From 1996, Nova Scotia, mainly Sydney, working with Mike Gurstein Notes and Pieces Telecommunications in Rural or Non-Metropolitan Areas: What sorts of uses can CMC be put to in rural areas? In terms of _consum- ption,_ the answer is easy: family email lists; agricultural lists; local business Web pages; regional tourist advertising; K12 education; and so forth. I've been thinking about the various _productions_ that can be car- ried out, however - ways in which CMC can be tied into local economic de- velopment. This is partly the result of my association with Mike Gurstein and the C\CEN (The Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking) here in Sydney, Cape Breton, where many of these productions are in full force already. It is also the result of work I have done in New York and else- where, reports from other regions that have come through the Net, and the panel dealing with Aboriginal access at the Cybermind96 conference.) First, some obvious factors: 1. All CMC transmissions are in the form of digital packets; almost all are files. Depending on the software and hardware, transmissions can result in a variety of displays or instructions, etc. 2. Files are information, and not _things_ although they may be repre- sented as things on a hard-drive, etc. 3. Ignoring the philosophical crudity here - the distinction is critical. Economic development with CMC can only be in the form of information and transmission; nothing material (lumber, food, medicine) is moved from one location to another. So we are considering an outline of various "infomatic formations" that can be pursued in various non-metropolitan regions. These include: 1. DATABASES: Medical (including active health-care and preventive medicine information) - these can include everything from patient-organized newsgroups to expert systems, alternative medicine, government information, etc. Cultural (artists/artworks/literary/music/etc.) - these can also include artist-organized on-line exhibitions, gallery pages, regional artists consortia, etc. Regional - a broad range of topics including economy, local businesses, demographics, etc. Environmental - these can be advocacy or non-advocacy. Geographic - these can include surveyor's tabulations, geologic data and maps, etc. - in short, geomatic information. Almost any delineated domain can be placed within a database (historic sites, for example); the base itself can include a variety of files. Depending on the subject matter and complexity, database information can be organized by a relatively medium-level skilled community. 2. EDUCATION: on-line information on various topics - extension of multi- media approaches - either autonomous sites or sites which operate as up- datable extensions of distributed CD-ROMs. Some work towards educational CMC can be carried out by relatively un- skilled participants with a project director. 3. WEB PAGE MAINTENANCE: updating webpages for various institutions, etc. can be done with on-line research and email, anywhere. This can be carried out on a relatively unskilled level, if the updating involves data lookup and not redesign. 4. TELEBROKERING: already, investment brokers are moving into rural areas in some states; financial consulting can be carried out anywhere, with access to economic databases. Telebrokering is highly skilled, but establishing an environment amenable to telebrokers could conceivably bring new money into an area. 5. SECRETARIAL WORK: preparation of reports, business letters, etc., is already common for telecommuters. This requires a medium level of secretarial skill and retraining. 6. DIGITIZATION: translation of documents to digital format - this can be carried out anywhere and requires relatively low-level skills. 7. SOFTWARE PROGRAMMING: like #4, this requires a great deal of skill, but no specific location, and like #4, is a top-down community business deci- sion. 8. AGRICULTURAL: establishing and maintaining agricultural databases, re- quiring skills on a variety of levels. 10. LISTSERV, ETC. MODERATION: listserv, newsgroup, and other moderated applications can be used as the basis for employment; a central listserv site and employees (medium to high skill) could serve all the schools in a region, for example, interconnecting them as well with other non-local institutions. 11. DISTANCE AUTHORING / TRANSCRIBING: preparing technical manuals, arti- cles, etc., as well as transcribing and organizing of conference and meet- ing logs, out of house for various institutions. This requires a medium to high level of skill. 12. DISTANCE EDUCATION: distance education sites can be established at any number of local community colleges or even K12. This requires a high level of skill. 