Really? Think about that, and now go back to the Usenet analogy again.
Usenet *does* have control, quite a bit of it. Now dispersed, originally
quite centralized. Is it any better organized than the Web? I don't
think so; I'd say that finding the Usenet newsgroup you want is at
*least* as difficult as finding the page you want on the Web.
More below...
>What many people don't realize is that with the HUGE virtual volume CP provides
>there really won't be a need to fight over who gets to be where.
Right, but it *does* appear to mean that an object has a single location,
and *that* is the key problem I see.
The *beauty* of the Web is organization. You may see tangles, but I
see a fluid, organic self-organizing system. What makes it that way
is the fact that any two objects *can* be attached to each other.
This means that you aren't restricted to traditional, real-world
methods of organization, such as linear layout and hierarchy. The
world can be organized in a thousand different ways, if you so choose.
The Web is N-dimensional, in a way that the real world just can't be,
and that permits an infinite variety of modes of organization.
I want that same flexibility in cyberspace. I want the big Library
of Engineering to be on the Street of Libraries *and* in Silicon Row.
We *can* do this with the technology we've got; the portals scheme
makes it quite straightforward. We shouldn't limit ourselves to the
notions we get from real-life; we should just make sure that our
flexibility isn't disorienting. (Which is the crux of the portals
proposal.)
Actually, I'm not really down on the CP; it sounds fairly reasonable
as *an* approach to Cyberspace, for them as *do* want tighter
organization. And it probably is fully compatible with Portals; I
don't see any particular reason we can't do both, and let people
decide whether they want to use one or both of them. I just don't
want that sort of structured metaphor to be the *only* way of getting
around Cyberspace; I want the fluid structure of the Web to also be
an option...
>At this point I'd like to invite anyone else interested in this facet of
>cyberspace (CP and other such issues) to drop me a line at [email protected]. I'd
>like to start a small private group to study this and maybe even try a few
>ideas out to see what happens.
I'm definitely interested; the structure and organization of
Cyberspace is what got me interested in this project in the first
place...
-- Justin
Random Quote du Jour:
"the sand remembers
once there was beach and sunshine
but chip is warm too"
-- From "hi-tech haikus"