07:002008-05-15T00:33:00.000-07:00For those who really want to dig in, here's the Ho...For those who really want to dig in, here's <A HREF="http://www.google.com/patents?id=miB7AAAAEBAJ&dq=%22david+brin%22" REL="nofollow">the Holocene patent itself</A>. Read this and Brin will really have to stop accusing you of callousness!David McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16603857353437134459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50889168331272539452008-05-15T00:18:00.000-07:002008-05-15T00:18:00.000-07:00I'll throw my hat into the Holocene ring here and ...I'll throw my hat into the Holocene ring here and badly misunderstand all sides by trying to analogize it to WoW, since I <B>do</B> believe Jester has a point here - at least, I cannot yet see a meaningful difference between what he's saying and what our host is saying except that Jester is talking about how an implementation is used to achieve a concept, while our host seems to be trying to talk about the concept as a whole.<BR/><BR/>So ... okay, I'm going to explain my experience in playing WoW, and try to compare it to the words our host tried to use to summarize the concept of Holocene.<BR/><BR/><BR/>So, first of all, a bit of background on WoW for anyone who hasn't actually played it: You have your avatar whose appearance reflects your abilities in the game (to some degree, at any rate). You walk around or ride some kind of mount ... and you fight monsters, or just Really Big Guys.<BR/><BR/>While all of this is going on, you have (by default) some interface information showing your current status, the current status of your group, information about your target, something of a list of your abilities ... and in one corner, a text box where conversation is displayed. You can also modify all this to display more game information in whatever fashion you find desirable, make multiple chat windows, and so on ... but when it comes to CHAT, the only change I ever see is people pulling out a second window to show the result of the combat.<BR/><BR/>So, let's picture this: You've got your screen showing you your view of the world, and in one corner is a text box.<BR/>Now ... if you're raiding, you're probably in a guild that uses some kind of voice chat - so now you have another program running where people can talk directly. As a note here: Raiding (well, instancing in general) is probably the most attention-consuming activity you can engage in, while playing WoW. You're in fights that last for 5-15 minutes, where you need to use your abilities virtually constantly, you need to stay coordinated with your companions, and you need to pay attention to the fight and react to events happening -well-.<BR/><BR/>You need to allocate your attention WELL - if you do it badly, you're going to miss that that boss just cast a spell that will wipe your raid (forcing you to redo potentially hours of work along with 9-24 other people, who will Not Be Happy With You) if you do the wrong thing ... and thus, you'll do the wrong thing.<BR/><BR/>So how do we do it? Well, in -my- case, I have several tools working for me. First of all, I've got voice chat, and only people in the raid (so nearby, doing relevant things, and generally trustable) are there - so anything someone SAYS is probably important ... and when it's not, I can apply all the various tricks I use when dealing with conversation in the real world.<BR/><BR/>Second: WoW has three different settings for sound. You can set the volume of music, ambients, and sound effects differently. I've turned music down, ambients down more, and sound effects way up - I hear what's going on in the game world around me, and things nearer are louder. (an automatic feature of the game)<BR/><BR/>Third: Text. There's a way people can send messages that don't show up in that little text box I mentioned earlier at all - but only if the raid deemed them "important" - in which case they can emblazon a giant line of text across the middle of my screen, accompanied with (again!) a noise. Here's a bit of a "reputation" factor coming into play.<BR/><BR/>Fourth: That text box. It's got several different colors! And this is IMPORTANT. There's one color for guild chat - which I'm likely to skim quickly and depending on the name maybe read in depth. There's another color for a couple different "general" chats - which I only even pay attention to AT ALL when I'm idling about. There's a color for whispers (1:1 communication vs the normal n:n of a channel) which stands out - and I almost always read it, unless I've been trying to passively ignore the person sending it, in which case I skim only enough to catch who that is, and then I move on! And there's a color for party and raid chats, which are usually important but not time-sensitive, and a color for game status messages which are invariably of high importance (Either "You are dead", or "The boss is dead" - both are worth knowing.)<BR/><BR/>Now ... all of this is set up to assist me managing my attention allocation - conversations on vent are -always- listened to, what's going on in the game in front of me usually gets my visual focus, and then there's that text box which I often pay significant attention to, but only when I can both afford to and it's called my interest somehow.<BR/><BR/>Is this the best way to do it? Probably not, but it sure does work - I allocate attention and prioritize, and I do so with merely a little help from the computer. I am doing those things Holocene is, I gather, meant to assist me with ... and I'm doing them with a bit of assistance from various things in the game.<BR/><BR/>The most significant difference I can see here is that the features in WoW which assist with attention allocation etc do so incidentally - they primarily <B>distinguish</B> various things, which I then can 'decide' (in quotes as it's certainly not conscious) how much attention to allocate based on what they are, while Holocene would, apparently (and I still have not managed to figure out how, though I admit I never got around/a chance to taking part in one of the demos of the app) perform the attention allocation for me.<BR/><BR/>Is that at <B>all</B> close to being relevant to what you're trying to discuss, Dr Brin? Or is the miscommunication continuing some more?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11507725932358099333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57761794142304724572008-05-14T23:29:00.000-07:002008-05-14T23:29:00.000-07:00Dr. Brin, as I see it the problem with Holocene is...Dr. Brin, as I see it the problem with Holocene is that you seem to be saying than there is no "attention allocation" online. But most everyone is already using all the mechanisms you describe in some form of another, just without any help from their computer. One can already just skim when reading looking for keywords, maintain reputations and so on just in ones head. I mean, you do not some beeping devices during a cocktail party to do all that.<BR/><BR/>This changes the difference between attention allocation/prioritization and lack of it to a difference of allocating attention manually, and augmented with a computer. This is likely where most of the "it has been done before" comes from, people just don't realize that is was not a computer doing it.<BR/><BR/>This is much harder sell, one one which you haven't really been doing. Most of what I have seen was trying to convince people to allocate attention better, but they are already doing it. Whereas every time the question of interface comes up you dismiss it as unimportant, just something you can solve by throwing some "3D" and "avatars" at.<BR/><BR/>But in this case interface is everything. Once you build it, everything follows naturally. Without it, most of Holocene ideas are useless. It doesn't matter how awesome your attention allocation algorithms are, if the user will have to expend more effort and be more annoyed by using them that just doing it all by themselves. Why would they be fiddling with a hundred knobs constantly updating the computer knowledge of what they think about everyone else and whom they are paying attention to, when they could just remember that?<BR/><BR/>And the interface is <B>no mere implementation detail</B>. It is the hard part! Dismissing it you look like someone who thought of a flying car, and is now wondering why no one has built it yet when it is so obviously wonderful. I, for one, cannot visualize any system which would be more useful than annoying at all. Of course, I know nothing of interface design, but apparently <I>neither can anyone else</I>! I fear this might not event be possible with current technology, there is simply not enough pixels on 1024x768 screen to show everything necessary and still have space for actual text. Maybe in a decade...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com