13. NATIVE PEOPLES SITES: these can included anything from dreamtime myth to local agricultural/industrial databases, gathered in central locations, and, at least in part, password-accessible only. 14. VARIOUS: there are numerous other opportunities, some of which are being explored by C\CEN, which are "one-off" - in other words, proffering services that are unique, and can't be duplicated in other situations. To the extent that any service operates on a national level, it occupies a particular information niche; other regional services can then be devel- oped as satellites. For example, a national or international weather site (gathering all weather resources across the Internet) would be unique; regional sites could then develop, emphasizing local conditions and con- cerns. ---------------------------------- I'm somewhat pessimistic concerning the efficacy of even partial retooling of any number of local economies for infomatics functions. This amounts to a movement from agricultural/industrial trajectories to information soc- iety, which may make the region vulnerable and its proffered services out- dated or redundant. At this point in time, there are reasons to be optim- istic for a limited number of regions, however; many of the service areas above need to be addressed, and local regions can outbid more centralized metropolitan areas. In the long run, I think one of the main uses of CMC in non-metropolitan areas will be for the intensification and presentation of local culture (hopefully with only a limited degree of packaging and reification); a means for dispersed families and communities to remain closely in touch; and a means for the intensive distribution of local (and even national/ professional) information to those who need it most. ________________________________________________________________________ Typology of Telecommunications in Non-Metropolitan Areas (North America): Electromagnetic Spectrum, atmospheric transmission: 1 Radio, AM - usually local origination, often agricultural information, religious 2 Radio, FM - often centralized feeds interspersed with limited local content 3 Television, VHF - network and independents 4 Television, UHF - religious, often local origination 5 Radio, Shortwave - limited use in terms of international transmissions 6 Radio, Amateur - community building, emergency uses 7 Radio, Packet - experimental, community building, Internet 8 Television, Amateur - experimental 9 Telephone, Cellular - limited usage in non-metropolitan areas 10 Telephone, Cellular/International - very limited usage 11 Walkie-Talkie - agricultural or construction site 12 CB Radio - highway information, limited community building 13 Beeper Technology - limited usage 14 Global Positioning Satellite Technology - surveying, site-work 15 Fire, Police, Utilities Frequencies - extremely common 16 Television, Satellite - becoming extremely common 17 Microwave, Satellite Linkages - connection into local networks 18 Satellite Weather Imaging Systems - standardized Fiber-Optic Cable Systems: 19 Cable Television - extremely common in some areas 20 Computers/Cablemodems - will become common within a decade (Internet) 21 Decodable Information-on-Demand - will become common Twisted Wire Systems: 22 Telephone - ubiquitous in many rural areas 23 Computers/Telephonemodems - becoming common (Internet) 24 Fax Systems - common for commercial enterprises, agribusiness Optic: 25 Laser Surveying - standardized 26 Weather Radar Systems - standardized Acoustic: 27 Voice 28 Sirens and Whistles - fire, noon, etc. Almost all of these appear as synchronic (satellite imagery, for example, is an exception); body language, mail, and transportation are not consid- ered. _________________________________________________________________________ Here I AM, A True Story Continued Here I Am alone in this apartment by the shore, there are cold waves and wind out there and I Am Alone with two laptops and one personal digital assistant, the other three computers have blown it down by the shore As I Have Said, and the other folk in this house are Out and I Am Alone to wait for the arrival of Thievery as I have said and the Neighbors are Suspic- iously Quiet I do say. I will fight to the Death to have These Laptops Preserved in their present condition, that is In My Vicinity and me in Good Health to boot, so that Neighbor Be Forewarned, I have my Pickax at hand and the Fiery Urge to Use It!!! ________________________________________________________________________ Night. Nothing happened. The screams died down next door. Dawn rose like Stephen Crane. Sea-wounds healed. No hard drive could survive out there. The beach flopped into the ocean. White rock. ___________________________________________________________________________ I can say now that this is the worst it has ever been; the screen is blank with 'I can say now" alone visible now now" alone appears buecase the lag is terrrible from here, no one can work from here, the "terrrible" three are's appearing in due course, hardly catching up with the real I'd say because there is nothing to say or do; this is not the way thought works or constructs itself in any means of constructive production so to speak, stuck on "wo_ on and off and now repeating onto ""wo_ on and off and so forth; there's no end to the road we're on, nothing in site/sight - how can one ever think that anything would go on when the pile of wordsat thetop continues to foall to the bottom, lose themselvge, so to speak, and against all odds, as if the packets were losing one afgter another or one might at anot_ relally for example or r_ or r_ again or " r__" again as the cursor continues with "r_" over and