Society and Information Technology in Second Life

Wednesdays, January 9 - July 30, 2008, 4-6, SLT/PT, 7-9 pm ET

on Berkman island in Second Life - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/114/70/25

Course homepage - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

 

Instructor: Scott MacLeod (not on Harvard's faculty) = Aphilo Aarde (in Second Life)

http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

 

 

Mar 12 2008 Soc and Info Tech class transcript

 

 

[16:01]  Andromeda Mesmer: Where is Aphilo now, in N. California or where? I mean, physically? RL

[16:02]  Boston Hutchinson: Washington state

[16:02]  Boston Hutchinson: Spokane, I think he said

[16:02]  Andromeda Mesmer: That should be well wired up.

[16:02]  Andromeda Mesmer: In theory

[16:02]  You: Hello Everyone from Spokane

[16:02]  Andromeda Mesmer: Hi Aphilo -- from Toronto

[16:02]  You: it is wired here, but the login system in Spokane was not user friendly.

[16:02]  Merlot Laville: Everywhere should be..in theory..as we all know..theory seldom stick to RL

[16:02]  You: :)

[16:03]  You: So I found a different network than the cities.

[16:03]  Michele Mrigesh is Offline

[16:03]  You: I've come across a few more interesting realing projects fro the future.

[16:04]  You: *realizing

[16:04]  You: One at Rensalear polytechnic in NY

[16:04]  You: is using virtual worlds to study cognition

[16:05]  You: Boston, do you have any after thoughts to your presentation about Kurzweil last week

[16:05]  Merlot Laville: I wasnt here. I fanyone has a chat log from last time...It would be wonderfull if you could send it over.

[16:05]  You: before we return to examining the city and spatialization vis-a-vis the IT revolution

[16:05]  You: Hello Merlot

[16:06]  You: The wiki for the course is here: http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[16:06]  You: and youll find the transcript from last week posted there.

[16:06]  Merlot Laville: Oh . Thank you very much. It is alright if I sit in this time. Isnt it?

[16:06]  Boston Hutchinson: Haven't thought much about it since then, but I've gotten intrigued by some of the news about extensions to SL and other compatible projects.

[16:06]  You: I post them every week. Yes, we welcome at large participation.

[16:07]  You: as well as conversation during the course, general or drawing on specific knowledges you may have.

[16:07]  Andromeda Mesmer: IBoston, I know that Stanford has made a large variety of trees that can be taken into SL.

[16:07]  You: Boston emailed me an interesting article from MIT's technology "review" magazine

[16:07]  You: Here are the RPI and MIT links

[16:08]  You: Questions for Boston?

[16:08]  Boston Hutchinson: Interesting. There seem to be a number of worlds under development that may be compatible with the SL client software

[16:08]  You: http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2410 - Rensallaer (sp?)

[16:09]  Boston Hutchinson: And there's an OpenSim, open source sim that's supposed to be compatible.

[16:09]  Claryssa Schmidt is Online

[16:09]  You: I'm curious, Merlot, about the possibilities of avatars becoming hologrammcially independent - in conversation, too - from the screen and huans, passing the Turing Test

[16:09]  You: How would this work

[16:09]  You: ?

[16:10]  You: ANd how will conversation in this course and elsewhere facilitate this

[16:10]  You: ?

[16:10]  You: It's still sci fi, but it will be interesting to envision and realize it.

[16:10]  You: Hello Claryssa!

[16:10]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi

[16:10]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Claryssa

[16:10]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi Boston

[16:11]  Boston Hutchinson: The RPI article is interesting

[16:11]  You: Here are some related links, to what we've been talking about so far

[16:11]  You: to make your own SL sim offline, and then later connect it - http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page A friend writes about this one - yes, there are several grids now - some will let you create your own regions on your computer and then hook them into theirs - i have not yet tried this - that last link is to set up an avatar that can travel between worlds but i have not yet looked into that either http://www.realxtend.org/index.html and a video about this from this friend - http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/p29452072/ You might find this metaverse roadmap interesting - http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/

[16:12]  You: But, I don't have email access to the one you sent, Boston, from MIT

[16:12]  You: MIT

[16:12]  Boston Hutchinson: I wonder if one could create a very simple pet avatar, and let it accumulate language skills, in hopes that eventually it could "grow up"

[16:12]  You: Could you possibly please post that?

