10/20/2003: Tholos project
 

http://cellar.org/2003/tholos.jpg

My greatest fascination in life is the clash of society and technology, and how technology is changing how we live with each other and how it brings us together.

Here's a concept that really represents all that in a big way. It's called the Tholos, named after an ancient Roman structure.

It's just in the concept phase now, but it could happen. It's a round building, 10 feet high and 23 feet wide. On the building is a high-res display and there are directional microphones and speakers all around. Each Tholos is networked to a remote identical Tholos in a different location, and everything that happens at the remote Tholos is displayed in real time at the local one.

So the London Tholos would be connected to the Vienna Tholos, and you in London could actually walk up to people in Vienna and speak with them directly and semi-privately.

http://cellar.org/2003/tholos2.jpg

It's to be advertising-supported, and the people behind it are looking to expand the idea to many other locations as well.

It's meant to be an attraction, not a tool to accomplish things; on the other hand, who knows what this sort of thing could generate?

I want one! Unfortunately they're about L1.4M ($2.5 M).

full story

project website

Will it translate?
 

Most Austrians speak German. That's gonna make meaningful communication tough.


OTOH, most of the people who walk up to this thing and try to use it will probably be American tourists, so maybe it's OK :-)

How long do you think it would be before the first long-distance public mooning took place?

That'd be a sweet piece of international Tunick art.

Well that's the thing; of course the designers envision all kind of highbrow uses like sharing art and culture. How long before the most common phrase going across the wires is "show us yer tits!"

Tell me that isn't what the guy in the second picture is saying. And that's from the official website.

You can bet that if they put one in Baghdad, there will terroristic threats shouted to wherever the other end is.

All in all, even with the obvious opportunity for international immaturity and crudeness, how can this be anything other than good? Face to face across space is a cool thing, and sure to inspire some interesting forms of communication between people otherwise removed from one another.

I think it is great. Who do I talk to about getting one in KC?

Since it is supported by advertising, I would like to offer the first promotional idea:

http://www.outlawslegal.com/evil/bartbutt.gif

"This "pressed ham" brought to you by Hormel."

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?

The phenomenon of "show us yer tits!" <i>is</i> culture. And if tits aren't art, I don't know what is.

This thing seems really cool:cool:, but for some reason I get the "Big Brother is watching you" feeling from it. Probably just my paranoia or quilty conscious kicking in.:p

There are already too blamed many people I have to look at every day - why would I want to look at a bunch more just because they are a long way away?

Its probably located in a public space to generate public acceptance, but I can see it evolving into a smaller unit for turbo-charged corporate video conferencing and who knows, eventually maybe even for home use.
Very cool conceptually.

I've read that many quilters are extremely nervous about this.

Are you on cheap crack again Dave? Or are your eagle eyes just playing tricks on you again? Damn that q looks like a g to me:p .

I don't get it. Do you make quilts?

In my post I accidentally (or maybe on purpose to keep Dave on his toes:p ) typed "quilty" instead of "guilty".

Oh.. silly me. :)

Neither of the above. But even if one of them were true, "conscious" is far from the correct word there; "conscience" is what you were looking for.

How is it that someone like you ever thought they could spend so much time correcting someone else?

quilted consciousness
Wake up to the patterns that surround us, that link us through the stitched and pieced awareness of time and place.

It is to laugh.

[edit, to add real content]
On a more on-topic note, is the object in the picture something you get into and "look out" at another part of the world? Thus, the outside world "looks in" at you? That's the best I can figure. I originally thought it was just you looking at them projected on the inside walls, looking at you projected on their inside walls.

Or is it the outside world "looks in", and you can see 360 degrees around at the "real outside" in another part of the world?

Think of standing inside a glass. You would have a 360* view of the world around you, and those outside could look in. Or, would it be you looking at a scene painted on the walls, which were in fact the inside walls of another glass, so you were both just seeing "inside the glass" with no exterior view? Meaning, I see the inside of their glass and they see the inside of mine?

