zz: Reply to Peter: Rotation / Beads

[Ted Nelson <ted@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi--

>Your remarks on "rotating" to another dimension clunked for me thus. I can
>move along a row, then use it like an axis. I'm seeing Rollodexes strung
>together like one of those Jacob's Ladder toys where you flip the top block
>in a chain, and the next one flops, and the one below that flips, etc. 

Superb image.  Yes!

>This
>still has me thinking in cubes, but I understand that Zigzag is
>multidimensional. I can't quite get my head around that, but maybe geodesic
>or polyhedral figures offer a clue. Or soap bubbles. Remember
>Hexaflexigons?

Geodesic and polyhedral figures and soap bubbles
 are all 3D.

Beads on a string is perhaps the best image.

Think of Magic Beads that have as many holes as
 you like, and you can put different colored strings through
 them.  When you pull any string tight, the beads line up
 in the order that they're threaded on that string.

(Actually, the magic is in the Magic Strings-- they pass
 through each other without tangling.)

ChrzT


At 07:21 PM 7/6/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Ted,
>
>>> You shd repost this to the ZZ groop-- T <<
>
>Riposte? Ok, but I'll be sorry. This buisness of my lengthy messages has me
>really concerned. I can't help myself, but that doesn't mean it's
>appropriate here. I might be babbling on about horsies and duckys to a lot
>of equestrians and ornithologists. It's hard to tell. The old Compuserve
>"forums" are very useful for sorting this out.
>
>Your remarks on "rotating" to another dimension clunked for me thus. I can
>move along a row, then use it like an axis. I'm seeing Rollodexes strung
>together like one of those Jacob's Ladder toys where you flip the top block
>in a chain, and the next one flops, and the one below that flips, etc. This
>still has me thinking in cubes, but I understand that Zigzag is
>multidimensional. I can't quite get my head around that, but maybe geodesic
>or polyhedral figures offer a clue. Or soap bubbles. Remember
>Hexaflexigons?
>
>This gave me an idea that a linkage could be graphically represented by
>fading in images of the next screen, in the way that some windows (Mac for
>instance) appear to grow from or shrink to their icons. If I "rolled" into
>another dimension, the screen would briefly suggest the new screen rotating
>into place, hinging on one side or another, or along the current cell/axis;
>or "forward" and "back" movement. On a typical screen, this would seem to
>be limited to x or y -axis rotation, but I suppose if one were clever it
>could be represented along diagonals too. Some way would be needed to deal
>with jumps to cells that were not strung together this way; I mean, just
>because my head likes to fold and intersect stuff doesn't mean Zigzag has
>to work that way.
>
>This suggests itself to me because we have these mental maps, we talk of
>"this space" all the time. I worked in a hospital pushing gurneys, and had
>a mental image of the buildings, but only from the inside of the corridors
>and rooms. [In my nightmares, the floors were not level anymore, and there
>were rivers to cross, and hostile gangs hanging on the corners, and all the
>patients were late. In both senses.] In the same way, I have a mental image
>of where I'm "going" when I move around in an application, even though it's
>just a succession of flat screens. Parts of the apps I write seem to be to
>the left, or up, or behind me, etc. I think this is why Windows has
>succeeded so well in capturing the markets it has, even as clumsy as the
>file metaphor may be. It's just the traditional triumph of mediocrity, no
>big deal. But to be intuitive to more users, Zigzag needs an implementation
>with a visually-presented metaphor. One difference from Windows, to my
>mind, is that in Zigzag, we are inside the space, maybe looking at the
>walls (or sky), not looking at "documents" from a "file" on a "desktop".
>
>It seems to me that Zigzag isn't going to escape the imposition of some
>metaphor, so working up a good comprehensive one would be good to do before
>it just evolves. If you want to be sure it is transclusive.
>
>Also I can see where this kind of thinking could be added to my latest
>database work, which is all hierarchies now. Would you find that
>interesting?
>
>Peter
>
>
>At 04:49 PM 6/29/98 -0400, you [I] wrote:
>>Ted,
>>.net
________________________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson, Visiting Professor of Environmental Information
 Keio University, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Fujisawa, Japan
http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/    PERMANENT E-MAIL: ted@xxxxxxxxxx
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