From: harrison@cs.ubc.ca (James Harrison)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: what to pack for cyber-travel
Date: 20 Nov 1992 17:22:22 -0800
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: giraf.cs.ubc.ca

In article <98555@netnews.upenn.edu> mengwong@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Meng Weng Wong) writes:
>>my personal choices would be:
>>- a set of 'transport' programs that follow standard protocols. (telnet,
>>  ftp, rlogin, etc.)
>>- a set of information viewing utilities. (more, xview, play, or whatever
>>  programs will let me see the dominant media of the day.)
>[and so on]
>NO!  The essential difference between cyberspace and realspace is that in
>cyberspace, a realm of pure information, you don't need to bring *anything*.
>Not even telnet, ftp, or other such utilities.  In cyberspace, everything
>is accessible, *if you know where to look*.  Using an Internet / Usenet
>analogy: Information is found in FAQs.  FAQs point you to ftp sites,
>where you access software.  Software lets you do what you want.

>All you need in cyberspace is the experience to know where to find
>information, and the intuition of knowing how to make it useful.
>That's why, in _Neuromancer_ for example, the best deck jockeys aren't
>trained.  They're born.

Yeah right.  The _only_ reason for this is that the definition of Cyberspace
that everyone uses is as a computer centered viewpoint.  The user is the
intruder, and may be hurt, removed or transported unless they have enough
experience or power (AI) to prevent this from happening.

This is pure bullshit.  I refuse to accept that the paradigm of information
access in the universe of cyberspace would continue to be based on command
line interfaces or be computer centered.  True, security is an issue, but
I shouldn't be clobbered if I misstep.   I know that some people will say 
``but if you want the instant control, blah....'' that a CLI is necessary 
or some other point and click interface with minimal code between you and 
the hardware.

Note that the _original_ post was on a trip through cyberspace.  What kind of
trip.  A raid on a company's data storage?  Then bring the appropriate 
anti-ice hardware etc.

A survey of public databases?  Post-it notes, a spooler to keep the hyper-links
organized, a computational engine to derive relationships, perform 
bibliographic searches to form a derivation tree.

A wander through the net.  A ball of string so I won't get lost, a camera to
take pictures of interesting places and record where I was and what was
interesting.  Email so I can write to my friends.

Of course, the real question should be `what do you want to have available
as tools?'  They're always _with_ me because they're loaded into my deck.
So where is my cocker spaniel to sniff out interesting stuff related to 
what I'm looking at now?  What is my paradigm of transport?  How many
dimensions of manipulation do I want to have to control at one time?

Some people use different aliases for the same frequently used commands
in CLI based operating systems.  What are the most frequently use commands?
What would they be called?  What would their observed behavior be?  Is my
cocker spaniel forgetful and the longer it looks the further it gets from
what I sent it out to find?  Or does it get more specific as it searches?

How do I call it back?  Whistle?  Pull on it's chain?

Of course one paradigm that very few people ever seem to use is the
paradigm of the lab bench where things are analyzed.  Why should I have to
go to the information?  Don't we have all of these great networks with
really high bandwidths?  Bring the information to ME.  I'm the human, the
computer is only a Cray.  I refuse to worship the silicon, if you want to
then go ahead, just don't try and make me program my applications in that
light.

James Harrison
Unbeliever of the Computer Gods.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Harrison@cs.ubc.ca           `RPCing as fast as the network will let me.'