It would be cooler if you could actually see the people outside the glass wandering around. So you stroll down to the park and see "people" walking in the enclosed circle, who are in France or what not.
[/edit]

Quzah.

Hmm,....Heavy.:D

Tholos is promising. I've been wondering what the next generation cyber sex would be.;)

That was really heavy. I took a class in college called Visual Culture - it was all about how people perceive things and then eventually how the powers to be manipulated shit to fuck with humans, etc. Now reading about dioramas and early panoramic paintings was cool and all ... but my freaky chain-smoking has-been artists professor was way too into the philosophy behind this stuff. Almost ruined some interesting exhibits. :(

I did a nasty presentation about Virtual Reality though. Nasty.

Well Dave, I give up. There is just no joking with you. If you care to look around a little you will see that I have not corrected anyone's spelling in quite awhile (except for Billy and that's just to help him out with his English, which BTY he requested). So, it is you spending your time correcting me, not visa versa. So I ask, "How is it that someone like YOU ever thought they could spend so much time correcting someone else?"

Because you're an insufferable idiot that took it upon herself to offer corrections to people while making similar mistakes. (What the fuck does "BTY" stand for? By The Yay? The Y key isn't even close to the W key.)

I correct you because I find it humorous that before I started correcting you, you could hardly get through a post without both correcting someone <b>and</b> misspelling something. And so it was that I found myself thinking, "Jesus Christ she's an idiot." Does your brain misfire this much in real life? "Why LUVBUGZ, that's quite a banal comment." - "Actually, it's <i>bay-nowl</i>, snicker snicker."

I must admit Dave, your behavior has been exemplary for quite some time. :beer:

By all appearances, this is exactly how they have designed it. You would be able to walk up to the exterior wall, and see (and hear) what would be viewable if you standing in the same place relative to the sister Tholos (assuming there wasn't a Tholos in the way). So you'd see landmarks, weather conditions, and people on the other side. Of course they'd look like they were enclosed in a large glass cylinder, not a seamless introduction of their images into the current landscape, but still niftier than hell.

This is a really interesting application of the technologies, I hope this idea sticks to the wall.

It's called a brain fart , or more correctly a crainal flagglitory occorance ( yeeh I know i misspelled that horribaly ) :whofart:

zippy, you misspell everything horribly. :) The reason it doesn't bother me is because you don't pretend to be a dictionary.

The only way to guarantee it's sucessful is to find a way for someone to make money from it.;)

Ok Dave, keep up the childish name calling if you must, but it only goes to show what an insufferable asshole you are, so if that's the hat you choose to wear be my guest. In the PAST, I found myself correcting others spelling mainly when they were pissing me off. I'm no dictionary and never claimed to be. That's simply a figment of your imagination. A typo is a typo, nothing more, nothing less. As you well know I meant to type BTW, but as I was typing I was sounding the words out in my head and accidentally typed BTY. The Y comes from me saying "way" in my head and typing Y for the y in "way" rather than typing the w for "way". So if that qualifies me as an insufferable idiot in your book so be it. Just keep in mind that although you'd like me to believe that you are the most perfect being on earth we both know that is a complete fallacy. If my idiotic posts amuse you, great, but why don't you keep it to yourself. I'm really not interested in your commentary regarding me or my posts.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I dunno... seems to me that this is the closest we can come to putting people in a zoo. Behind glass, in their natural enviroment...

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As far as Dave goes, he's not the biggest asshole this site has seen but he's one of the best. We like Dave. Plus, he's actually has been cooling down a bit of late. Two posts with no obcenities or anything. The "banal" comment was friggin' funny too.

[quote]Originally posted by Whit
As far as Dave goes, he's not the biggest asshole this site has seen but he's one of the best.
I agree.

We like Dave.
I like Dave too when he isn't giving me crap.

Plus, he's actually has been cooling down a bit of late. Two posts with no obcenities or anything.
I also have noted Dave's recent posts as being civil, it's just curious to me that he choses to break his record just to give me a blast of shit.

