May 5, 2007

mindserfer Hilbert: hola, jack.

Jack: hi

Jack: are you here for the discussion?

mindserfer Hilbert: xanado and xana don't, I'm keeping an open mind.

Jack: well, I guess we can get started

Jack: have any of you read about Xanadu before?

Sylvester Bleac: nope

Jack: I will summarize the main features quickly

Jack: Xanadu was designed back in the 1960's by Ted Nelson, but has still not been created except as partial or incomplete programs

Jack: it is hypertext with 2-way links, meaning that anyone can create links between documents, and the links will be seen in both documents

mindserfer Hilbert: so versions of pages need unique names, any progress on a standard for that.

Jack: there have been a few attempts at it, Jeff Rush has written a server, I met him last year, but no front-end for it yet

mindserfer Hilbert: what is the server written in? python, perl, php?

Jack: links in Xanadu would also be typed, so you could sort and filter by the kind of link you are interested in

Jack: Python

mindserfer Hilbert: correct answer ! ;-)

Jack: most of the current projects are in Python

Kipp Patton: :)

mindserfer Hilbert: the snake is taking over ;-) sweet lang.

Jack: yes, it is

Sylvester Bleac: :)

Jack: I am hoping that in the near future, some kind of test of it could be done inside Second Life

Sylvester Bleac: Great discussion

Sylvester Bleac: I am really proud of you guys!!!

mindserfer Hilbert: VMS from digital had an auto versioning facility, ahead of its time.

Jack: links are not imbedded in documents, but are separate, and overlayed as needed

Jack: like layers in a paint program

Jack: same for formatting text

Jack: Ted Nelson also designed a related program called zigzag

mindserfer Hilbert: be nice if there was a time based versioning, every minute might be good time resolution.

Jack: it is similar to a mindmapping program

Jack: but dynamic, changing as each node becomes the focus

mindserfer Hilbert: animation would be automatic.

mindserfer Hilbert: just scale it up.

Jack: yes, versioning would probably be user adjustable

Jack: so each "save" could be a new version, or each change made

mindserfer Hilbert: the privacy issues are tricky, nice to have a layer of privacy with ownership like here is sl.

mindserfer Hilbert: infinite undo, yum.

Jack: yes, SL has some of the concepts of Xanadu

mindserfer Hilbert: would others have access to infinite undo durring editing? or only the owner of the "do"s

Jack: like the metadata in objects, showing both who created it and who owns it now, and what rights you have to copy and modify it

mindserfer Hilbert: that might be an issue with things like process pattents.

Jack: each version is kept, not over-writing previous ones

Jack: the copyright structure in Xanadu is an interesting one

Jack: before publishing anything In Xanadu, you give anyone permission to quote you anywhere at any length

Sylvester Bleac: What is this about?

Jack: you can choose to give it away or sell it, using a micropayment system

mindserfer Hilbert: In the real word, copy right is maintained by immune systems wrapped around cells nuclii.

Jack: a hypertext system called Xanadu

mindserfer Hilbert: google: project xanadu

Jack: I maintain a website called hyperworlds.org where you can read a lot about it

mindserfer Hilbert: thinking about how information is maintained in the natural world. wondering if there are any lessons to learn.

mindserfer Hilbert: genetic information. that is.

Jack: there might be something there, I'm not sure yet

Jack: all programs are encoded in a variety of ways

Jack: and encapsulated to protect data usually, sometimes encrypted

Jack: email is poorly protected, which is why it is such a mess

mindserfer Hilbert: dna is like source, and compiled into proteins by ribosomes, the proteins then protect the source code. with bones and teeth.

Jack: Xanadu would need to encrypt and/or authenticate all data

mindserfer Hilbert: but protein is shared between symbiotes like bees and trees.

Jack: data is often shared between programs by message passing, object sharing, etc.

mindserfer Hilbert: are the needed services monolithic or can the services like security, connectivity, and data storage be provided by competive service provideres in the system?

Sylvester Bleac: keep the discussion interesting for all 4

Jack: probably at first it would be one server until the bugs get worked out, that depends on the skill of the programmer

Jack: but I forsee several types of servers getting used

Jack: for instance, a special server for handling micro-payment distribution

Jack: there could be others for caching

Jack: or that could be peer to peer

mindserfer Hilbert: the future of currency may be some form of advertizing is google is right.

Jack: advertizing will be used

mindserfer Hilbert: perhaps measued in micro click throughs or something.

Jack: but each person should be able to decide if they want ads

mindserfer Hilbert: but that may need some type of authenication.

Jack: or want to pay a small fee to see a movie ad free, for example

mindserfer Hilbert: sure, each should choose.

mindserfer Hilbert: but click -thoughs could be the same for profit or non-profit,

mindserfer Hilbert: a unified currency.