r_ over again or "relally" or r"_ over and r" or r"a_ or _ or ___ or _ or_ _____________________________________________________________________ because there is nothing to say or do; this is not the way thought works or constructs itself in any means of constructive production so to speak, stuck on "wo_ on and off and now repeating onto ""wo_ on and off and so forth; there's no end to the road we're on, nothing in site/sight - how can one ever think that anything would go on when the pile of wordsat thetop continues to foall to the bottom, lose themselvge, so to speak, and against all odds, as if the packets were losing one afgter another or one might at anot_ relally for example or r_ or r_ again or " r__" again as the cursor continues with "r_" over and r_ over again or "relally" or r"_ over and r" or r"a_ or _ or ___ or _ or_ _____________________________________________________________________ telnet: ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] [ Cancelled ] ?Invalid commandWriteOut ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^C Cur Pos telnet: ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ?Invalid command telnet: ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^]^] ___________________________________________________________________________ Celestial (LW6) This is a boring lackluster world, said Jennifer. There is nothing in the sky, one creamy sun, that's all, some sort of moon. I can see fuzz on a really dark night. But where are the quasars; for that matter, I could use a really good x-ray emission source, say, over there. Jennifer pointed over there. She said, but then there would be too much radiation, and it takes boredom to make a go of LW. Things take time to simmer and percolate, bubbles from froth, froth from bubbles. Then little things move about, in and out, up and down. Plankton heaved according to circadian rhythms established in primordial oceans. Jennifer said, it's boring, but it's boring to make a world. You've got to keep an empty neighborhood. Two suns wouldn't help, five moons might slow things down, crash land on someone's home. The soup stirred. Stromatolites grew double meter high, mud moved. I'm bored too, said Jennifer. Jennifer was born, said Jennifer. ___________________________________________________________________________ Future Antlerian Tensed What can any of us do in the face of the economic disaster that is looming on the immediate horizon? For at the same time that automation replaces the working class, the upper class atrophies and increases its wealth; further, their goods are increasingly produced by automation, lowering the costs relevant to their expanded spending power. Buried under mountains of consumer debris, the fetishization of microtechnology, the upper class bifurcates into those of the truly wealthy who abjure the electronic, returning to horses and haciendas, and the rest of them, living in virtual realities, albeit without helmet - all wealth produces virtual realities, the absence of manual labor, printed materials, revolutions and glares on the level of the street. Capital _is_ thereby the acquisition of the virtual, just as quantifica- tion within capital is the signifier of the virtual. Good or bad Marx, let us not forget this. What can any of us do? I would say nothing, the cultivation of nothing, of emptiness, participation in the sports and hermeneutics of the void. Our goal is starvation - our means, these keyboards which portend already the replacement of speech. No longer remembering our origins, we memorize our destination, the diminution or denouement whose reign is so totalizing that no _of_ is necessary. Diminution/denouement, no longer bound to the signifier, wreak havoc as machinery of the zero degree proceeds apace: which is not to say that it will not _rewrite its own degree,_ just as _rewrite_ itself has become our provenance, as we continue to assert our existence. -----------------------| (no, capital isn't virtual, it's a production machine, numerics, quantifi- cations; capital is national process, language (dialect with an army) - capital is the process of partial or complete virtualization - brokeraged by legitimation processes - no, it's not virtual at all, neither virtual nor real - of the order of information - ) _________________________________________________________________________ 1/2jen1/2, diary, internet consultancy, sydney, cape breton, nova scotia halfway through the consultancy. my mind goes up and down like a wheel on a prairie wagon. my mind goes round and round like a tire on a 767 landing at kennedy airport with a screech and a groan. my mind goes in and out like a drive train on an old 4-6-4 locomotive riding down the rails to little rock. my mind goes left and right like a whitewall brushing the curve at seventy-five miles an hour singing about the wolfman of del rio in the terry allen song. my head spins like a top running on the gyroscopic circuit in an early satellite and my head turns like a needle breaking rotational speed at a million turns a second. my heart gapes like the caverns of yore, caves of bygone days. i've never eaten food like the pipes of the cactus or the organs of brother