For 1998 Talk at USC, Geography Department Geography - Dispersions on the Net - Dispersions _of_ the Net Internetworking Intranetworking BBSing Local Area Networks (LANs) Languages of the Net Scripts Javascript Perl Java, ActiveX, C/C++ etc. etc. Language migrations and collision (relation to middle east) Populations: Migrations from Shells to GUIs Populations in the Shells Populations in the GUIs Interconnectivities between Shells and GUIs Points of access: Telephone Cable Fiber Optic Satellite / Radio Literal Geographies of MOOs / MUDs The wounded player The homestead The wizard's workshop Multiple identities Multiple homes MOO linkages, talker linkages Geographies of ThePalace, other GUIs Building Mapping: Maps in talkers, MediaMOO train route, etc. Space: Colonizations of infinite space Fully-constituted spaces and entities Construct of virtual-real subjects under capital relationship marketing ========================================================================== traceroute gol1.gol.com 30 hops max 40 bytes packet 1 xenyn-eid-E2.nyc.access.net (166.84.1.65) 6 ms 5 ms 2 ms 2 border4-serial3-5.NewYork.cw.net (204.70.47.61) 10 ms 14 ms 5 ms 3 core1-fddi-1.NewYork.cw.net (204.70.3.17) 10 ms 14 ms 5 ms 4 core1-hssi-3.WestOrange.cw.net (204.70.10.14) 8 ms 5 ms 4 ms 5 core2.SanFrancisco.cw.net (204.70.4.201) 81 ms 71 ms 84 ms 6 borderx1-fddi-1.SanFrancisco.cw.net (204.70.158.52) 277 ms 154 ms 222 ms 7 idc-america-inc-internet.SanFrancisco.cw.net (204.70.158.110) 82 ms 85 ms 86 ms 8 Hssi11-0-401.yok1.idc.ad.jp (158.205.224.49) 217 ms 207 ms 210 ms 9 Hssi2-0-112.tok1.idc.ad.jp (158.205.224.98) 305 ms 217 ms 221 ms 10 gol-tokyo.idc.ad.jp (158.205.226.66) 222 ms 215 ms 222 ms 11 203.216.2.29 (203.216.2.29) 223 ms 226 ms 225 ms 12 203.216.71.59 (203.216.71.59) 227 ms 223 ms 223 ms 13 gol1.gol.com (203.216.7.4) 224 ms 226 ms 246 ms ======================================================================= ; <<>> DiG 2.1 <<>> gol1.gol.com ;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch ;; got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6 ;; flags: qr rd ra; Ques: 1, Ans: 1, Auth: 7, Addit: 7 ;; QUESTIONS: ;; gol1.gol.com, type = A, class = IN ;; ANSWERS: gol1.gol.com. 3428 A 203.216.7.4 ;; AUTHORITY RECORDS: gol.com. 86221 NS ns01.dns.gol.com. gol.com. 86221 NS ns02.dns.gol.com. gol.com. 86221 NS ns03.dns.gol.com. gol.com. 86221 NS ns04.dns.gol.com. gol.com. 86221 NS domain01.dns.erols.net. gol.com. 86221 NS domain02.dns.erols.net. gol.com. 86221 NS offsite01.dns.erols.net. ;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS: ns01.dns.gol.com. 86221 A 203.216.4.4 ns02.dns.gol.com. 86221 A 203.216.4.5 ns03.dns.gol.com. 86221 A 203.216.70.70 ns04.dns.gol.com. 86221 A 203.216.71.70 domain01.dns.erols.net. 77253 A 207.172.3.20 domain02.dns.erols.net. 77253 A 207.172.3.21 offsite01.dns.erols.net. 77253 A 206.138.112.20 ;; Total query time: 5 msec ;; FROM: panix3.panix.com to SERVER: default -- 127.0.0.1 ;; WHEN: Sat Oct 10 21:26:20 1998 ;; MSG SIZE sent: 30 rcvd: 328 ======================================================================== whois gol1.gol.com Global OnLine Japan (GOL-HST) Hostname: GOL1.GOL.COM Address: 203.216.12.4 System: ? running ? Coordinator: DNS Administrator (DA26-ORG) dnsadmin@GOL.COM +81-3-5334-1700 Fax- +81-3-5334-1701 Record last updated on 13-Feb-98. Database last updated on 10-Oct-98 04:15:34 EDT. The InterNIC Registration Services database contains ONLY non-military and non-US Government Domains and contacts. Other associated whois servers: American Registry for Internet Numbers - whois.arin.net European IP Address Allocations - whois.ripe.net Asia Pacific IP Address Allocations - whois.apnic.net US Military - whois.nic.mil US Government - whois.nic.gov ======================================================================= nslookup gol1.gol.com Server: localhost.panix.com Address: 127.0.0.1 Non-authoritative answer: Name: gol1.gol.com Address: 203.216.7.4 ======================================================================= host gol1.gol.com gol1.gol.com has address 203.216.7.4 ======================================================================= ping -s vm.cc.purdue.edu PING vm.cc.purdue.edu: 56 data bytes 64 bytes from vm.cc.purdue.edu (128.210.254.40): icmp_seq=0. time=109. ms 64 bytes from vm.cc.purdue.edu (128.210.254.40): icmp_seq=1. time=134. ms 64 bytes from vm.cc.purdue.edu (128.210.254.40): icmp_seq=2. time=127. ms 64 bytes from vm.cc.purdue.edu (128.210.254.40): icmp_seq=3. time=137. ms 64 bytes from vm.cc.purdue.edu (128.210.254.40): icmp_seq=4. time=118. ms ----vm.cc.purdue.edu PING Statistics---- 6 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 16% packet loss round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 109/125/137 ========================================================================== telnet cleo.murdoch.edu.au 13 Trying 134.115.224.60... Connected to cleo.murdoch.edu.au. Escape character is '^]'. Sun Oct 11 09:31:36 1998 ========================================================================== rusers cleo.murdoch.edu.au cleo.murdoch masters pmahar bhooper melvshs4 rnichol ========================================================================== finger @cleo.murdoch.edu.au [cleo.murdoch.edu.au] Login Name TTY Idle When Where atkinson Roger Atkinson pts/23 Sun 09:34 tlcdun44.murdoch.edu masters Kerry Masters *pts/6 Sun 07:16 gerbil.murdoch.edu.a pmahar Peta Mahar *pts/16 Sun 09:08 gerbil.murdoch.edu.a bhooper Bronwyn Hooper *pts/19 1 Sun 06:53 gerbil.murdoch.edu.a melvshs4 Melville Senior High *pts/26 Sun 08:33 gerbil.murdoch.edu.a rnichol Robert Nicholas pts/28 Sun 08:05 gerbil.murdoch.edu.a ========================================================================== Ju40lu% telnet columbia.edu 25 Trying 128.59.35.139... Connected to columbia.edu. Escape character is '^]'. 