[16:12]  matrix05 Infinity is Offline

[16:12]  Boston Hutchinson: I'll look for it

[16:12]  You: Thnx

[16:13]  You: That would be an interesting approach.

[16:13]  Merlot Laville: Thats a really interesting Idea Boston..

[16:13]  Boston Hutchinson: https://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20203/?nlid=923&a=f

[16:13]  Andromeda Mesmer: Boston, there is actually such a pet in Charlie Stross' book "Accelerando.

[16:13]  You: Would that be like a chatter-poker bot pet that could then become more sophisticated?

[16:14]  You: The poker bot idea as a basis for shaping an avatar that passes the Turing Test

[16:14]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, Andromeda, and it's an interesting idea.

[16:14]  Andromeda Mesmer: Yes, and "more sophisticated" is a gross understatement as to what it becomes ...

[16:14]  You: involves bots that play poker, and then substituting language for playing a poker hand

[16:14]  Boston Hutchinson: I was wondering how to let a learning engine accumulate knowledge from interactions with other avatars.

[16:15]  You: that then would become more sophisticated, eventually passing the Turing test,

[16:15]  Boston Hutchinson: I don't think we would be very patient with a robotic avatar that appeared to be an adult person, and maybe not with a child either, since it might not be a realistic child, but a pet? Maybe we would be more tolerant, if it was fun.

[16:15]  You: which stipulates that a haman can't tell the difference between a person and a machine -and thus a test of an achievement in articficial intelligence.

[16:17]  You: A chatter bot speaks in such a way that humans can't tell they are a machine - there's a link to a BBC article about 3 classes ago, where hcatterbots convince a sample of 1000 or so, I think.

[16:17]  You: What does this pet in Charlie Stross's novel become, Andromeda?

[16:18]  Boston Hutchinson: The problem of constructing a learning engine of some kind, and an avatar capable of minimal conversation, and capable of navigating in SL is a very big project. Actually several very big projects.

[16:18]  Merlot Laville: I think its a ll a matter of what questions a person asks to the Chatterbot. I recall a Yahoo bot. Smarterchild..of that sort. Interactive..It could be mistaken for a person I suppose...

[16:18]  You: A learning engine that assembles language from databases generated in SL, or draws from wikipedia is the challenge.

[16:19]  Andromeda Mesmer: Aphilo, if I answer that, I give away a large section of the plot.

[16:19]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, both Wikipedia and SL, I think. Two really different problems.

[16:19]  You: Could a pet be conversant, eventually passing a Turing Test?

[16:19]  Boston Hutchinson: I think it would be interesting to accumulate a library of components for constructing robotic avatars.

[16:20]  Boston Hutchinson: I don't know if there are any open source components available from AI labs.

[16:20]  You: A BBC article about avatars and chatbots passing the Turing test: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3503465.stm

[16:21]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Offline

[16:21]  Andromeda Mesmer: There should be people who are working on that, just as there are people who produce all kinds of things for free in SL -- or freeware programs ...

[16:21]  Boston Hutchinson: A pet can't pass the Turing test, by definition, but I think it might be a realistic device for accumulating language skills from conversation.

[16:21]  You: True, Boston - yet chatter bots and poker bots are beginning programs, it seems to me, form which programmers might develop others.

[16:22]  Boston Hutchinson: On the other hand, it might just learn "baby talk" or some strange version of language that people felt inspired to use with it.

[16:22]  You: Boston has outlined a series of programming challenges he sees as significant to Turing TEst avatars

[16:22]  You: let along holograms that might dance around on our bodies, as we conversed with them - a Richard Rorty, for example.

[16:23]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[16:23]  You: ...in hologram form.

[16:23]  You: Do you have a link for the yahoo bot, Merlot?

[16:23]  Merlot Laville: I dont even think It exists anymore. But I can look

[16:23]  You: A brief synopsis, Andromeda :)?

[16:24]  You: A library of components for avatar bots, and a roadmap, like that for the metaverse

[16:24]  You: for avatars could be helpful.

[16:25]  Boston Hutchinson: Aphilo, do you want a philosopher on your shoulder to advise you? Sort of like the devil speaking in one ear and the angel in the other? I'm trying to get the image here.

[16:25]  You: I'd find that interesting, Boston - sure.

