From: James Still Date: Wed, 02 Mar 94 13:37:00 PST ... . . . . . . . . . . . . popE x Mass = accelerated_j e s u s ... . . . . . . . . . . . . --- issue 1, no 2 ----------------------------------------------- #include int main() Hmmm... this is { the second issue printf("Editor: Johannes Kepler \n"); of PxM=a_j. printf("Copyright (c) 1993 by James Still"); Got an excellent } feature piece by Patrick Salsbury on gettin' every 'zine, so please one up to speed I notice that Borland is updating their C++ in cyberspace. compiler to version 4.0. Didn't they just Hopefully with t put out 3.1, or am I losing track of cyber- he addition of P space & time? It used to be a year or so at's piece, more before anyone had the nerve to make a full of you will begi update to their software, but now something n to see the for is a Jurassic Park fossil after a month or mat I'm shootin' two. What gives? I myself feel the pinch for here. Send as more and more people ask me to throw out me your submissi an update to PGPShell. (I coulda swore 2.2 ons for the Janu was just released in August....) ary issue now! I need 'em right a After deep consultation with a TI calculator way. E-mail me I've come upon a frightening conspiracy of at still@kailua. an exponential scale. Check this out: colorado.edu or call up the Hier Longevity (L) of a given piece of software oglyphic Voodoo is exponentially denegrated over time (t) Machine BBS at at a rate times demand (D). So, +1 303 443 2457. L = e^(Dt) Well, crunch this and you get a cool looking function of x that looks like a stock market crash as variable (t) gets smaller. I've got it all figured out: pretty soon the programmer will be cranking out code just like those old Walt Disney movies where all the townfolk pass pails of water to the barn that is on fire. (Hurry up dammit, my software is ten daze old; where's that next update!?) Of course sooner or later, one of us will stop and realize that we didn't even know how to work the last gizmo let alone this new bell and whistle just out. Ah well, tumultuous times require fast food approaches--we did grow up with Starsky & Hutch cool car chases after all. Please excuse me now while I send in for C++ version 4.0. I just can't wait to get it. ------ f e a t u r e ------------------------------------------- On the Relationship of Safety to the Development of Culture Copyleft: Patrick G. Salsbury salsbury@netcom.com ------------------- I was just thinking about PGP and privacy and how they relate to the psychological development of individuals, and thence, subcultures. People, in fact, all creatures, seem to have a need for safety. The more comfortable one feels, the more one will be able to relax, and devote energies to the creative portion of one's mind. Doing this, one focuses more "process time" to exploring new regions of thought, rather than on various defense mechanisms. On the Net at Large, people aren't as likely to post all their deep-dark-secrets, at least, not without an anonymous account. But in more private newsgroups, not as populated...rapport and community develop. People feel safer, and open up. On mailing lists, things can be more open, and on *private* mailing lists, great intimacy can develop, with people you've never met, but with whom you share some deep-rooted interest. With PGP and other new technologies, people are availed of an even greater level of privacy/openness, which allows for a great amount of freedom to be and express oneself... One can be assured of talking only to those whom one chooses, and others who get the messages won't get the real message which is hidden inside. With techniques such as these, one can send a message to several groups and have multiple messages contained within it. Sort of like nested levels of privacy. The Net seems to be expanding as people join large groups, or who have small groups which grow to large groups, and then smaller, self-selecting groups splinter off into a new topic, or a refinement of the original one in some new area. This, I think, is the main argument of this essay: That by assuring people of their level of security, they will spontaneously and automatically extend themselves to whatever level they feel comfortable. As people open up more, some individuals may notice further similaries with others, who splinter off into another sub-culture, and the process begins anew. I feel that this blossoming of sub-cultures may well point the way to an ever-growing knowledge pool, hyper-linked by the technology which made it possible in the first place. This pool of knowledge, freely and easily accessible to any person on the planet, would lead to an educational boom on a planetary scale the likes of which have never before been seen. Individuals, when allowed to freely explore, find that which intrigues them the most, and follow along that route until they bore of the topic, or find something new to grab their attention. This, I think, is the basis behind "Net Surfing." People hop from topic to topic, learning new things, integrating them with past experiences, and arriving at new ideas, which they might then contribute to the Net at Large, which spurs new ideas in others, who form new groups, ....and so it continues. Essentially, it seems that the most practical way to increase the standard of living for the citizens of planet Earth, is to increase the mind-power which is working on the various problems of the era. The best way to do that is to educate more people. And it would seem that the Net at Large may well be the most efficient method of info-delivery to the greatest amount of people with the least amount of time or cost. For example: People often talk about the "problems" of population growth in Third World countries, and debate about methods of birth-control or population growth-rate moderation. But an action as simple as running an electrical wire into the center of a village will allow such an improvement in living standards, that population will naturally decrease. This power source would allow for everything from water purifiers, to light, heat, food production, and of course, communications. When people's basic needs have been met, such as food, shelter, and warmth, they are able to focus more energy towards learning. ("Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs") More population means more mind-power on the planet. (That seems to be the one world-resource that never makes it onto the statistics charts as being in demand.) If there all these people out there, and they get access to satellite TV with thousands of world-wide channels, and get access to the Internet, with it's millions of users, and all the Internet browsing tools (such as as Archie, gopher, WWW, WAIS, and Xmosaic), which are becoming ever-easier to use, then I think we'll see such a boom of intellectual and artistic development as to make the Renaissance pale in comparison. How to arrive at this? It seems that as technology continues to advance, it becomes cheaper and easier to stay in touch more of the time, from more places around the globe. And with the advance of technomadics, people can now bring along a small computer, and "jack in" to the Net from almost anywhere on the planet. So suddenly, it doesn't really matter as much WHERE you are, because you can carve out your own private niche in Cyberspace, and take it with you. Go to a foriegn place, hook up to the Network, telnet to your main system, and you're back home, with access to all of your information, addresses, files, and friends, regardless of where you physically are. And since there are no racial, ethnic, age, or even gender-specific indicators over the Net, a person is allowed to be whomever they truly wish to express themselves as. It seems fairly profound, that a person...ANY person...can go into any group, and spend some time learning whatever their heart desires, and become an expert in the field. They don't have to know a whole lot about computers, because there are places along the way in the Net where they can learn computers as they go. They don't have to know how to spell or read very well when they first start, but their language and vocabulary will improve as they go along. There are spell-checkers and dictionaries, and sometimes even grammatical and style-checking programs built into various text processors. They don't have to be any specific age. All that comes across is how well you can express yourself, and _that_, as we've seen, is a function of feeling safe. Imagine some of the development of these vast expanses of knowledge: People can browse through the Internet as they please, learning whatever they need, to accomplish whatever it is that they want to do. And along the way, there will be spinoffs that benefit others. And they will form new groups...and these will produce new ideas...and the Net/human mind-power will probably just keep on growing... ----.sig -------------------------------------------------------- popE x Mass = accelerated_j e s u s is published periodically by the sysop of the Hieroglyphic Voodoo Machine BBS which boasts and toasts --> V.32bis N81 at --> +1 303 443 2457. entire contents of this file is copyrighted (c) 1993 by James Still, aka Johannes Kepler and may *not* be extracted or re- published in part, or in its entirety without prior consent from James Still. All Rights Reserved Poncho... send submissions, gripes, comments to: still@kailua.colorado.edu REMEMBER: You *can* make a pig out of push pins and an eraser. Pave the Earth! ----EOF----------------------------------------------------------