[quote]Originally posted by LUVBUGZ
[b]That's because he's right. And it's just so damn funny. Because that's exactly what you did. You showed up and decided to be the Spellling Queen and went through each one of my posts word by word to make sure you could find an error.

It's not so amusing when it happens to you is it? So in short, fuck you, here's a tissue.

Quzah.

Fuck you, Quzah. I already admitted that I did that in the past, but I don't do it anymore. If Dave was simply correcting my spelling I would welcome that, but he isn't. He's using that as a way to put me down and to raise himself up in his feeble attempts to show what a superior human being he is. Well, I can't decide who deserves the crown for Biggest Asshole, you or Dave.

RAAWWWWWWWWWR! She's a tiger! And by a tiger, I mean ugly and useless.

You surely are entitled to your disillusioned, half-assed opinion Dave, but I gotta say.....Fuck you too!!!:finger:

plus the name has "zippy" in it, which makes it okay, because zippy was cute. :(

waa-aah. :(

I suppose we could give her shit for that malformed ellipsis.

I was looking for a reason to dislike her anyway after reading that "help" thread in Tech. Looks like now we all have an excuse.

Pot, meet kettle.

It is to laugh.

Quzah.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All right guys, if you want to go off on Bugz anymore take it to the appropriate thread in the Cellar-related section. It's been proclaimed this kind thing is improper for this forum, as a lot of people only read this section.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As for the Tholos project, isn't it interesting that we all assume it will be used crudely? Everything from mooning to tit flashing (or at least requests for such) has been suggested. Notice nobody argued the point either. Isn't it interesting how jr. high people become if you remove the possibility of a meaningful negative backlash?

Lady, here is an advice. If you feel tempted to fire back, please don't. I see that your only fault was that you broke some unwritten rules of netiquette when you came in; now -at least in my opinion- you have show progress, but people still have an image of you. Impressions are strong, and in this ethereal medium are even stronger. So, if you keep answering back every time dave or quzah or someone else gives you a slap, you are just giving them more reasons to throw stuff at you.

(Learn to always use the "Preview" button. I have found that writing the answer sometimes is enough.)

Please excuse any mispelling :D, english is not my primary language.

I think that stems from the fact that no legit explanation was given for what exactly this oversized mushroom is supposed to do. When aesthetics overpower functionality, when mental introspection is preferred to strict utilitarianism.

And humans are all fucking perverted anyway. Are you surprised? When a chick in a tight shirt with THO walks by, don't we all give her a second glance in hopes of getting a second-and-a-half peep show without anyone noticing (yet in the back of your head you know that every other straight male is looking too - strength in numbers is comforting)? Point being, to people on the other side of the looking glass: show me the money! We're like a bunch of goddamn second graders in a museum looking at statues of naked Greek women! Woohoo!

Yeah, I think the internet is proof that Lord of the Flies was right.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hey, where did the women go? I mean we've got guys admiting left and right that we're pretty loathsome and can't wait to misuse this technology. With all the chics on this site not one finds any of this worth responding too? WTF?

Oooh. Aaah.

It's a big, round, cool thing.

You know how it is ... Guys respond to imagery, chicks to direct experience.

They are all quietly, coolly figuring out how to use this to their advantage.:p

Like I said earlier before the Dave and LoveBugz show, I don't see why you all think this is cool.

It is a way of looking and maybe hearing some people, who happen to be a long way away, in public, most likely strangers.

If it was loved ones, long-separated or whatever, maybe it would be an improvement over the phone or video conferencing but otherwise, what's the big deal.

People-watching of a bunch of strangers is easily available in any city on the globe. There are plenty of tit-almost viewing opportunities to be had without the aid of technology. What is so damned neat about being able to see people (who aren't a hell of a lot different then those all around you now) through a looking glass?

Project will get buy in on the Austrian side if this thing plays re-runs of Knight-Rider and Baywatch because Austrians love David Hasslehoff .. (That sounds not enirely right, eh?)

