Subject: Re: Introduction

From: [email-masked] (Thilo Pfennig)
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 10:00:32 +0200

>[email-masked] wrote:
>>
>> The Web certainly seems to be the wave of the future for information
>> distribution,

I don't see that. Certainly, integration of common services is attractivem,
but the WWW is just an old, primitive tool that is also missused in many
ways (people put too many pictures or animations on ist , an now Java...
argh!)

>> but few so far in our area (Houston) have email, let alone Web
>> access.

Email is the most important service in the internet. The Web can help to
distribute Email-Adresses but most informations should be better
distributed in plain-text that is usalbe with Email. (And with MIME you can
send pictures if needed)

>I guess that would call for a multiple media approach, Bob. Video,
>print, radio etc. But that means money. Maybe we need a permaculture
>educational comic!

Wow, I like that! :-)

>April Sampson-Kelly (Mt Kembla, Australia) worte me today that it's
>time for another major video production similar to Bill Mollison's
>Global Gardener series on permaculture around the world. The ABC
>(government run national broadcaster) has run the production three
>times but told April that the series will not be shown again. This is
>unfortunate.

I would suggest to put those things out on CD-ROM /The quality of the video
might be bader, but the option to anhance text and further material is the
way of the future! BTW: CD-ROMS can be used anywhere, because they do not
use a strandard like PAL,NTSC or SECAM. The only thuing that is needed is a
computer. Those CD-ROMs should be hybrids (That means the are running on
DOS-PC's as well as on Mac-PC's!) Maybe you can make parts of it available
on the web.

>The impact of Global Gardener was significant. Permaculture classes we
>taught at adult evening colleges more than doubled in size as a direct
>result of the broadcast of Global Gardener on prime time television.
>It was a great boon to the grassroots sustainable development ethos
>and provided direct evidence that community self-help really works - a
>change from the usual stories in the media concerning the developing
>world, which focus on disasters, disease and war.

Ok, but it is (for itself) not a sustainable way to build on the mass-media
or on the governments support, don't you think?

>The lesson of Global Gardener attests to the value of television as
>valuable media for sustainable development matters and is relevant to
>your discussion (above) on information distribution.

My view is, that what we (All people, not only Pc-Designer) really need is
an oral culture as an alternative to mass-media. *This* is really
sustainable. This would also mean to build something on people, more than
on organizations.

PS: excuse my bad english.

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