andre of montreal. my carapace is thinner than the sea ice forming outside kristin's and jason's mutual window and my wings are more gossamer than the marmoreal slabs hidden beneath sydney's tenuous snow. i do more good than saint theresa on an off day with mother theresa and a woman who worked for our family when i was a small ambivalent child and i do less good than the maverick guide who beat up my friend outside the crackling nazareth restaurant. i think less than the book of psalms, more than the avesta. my denouement is my comeuppance and my sex is lost oper- atic. halfway through my consultancy i look for what i have found, drop what i haven't picked up, leave before i arrive, arrive after i leave; breathe beneath the sea, swim in the middle of air, run on my hands, jump on the water, drown in the clouds. my head faces my back, my back is in my front, you speak before my back, my front's against the wall. i'm the pavement on the streets of sydney mines, asphalt of glace bay cliffside, progonish, antigonish, cheticamp and half a camp, and wherever i've been i haven't seen, and whatever i've seen i've never been. you've walked a mile in my shoes because i am a man of no mean feat and not a leg to stand on, not an arm to lean on, not a hand to shake on, not a neck to head on, not a shoulder to cry on, not a lap to sit on. but i'm halfway through the consultancy and i haven't a waist to lean on. ________________________________________________________________________ (Mike Gurstein asked me to reiterate some of the comments I've been making about Web Pages - for the work I'm doing here. They follow below - again, please comment - Alan) Some notes on Web Pages -- 1 All web pages should be lynx-accessible in their entirety; .gif and .jpg images should be downloadable if they're content-relevant. 2 All web pages should be accessible by Netscape 1.0, 1.1, etc. - not only 3.0+ etc. 3 Frames and tables should be kept to a minimum, or there should be alt tags for avoiding them. If they're absolutely necessary, it would be helpful to have a .gif or .jpg version that can be downloaded. 4 The largest binary image files should be around 30k; most should be on the order of 6-7k. 5 It's easier to use non-image bullets. 6 Animations aren't necessary; again, you can have all the bells and whistles you want on a home page, but you need to have leaner clickable versions. 7 It might be advisable to have several versions of a pages, so that, even with graphics, slower machines could access them with thumbnail graphics. 8 Bitmapping should be used at a minimum, only when necessary (i.e. map of Canada - click for weather - but also, here's a list of provinces/cities). 9 Mailto's are almost always useful for feedback; they give the appearance of interactivity, even if minimal. 10 Cookies should be used extremely sparingly - applets, etc. the same. 11 It may be advisable to either avoid Java or have both 16- and 32-bit versions of the home page, since Java only runs in the latter. 12 Titles and the first, say, 10 lines of the home page are critical, be- cause of search engines and their strategies. 13 The number of .gifs and .jpgs should be kept to a reasonable minimum, since the whole page should download within, say, 15 seconds on a 28.8 modem. 14 It's useful to have a number of different browsers available in the studio when designing a web page - it's also useful to have them connected by phonelines, not by lan, to realistically watch the download in prog- ress. 15 Know your audience/demographics; I personally hate words like "cool" and "radical/rad" since they're overused and subvert their original edgy meaning, but they would function well in some contexts. 16 If you _are_ going to use cookies and/or ask for client-side informa- tion, advise your readers. 17 Try for realistic counts of web page hits; counters tend to inflate rapidly, responding to spiders, bots, and repeated hits at a single session. 18 Make sure your page is listed with major search engines; if it is for public service, you might also send the URL to the Net-Happenings list. 19 Keep advertising and listing of browser buttons etc. to a minimum (you don't need to say "click here to download Netscape 3.0 etc.). 20 Be wary of marginal tags for .html that might not be readable by other applications. 21 Have your page organized somewhat in outline form, so that the main points can be quickly grasped. 22 Rather use links then lengthy scrolling, if at all possible. The exception might be for searchable documents. All of these point to a reasonably lean web page which can also expand (or, conversely, a fat web page that can collapse), depending on the browser, user's computer, etc. It also makes for good Netiquette, if that still exists; you don't receive more than you need... _________________________________________________________________________ Logins: I can't Write Much to You Today: These Words Still Appear Black On Screen You See What You Do to Me: All These Logins As System Crashcrash For Me So Local Funnel Getting Out of Here: Lord Won't You Buy Me an ISP: Hell is Stapled Lips: sondheim ttyp2 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 21:58 still logged in sondheim