[16:26]  You: Or a Plato and Rorty thinking about the world, and sharing knowledge?

[16:26]  Boston Hutchinson: I know the AI labs at many places are working on various aspects of the AI problem, but I don't know whether the results are available as open source.

[16:27]  You: Bailenson and Yee at Stanford are central in avatar research

[16:27]  You: but I don't know of open sources for avatar modules.

[16:27]  You: sharing knowledge in dialogical form.

[16:28]  Boston Hutchinson: I guess one place to start with language would be to create an avatar that had all the utterances of a single individual available to it, and spoke from that library in response to any question. That would be a Rorty bot or a Plato bot, or an Aphilo bot, or whoever.

[16:28]  You: Andromeda

[16:29]  You: from your reading, what avatar ideas seem most realizable, vis-a-vis the approaches we've touched on this evening, if any?

[16:29]  You: Stross, as a kind of road map, or Mann, or Heinlein?

[16:29]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Online

[16:29]  You: Science fiction is a road map, of sorts.

[16:30]  You: Yes, Boston, - scan Rorty's every known dialogue into a Second Life database form, and then reconstrue and assemble it . . . :)

[16:31]  Andromeda Mesmer: I think the idea of robotic pets, developing, and developing -- might be the most likely. Yes, science fiction is a road map -- but there are problems as new developments come along. Charlie Stross said he thought of a great idea to put in his book, but then found out that others had already thought of it, and by the time of his story, it is likely to be commonplace.

[16:32]  Andromeda Mesmer: he therefore has to rethink -- otherwise his books will get dated awfully fast.

[16:32]  Boston Hutchinson: I think I get it now. It's a great way to build an avatar, but might have limited ability to learn

[16:32]  matrix05 Infinity is Online

[16:32]  You: I have heard that SL doesn't allow bots, but I don't think this means conversant bots - does anybody know of interesting exsiting examples of SL bots?

[16:32]  Andromeda Mesmer: In Charlie Stross's book, the pet robot keeps getting upgrades -- that helps in theprocess.

[16:33]  You: Yes, Boston, but that program that learns is problematic -

[16:33]  Boston Hutchinson: I think upgrades would be needed. The initial program would not be able to grow organically until it reached acertain level.

[16:33]  Luna Bliss is Offline

[16:33]  You: I think Steve Grand's "Creation: Life and How to Make it" (Harvard), and MIT Prof. Neil Gershenfed's code that writes code

[16:33]  You: are starting places -

[16:34]  You: http://www.c-span.org/congress/digitalfuture.asp - Gershenfeld's lecture is at the bottom and very exciting

[16:35]  Boston Hutchinson: I'm intrigued by the idea of using many components and developing interface specs to allow components to work together and be substituted and combined.

[16:35]  Annette Paster is Online

[16:35]  You: That works Boston, but many programmers would have to working in open source for there to be rich synergies

[16:35]  Boston Hutchinson: I don't see how a single person or even a team can create an intelligence. It's a vast unfunded effort that might require accumulation of software ofer a long period of time.

[16:36]  You: lots of hackers (see about "The Hacker Ethos" - by Himanen) in transcripts above

[16:36]  You: But I think there are many examples of individuals singlehandedly shaping the Web, as we've touched on.

[16:37]  You: Berners-Lee writing http and html - hypertext transfer protocols and hypertext markup language

[16:37]  Boston Hutchinson: Stross' vision is very imaginative. New ideas and realizations of old ones (that he may have invented at the same time as somebody else).

[16:37]  You: .. for one, and thus creating the WWW almost singlehandedly in 1989 . . . so it's possible

[16:38]  Boston Hutchinson: The fiction gives us more of a feel for what the experience might be like, which is a lot different from just imagining the technology.

[16:38]  You: Yes, the fiction explores parameters and gives it context

[16:39]  Boston Hutchinson: AI is orders of magnitude more complex than the web.

[16:39]  Andromeda Mesmer: Certainly cooperation may become much easier, as people work together through the synthetic worlds -- IBM is experimenting with that on their, what, 32 islands ..

[16:39]  You: but SL is already a context, in the example that we've been talkinga bout, and the web offers a way to create collaboration

[16:40]  Boston Hutchinson: That's interesting, Andromeda. Maybe SL could be a place not just for testing a robot, but for collaborating to build one.

