Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!milton!sharp@cs-sun-fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca From: sharp@cs-sun-fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: Re: so called cyberspace conferences Message-ID: <1990Dec15.073629.20435@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> Date: 15 Dec 90 07:36:29 GMT References: <12657@milton.u.washington.edu> <127 <12868@milton.u.washington.edu> Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu Organization: U. of Calgary Computer Science Lines: 82 Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu Hiya, A reply to the reply... In article <12979@milton.u.washington.edu> cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writ es: > > >In article <1990Dec13.093343.8402@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> sharp@cs-sun-fsd.cpsc.ucalg a [stuff about ref to how information technology develops] > >We just got an off-scale reading on the good ol' bogometer here. 70 years? Sorry, my mistake, the actual quote is (p 392) : "The line of product innovation marks the practical availability of the various stages of new technology, and it lags the line of invention by 16 years, and in its turn is lagged by the line of low cost products by 16 years. Thus there is a 16-year gap between invention and significant application, and a 32-year gap between invention and mass production" I was looking at invention to next invention time lines. >"Information technology" itself (unless you define it as double-entry >bookkeeping & other heavy-duty paperwork) has been around for less than 50 >years. I don't know who this Gaines guy is (some freshwater professor of >sociology?), but his "stages" are so vague as to be entirely useless. >In fact, I don't even know what he means by "an" information technology. So >let's try some guesses: First, yes it is 50 years, 1940 as the start time. Second, the 'Gaines guy' as you put it is TOP in his field (Knowledge Acquisition), and a recognized expert on social effects of technology. Not exactly a freshwater professor, unless you call a PhD. from Cambridge freshwater. And as to vague stages, I am sure most of your stuff looks vague when quoted. Try reading the paper, that is how research and science works. As to the other stuff you presented. Try reading the paper before commenting on the vague terms. Perhaps the key factor I left out is why thing have followed cycles as described. Take your example of hardware development. If you plot the devices per chip versus year as a linear graph, you get almost nothing from 1956 to 1980. Then it curves up like crazy. This makes it look like there was one innovation. This is just not true. If you plot it as a series of linear graphs, taking each major change in density as breaking points, it clearly shows several innovations. 1956-1959 0 to 1 device, 1959-1964 1 to 20 devices, 1964-1972 20 to 5,000 devices, 1972-1980 5,000 to 500,000 devices, 1980-1988 500,000 to 20,000,000 devices. A slight adjustment in point of view, and bingo, the idea makes more sence. The bottom line is, if you take the stages given, you can show a revolutionary change in every generation of computers (the 5 above, now the 6th). The paper even predicts cyberspace/vr ideas, before there was even a conference !! >falsifiable - which means they're meaningless. Read Popper. I have read Popper, and I like it :-) I am suprised that you did not get a copy of a paper before criticising it. Read it, he presents the argument in more detail, and more convincingly than I can. The bottom line is it is still too early for hard theories of cyberspace and VR. Wait for 10 or 15 years, then we may see some. Until then, we will have to be happy with design principles. More an art of cyberspace/VR creation than a science. maurice -- Maurice Sharp MSc. Student (403) 220 7690 University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. sharp@cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 GEnie M.SHARP5