PS to Socialist Embodied Realism

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

PS,  Economists,

Here are some interesting supportive information concerning television and
telephone information differences.  Two areas, first paper from Cambridge
University press on visual aspects of seeing motion, secondly, collaborative
tools in scientific communications.

In regard to seeing motion,

http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:TOKqFdkI1csC:psychology.newcastle.edu.a
u/~smarlin/3110/norman.pdf+occipital+lobe+brain+%22seeing+motion%22=en
<http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:TOKqFdkI1csC:psychology.newcastle.edu.
au/~smarlin/3110/norman.pdf+occipital+lobe+brain+%22seeing+motion%22&hl=en>

The ventral system is the memory-based system, utilizing stored
representations to recognize and identify objects and events.  In contrast
the dorsal system appears not to have a long-term storage of information,
but only very short-term storage allowing the execution of the motor
behavior in question.  Presumably the duration of this short-term memory
varies with the motor behavior in question, being shorter for reaching and
grasping movements than, say, walking through some aperture such as a door.5

Doyle
The implications of the statement above need to be applied to motion
pictures.   What is the value of seeing motion since that part of seeing is
not remembered?  The following quotes indicate how the separation of seeing
into two systems might appear to form the structure of language as we use
it.  One must assume that interactivity follows from the dominant sensory
system and how human beings use vision since language must follow what is
remembered.

continuing with the paper on vision
In sum, both the neuropsychological and psychophysical studies reviewed
above appear to suggest that the two visual systems utilize different
information for the pickup and perception of the near environment.  The
dorsal system appears to pick up binocular and motion invariants, while the
ventral system appears to perceive pictorial cues.  In general it would seem
that invariants are the preferred mode of picking up information about the
dimensions of the ambient environment, but, when needed, the cues can serve
almost as well, albeit a little more slowly and a little less accurately.

And

At the end of their chapter on space perception after discussing studies
showing that newborns several hours-old possess both size constancy and
shape constancy (Slater, Mattock, & Brown, 1990; Slater & Morrison, 1985),
they write:

"These spatial abilities require some degree of metric information about
space, as opposed to merely ordinal depth information, and binocular
convergence is emerging as the likely source of distance information in
these cases.  The case for convergence is largely circumstantial, however,
and more direct evidence is needed...... Motion-carried information about
space appears to operate from the beginning, as shown, for example, by
responses to kinematic information for approach.  More study is needed here
as well.......  Perhaps our clearest developmental picture of the emergence
of a depth- processing system is seen in stereoscopic depth perception.  The
rapid onset of stereoscopic acuity around 16 to 18 weeks of age, along with
evidence for innate mechanisms for binocular vision in other species and
knowledge of cortical maturation in humans, are all consistent with a
maturational account of this important depth perception ability in humans. 
Arising latest, sometime in the second half-year of life, are thepictorial
cues to depth.  Whether they depend on maturation, learning, or some
combination is unknown." (1998, p.108)

and

If we adopt the notion of two visual systems functioning simultaneously, one
with conscious awareness one without, one with different specializations
than the other, then there are many implications of an applied nature.  One
field of relevance is human navigation of vehicles, such as driving a car. 
In this task the driver would benefit if he/she were able to use both
systems more or less simultaneously, especially the dorsal system for
navigating.  This idea is not new.  Many years ago the implications of an
older version of the two visual system concept to driving were pointed out
by Leibowitz and Owens (1977).  One of the important differences between the
two systems is the relative sensitivity to peripheral vision.  The dorsal
system is much more attuned to the peripheral visual field than is the
ventral system.  Presumably when walking or running through our environment
we utilize information picked up by the periphery of our retinas for
navigational purposes; e.g., not bumping into objects or not stumbling over
obstacles.  There is good reason to believe that peripheral inputs into the
dorsal system can also serve in the navigation of vehicles, and several
studies have looked into this question.  For example, one study (Summala,
Nieminen, & Punto, 1996), had novice and experienced drivers drive along a
straight road using only peripheral vision for maintaining lane position
while performing another task foveally.  The results were different for the
two foveal tasks used, but in general the experienced drivers could much
better utilize their peripheral vision for lane keeping.

In regard to collaboration,

http://udell.roninhouse.com/GroupwareReport.html

An ideal implementation of Internet groupware would enable us to work in
shared electronic spaces that: 9

·       are created ad-hoc, without the help of a central authority 10

·       are accessible with free, universally-available software 11

·       are equally accessible to colleagues both inside and outside the
firewall 12

·       can be strongly encrypted 13

·       are backed by a rich, transactional data store 14

These shared spaces would support applications that: 15

·       fluidly integrate rich text, equations, vector and raster images,
voice, and video 16

·       are made of standard components 17

·       represent data in a standard way 18

·       encapsulate collaborative protocols (event scheduling, discussion,
document review, project planning) 19

·       help people focus attention on the "important" stuff 20

Problems with email lists:

But mailing lists aren't the best, or only, shared spaces for group
discussion. Here are some of the problems: 49

