This is a web page

Re:This is a web page by kragen on Thursday June 20, 2013 @03:17PM (#5914240)

It's unfortunate that the article doesn't try to actually make the case for the primacy of linguistic communication, and I'm not going to take the time to do it here either. I'll just say that while I agree with you that a diversity of media is better than just one medium, I spent my childhood, before the Web was built, reading books instead of watching TV on purpose, not by accident. Books without pictures. And it's not an accident that I'm answering you in text instead of using my webcam.

I have occasionally seen beautiful video on the web. I have much more frequently seen video whose author had deluded himself into thinking it was beautiful.

http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2013-June/00... talks some about the relative usefulness of different kinds of digital media.

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Re:This is a web page by pnathan on Thursday June 20, 2013 @03:46PM (#5914439)

Do you have a good citation for the primacy of linguistic communication?

I have become profoundly convinced over the last 15 years that words (& to an extent, text), is the generally best mode of communication of meaning, beating out things such as video, images, smells, etc. But I've been generally unable to articulate that idea cleanly and persuasively.

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Re:This is a web page by lelandbatey on Thursday June 20, 2013 @04:34PM (#5914781)

I feel that words are the best way to communicate because words are born purely out of us; they are literally our thoughts in physical form. Videos, music, pictures, are all representations of physical things in the world around us; words are representations of the worlds inside us.

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Re:This is a web page by williamcotton on Thursday June 20, 2013 @06:47PM (#5915435)

I sometimes have a hard time putting certain thoughts or feelings in to words, in which case I either draw a picture, play a melody, or use one of the other myriad forms of expression available to me to communicate with others. I in no way feel like I am translating these thoughts from words to these other forms of expression. I have a much easier time singing a melody than transcribing it. I have to force the music to comply with written forms.

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Re:This is a web page by helicoidal on Saturday June 22, 2013 @04:49PM (#5925102)

> Videos, music, pictures, are all representations of physical things in the world around us; words are representations of the worlds inside us.

What about music, sounds?

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Re:This is a web page by lukifer on Thursday June 20, 2013 @04:38PM (#5914807)

Al Gore articulates the value of text well in _The Assault on Reason_. Short version: text is a "cool" medium which only indirectly rouses emotion, while images, sounds and especially video are "hot" mediums that are much more likely to bypass the prefrontal cortex, and directly stimulate emotional reactions.

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Re:This is a web page by pnathan on Thursday June 20, 2013 @07:51PM (#5915667)

That sounds like it derives from McLuhan's theories in "Understanding Media: Extensions of Man", a book I'm currently reading.

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Re:This is a web page by lukifer on Thursday June 20, 2013 @09:56PM (#5916063)

Ah, you are correct! Gore's book is merely where I learned it from.

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Re:This is a web page by josephlord on Thursday June 20, 2013 @07:52PM (#5915670)

I'm not sure it is universal. I love the written word [1]. You can be precise and make nuanced arguments with caveats and qualifications where required. You can skim when reading it in a way you can't[2] with video. However some things are better and more easily shown than explained and some people have a preference for visual explanations.

[1] As I suspect most people spending much time on this site do as they aren't here for the pictures.

[2] Actually video editing software does give mechanisms for rapidly scanning the video so perhaps it is possible but not offered in web video software that I have seen.

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Re:This is a web page by lmm on Friday June 21, 2013 @06:40AM (#5917373)

Maybe you should try expressing it with a picture :P

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Re:This is a web page by kragen on Thursday June 20, 2013 @11:12PM (#5916309)

A good citation? It's a value judgment.

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Re:This is a web page by ggchappell on Thursday June 20, 2013 @07:05PM (#5915508)

> I have much more frequently seen video whose author had deluded himself into thinking it was beautiful.

I have some sympathy for your point, but I don't think the argument about video is valid. 99% of the web is crap. Always has been. Probably always will be. The crap includes text, video, etc., etc. That's why we have search engines and sites like HN -- to help us find the 1%. The existence of the other crappy 99% says pretty much nothing about the relative advantages of text vs. video.

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Re:This is a web page by kragen on Thursday June 20, 2013 @11:14PM (#5916312)

Point — but you're even less optimistic than Gresham!

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Re:This is a web page by kragen on Monday July 01, 2013 @05:41PM (#5973761)

I meant Sturgeon.

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