PHIL-Cyberspace, VRML, Bill Gibson, the whole shebang.

PATRICK FOLEY ([email protected])
Mon, 4 Dec 95 10:49:28 UT

You'll probably be getting mostly PHIL stuff from me, so you should know what
I've got in mind.
I'm not a professional anything, except at this point maybe student/musician.
I'm 17. But I don't think age/career comes into this.
Cyberspace is growing. This is a given. VRML is the futues. This (I hope) is
a given. And I think we need a lot of various standpoints on the issue if
we're going to come to any consensus.
I use Fountain, which is a nice little authoring tool, but I find it limited.
I can't seem to move objects between worlds, and I can't custom design
objects. But I'm sure that will change.
I think Bill Gibson had the right ideas about cyberspace- an abstraction of
data. That's all the Net is anyway, be it HTML, VRML or
who-knows-what-the-hell. Since I'm not really a programmer, I'll leave that
up to those who are more experienced-offering, of course, comments and
suggestions. I'm more interested in the aesthetics of cyberspace.
Y'all are gonna have to clue me in as to whether any thing is set in stone,
yet. But I seem to notice that everybody's got the ideas for home pages set
up alesady, but what about this- anybody got any ideas on what's going to be
in BETWEEN the URLs??
I'm not talking about a central server or anything... that's not really a
good idea. The whole point of the Net is that it's decentralized, not
subservient to anyone but the masses who use it. I look at it this way-when
you're in between URLs, you're looking at your BROWSER- a perfect place to
set up a common metaphor.
Maybe have a VRML Web directory-VSpace Yahoo, or something. The idea of
having a centralized paradigm seems useless to me; people see the world
differently anyway, and even the Web is not immune to personal
perception-I've got my browser, you've got yours, and never the twain shall
meet.
But Netscape is considered a standard, even though it technically isn't, and
9/10ths of IBM users use Windows, even though it is not technically a
standard, either. I think some of us should be working on this idea, rather
than all the minute ins and outs of Vspace.
Lemme know what you think about this-I've got plenty more ideas where this
came from, but I'm not hip on writing a book over e-mail. I've been working
on an idea for a virtual browser, with my own little hip look, but I don't
have a URL so I can't give people an address. If you're interested, let me
know; I'll embed it in e-mail to you personally, instsad of logging it onto
the discussion list, which is not particularly nice.
Anyway, gotta go, lemme know.

Josh Ellis,
[email protected]
"From my heart and from my hand/Why don't people
understand/my intentions?"
--Oingo Boingo, "Weird Science"

  • Next message: PATRICK FOLEY: "RE: The Raod Ahead"
  • Previous message: Marco Calamari: "Re: LANG: Copyright Protection for 3D Models"