[16:40]  You: SL gives us a feel, as well. But there are many, many possible approaches to creating an avatar that passes a Turing test.

[16:40]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[16:41]  You: Yes, Andromeda - but one interesting aspect of the hacker ethos, is that money played a minimal role

[16:41]  You: while companies have resoures and programmers, they also have proprietary interests, and

[16:41]  You: much of the web emerged without these proprietary interests - profoundly so.

[16:42]  You: And perhaps we are collaborating at present at creating an avatar, although not yet bulidng it - through conversation.

[16:42]  You: Did you post the MIT "Technology Review" article, Boston?

[16:43]  Boston Hutchinson: https://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20203/?nlid=923&a=f

[16:43]  You: Thanks :)

[16:43]  Boston Hutchinson: It looks like you have to register to read it

[16:43]  You: As we start to examine further the implications of cities - do people here think SL is a city?

[16:44]  Boston Hutchinson: It's about technology to stitch together photographs to construct a mirror world.

[16:45]  Merlot Laville: Sl as a mirror for the real world? I have to say..there is a lot about Sl that is about the opposite..creating things as far from reality as possile.

[16:45]  You: Could multiple virtual worlds be considered usefullly as a city, if protocols develop that

[16:45]  You: Thanks - funny avatars in SL :)

[16:46]  You: allow avatars to move between them?

[16:46]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[16:46]  Merlot Laville: That is a really exciting Idea. ...just wanted to say that

[16:46]  You: Merlot,

[16:47]  Boston Hutchinson: It looks like we will get multiple worlds that are compatible with SL

[16:47]  You: I think many, including Boston, are very interested in mirroring RL in virtual worlds

[16:47]  You: In fact,

[16:47]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, and Microsoft is going to do it.

[16:47]  You: some of the above articles are specifically about that.

[16:47]  Georgeee Avro: y u talking about microsoft

[16:47]  Georgeee Avro: lol who comes tto sl to learn

[16:47]  You: Hi

[16:48]  You: Georgeee

[16:48]  Georgeee Avro: houddy

[16:48]  Merlot Laville: ......* Sigh* ...

[16:48]  You: We're talking about virtual worlds and avatar agency

[16:48]  You: in a class

[16:48]  Georgeee Avro: who the fuck comes to sl to learn

[16:49]  You: The wiki is here - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[16:49]  Andromeda Mesmer: Oh, people with more than 2 brain cells to rub together.

[16:49]  You: Thanks

[16:49]  You: Thanks

[16:49]  Andromeda Mesmer: Not you of course.

[16:49]  Merlot Laville: Just mute him

[16:49]  You: WE post the transcripts

[16:49]  Georgeee Avro: this meeting is....

[16:49]  Georgeee Avro: I WANNA TALK ABOUT VAGINA'S!!!!

[16:50]  Georgeee Avro: DO DO LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!

[16:50]  You: So, are virutal worlds taken together a city, or multiple cities?

[16:50]  Merlot Laville: ...articifial intelligence seems far away..when we cant even cultivate the real thing

[16:50]  Boston Hutchinson: Yup!

[16:51]  Jeande Laville is Offline

[16:51]  Andromeda Mesmer: Ah, silence and the wonderful SL muting -

[16:51]  You: Although spatial transformations don't occur in the same way

[16:51]  Merlot Laville: I ...hate..greifers

[16:51]  You: I think virtual words together, even islands have a lot of aspects in common with

[16:52]  You: cities

[16:52]  You: But let's take a break now, and come back in

[16:52]  You: about ten minutes

[16:52]  Andromeda Mesmer: OH. I'm off to the fridge.

[16:52]  Merlot Laville: I think thats a lovely.idea...Ill get in touch with the sim owner to boot this guy

[16:52]  Boston Hutchinson: see you in a few

[16:53]  You: See you soon.

[16:54]  Rain Ninetails: :)

 

 

[17:05]  You: Hi All.

[17:05]  You: Hi Bruce.

[17:05]  You: Greetings

[17:05]  Brian Whiteberry is Offline

[17:05]  Rain Ninetails: :)

[17:05]  Bruce Flyer: :-)

[17:06]  You: I've posted the transcript from the first half of class - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[17:07]  You: IN the second half of class, let's continue where we stopped 2 weeks ago, with examing implications of spatiality, the city and the information technology revolution.

