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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Websight | ||
| A way of visualizing the Internet internally. |
In the novel, Caitlin is a typical teenager who loves the social aspects of the Internet. The fact that she is blind doesn't seem to slow her down.
Then, she tries an implant to help her see. Unexpectedly, the implant actually lets her internally "see" the Internet.
| "We need a name for what I've got, something to distinguish it from normal vision... "
"...I was thinking we should call it 'websight'" [said Kurooda.] "Website? Oh - websight." She clapped her hands together and laughed. He didn't get it, she realized. |
| Technovelgy from WWW: Wake,
by Robert J. Sawyer. Published by Ace in 2009 Additional resources -
|
Here's another quote that describes what is like from Caitlin's point of view:
This version builds upon previous uses of the idea. See cyberspace from William Gibson's 1982 short story Burning Chrome and portal from Vernor Vinge's 1981 story True Names.
Although each part of the Web she was was unique, it all followed the same general pattern: colored lines representing links, glowing circles of various sizes and brightness indicating websites...
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'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
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