·       Mailing lists are awkward web/email hybrids
Email is distributed for delivery, but recentralized (in web archives) for
navigation and search. So it's unclear what, exactly, is the shared space
that list members occupy. Is it the collection of members' individual
mailboxes, or the web archive, or both? Some web archives allow full
participation, others support only reading and searching. 50
·       Mailing lists aren't easily secured
End-to-end encryption of email, using PGP or S/MIME, is widely available.
But mail encryption is poorly understood, not widely used for interpersonal
mail, and logistically unworkable for mailing lists accessed by a variety of
mail programs and (in archival form) by browsers. And, because the shared
space created by a mailing list propagates to many hard disks, it's
inherently difficult to secure. 51
·       Email is not a rich medium for discourse
Within the constraints of the fixed-line-length ASCII email message, there
is a very powerful tool: the URL. Most mailreaders can automatically render
URLs clickable. This ability to cite rich web-based sources merely by naming
them has radically expanded the expressive power of email. But email
discussion only refers to such documents. It does not, in general, create
them. 52
·       Mailing lists don't layer information effectively
Newspaper and journal editors have for many years chanted the mantra "heads,
decks, and leads." They assume that noboby has time to read everything, and
that each published item must be packaged in layers. The headline tells the
story in a few words; the deck (subtitle) in a sentence; the lead (abstract)
in a paragraph. In some contexts there may be only enough space to display
the headline; in other contexts all the elements may appear. The layered
architecture componentizes the story. Publishers can then select and arrange
these components so as to maximize that scarcest of resources: the attention
of the reader. 53

Email, as a publishing medium, fails disastrously to afford this kind of
layering. When you scan an inbox or mail archive, only the message's title
-- that is, its Subject: header -- describes the message, and provides a
clue as to whether or not to invest more time and effort in reading it.
Unfortunately, because of habit and a longstanding problem with email
threading, the titles are almost invariably used only to indicate threading.
The resulting cascading Re: syndrome, which drains titles of their
descriptive power, can be seen everywhere -- in your own inbox, and on
countless mailing lists. Here, for example, is a typical mailing-list
snapshot, from the Zope developers' list: 54
And

2.1.3 Roundup and "nosy lists"

Ka-Ping Yee's Roundup
(http://software-carpentry.codesourcery.com/entries/track/Roundup/Roundup.ht
ml), an entry in the Software Carpentry project's tracking category,
proposes a mechanism for single-topic, ad-hoc discussion called the "nosy
list," which works like this: 85

a.      New items are always submitted by sending an e-mail message to
Roundup. The "Subject:" field becomes the description of the new item. The
message is saved in the mail spool of the new item, and copied to the list
of all participants so everyone knows that a new item has been added. The
new item's nosy list initially contains the submitter. 86

b.      All e-mail messages sent by Roundup have their "Reply-To:" field set
to Roundup's address, and have the item's number in the "Subject:" field.
Thus, any replies to the initial announcement and subsequent threads are all
received by Roundup. Roundup notes the item number in the "Subject:" field
of each incoming message and appends the message to the appropriate spool.
87

c.      Any incoming e-mail tagged with an item number is copied to all the
people on the item's nosy list, and any users found in the "From:", "To:",
or "Cc:" fields are automatically added to the nosy list. Whenever a user
edits an item's properties in the Web interface, they are also added to the
nosy list. 88

The effect is like each item having its own little mailing list, except that
no one ever has to worry about subscribing to anything. Indicating interest
in an issue is sufficient, and if you want to bring someone new into the
conversation, all you need to do is Cc: a message to them. It turns out that
no one ever has to worry about unsubscribing, either: the nosy lists are so
specific in scope that the conversation tends to die down by itself when the
issue is resolved or people no longer find it sufficiently important. 89

Using many small, specific mailing lists results in much more effective
communication than one big list. Taking away the effort of subscribing and
unsubscribing gives these lists the "feel" of being cheap and disposable. 90

The transparent capture of the mail spool attached to each issue also yields
a nice knowledge repository over time. 91

This strategy is powerful because it leverages, and adds value to, existing
tools and habits. Messaging, in this system, occurs within a well-defined
context -- a specific project, a specific issue related to that project.
Like TimeDance, Roundup proposes to keep track of context so users don't
have to. 92

2.1.4 WikiWiki tools

Threaded messaging isn't the only model for online discussion. A popular
alternative is WikiWiki (Hawaiian for "fast"), a freeform collaboration tool
that prefers hypertextual structure to thread structure. The original
WikiWiki, a collaboration among programmers that's still ongoing at the
Portland Pattern Repository (http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors) is
a radical experiment: a collection of online documents that are always
editable by everyone. 93

There are two key features of the Wiki editing environment: 94

·       New documents are automatically conjured into existence. 95
While mailing-list messages can refer to existing Web content (by citing
URLs), they cannot, in general, create new Web content. In the Wiki
environment, specially-written WikiNames -- which are just mixed-case,
run-together phrases -- support automatic hypertext authoring. If I type the
phrase "BibliographicalReferences" in a Wiki page, it will be rendered
initially like this: 96

BibliographicalReferences?

Now the phrase is an invitation to create a new document of that name.
Anyone can create that document by clicking the linked question mark and
typing something into the editor. Once that's done, the phrase
"BibliographicalReferences" will be rendered, in all pages belonging to this
Wiki collection, like so: 97

BibliographicalReferences

Like URLs in email messages, these WikiNames are automatically rendered as
clickable links to Web pages. But here, the process of creating the document
addressed by the link has been automated. 98

·       HTML composition is simplified. 99

What can you type on your newly-created Wiki page? Here are some examples:
100