[17:08]  Jagger Valeeva is Online

[17:08]  You: ONe of the main points is that the media's representations of possible changes haven't occurred.

[17:08]  You: And 2, What is actually happening is fascinating.

[17:09]  You: Most importantly, urbanization is perhaps the most signficant development of the next 50 years

[17:10]  You: Many cities will increase in population dramatically, from already overpopulated cities

[17:10]  You: in larege par t because that's where jobs, benefits and other people are.

[17:11]  You: One useful definition of a city today, is that of commuter space

[17:11]  You: And megacities, and conurbation - even larger urban areas are already happening.

[17:12]  You: IN the Netherlands, for example - starting from where we left off two weeks ago -

[17:12]  You: 80% of Hollnad is a Mega Mega urban areas.

[17:12]  You: So these big metroplitan regions are a dominant form of human habitation.

[17:13]  You: INSIDE REGIONS - HOW THEY WORK

[17:13]  You: In the Tokyo region, with currounding cities, there is an urban area of 35 million people.

[17:14]  You: First, tthere's a transformation of spatial forms

 

[SL connectivity problems]

 

[17:19]  Geda Hax is Online

[17:19]  Annette Paster is Online

[17:19]  Arawn Spitteler is Online

[17:19]  Mec Benelli is Online

[17:19]  Jagger Valeeva is Online

[17:19]  Andromeda Mesmer is Online

[17:19]  Champler Snook is Online

[17:19]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[17:19]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Online

[17:19]  Boston Hutchinson is Online

[17:19]  Barbie Starr is Online

[17:19]  Breen Mathy is Online

[17:19]  Claryssa Schmidt is Online

[17:19]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[17:19]  Bruce Flyer is Online

[17:19]  Veeyawn Spoonhammer is Online

[17:19]  matrix05 Infinity is Online

[17:19]  Beyers Sellers is Online

[17:19]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...

[17:19]  Connected

[17:20]  You: Hello Peter

[17:20]  PeterS Jenkins: hi aphilo

[17:20]  PeterS Jenkins: is there a lecture here this evening?

[17:20]  You: We're having a class here, but SL stopped working . . .

[17:20]  You: Yes - we'll continue shortly

[17:20]  You: Hi Aylee

[17:20]  You: Greetings

[17:21]  Aylee Yalin: hello, Aphilo

[17:21]  PeterS Jenkins: could i observe from the back?

[17:21]  Aylee Yalin: so sorry to have had to log out

[17:21]  Andromeda Mesmer is Online

[17:21]  Aylee Yalin: is everyone logged?

[17:21]  You: I've posted much fo the transcript thus far here - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[17:21]  You: Yes, of course

[17:21]  Aylee Yalin: ah, I see

[17:21]  Boston Hutchinson is Online

[17:21]  PeterS Jenkins: thks

[17:21]  You: SL had a hiccup

[17:21]  Aylee Yalin: could I take a moment of your time to ask a question?

[17:22]  You: Yes, Aylee

[17:22]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi

[17:22]  Aylee Yalin: I was curious on your take of suburban sprawl

[17:22]  Aylee Yalin: on

[17:22]  Aylee Yalin: rather

[17:22]  You: Hi Boston

[17:22]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Rain

[17:22]  You: Namely, Aylee?

[17:22]  Rain Ninetails: ")

[17:22]  Boston Hutchinson: I guess the sim froze.

[17:22]  You: Hi Rain:)

[17:22]  Aylee Yalin: would you say that as urban areas increase in density, that suburban sprawl would be reduced?

[17:22]  Boston Hutchinson: everything looked normal, but no dialog

[17:23]  You: Right now, urbanization is very chaotic, and there isn't a direct relationship.

[17:23]  Aylee Yalin: I see

[17:23]  You: But we'll get to that shortly in some detail.

[17:23]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Peter

[17:23]  PeterS Jenkins: hi boston

[17:23]  Aylee Yalin: great -- I'll sit tight

[17:24]  Aylee Yalin: Hi Rain

[17:24]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Andromeda

[17:24]  Rain Ninetails: hi!

[17:24]  Andromeda Mesmer: Hi - I crashed.