Jack: yes, micropayments would be purchased using any currency

Jack: and any content could be purchased in part

mindserfer Hilbert: I sure hope no-one cracks sl-s micro payments, they are quite handy.

Jack: so if you read 2 chapters of a book, that's all you pay for

Jack: incremental purchase is a necessity, when anything can be quoted at any length anywhere

mindserfer Hilbert: that would be nice. a penny a page, or less.

Sylvester Bleac: easy talking

Jack: so if I make my own movie, and show 5 minutes of Star Wars in it, those watching my movie only pay for 5 minutes of Star Wars, not the whole movie

Jack: but if they have already bought the whole movie, they would not pay for that segment again, not ever

mindserfer Hilbert: It would nice if everything had a price that exponentially decayed into public domain over 75 year or so.

mindserfer Hilbert: premier movie, dollar movie, dvd rental, public domain... etc.

Jack: this kind of a payment system has actually been accomplished for text

mindserfer Hilbert: or 10 years or less.

Jack: yes, I hope the public domain time period could be reduced quited a bit

mindserfer Hilbert: I dislike the extension of copyright to over 75 years. it hassels the public domain.

Jack: what the Xanadu server(s) do is track and distribute content, links, versions, micropayments, formatting, and these would be combined in a wide variety of programs runnning on users computers

Jack: so it could look as simple as plain text all the way up to something that far exceeds SL

mindserfer Hilbert: sounds like a heavey DRM that is wanting to serve up bugs.

mindserfer Hilbert: ethernet won over token ring because it was so simple.

mindserfer Hilbert: but it would be nice to give writer's and programmers their due.

Jack: there would still be the option for free content, and the content that is not free is not sold at a set price, so a musician could sell their song for 1/100 of a cent if they wanted to

Kipp Patton: getting to dark in here

Jack: turn on you room lights Kipp :)

mindserfer Hilbert: world->force sun->sun rise.

Kipp Patton: i mean here in your house

Kipp Patton: lol

mindserfer Hilbert: you have the power in your own hands.

Jack: how's that

Jack: noon

Jack: many of the Web 2.0 features are variations of the ideas from Xanadu

mindserfer Hilbert: like multiway links.

Jack: you can put content from YouTube, Amazon, and others companies almost anywhere on the web now

mindserfer Hilbert: every conversation should automatically be recorded in sl.

Kipp Patton: there we go

Jack: visible links would be nice, especially if you have a large screen or several

mindserfer Hilbert: we sould also have a go back button.

mindserfer Hilbert: to the last place we came from.

mindserfer Hilbert: visible links., between pages.

Jack: yes, there are many things like that I would like to have in SL, but you can turn on logging

mindserfer Hilbert: oh nice.

Jack: so all the chat where you are involved is saved automatically

Jack: in a mindmap, small bits of text and pictures are linked by lines, imagine those becoming windows with books, movies, music players, paint programs, 3D tools, and many more

Jack: with historical backtracking allowed to any length of time into the past

Sylvester Bleac: come on

Jack: and forward history to show planned events in the future

Jack: hard drives are cheap now

Jack: so saving everything you do is not so far-fetched

Kipp Patton: I'm planning on building my own computer this year

Jack: cool, make it a super-computer

Kipp Patton: super computer hmm

Kipp Patton: brb

Jack: the super-computer of today will be the desktop of 5 years from now

mindserfer Hilbert: mr Moore takes a bow.

Jack: yes, thank you Mr. Moore for your prediction coming true

mindserfer Hilbert: hyperworlds.org thanks for the link

mindserfer Hilbert: interesting stuff.

Jack: I'm listening to an audio book now called "The World is Flat", wow, what a book

mindserfer Hilbert: I read it, quite nice book.

mindserfer Hilbert: and pro-gnu too. ;-)

Jack: I'm less than half way done now, but have learned a lot already

Jack: it is answering a lot of the questions I have had for the past few years about the changes taking place in the world because of the Internet and fiber optic cable

mindserfer Hilbert: I wish that author would run for congress or something.

Jack: hopefully a lot of congress-people will read it

Jack: he should probably keep researching and writing more

Jack: we are in the middle of some radical changes in the world and there's no putting the worms back in the can now

mindserfer Hilbert: true that.

Kipp Patton: so true

Jack: I think it will be a much better century than the last one

Sylvester Bleac: hmmmm I do not know

Kipp Patton: i wonder

Jack: we have the tools to bring people into much closer communication, and that should keep us from making the same mistakes, but we will have to be careful not to make major new types of blunders

mindserfer Hilbert: very nice chating mr xondergaard.

Jack: I find that the more I learn, the less scary the changes are

mindserfer Hilbert: yes, new blunders that are technologieclly accecelerated.

Jack: well, I need to be going, got some errands to run in the "real" world

Jack: thanks for the great discussion

Kipp Patton: Thanks for coming you all