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Message no. 1
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@****.ORG>
Subject: Emoticons in the Matrix?
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 13:10:16 -0600
Okay, we all know what emoticons are :) Are matrix personas capable
of accurately displaying emotions? How often does someone design a
persona that more annoying than say, a toy poodle? Anyone roleplay
matrix encounters and take stuff like this into account?

-David
--
"What's the point spread on World War III?"
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 2
From: "Fisher, Victor" <Victor-Fisher@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Emoticons in the Matrix?
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 15:58:39 -0400
David said:
>Okay, we all know what emoticons are :) Are matrix personas capable
>of accurately displaying emotions? How often does someone design a
>persona that more annoying than say, a toy poodle? Anyone roleplay
>matrix encounters and take stuff like this into account?

If any of my players are deckers, I try an encourage them to round
it out as much as possible. It's possible to write software, that with
the corresponding hardware [modifying the already existing simsense rig
in the terminal] , translates emotive responses into virtual
representations 'visible' upon the person's computer generated icon. I
can't see this as being a standard function of cyberterminals, and can
already hear the cries of people who would exploit these 'weaknesses'
displayed by the decker to their own advantage [since the decker is now
'wearing his heart on his sleeve'].
Now in uses like cybersex, these are the types of terminals that
DEFINITELY would be set up for such an interface. Two icons from
different deckers set up a feedback loop receiving, interacting with,
then sending it back to the originator in it's altered form. Such
interaction would be VERY intense, and become very addictive. What the
long terms effects to the human mind are [despite it's resiliency, the
brain is it's still a pretty fragile organ] can't be surmised. But since
when has man been concerned with his health, in pursuit of the newest
'high' [ And it would be a very lucrative market for enterprising
organized crime.].
But to a decker, it would probably be too much of a liability to
his highly illegal profession. [Did I stray off track, then back again,
or what :-]

More ramblings from the Master Brain

"Yes, Pinky. It's all coming together like two Amtrack trains!"
Message no. 3
From: Matb <mbreton@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Emoticons in the Matrix?
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 01:34:58 -0700
<<Okay, we all know what emoticons are :) Are matrix personas capable
of accurately displaying emotions? How often does someone design a
persona that more annoying than say, a toy poodle? Anyone roleplay
matrix encounters and take stuff like this into account?>>


Oooh... at last someone's gotten to the meaty part fo the Matrix!

I guess it goes without saying that there *is* a Matrix Etiquette skill,
which would handle these types of situations.


I have an old short story I'll post to my (non-existent) web page that
sort of deals with stuff like this - in the lead character's case, his
Persona was a hawk, which he sampled off of National Geographic
specials:
photorealistic, but no, no emotions anyone could see.

On the other hand, I believe some online companies in RL are working on
ways to have Avatars display emotions; all done with strings, of course
(to have your Avatar grunt in disguist, you'd type /disgusted, or
something similar.) Persona chips probably work the same - they come
with a generalized set of routines, you spend ten minutes or so
baselining what's needed for a 'happy' face, etc. (Or, since it
involves RAS (that muscle cut-out thing) you simply map neural firings
to a wireframe modelling of your face; if you want to wink, frinstance,
the RAS prevents the signals from going to your face muscles and routes
them to the Persona routine.)

It is an intriguing aspect of the Matrix, though; you can always spoof
which commands get through to the Avatar/Persona (you can keep a
straight face no matter what - good for net.poker players, I suppose.)
And of course, the wireframe it maps to doesn't have to be your own...

Hope that didn't ramble too much.

Further Reading

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!