[17:24]  Boston Hutchinson: I think we all did

[17:24]  You: Also, look back Aylee at the transcript two weeks ago - and you'll see more - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com - Good question, Aylee!

[17:24]  Boston Hutchinson: The sim seemed to freeze

[17:24]  You: Thanks

[17:25]  Aylee Yalin: :)

[17:25]  Aylee Yalin: thanks, Aphilo -- I'll take a look now

[17:25]  You: Yes, the sim seemed to freeze - there are at lesat 120 Universiteis and higher educational institutions in SL

[17:25]  You decline Backintyme Bookstore from A group member named Raymond Frog.

[17:25]  You: So, let's continue from where the sim froze.

[17:26]  You: INSIDE REGIONS AND HOW THEY WORK

[17:26]  You: First, We'll examine the transformation of spatial forms

[17:26]  You: Then look at technology's effects on sptail patterns

[17:27]  You: in terms of forces of concentration and urbanization

[17:27]  You: You may have specialized knowledge, or general thoughts - please c don't hesitate to talk - SL chat is a rich form of group communication, potentially

[17:28]  You: So, inside major metropolitcal regions:

[17:28]  You: In the past, in metropolitcan regions, central cities were dominant.

[17:29]  You: What's new is that urbanization is a mess - everything is scattered everywhere.

[17:29]  You: There isn't any order - it's a MULTIMODAL system

[17:29]  You: What is the largest ciety of the San Francisco Bay Area?

[17:29]  You: San Jose

[17:30]  You: In multimodality, it isn't necessary to have one center

[17:30]  You: In most cases, you have several major centerss.

[17:30]  You: And these are partly tue to advanced industry and advances manufacturing.

[17:30]  You: 2 examples

[17:30]  Mec Benelli is Offline

[17:31]  Claryssa Schmidt is Online

[17:31]  You: the location of high tech companies - leads also to advanced busines systems.

[17:31]  Aylee Yalin: lol

[17:31]  You: sorry, advanced business services.

[17:31]  Aylee Yalin: nothing like an academic griefer

[17:32]  You: IN high technoloyg - there's a big concentration in Silicon Valley of electronics R& D, but not manufactiuring.

[17:32]  You: AndBiotech has a significatn presence in Emeryville - Why"

[17:33]  You: Because Berkeley forbids it in Berkeley - they block business development

[17:33]  Bruce Flyer is Online

[17:33]  You: And biotech in San Francisco, for example

[17:33]  You: is located not only in Emeryville, but also in Sausalitie and Stanford

[17:34]  You: because it's linked to hospital and University system, but it isn't Silicion Valley related

[17:34]  You: 2. These new technology industrial areas are highly divided

[17:34]  You: They are concentrated in areas

[17:35]  Arawn Spitteler is Offline

[17:35]  You: And there are 2 tiers

[17:35]  You: (but in Vacaville, California, there's a different industrial composite)

[17:35]  You: The two tiers are 1) Research and Deveploment

[17:35]  You: And 2) manufacturing.

[17:36]  You: Many of these firms have headquarters in San Francisco

[17:36]  You: Most of the jobs in the banking and insurance industries, however, are not located in San Francisco, but

[17:36]  You: in Walnut Creek, in the East Bay, east of Berkeley

[17:37]  You: Walnut Creek, for example, has much finance, real estate, and insurance

[17:37]  You: Why?

[17:37]  You: Because back office work is situated in areas, like Walnut Creek, which are connected,

[17:38]  You: rather than having them decentralized, and deconcentrated

[17:38]  You: So we see increasing concentration in urban settings,

[17:38]  You: And then scatterings in different areas

[17:38]  You: Aylee, Walnut Creek is also a major suburb of the SF Bay Area

[17:39]  Aylee Yalin: yes, and I would guess that its tax structure is set up for continued expansion in this specialty?

[17:39]  Aylee Yalin: i.e. lower tax rates, better banking laws

[17:39]  You: So there's simultaneously a concentration and decentralization

[17:39]  You: yes, aylee

[17:40]  You: So re: simultaneously a concentration and decentralization

[17:40]  You: for example - San Francisco - houses top management and strategic services

[17:41]  You: e.g. credit card targetting - which is very profitable - getting money from banks at 9% interest rate and selling them at 18%

[17:41]  You: How could one be so stupid?

[17:41]  You: to buy credit for so much ?