ttyp7 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 21:54 - 21:57 (00:02) sondheim ttyp7 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 21:52 - 21:53 (00:01) sondheim ttyp8 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 21:49 - 21:52 (00:02) sondheim ttyt1 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 21:41 - 21:49 (00:07) sondheim ttype hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 21:39 - 21:41 (00:01) sondheim ttyp2 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 19:01 - 19:08 (00:07) sondheim ttyqd hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 18:53 - 19:00 (00:07) sondheim ttyp2 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 17:56 - 18:00 (00:03) sondheim ttypa 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 17:47 - 17:48 (00:01) sondheim ttyq2 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 17:37 - 17:39 (00:02) sondheim ttype 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 17:25 - 17:31 (00:06) sondheim ttype 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 17:17 - 17:23 (00:06) sondheim ttyp5 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 17:11 - 17:16 (00:04) sondheim ttys3 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 16:51 - 17:03 (00:11) sondheim ttys3 142.177.20.32 Wed Jan 15 16:03 - 16:51 (00:47) sondheim ttysb 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 14:47 - 14:47 (00:00) sondheim ttypf 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 14:23 - 14:30 (00:06) sondheim ttyrd 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 13:31 - 14:18 (00:47) sondheim ttyte 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 12:30 - 12:43 (00:13) sondheim ttype 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 11:38 - 12:00 (00:21) sondheim ttyq0 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 11:37 - 11:38 (00:01) sondheim ttyq0 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 11:35 - 11:36 (00:00) sondheim ttyra 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 11:34 - 11:35 (00:00) sondheim ttyra 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 11:33 - 11:34 (00:01) sondheim ttyra 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 11:26 - 11:32 (00:05) sondheim ttyt3 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 10:18 - 10:21 (00:03) sondheim ttyt3 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 10:14 - 10:15 (00:00) sondheim ttyq4 142.177.20.41 Wed Jan 15 09:29 - 09:31 (00:01) sondheim ttys4 142.177.20.11 Wed Jan 15 08:55 - 09:17 (00:22) sondheim ttyp5 142.177.20.11 Wed Jan 15 07:47 - 08:31 (00:44) sondheim ttyp0 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 06:53 - 07:01 (00:08) sondheim ttyp0 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 06:33 - 06:43 (00:10) sondheim ttyp0 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 06:30 - 06:32 (00:02) sondheim ttyp0 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 06:28 - 06:29 (00:00) sondheim ttyp2 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Wed Jan 15 06:21 - 06:27 (00:06) sondheim ttyp0 hp950.uccb.ns.ca Tue Jan 14 23:10 - 00:02 (00:52) _______________________________________________________________________ Subject: my illuminated document -- here on the shore the wind is howling like i never heard it howl here on the shore there are waves and a freighter black freighter riding high in the sea and the wind void here there is rain cutting through like black knives of black steel here there is black wind cutting through black stars in black skies lights by the quayside nothing visible cranes down in violation fabric and void slag heaping ore here on the shore the winds are screaming now the neighbors quiet nothing stolen in this house lashed by wind and rain here by the shore the wind and black rain lash the black shore and void freighter black howling knives here by the shore warm sheets of black wind and black rain scream against the headlights of the black car on the black road guiding towards the void shore illuminated by headlights and void illuminated ice here on the shore where i can't write can't think here on the shore where i can't see can't speak too much sound lag black void blank void screen electricity flicking in black shore void house void black ice shore silent on this black netted shore and void internet stolen by neighbors in this black iced shore house and void black wind black rain i leave before electric howling knives void internet eerie silent and black __________________________________________________________________________ Database Interfacing Questions What is the most convenient way to represent databases (db)? Do db con- stitute the most efficient way to organize knowledge in general? Are tree-structures, with their implied parent/child phenomenology, the most useful metaphor (these are employed in Win95, Unix, DOS, etc.). Tree-structures, unlike, say, the rhizomatic model described by Deleuze- Guattari, are based on implied relationships and the necessity of a root; it's also possible to conceive of bush-structures with multiple roots, but the computer itself tends towards singularities. There is current research in using VRML and other modeling