What Puts the 360 in SPACE PATROL 360?
Cyberstuff to see, think and do that puts You right in the middle of it all and sets you up so that you make it happen!
Remember OUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET?. This is how we make it happen.
In an advanced society, such as a participatory republic that is an advanced scientific utopia, the emphasis is on individualism. This is the precept that the individual group member exists apart from and before the group. If you will note, this has been the hallmark of just and prosperous peoples beucause it recognizes the basic fact that without individuals, groups could not be and that groups have a relational, not an absolute existence (it is the recognition of this fact that is part of the Randian philosophical system to which I subscribe and why I hold sacred human life, meaning life at the human level, and seek to promote those condition that make the choice to live as a human being the way to go). This menas that each person has a right to fully participate in the benefits of that republic. As a corollary, each person, in order to be able to participate to the fullest extent, has the responsibility to learn "the ropes" and how and why they work as they do. The foregoing was the "why". The rest is the "how". Just as, to vote effectively, you need to know how your political system works, to function well in the 30th Century United Planets of the Solar System, you need to know what it's all about and where you're at.
Here is a bit of what goes on behind the scenes and that you do not see. You may want to use it to your own ends. I am not a fancy programmer but I can make my contribution in the form of design and psycological tech. "Web 3.0" is for 3-dimensional experience. View, dynamics, interectivity/participate. Historically, the order of things went:
- Website.a single-dimensional entity with limited interactivity. This was on the order of a shopping cart, "Bulletin Board", Guestbook and the like.
- Web 2.0 uses things like Dynamic HTML and some javascript programming for useful or cute little display and navigation tricks.
- Web 3.0: This takes the level of the internet experience up a couple of notches. The goal of this is to present a lifelike set of events. The emphasis is on doing things That means interactivity, using things, and active participation for which the site is a "stage", venue, playset or "platform". See the works of DR. PHILLIP ZIMBARDO. Much of this is made possible by javacript programmers like Augusto Cesar, "Tommy Raven". "Duli Mar" and "Watcher", to name only a few and whose ranks I intend to join, who like to try out their skills at javascripts and put them out on places like Earthweb and Java Script Source. These persons create the "bootstraps" by which guys like me pull themselves up on the internet food chain.
The RATIONALE BEHIND WEB 3.0
While using the 'net for reading is great, as shown by the number of "e-zines" (and I've written for a couple of them), although I do better with the printed page unless I use a dark background with light text. otherwise the glare makes reading impossible, modern technology has given us Color TV. Text input, screen mapping, high-speed refresh, high-speed device to document controllers and high-speed transmission. This makes possible a new level of activity that was once only open to video game users but is now part of the online culture: Two-way, real-time interactive processing of text and image. In plain English, it means you can do stuff. Isn't doing stuff what life is all about; both real and imaginary? This makes possible a whole range of two-way activity such that a person with an idea for a "secondary universe" (sci-fi geekspeak for the setting of a series of books, radio/TV programs, movie or video garme) can arrange for games and things that fit that universe. Given the foregoing and a bit of knowledge, skill and imagination, you can put persons in that universe with a wide range of operation. Whereas reading about things, or just watching them on normal TV gives a somewhat cramped place in that universe, limiting the mental activity to dealing with what is in a script. All of the technology and software I mentioned puts you in situations with outcomes that are up for grabs and depend on you. When that becomes the A#1 attribute of the web entity you're dealing with, The whole thing becomes a difference, not of degree, but of kind. Things happening in real time is an essential and defining part of the whole Web 3.0 business. The person goes from an observer to a player. One develops a knowledge base and skills set for this universe (with Space Patrol, you get tools and skills/data not only for the United Planets of the Solar System universe, but for real life as well). Consequently, the secondary universe acquires a sense of reality far greater than if it was read about or viewd on TV. You do not read or watch a Web.3.0 entity, you use or play with, on or in it. This makes it is like one of those playsets that unfold into something much larger than the component parts. If this is your first encounter with Space Patrol, it will be very different from mine, or that of the actors who played the parts. Most of the reading material about Space Patrol is in the ORIENTATION. The main point of this site is what you do here. Each of these has it's own page and you will need to know the material to get what's going on and understand just why something that's over half a century gone has such a dedicated following.