[17:41]  You: Because if you don't have credit, you need it . .

[17:42]  You: And credite card companies target those people who have enough money to pay occassionally, but not enough to have credit - the semi-poor

[17:42]  You: And all this requires advanced mathematical modelling, which is done is key research ares in San Francisco

[17:43]  You: Once a model is done, other areas follow

[17:43]  You: Therefor, we have a space in which technology allows completion of work in cetnral space and then follow up is done in scattered spaces,

[17:44]  You: rather than having big concentrations, as we formerly had

[17:44]  You: 1) now, you have decentralized patches

[17:44]  You: and 2) then secondly, scattered clusters all over the place

[17:44]  You: then 3) with housing, there are two logics -

[17:45]  You: the logic of affordability

[17:45]  You: and 2 the logic of trade-off

[17:45]  Robyn Proto is Online

[17:45]  You: between access to good services and urban amenities, and quality of housing

[17:46]  You: Whole areas bcome segregated by income, and often by ethnicity

[17:46]  You: but only by ethnicity after being segregated by income

[17:46]  You: In the SF area, the upper level is NOT ethnically homogenous

[17:46]  You: while the lower levels are

[17:47]  You: Since these metroppolitcan regions emerge

[17:47]  Robyn Proto is Offline

[17:47]  You: all these regions become connected by place of work and residence

[17:47]  You: making a network of different connections

[17:47]  You: Imagine an open space undeveloped area

[17:48]  You: wither bult up for residence, if not protected - and protecged areas get incorporated into metropolitcan areas -

[17:48]  You: completely scattered areas are cultivated

[17:48]  You: Where there's a mixture of land uses -

[17:49]  You: open spaces, manufactuing ,residential, etc.

[17:49]  You: located and dispersed in a very big region around multimodal parcels

[17:49]  You: and you have a view of new spatial patterns vis-a-vis infomration technology

[17:50]  You: So, next week, we'll continue by examinging the core edge city vis-a-vis infomration technology, but let's

[17:50]  You: take the last few mintues for ideas and observations.

[17:51]  You: Next week, we'll look at teh core-edge city + in the first half

[17:51]  You: Would anyone like to make a presentation next week or in the future?

[17:51]  You: And are there questions thus far?

[17:52]  Michele Mrigesh is Offline

[17:52]  Rain Ninetails: how as it that the media was getting it wrong, I think yuo said?

[17:52]  You: What, for example, would Stross, Kurzweil, Heinlein or Mann add to this analysis of the city?

[17:52]  Rain Ninetails: was* it

[17:53]  You: Good question - especially in the 1990s, when the Internet was growing dramatically in popularity

[17:53]  You: Many thought that this would mean the end of commuting, the possibility of work from home, the emergence of spatiality around end user computing

[17:53]  You: but this hasn't happened.

[17:54]  You: New forms of urbanization take shape as we've seen, leading to large commuting areas, which come to define

[17:55]  You: trajectories of urbanization

[17:55]  You: And size increases - the media also extolled the beneifts of working from villages, and from farms - of keeping people on the land

[17:55]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[17:56]  Breen Mathy is Offline

[17:56]  Andromeda Mesmer: Aphilo -- Heinlein would have said that many different forms of life would co-exist - old tech along with new tech, big cities and small villages -- and the type of laws would be somewhat dependent on the resources and constraints on the society.

[17:56]  You: for example, if a farmer in India with solar energy and a computer with internet access could see the prices of grain in 3 major urban areas in India, they might be able to pick one market over another - this was a New York Time's article

[17:57]  You: but this hasn't happened, although with the OLPC - one lap per child - the xo or $185 laptop, this kind of thing still may happen, but not necessariy affecting urbanization.

[17:57]  Breen Mathy is Online

[17:57]  Andromeda Mesmer: I noticed that some farmers in Canada were very internet savvy - I was surprised, but they found it very useful, so adopted it quite early.

[17:58]  You: so urban patterns would reflect the world he lived in when he wrote, I guess = might this be correct?

[17:59]  You: There are 30 million people in Canada, in a land mass 1 2/3rds larger than the U.S. and with a technolgoically-savvy civil society

[17:59]  Andromeda Mesmer: Heinlein travelled extensively, took quite long trips al over the world, and based his books partly on his observations.