Because, it effectively removes the number one reason for cultural differences: distance. Given enough of these things, the cultural changes throughout the world would be HUGE.

Not cool, indeed. Are you insane? :)

Who wants to homogenize the world with all this cultural change anyway? And no I don't think it is cool (or at least not a big improvement over existing communication technology) and no I don't think it is a substitute for being and living in a culture different than your own. A teleporter, now that would be cool but a fancy window - nope.

Your descriptions sounds a lot like another innovative idea the world latched onto not too long ago... the World Wide Web. Your criticism sounds very similar to those who viewed the Internet as a fad... a waste of time. And here you are using it, right now. If having conversations with far-off strangers really was no better than talking with the people around you, none of us would ever have heard of "Beletseri." But there is value in communicating with strangers... they add variety and unique insights.

I think it's a neat idea... partially for what it is, but also for what it is moving towards... long distance natural communication. An adapted version of this in one's home, perhaps covering an entire wall, could bring friends together who had long ago gone separate ways.... much better than a phone, and not as clunky or impersonal as a videophone. It would also double as a kick-ass TV at 10 feet tall.

But, you don't have to think it's cool. You hold the minority view, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That raises the practical issue again (and I'm a practical kind of guy). Yeah, this oversized mirror is great, but I think if they want to people to eventually adopt it for personal use, it's not being presented that way. Too much of something to gawk at. The practical uses will be overshadowed by perverted fucks jerking off for an equally sick crowd of onlookers in Botswania.

If you do it the other way around - try to do something practical that ends up being something attractive - there's more curiosity and perceived value from a total blunder. Look in last week's Newsweek - there's a short clip about a Japanese scientist who created flourescent fish by injecting dye so he could see the organs better. They're selling like sponge bob in the US.

I don't think it is like the web at all. One of the good things about the web that isn't true about this thing is that people with interests in common tend to find each other. Another thing that is neat about the web is that it is a non-visual media. You don't instantly make judgements about a person by how they look. One more thing about the web that is different is that it isn't real time for the most part. That is a strength. It waits for you to come see it but doesn't impose it's own time on you like this thing would. That is why I like email instead of telephones. It waits till I'm ready to read it. It doesn't ring in the middle of my dinner.

In fact, I think the web is the actual opposite of this thing. Looking cool is not enough to make a sea change in the way we exist in the world. This thing may look cool but it is a glorified video conference device.

btw As a scientist I used the web back before it was the web exactly for what it was first intended for - data sharing and communication in not real time. Also, you may be underestimating the importance that browsers played in the development of the web-as-we-know it. Prior to browsers you actually only got to what you were looking for.

There are potentially some cool entertainment applications. A new sort of jumbotron in town. just as digital possibilities continues to tweek filmmaking, this could tweek movie presentation- real or partiallly real time stories, participatory, in the round....real time drama of sports, politics- The dramatic trip down your own colon. Theaters, dance, concerts could jump on this visual presentation in cool ways- odd collaborations, different relationships with audiences. Tholos projection shape could change- not the cylinder but another form more subtle, or more engulfing, or mobile? Of course public artists and advertisers would be all over it too. And a new theme restaurant is always in the works. I think its cool to imagine the current tholos visuals-a space where the environment presented is in sharp contrast to the hosting, surrounding real environment- Its potential to just create an interesting place to be. Grass is always greener an all that.

I think you're on to something, Warch. A resturant you could go to every week and look out on a different exotic local in real time. This week from the top of the Eye-full Tower and next week a tropical island.:)

I really think that people are just going to be working out ways in which to have sex in front of the things ...

Any of you PA/NJ folks hear about the couple having sex in the woods last Sunday?

They were drunk and were having sex in the woods when six men on ATVs find them. Despite them watching, the couple continues their business and puts on a show. After 10 or 15 minutes, the six men call the cops, who report, watch for 5 minutes, and then arrest them for public indecency and disorderly conduct. What a fuckin shame.