So, what do I do here? Mostly I am a glorified stage manager. I define and set up the "space" and put the things in it (including various "traps" and typographical errors). Like the guy who invented sliced bread, I invented neither bread nor the slicing machine. I just put two things together. in this case, Space Patrol and the interactive capabilities of the web. This required and played into my strength. I am trained as a psychologist. This gives me a certain perspective on things. I look at it from the perspective of human behavior and its components. If you notice, I reference Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, who did pioneering research in role-play situations and how they take on a life of their own. Well I use many of those principles here for fun (this is not an experiment or excercize for me. I already know the answers. This is exactly as it appears: a place to do things).
CHARACTERISITCS of a WEB 3.0 ENTITY
Because a Web 3.0 entity is based on doing then it is structured to resemble real life. This means that it has special characteristics that make this easier. They are:
- Virtual Reality.
- Place rather than publication. You will find many website no-no's in these kinds of sites, such as long entry processes. That is deliberate since they serve the purposes of setting the mood, the sense of the world and orienting you to the subject matter. These sites and their subsections are not information centers (although they ought include data on the subject or access thereto for newbies), they are activity centers. You will find very little information about Space Patrol here but you will find places and the means to get all that there is to have. This is alien to the person who uses the web for study, pure learning or reading pleasure (although you will get some of that here but that is not the primary purpose). As part of Place is that things are done in the appropriate areas. You fly out of Chaney Field, have club meetings at the Civic Center, Visit The rec room in the Personnel Area in the Command Center of Space Patrol HQ; and you have to learn how to get there. and use the means provided: You do not jump around from a "home" page.
- Graphic User Interface. 85% of the links are images and most of the images are links, When you sit at a table, do you sit next to a word ("T A B L E") or an object? Well in video terms, this means the same. This aspect will flummox the text-bound. If you are smart, you will put your pointer on the images you see!
- Multi-media. The age of silent movies has long passed. Sound helps set the mood.
- Things to do more than things to see. High levels of interactivity and participation which was my whole point in building this place. This also means that if you contact me. I answer, unlike some of the other sites like The Wanderers, fiftiesweb and other "slick" sites.
- Webtoys One set of activities that are of the same kind that comprise at least a dozen potential activities. this can be in a set of one or more screenfuls of material and can include checkboxes, radio buttons, text boxes, image links and some text. instruction may be done as linked pages. Examples here are the Brain-O-Graph, Intelligence Console and cockpits. Minor Webtoys are some of the calculators, Missions and the Electronic Visitors' Center.
- Weaving: putting the activities in the sections that refer to them. Also if I had a BBS that I could cut up into multiple forums, I would put the forums that relate to a section in that section. Giving you the ability to contact me from anywhere by telling you to save the contact page and bug report pages to your Favorites and having the contact page so that you can pick a section to which to refer. You do not get to the various activities from a comon "home" page. This contributes heavily to the sense of place. Granted it's a bit more cumbersome. I did create a kind of site map in the form of an official Staff Car for the Officials of Terra City and Space Patrol but that was only access to major subsections
- Outside activities. You will see some "In real life" and "Further activities". these will help you take what is here and apply it to the real world, as well as take real-world skills that they point to and make them useful here, and direct you toward some useful things in the real world.
- "Physical" structure: Place and layout; this means stagecraft: You are on a stage that must be arranged and managed by the site owner. This can include things like moving "traps" around and other such matters
- Differentiation between "scrrens" and "pages" with the "page" being specific kind of screen; text or/and meaningful amounts of scrolling
- No sitemap, "home" page with the column of lins to all the other parts of Space Patrol/Terra City, or other form of instant transition from section to section (except for those who have business with such and are part of the team). Unless you are at a Star Trek; nextgen place with site-to-site transport; in real life, you either walk or take a vehicle of some kind. In a city, you learn the bus system for your day-to-day travel. instead it uses nexes. An instant trasitional device would clash with the concept of "place". I do use them in other sites on this domain, but not here.
