[PD] Pd book sprint in NYC/Berlin

[dmotd]

i should probably avoid writing emails before bed, and my negative bias 
towards video-conferencing comes from a number of bad experiences and 
unproductive meetings. anyhow you are quite right to push this one, to 
converse without latency can be very productive (but equally unproductive 
too) - a good meeting requires a fair bit more preparation and planning than 
just the medium, regardless of mcluhans philosophy. incidentally i have 
enjoyed his musings in the past but i already find his arguments ambiguous 
enough with regard to psychology and technology, to retrofit his ideologies 
to todays baffling techno-communcications wasteland is a bit of a stretch ;)

ciao,
dmotd

On Tuesday 17 March 2009 21:41:46 Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> Yeah, in case I came across too strong, I think that IRC is very
> useful, and voice chat is too.  We can have both running for this
> meeting, and people can choose where they participate.  IRC is great
> for async communications, like asking specific questions.  But I find
> it takes 10-20x longer to work through difficult issues thru text-only
> media like IRC, IM, email, etc. as compared to a voice conversation.
>
> .hc
>
> On Mar 16, 2009, at 7:32 PM, João Pais wrote:
> > Is this a one time thing, or might happen more times? I would say
> > that at least voice connection would be productive. I haven't that
> > much experience with video conferencing, but a medium where people
> > can react at the same time they can think would be important.
> > (although after too much time, even the fingers are faster than some
> > heads)
> >
> > How about voice connection for general talk + an irc chat for small,
> > fast questions? We can also send a group foto with skype, so that
> > everyone feels the warmth.
> >
> >> Marshall McLuhan would strongly disagree with you, as do I.  The
> >> medium with which you communicate has a very strong impact on the
> >> conversation.  That does not mean that it is the only influence.
> >> There are many things that lead to a bad meeting, and from my
> >> experience of having many meetings in person, on IRC, on IM, on
> >> phones, on voice chat, on video chat, and many different mixes
> >> above, I am a strong believer in high-bandwidth communication like
> >> voice.
>
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>-
>
> Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.  - the hacker ethic