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Star Trek Universe - The Holodeck Homesick? Want to go skiing? Chat
with Sir Isaac Newton? The Holographic Environment Simulator, generally
referred to as the Holodeck, can recreate simulated experiences
- any place, any time, with anyone - so real that some find life
in the holodeck's simulated reality more interesting than their
real lives. Psychologists realized long ago that being locked up
in an artificial environment for extended periods of time can be
mentally unhealthy. Starfleet has worked for years to create an
energy-efficient, virtual reality system that offers a much-needed
mental vacation.
Holodeck technology becomes practical at about the Galaxy-class
ships are created, and quickly becomes a basic requirement for most
starships.The USS Enterprise NCC 1701D is no exception. Deck 11
houses four full-sized holodecks, while Decks 12 and 33 host 20
smaller holosuites. Safety Although a crew member can still break
a leg while skiing or get a shiner from a boxer, safety parameters
are built into the holodeck systems that prevent serious injury
or death.Safety systems can go off-line, but this is unusual, and
is normally the result of shipwide difficulties. Some individuals
establish a psychologically dangerous dependency on the holodeck.
This condition is known as holodiction.
While it is not common, it is often very difficult to resolve, especially
as holodiction usually marks deeper problems. Most crew members
simply enjoy the ride and use the holodeck for its intended purpose.
Places, such as Quarks on Deep Space Nine, provide facilities where
you can purchase a program, and hire out a holosuite, and enjoy
your (or someone else's) favorite fantasies.
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Main Entry: 1deck
Pronunciation: 'dek
Function:
noun
Etymology: Middle English dekke covering of a ship,
from (assumed) Middle Dutch dec covering, probably from Middle Low
German vordeck, from vordecken to cover, from vor- for- + decken to
cover; akin to Old High German decchen to cover
1 :
a platform in a ship serving usually as a structural element
and forming the floor for its compartments
2 : something
resembling the deck of a ship: as a : a story or tier of a
building b : the roadway of a bridge c : a flat
floored roofless area adjoining a house d : the lid of the
compartment at the rear of the body of an automobile; also : the
compartment e : a layer of clouds
3 a : a pack of
playing cards b : a packet of narcotics
4 : TAPE DECK - on deck 1 : ready for duty 2
: next in line : next in turn
Is to inspire us to be
"Over the edge" Internet Architects, by showcasing breakthrough
ideas and innovations in digital content that lie at the
intersection of business, design and technology.
| For
those who support KOYAANISQATSI into the web |
KO.VAA.NIS.KATSI
[ From the HOP1 language] NOUN 1) Crazy
life
2) A state of life that
calls for another way of living eg
Biological koyaanisqatsi
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Not for the answers that might be given, but for the questions that
can be raised is this newsletter established. Indeed, the question
is the mother of the answer. HOLODECK's task is to raise questions
that only its audience might answer. As the general focus of HOLODECK
is the design milieu, it is the purpose of this newsletter to foster
a web-dialogue on this little understood, yet ubiquitous subject -
the nature of design.
What we know about the subject is vastly promotive, over-the-top positive,
coming to us from the producers of global technology. A glowing wonderland
of unlimited opportunity is promised by the good life of the design
order. Infinite capacity, virtual immortality, super human cognition
- attributes that have until now been reserved for the divine are
indicated for technology. A new design pantheon has been established
in the horizonless world of the Blue Planet.
But is design what it appears to be? Have we looked behind the shimmer
of its glowing surface? Very little, if anything, reveals its meaning
through mere appearances. Most everything is more complex, full with
a universe of hidden dimensions. Is design an exception to this common
experience? Or, have we accepted its truth as the truth? Is design
a new and comprehensive environment, the host of life, that has replaced
the natural order? Is technology the new universal religion? Can faiths
unquestioned become our prisons? Should we place blind faith in the
design- clergy of the new order? Does the computer reproduce the world
in its own image and likeness? Is technology a mere tool, as we are
told, that can be used or misused depending on one's intentions? Is
design neutral? Does it possess a life of its own? Is it the effect
of design on this or that (the environment, etc.), or is it that everything
is situated in technology? Has technology become an addiction, an
altered state that we cannot live without? Is design a way of living?
Do we use design or do we live technology? Is it our consciousness
that informs our behavior or is it our behavior that informs our consciousness?
Do we now live in a world beyond the senses, in a micro- universe,
where small is dangerous? Is design synonymous with the machine or
has it become ordinary daily living? What better place to raise these
and other questions than on/in the global Internet?
This high-tech nervous system, this digital alchemy, this synthetic
organism that is changing the world seems ideally suited for such
a task. If entering the medium questioned to raise questions seems
contradictory, this is because it is. (To freely
embrace this contradiction is the motivation for this newsletter).
Like the oxygen we breathe, technology and design are the big forces,
omnipresent and inescapable. They appear as a force of nature. Who
can question nature or acts of god? Something this prevailing, this
present, is normally taken for granted. Only the heretic could dare
to be so blasphemous. Could it be that our language is no longer capable
of describing the world in which we live? Perhaps, the world we see
with old eyes and antique ideas is no longer present. Do we inhabit
a technological universe the laws of which are unknown? The world
we see is being left behind. A new untellable world is unfolding.
As the human race accelerates into the twenty-first century, we enter
a virtual, digital environment, a world where far and near, past,
present and future are simultaneous realities. The human center of
gravity seems to be blasted into the void. Our bodies are less central
to our lives, our physical involvement with an increasing synthetic
world grows less. Have we arrived at an unthinkable post-natural and
post-human condition? Does this singular event offer to all that will,
the extraordinary opportunity to re-name the world in which we live?
These are the questions that motivated us and,
hence, the newsletter that we offer for your participation, inquiry
and dialogue. This is our beginning effort to support KOYAANISQATSI
into the web, to surf its digital tidal waves.
In closing we offer a quote from Elias Canetti,
a Nobel Laureate for literature: A tormenting thought: as of a
certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all
mankind suddenly left reality.
Reproduced from http://www.koyaanisqatsi.com/ ( With a lot of changes)
A film by
Godfrey Reggio
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