Wiardgroup

--- In wiardgroup@y..., Bill Sequeira <bill@a...> wrote:
> Heh...you are right, I forgot about the good ol' cybernetics trap of
> information content.  :-)
> 

ah yes! the TRAP of cybernetics.
- a trap i would gladly escape more often.... it's my 'day gig'
and lemme tell ya - it ain't the sci-fi vision that folks think-
Arthur Clarke really got it wrong. In reality, all Dave Bowman would have had to do on his trip to Jupiter is WAIT... for HAL9000's MSWindows v2001 OS  to encounter a trivial registry conflict and... DOINK!.... he would have de-installed himself and forced a reboot. On average this would occur ....ummmmmm
twice a day (three times if there were deadlines)
It would have made for a MUCH shorter movie.
;'>

actually I want to clarify a point that i made in my original post:

I said:
>cults of personality formed around design concepts of the gadgets from which the nature of the designers is extrapolated (with a predictably-high degree of inaccuracy, I think)<

Bill said:
>I think there is a significant amount of mixing of an individual's
identity with what they have/bought/use/do.<

aurelialuz said:
>i'd have to disagree here. the ford-chevy rivalry is as old as the
hills, as is the coke-pepsi rivalry, as is...etc. etc. the thing
about americans (and i know this is an international forum, but i can
only speak for americans) is for some reason, they seem to equate the
things they buy with who they are. look at the early rap movement,
it was all about kangols, gold chain, cars; it's the same in a lot of
segments of our society.<

Now right from the get-go. I really can't tell whether either Bill or Aurelialuz are addressing my point about the fallacy of discerning the nature of the DESIGNER from that which is designed. I kinda suspect that their statements are NOT addressed to my specific remark. But their points got me thinking a little further on the issue. 

First I want to state that both fellows assert that people identify with what they buy... and I agree entirely. America (with all due deference to our international forum) votes with it's dollars and a new identities are are on sale now at ALL your local outlets. Skuenel pointed out that wide access via the internet has exacerbated this endemic consumerism. Again, I agree completely. 
More specifically I observe that the tribalism which attends the analog synth web groups is composed of the -consumers- of the gear (or the desire for the gear)
But I want to make a distinction here...
my remark refers to observations about the ostensible 'chiefs' of the tribes, the designers themselves. (I call them chiefs because the tribes rally around them. I'm emphatically NOT trying alluding to anyones REAL position)
I have had the privilege (the curiosity- well, OK, the nosey-ness, the pushiness) to meet and talk with a few of the designers of analog gear. 
(this is a footnote: and I am SO grateful that it is still POSSIBLE to meet designers, as opposed to the COMMITTEEs.... so far....)
Their personalities do not mesh at all with the characteristics ascribed to their gear and in many ways countermand them. I'm not at all claiming that a sole designers personality has NO influence over a design (to do so would be absurd) I'm saying that the 'archetypes' that the webgroups synthesize of a 'Bob Moog' or 'Don Buchla' just AIN'T like the real guy. 
   This makes me happy because anyone trying to assemble a notion of me based on the very scanty information about my DIY designs on the web would presume that I am transparent, addicted to Vactrols, and inconsistently color-coded. All of which is untrue. (I can quit using Vactrols any time I want). 
But more seriously, I get nervous when people blithely declare that: someone IS [any adjective here] 
when all they know is that person's work. I realize that some designers elect to expose more of themselves through their written opinions and that is another matter entirely.
 
   At the brain-dead corporation where I work, the 'geniuses' in QA are found of posting a motivational poster that says: "Each piece of work is a portrait it's maker" 
   
   Phooey says I!.... Phooey pure and complete!
    
   The artifact reveals a bit but I think it is a mistake to assume that a person's work reveals anything even approaching a complete portrait. 
Better to talk about the art than the artist.

-dm.



(footnote about those nitwit posters:) I do agree with the slogan insofar as.... the work ie: pinning-up pithy ineffectual posters, is a portrait of it's maker ie: ineffectual QA droids whose skills are limited to hanging posters about what they lack the savvy to actually fix!
(can you tell this is a hot button???)
doubly ironic is the background picture: a violin bathed in lustrous golden sunlight amidst curled spruce shavings. The photographer failed to conceal the corner of a label that identifies the fiddle as machine-made plywood, as cheap as you can get, and the sunlight is strong enough to expose gaps in the joining of the top to the sides
now that's the REAL message!