Udhay Make of this what you will.
Forwarded without comment. -------- Original Message -------- Up in the future, the end will be the beginning. is the message. paper becomes an ever more distant memory. The medium of communication resisting this impetus to invert, as In the long run, I wouldn't bet against any written form the past collects like pixelized sediment ever downward. is a sort of 'now' horizon. The future drops in from above; In this new text world, the 'top' of your screen (or window) this, but I expect them to soon.) neither Google Wave nor the latest smartphone IM logs do orientation. (Twitter tools already do; I'm surprised or IRC client adopts a default newest-messages-on-top It's only a matter of time before an instant-messenger screen-based writing. all now shifting the expectation of time-ordering in News websites, blogs, activity streams, twitter -- they are you might review the path that led to now. latest news, the current state -- and then, if time allows, completely supercedes older information. You want the Also, information decays, and often the newest information from nearer/sooner places. further in the future are upward (towards the horizon) in time', too. In a journey, the places you will reach There are 'logical' reasons one would view 'up' as 'forward convention, rather than strict necessity. Oh, it still did, but now it was a matter of habit and writing (and time) to be mapped from top to bottom. was no longer a *physical* reason for the progress of But moving to the screen was an important moment. There the terminal screen. That in turn continued into line printers, and then the hands/keyboard. of prior work -- which could not move down under (but up from) space for the hands, an insertion point, reviewable log into the era of the typewriter... one compact device had to space These habits of handwriting continued into printing, and further relative orientation of our hands and eyes. physical writing implements (especially inky implements) and the Mapping the flow of time from top to bottom is an artifact of Logically, does it really? > A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. > Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? Reese wrote: -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