languages to create three-dimensional data-structures with virtual reality interfaces. How easy will it be to navigate these? Further n-dimensional structures are also possible, mapped into three-dimensional space. Are there difficulties with text itself? Approaching a form with letters and other data constantly refreshed at any conceivable angle (necessary for three-space representation) results, at least as far as I can tell, in poor reproduction at the moment. But it is only a matter of time before this is corrected. Three-dimensional space is the smallest dimensional space which permits interconnectivity among any number of units, without interference. In two- dimensional space, only four regions can be maximally connected to one another (a square with one interior diagonal and an external connection between the other two vertices). So three-dimensional space can be used for indicated complex maximal and other connectivities. Knowledge-representation in the brain is distributed, not root- or tree- oriented; classification is always already a posteriori. The tree-metaphor is highly reductive, less and less useful for postmodern society. This is not to say that n-dimensional representations are not tree-oriented as well, but there are other immediate possibilities, many of which involve fractal or even cloud-oriented approaches. Linkages for example could be weighted areas, not on/off nodal points. On the other hand, there are issues such as gravitational meshes and other body cues; should these be wired in? Does the space as a whole have a geo- desic structure? How is the space navigated? It is easy at this stage to become caught up with the novelty of navigation, rather than the hard-core facilitation of data-access. In n-dimensional spaces, I call such data-access (as well as the CMC uses of such spaces) a form of _shape-riding,_ since shape is constructed (think of it as a mani- fold) and developed as one moves about, focusing on regions. Are there other models that can be implemented at this stage? Do all models require some form of objects and arrows? Are all relationships, in other words, necessarily reproducible within graph-theoretical forms? (Could this in fact be another definition of graph theory?) Is there a basic ontology of objects and (weighted, named, etc.) arrows that must be taken into con- sideration (as in category theory)? Are there db that have_no_ models at all, db in which each object is an independent instantiation (as in Borges' story)? Suppose everything had its own proper name, unrelated to any other? Are all db capable of indexing? Are all indexes (not indices) mappable onto the rationals? What would a fractal or a continuum-based index look like? What is the db of the future, in other words - and how does it relate to neural processing itself? Are there ways to facilitate knowledge acquisi- tion that are independent of classical taxonomic structures? ___________________________________________________________________________ URGENT NOTE: The black freighter is called THE DESERT FALCON. END OF NOTE: ______________________________________________________________________ Solution to CMC Postmodernism: Jennifer said, listen, here is the solution. Within CMC, computer-medi- ated-communication, there are no arrows and objects; everything is both. All is process and mobile because all is construct; tcp/ip; is construct, the avatar or recipient is construct - it all exists within a closed uni- verse. What is alive or mobile, is permanently external (ontologically and epistemologically); whole worlds are irreducible. So that everything is object-oriented but nothing is an object. So that everything comes apart, part-object, part and parcel, but nothing is entity. So that entity is always already the result of definition or the proper name or address/recognition/protocol, as I've said from the begin- ning (net1.txt). Manifolds in flux. Streams and strata. Postmodernity. In which: Existence is construct; Microelectronics are the order of the day; Embodiment is always hysteric, prosthetic; Time is fractal within broad circadian rhythms; The only master narrative is that of tcp/ip itself, and that, like particle physics phenomenology, is by and large behind the scenes; Master narratives are in fact replaced by packets and datastreams; Work is flexiwork and telecommuting; Sites are ephemeral and porous; Sites and knowledge databases are growing exponentially; Knowledge is equivalent to search engines and knowledge-management; What is, is digital; Information is flux; Sexuality occurs within the ascii unconscious; Bricolage and local territorializations/TAZs increase; The nation-state is weakened; Property (intellectual property) is problematized; Seamless virtual realities are on the horizon; There is no difference between ikon, index, and symbol; Semiotic emissions occur with increasing frequency (sourceless, undirected); Split, netsplit; Institutionalized transgressions; And me!, said Jennifer. Now what? she asked. Don't these implicate all sorts of bridges, routers, servers, LAN/ds? One sex or nation sucks another; everything gropes across territories, no one pays attention. CMC is _out there_ she said, no