Tony's point is good, and although I obviously don't agree fully with it (both
as to well-definedness and visualization versus simulation -- and this is yet
another example of a productive and interesting disagreement which should be
highlighting), I have no problems with changes such as Tony suggests.
> 2) I think that we should include a link to MATLAB as a *simple example*
> of combined--axis operation. This would illustrate Greg's point, is
> relatively simply done (at least by Ed and his team), and would
> counterbalance some of the other cuter but more gratuitous examples...
I think the .m file/Web helper example is illustrative, but weak because it's
rather one-way and presumes duplicated rather than distributed computing. I'm
much more taken with kinds of collaborative access to remote tools that we see
increasingly in design. But certainly a weak example is better than none.
> 4) Although Greg's paragraph hints at how the web may give us new ways
> to do things, I would prefer a separate paragraph later that summarizes
> the comments that Bill and Peter made: that there may be situations in
> which we can do more than simply put old content in a new medium. From
> my mundane engineering perspective, one example might be haptic
> interfaces, which could fundamentally change the notion of "physical
> intuition" and design decision making. (Haptic interfaces could also
> turn out to be most useful for non-educational (teleoperation)
> applications, but I don't think we need that level of detail.) Examples
> from architecture, history, and literature would probably be even more
> enlightening...
Amen!
> 5) I agree with Bob that we should replace Long-term recommendations
> with an issues or questions sections. As Bob suggested, this could start
> with possible scenarios --- from M.I.T. as it is today, with distance
> education a complete flop, to an M.I.T. of the future which is simply an
> imprimatur of excellence conferred upon a faculty and student body which
> shares no physical space at any time. Questions as to how M.I.T. might
> respond could follow. The earlier emails from Chris and Dick contain
> many of the relevant comments.
If we do this, we need to cover other dimensions in addition to distance
education. Our focus on distance education is in many ways a function of our
Web-centricity, and a broader focus would have caused us to address more
diverse scenarios.
> I realize this delays release of the report by a little bit, but in the
> unlikely event that somebody actually takes our work seriously...
Within reason, good is better than fast.
gj
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