Fantastic article, where can i buy the book? :)
-- Andrew B., February 24, 1999
As quickly as Hunter's and other media-geek visions are delivered to the rest of us, most of the added internet bandwidth will be claimed by multimedia pay-per-view productions, elaborated advertisements and other mindless diversions. Providing agents to filter out what we don't care about will guarantee that we can reinforce our prejudices and avoid learning anything truly surprising. That isn't the future I have in mind for the information highway: I want to access more diverse connections and deeper thoughts, not cooler commercials and new tolls.-Max Entropy
-- Geoff Dutton, March 8, 1999
I'm not certain I will be able to view the world of technology the same again! I was led to believe the type of cynicism I just read was left back in the 80's. Obvously it is alive and well in the techno- society. How utterly sad.
-- Nancy Chivers, May 7, 1999
HTML and GUI browsers are doing the very same thing for Internet communications that Citizen's band has done for two-way radio communications. Specifically, to aid morons to pack rainbows up each other's ass.Once upon a time, getting a transmitter license required the applicant to display some technical proficiency and a little skill on a CW keyer. Once, using a computer required some intellectual activity and a little skill at the keyboard. But....no more.
The best thing about popular browsers is that they still need expensive hardware. But soon enough, lots of "two-digit" folks will get LINUX and use a browser on a 486 box. Net congestion will continue to worsen. These new folks have less discretionary income and will attract a "different breed" of advertisers.
Look at the proportion of good, bad, and ugly stuff on television. Then think, "Do any y'all folks know if Jerry Springer has himself a web site now?".
Serious Netizens need a software or hardware "Bullshit Filter" and a speedy way around social traffic. Pray that the great MIT, or anybody, will provide an affordable solution soon.
-- Charles Miller, May 30, 1999
MIT has no monopoly in this area: Carnegie Mellon University (which prides itself as being as recognizable a CS giant as MIT and Stanford ... But does the world?) had an active interactive multimedia research program a few years ago, presumably competing for some of the play money Mr. Negroponte mines so skillfully.One project consisted of boiling down two narrative videos, totalling 90 min, to 30 "interactive" minutes on an videodisc, somehow "gaining" information/value along the way!
Another placed the entire known output of an artist (along with some forgeries) on a videodisc along with hundreds of pair-wise comparisons (in dreadful NTSC) even though printed illustrations, with a far higher resolution, could easily be compared side-by-side by hand.
The suggestion of seeking funds to conduct efficacy studies establishing the advantages of "interactive multimedia" over conventional media (if any) was met with dirision and incredulity, because, after all the whole exercise was a lark taking a free ride on the gullibility of those willing to pay to be on the "bleeding edge".
-- Nicholas Spies, June 21, 1999
I observed a couple of years ago that the Information Age needed some basic principles a la Azimov's laws for Robots or Newton's for Mechansical Systems.My proposed three principles of the Information Age are:
1) The cost of Production, transmission and storage of Information is decreasing rapidly toward zero
2) Because of 1) all value in Information is asymtotically found in its intelectual property (IP) thus the creation not the manifestation is where the value is located
3) The Less it costs to P, T, S, and for the IP of the Information the greater the quantity of Information that will be in circulation
Corollary -- Unfortunatly, Like Gresham's Law -- Low IP value information will dominate over high IP value information. An thus trash rules -- get a really good filter and batten down the hatches -- its going to be a bumpy milllennium
tpk
-- Ted Kochanski, July 10, 1999
Media Arts & Sciences are evolving from Computer Science in the same way Electrical Engineering "morphed" from Physics. We are in the dawn of the new age of Agent Aquarius. The world's press clings onto the Media Lab's tours, demos & video blurbs like fireflies on organically grown & excreted waste. Keep it up Hunter, you rock the webbed world!
-- Ed H., August 25, 1999
My cat's paw smells like cat food.
-- cliff vick, June 15, 2000
Cliff! Stop sniffing your cat's paw!
Oh, the site you pointed to down below? Mystery Meat Navigation. Flanders would beat you with a wet mouse cable.
-- Marty Schrader, October 26, 2000