Re: Portals vs Links
Clay Fouts ([email protected])
Fri, 5 May 1995 00:48:33 -0400 (EDT)
> The problem is that, in the real world, there is no separation of
> "what you can see" and "what's physically transportable into". (Modulo
> closed windows and such, of course, but those are readily modelable
> with even the technology we've already got.) It seems unintuitive and
> jarring to me that there is any real difference. A door should be both
> a "portal" (you can see through it) and a "link" (you can walk through
> it). Moreover, the link process should, in theory, be *seamless*. Which
> is the whole point of the portal idea, and why I get a little
> frustrated when people say, "Oh, just use transporter tubes" or
> something like that. That isn't how the real world *feels*. The real
> world is *seamless* -- and so should cyberspace be, even if it *is*
> actually n-dimensional.
Why not present the option of having _both_ the link and the portal?
The link would provide a means of moving from place to place while the
portal would provide a view of another place. And then you could combine
the two to make the conventional doorway. Yes, zooming from place to
place without walking through a door is counterintuitive by our physical
world standards, but why not alter intuition? If you want all your places
to have link/portals (a door), go for it... but why make that the
only way? flexibility.
clay