- "Tree" design where the nexes are where branches occurs, such as, in Space Patrol Control console, Rocket Cisty Spaceport, The Downtown Monorail Terminal, Space Patrol Headquarters, . Please notice that there is always a vehicle hub or direct access at a nexus. In the address bar of these pages, there should appear a "favicon" that lets you link right to them. It will save you much of the in-between stuff that is really nocessary only for the first time.
- Intersectional screens. Screens that have fewer than five link. this sets the stage for what comes after. the image of the building of Terra City Travel Plaza is an interscetional screen as its one link brings you inside. The "Welcome To the 30th Century" screen is another. This seemingly unecessary extra work does the same as the scene in a movie or television program that cosists of showing the outside of a building, a boat in the water or the ubiquitous exterior shot of the spaceship for a few seconds (and how many of the latter don't have us sitting there with our tongues hanging out?). As website design, that is inefficient because it may almost double the number of screens that you go through between section. However, for the video stage, a must. On most sites, these would be text links and text links replace the narrator, who is usually the stage manager.
- Mnay screens with much to do on each. Since most of the presentation is on one-screenful events then there are many of them. At last count, this had 1040 files all in about 9 megabytes and small change and the count changes far to rapidly for me to keep re-stating it here. and the screens have many links, check the Brain-O-Graph, the Communications Consoloes or the Cockpits. and very few single-screen pages have fewer than a dozen text links.
- Screen-pan: Unlike a real stage, in a Web 3.0 environment, you are in a full-360 space. A normal stage is usually 3 sides with one open to allow the audience to see the action. In one of the earlier incarnations of a room in the Lassen Spaceman's Museum, the layout was such that when you "entered" you were facing a wall (with shelves). There were "marks" at the extreme left and right parts of the bottom on which you could click. The one at the left was to "turn" left and the one on the right "turned" you. These opened up new screens simulating a 90 degree turn. these in turn had "footmarks" so that if you turned left or right twice you were facing the "back" with its door. if you turned in any direction 4 times, you made a complete circle. This enhances the functionality of a webtoy. the link that opens this new screen is called a screen pan. the filename of such a screen section ought be the same as the main or face screen but with the letters l(eft), r(ight) and b(ack). I imagine that you can also have c(eiling) and f(loor), too. The whole assambly is called a screen build. The reason I did not use it in the final version is that it was not necessary. Since the Specification for a screen allows for a tiny bit of scroll you can bury the screen pans out of view. A screen pan does not even have to show but can be a transparent spacer gif image with an alt=(left, right, up, down). The experienced or clever Web 3.0 player will look for screen pans if there is a hint of such or just as a matter of course. Another way to do this would be to use tables to create a horizontally oversized page with scrolling so that the farthest right table is the sam as the farthest left, simulating a 360 degree round space. although I imagine that with clever use of Anchor links, you can center the "room" with the scrolling handle in the middle of the screen. But that would require the left and right scrolls to end at a common "scene": Wouldn't it be cute if the bad guy was waitng behind you so that the first thing you do (if you are smart) is scroll to the rear. I've seen A HREF= links that move veritcall on a page so why not have an oversize page with the Anchor in the logical center. However I'm not impressed with that since it is trickier, involving things like scale (maybe 3200 pixels wide screens) and the like that I don't really want to get involved with at this time. Maybe for Web 3.5.
- Organicism: The site is arranged in such a way that it seems to respond to you. what you do here makes things happen in your real life. You can almost tailor it to your wants here. Tt is not scripted except here and there. You bring your own "story" to it or create your own "story" as you go along: We present; you decide. You save what you want, do not save or ignore what is of no meaning to you and sort of make your own little piece of the Space Patrol world. The more you use of it. the more it becomes part of (intrudes, or worms its way, into? :) your life. It is the perfect Space Cadet world, but also the perfect Space Cadet trap.