220 mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.5/8.8.5/CU/HLK ready at Sat, 1 0 Oct 1998 21:37:28 -0400 (EDT) HELO panix7.panix.com 250 mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu Hello panix3.panix.com [166.84.1.68], pleased to meet you VRFY jfr10 250 VRFY jfr11 550 jfr11... User unknown MAIL FROM: nikuko@oita.com.jp 250 nikuko@oita.com.jp... Sender ok RCPT TO: jfr10 250 jfr10... Recipient ok DATA 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself hi there, another test from Nikuko/Alan .-- 250 VAA06426 Message accepted for delivery QUIT 221 mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu closing connection ========================================================================== Geography of Net Relationships All my online relationships, none of which have been successful, have occurred over a minimum distance of five hundred miles, and from this, outward to eleven thousand five hundred. And this not only my experience, but that of others, this distance, as if nearby, within the five hundred mile radius, were a no-safety zone. This might be graphed, nodes of attraction and dispersion. Closer in, there is always the very real possibility of offline meeting within... a matter of days, hours. Beyond, there's the barrier which pro- mises fortification that might be breeched. When it is, everything falls through, everything might fall apart, and the relationship becomes close to impossible unless the one or both of the partners are mobile. So there is class and finance, bandwidth and foreclosure, at work from the begin- ning. My experience has been futile, close to fatal; the gaps become wounds, and distance becomes unsuturing, unraveling not only the other or the bonds, but also the self. Real life meetings become overly-intense - everything and nothing seem to ride on them. Either you're together or you're not, and negotiating. Email and telephone, both subject to heavy misunderstanding, become critical. One can recite one's day in either medium, but the nuances are obviously absent. Net sex gets its power from projection literally filling up the gaps, and from illusions of control and display (what elsewhere I've called the elements of a textual unconscious, interpenetrating language, physiology, and desire). It's this same projection, however, that can bring difficulties of recognition to the foreground: who, in fact, is the person at the other end of the line or node? Not to project means a denuded relationship with minimal communication, but to project means a relationship with constantly-adjusted illusion. My failures have been ones of misrecognitions all the way around, not ones of surprise at physical or psychological bearings. There are two people and there are mechanisms, protocols, what might be called vis-a-vis film theory, the apparatus. And while I don't give up in this space, I give up for the distance, give up to the distance, which can seem insurmountable, especially where travel money or even phone bills can become an issue. Then the failures collapse, and distance reasserts itself; then distance transforms into self-hatred (and 'if you can't love yourself, no one can love you'), elevates self-hatred to a geodesic, and I think: "It's my own failings, maybe the danger of the texts I write, or my inten- sity or neuroses, but the matter of projection from afar seems to hold ground, dissolving or coagulating upon contact. Who, nearby, would want to know of someone writing through a Jennifer or Nikuko? Writing submerged texts of dissolution, marginality, extremity? In the meantime I dream of thousands of miles of wastelands, desolations, uninhabited by organism, the desert so hot that communication can't cross. The wires burn out; violent solar flares take care of satellite transmissions, and even print media char in the dunes. This world doesn't support meaning, which always eludes, floods out, floods elsewhere. Life is lost before it began; I'll die alone and whining, my fingers on a keyboard or telephone screaming for someone to come closer - even at five hundred miles there might be a chance that the _shout_ will be _heard._" But I also think, what is this relationship between projection, introjec- tion, and geography? Are all geographies ultimately psychoanalytical - regions in which the physical translates into corrupted nuances of memory, desire, and home? Is projection also a reconstruction, a memory of consti- tution of the present, and is even the physical world seen through such make-shift or heuristic strategies? Does one ever come face to face with the other, even at the distance of touch? Is there ever an other who is not, to an unknown extent, shimmered or sloughed into the self? And is the self, for that or any matter, ever other than projection? (How are these territories mapped? What sorts of projection geometries might be of use here? And is distance, always a matter of matter, that which runs along the length of the traversing of the physical body, to which we might take heed of Hui Shih and the debaters: "The South has no limit and yet has a limit. One goes to the state of Yueh today and arrives there yester- day. [...] I know the center of the world: it is north of the state of Yen and south of the state of Yueh. [...] A wheel never touches the ground.") _________________________________________________________________________