matter what you call it; it might as well be postmodern. __________________________________________________________________________ The Other Side of the Freighter We went to Sydney Mines today, North Sydney as well. The Other Side of the Freighter Aurora was Clearly Visible. Of course, The Freighter May have Turned Around to Thwart our Geometric Purveyance, but Then I Assume - and From What Cause - that It would Face the Other Way as well. Or not.... I will Be Back, there is a Drawing Board Here for My Purveyance. Jennifer __________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Thinks Through Identity How can a freighter have _the other side_? What large twirls in the water? Just so, what is displacement? How is one searching directed? Just so, these are the questions Jennifer asks, leading to query of iden- tity, "the major problem," which is Jennifer's freighter, neighbor's Jen- nifer, freighter's neighbor. Identity is not equivalence, nor representation; it is the thing or chao- tic domain itself, therefore inexhaustible or rather unthinking. I define this as the _ring of identity_ which is a diacritical of thought attached to a domain, nothing more; it is insufficient to structure something "id- entical with itself." The ring is broken by the presence or procedure of the object; the ring is neither halo nor aura. Thus, "with" or in consideration of, identity, _nothing is being said._ The thing closes in upon itself, leaving us speechless. Identity is silence, silenced; only its negation can be spoken (an elec- tron may not be identical with itself). The "its" of "its negation" is problematic. Let me continue, she said. The freighter was out there beyond the shoreline, out of bounds/binding. Identity as silence, speechlessness, absorbs discourse, discursive forma- tion, and the communicative environment or domain. There is a way of say- ing that it stands against speech. It is the gardens of an absent building containing the files of everything in the world, the worlding of the world. Identity is the effacement, _in other words,_ of writing, or non-writing, the impossibility of being-said here, which _does_ relate to Godel by circuitous route, as well as the collapse of a scaffold. _________________________________________________________________________ What I was Saying All Along, Jennifer "Rather than obscure the basic melody, conventional symbols have been used for most ornaments. This allows the user to ignore the embellishments dur- ing the first reading. Once the basic melody is solidly committed to memo- ry, then, as Johnny Wilmot would say, 'you put in the dirt' (by substitut- ing embellishments and adding melodic variation.)" (From Paul Stewart Cranford's introduction to Jerry Holland's Collection of Fiddle Tunes.) It's not as if the freighter presented one side or another; now, with the wind and rain,it turns slowly in the middle of the harbor, one doesn't have to travel anywhere... As dirt lends itself to the analog, the body, smeared and stained, escapes the digital domain. _____________________________________________________________________ Gone The freighter's gone, the Aurora, before I've had the time to leave; it's left no wake in the black black water, I want to rhyme with daughter, be- cause that's how I think you through. She played the fiddle like a substance. The water is me. Jennifer. __________________________________________________________________________ The Freighter The freighter is the signifier. The freighter, gone from the waters, Aurora, is becoming the signifier. Jennifer. _______________________________________________________________________ Last Talk In the talk I gave in Carol Corbin's class I described postmodernism in relation to modernism, using the example of category theory - that one has arrows and objects on one hand, which are classically defined (even though objects can, for example, be broken down into roles or psychoanalytical entities depending on the domain) - and on the other, one has what appear to be entities but turn out to be information themselves (avatars, etc.), continually undergoing transformation and redefinition; if they don't speak, they're not present... The modernist object/arrow model lends itself to hierarchical structuring up and down the scale, moving across at the last physical domains; the other model (related to the internet for example) moves throughout regimes of information - superstructural communities above for example and bits and bytes below. And it's the internet model that is recuperating/sub- suming the other, as the ontology of the physical world dissolves into information-based models - and as ironically neural models leave the do- main of classical computation, replaced by neural networking and Edelman's concepts of active integration at a distance. Further, in the internet model, there is no distinction between entity and process, between (perhaps) time-variant and time-invariant regimes. And I would write more and will but I'm leaving for NYC tomorrow first wandering the streets of Halifax with no sleep, just nervous and depressed about returning... Alan __________________________________________________________________________