Another way of picturing a Web 3.0 place is as a theme park. As such, There are crtain responsibilities. You have to excercize your brain. Now that means learning your way around, saving the nexes so that you need not go through all the intersectional parts (unless you like going the "scenic route"). REMEMBER: A web 3.0 entity is to be thought of as a place at which you are an active player, not a publication (some of which we may include)!
WEB 3.0 STANDARDS
- The standard size of a display is one screen, this means that at no time may an image be more than about 10-15 pixels beyond the top, bottom or either side of the screen and require significan scrolling unless that is part of the activity. in which case it is better to put that activity on a separate screen with a button image, door image, screen pan or other image meaning "access" in the original screen. Because of the large number of images per screen. a long or large screen would be excessively "busy" and quite taxing on the player. Besides which, you can put quite a bit on one screen as is proven by the TERRA V ROCKET COCKPIT which controls over 150 activities.
- The prose is to be in a narrative or conversational style (unless you're Major Hartbyrne; then it's in an "ordering everyone around" style).
- At least 85% of all screens are one-screenful size
- 85% of all internal links are to be graphic.
- AT least 20% of the screens should have sound
- The presence of two or more major webtoys and four or more minor ones.
- Transit among sections is to be videographic, such as vehicles or some other visible means and appropriate to the nature of the place.
- There must be at least a dozen video, interactive or participatory activities that are subject-related, "missions" or other activities for every 300 files. The same activities can be "re-used" in different places but if so, do not count for that section but are considered as additional to what the section already has: Thus a 900 file site should have 36 such activities some of which may appear two or three times in different sections. This ought not be hard since a good major webtoy can include 50 functions in 10 activities and a good minor one can have 20 subfunctions with 4 activities. These may be imported.
- Most of the non-interactive/particiaptory material should relate to the interactive/participatory parts as support material. With a "city", the things like the civic center, museum and library are venues for participatory activities. An Academy is the place where learning and research is done except for flight training. For an orgaization headquarters, this means the kinds of things you would do there like a rec room, activities related to the organization's prupose, a realistic division of sections, usually of an executive/Command, Control, public interface/Communications and Intelligence/ data-processing or that kind of thing.REMEMBER: None of this has a physical existence; you must create very sharp and distinct mental images and must engage the visitors very strongly.
- Provisions for some input contact among participants also a link to the owner.
- "Live-in arrangements are to be made. the active participant is to become a functional part of the venue. This means establishing an identity, "legitimacy", and a place to showcase interests. Things like Yahoo and FriendPages. They are easy to use and give a lot of psychological space.
- An Administrative Bulletin Board or some other update for major events must exist and be integrated into the design of the place
- The visitorship, termed "players" or "Web 3.0 plyaers" if they go beyond the realm of the curious or very casual/non-participatory, because they are intended to be actave participants, is divided into Categories that reflect this being a place with each type having a role to play as part of here.
- New Arrivals, Newbies or Tenderfoots
- Visitors: Persons who drop by at irreguar intervals
- Semi-Regulars: Persons who vist 4 to 12 times a month
- Regulars: Persons who visit 3 to 7 times weekly or use the clubs in the Civic Center.
- Residents Citizenss: Persons who take advantage of the "Move IN" option. Those who do have some level of input into what goes on here so long as it fits and can call some of the shots here
- Terra, Terra City and Space Patrol Officials. If you read the history of this web endtity, you will note that I co-opted a team of persons from the original persons who said he was going to do this and never even started after I waited a fair amount of time during which I built much of the site in front of everybody's nose so they could see I wasn't lying or bragging about things I could not do. These are persons who contributed and use heavily both this site and the original Space Patrol. Jean-Noel Bassior wrote the book-literally, Warren Chaney had close contact with Ed Kemmer. john Dunaj is hot with images Jon Rogers is pretty hip, Bruce David runs Swapsale, which is becoming a destination in itself. These folks have a lot of drag here; which is as it should be.
I broached the notion of a Commander in Chief to JNB and she said that it is quite likely that nobody could fill Ed Kemmer's shew (he, Buzz Corry and Space Patrol fit each other like gloves). I quite agree although as narratro, I have to speak as the CiC as well as Max Hartbyrne and Flight Instructer C. Howie Krasches. Space Patrol has reached the point of being "organic" and the situation and relationships tell each of us what to do and since we are invested in the continuance and furtherance of Space Patrol then it moves along "under its own poeer.
Now having so much here, If I were to store it all at one site it would be unwieldy. Hence I've created storage sites for things I use. These auxilliary sites make for less complication and therefore easier, smoother operation. Since this is the "road map" to Web 3.0 and Space Patrol, here is a peek at some of the behind-the-scenes goings on
Another aspect of life is cultural: Books, Television, radio and the like. These are called "media". A "medium" is anything that is used to communicate between and among the elements of a system and its users. Well Media-Zilla is just that; a dinosaur-sized set of locally housed media that you access by;
- the Bijou Movie House provides access to videos of the things we watched as kids. The Three Stooges, cartoons and the space shows themselves, in a format like the movie houses of the 1930's, 40's and 50's. For just the space shows you'll want KDET-TV. I'm planning for when I can get some of those crazy 50's movies like ROBOT MONSTER and the like and put them here.
- Rockdtship Radio Old Time Radio. Sci-fi, Westerns, comedies and even the soaps make up over 400 episodes of radio
- Space-O-Juke mp3's of the music we dug as teenages as well as the cultural activities of those years
- While not too many persons think of it as such, the Administrative Bulletin Board is a medium. In college and the military you lived and died by it. and it it was your resposibility to check it a couple of times daily or more.
- The contact and report facilities are also media
I was originally going to call this aspect "Media Pig Enterprises" but anything with "-zilla" attached to the end makes the point far better. SpacePatrol.us probably has more media per unit size than 95% of all websites. I use a company that is known for business hosting. I've got a total of 30 GB disk space and 600 GB monthly bandwidth. The most I've seen of that used in one month is 3 GB so it looks like I can serve it up with a shovel: A steamshovel and I mean to do just that.
Know what a homepage or "start page" (so called because it was designed to be the first thing you did online each day) is? it's a software application that does things like gets you the weather, news, access to your email or ebay, and other things. Persons use things. These things are tools, some are very generalized and some pertain to specific things they do, sometimes as a member of a specific group. Well, we have several apllications. In the cyber and virtual world that is Web 3.0, applications are the tools that you use. Power Krunchies is where we store them to keep them from clutterin up the main or "control" site. In the case of these tools, their specific use is real-world. The Brain-O-Graph or Intelligence Console pertain only to The United Planets of the Solar System of the Thirtieth Century. You are not going to need or use them at home for reasearch, math or like that so they stay here. The things in Power Krunchies are things you can use outside the context of this site so they are made to be taen home with you to have for your very own.
The Space Patrol Power Console . The do-it-all application that you take home with you, install on your hard drive and make a part of FireFox2
Calculators; of several stages on the evolutionary scale.Grab 'em up and crunch numbers
Terra V Rocket Cockpit (being revamped) an Internet Explorer "start Page" that does all kinds of things; some of these things are deplicates of the Power console and may are uniqe to it, such as gaming and 'playing Space Patrol". (hint. get Yahoo Messenger and a headset and you can do voice chat. Imagine having a unit that is distributed all over the world in voice communication with each other? That's gotta rock!
Power-Krunchies crunch through tasks with the power of technology. Unlike other homepages which are parts of external networks like MSN, Yahoo or Googl. You take our stuff home, put it on your hard drive, put the link on the desktop and can customize it; we even provide the tools, supplies instructions and an update/upgrade/debugs and other things via a service department
IN SHORT: IT'S ALL ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO HERE! So, you'll be staying awhile.