permaculture

[Michael Totten <mpt@crest.org>]

Having been involved through out non-profit group in producing 4 
interactive multimedia CD-ROM discs, plus a 2-floppy interactive 
multimedia program, and also being part of the growth and maintenance of 
probably the largest non-governmental Internet site on sustainable energy 
development, i come to a very different conclusion than Christopher's 
no-cd approach.

we find that cd-rom is far outpacing web 
access, let alone fast web access, in many developing countries.  The 
National Academy of Sciences study on African digital tools, for example, 
finds the CD-ROM drive to be the fastest growing peripheral after the 
computer. At $100  a drive, you simply can't beat an off-line device 
when you're caught in an environment with few phone lines, all of which 
are highly unreliable and skittish, and cost a lot.

Second, you can now press a CD-ROM for $1 each (the recent cost of our 
Greening of the White House CD-ROM released on Earth Day), and inhouse 
you can press prototypes and pre-releases on your own CD-Recorder now 
costing a little more than $1,000.

Downloading 700 MB of info is pretty imposing, even w/ a T1.  Yes, when 
Ethernet speeds become available it would be superfluous to press CDs, 
but that's a fair number of years for most of the planet.  In the 
meantime, using all digital storage media makes sense -- floppys (poised 
to leap from 1+ MB to 100+ MB if Sony gets its market share), CD-ROMs 
(the R&D innovations in the pipeline promise steady increases on the 
amount of storage on a disc to eventually 10x current levels), and by 
email/Internet.

Now, admittedly, one could just leave off the videos, and focus on text, 
graphics, photos, and w/ the spread of Javascripts and Shockwave, 
interactive spreadsheets and graphic exercises.  But I, for one, would 
love to see the video that I saw of Masanobu Fukuoka teaching people his 
natural farming method become available as soon as possible, and i only see 
that possible on a CD-ROM.  Likewise, i would love to get the courses 
given by Max Lindegger, Leah Harrison, and a host of others on video slices.

admittedly, getting material up on the web is easier than producing a 
good cd-rom, but we tend to think its worth pursuing both paths.

 Michael Totten, Director
Center for Renewable Energy & Sustainable Technology (CREST)
****NEW ADDRESS****
1725 K Street N.W., Suite 402, Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (202) 289-5368  Fax: (202) 289-5354  Email: mpt@crest.org
Web: http://solstice.crest.org/
FTP: ftp.crest.org      Gopher: gopher.crest.org

On Tue, 21 May 1996, Christopher Robinson wrote:

> Greetings, 
> 
> Having followed the CD-ROM thread somewhat, I wanted to mention
> the HSCP goal of producing interactive "hyper-media" projects on
> permaculture, appropriate tech, sustainable ag, watershed restoration, and
> related topics. 
> 
> Anticipating the continued growth and data acceleration of the net, we
> hope to distribute the productions on the web (or it's future
> manifestation) for potential clients to download direct. We believe the
> need to "burn" the script to CD will become an unnecessary step in getting
> the content to folks who want it. (No, I not going to stick my neck out 
> with an exact time frame prediction).
> 
> Very best of luck!
> Christopher M Robinson
> The Humboldt Sustainable Community Project
> The HumboldtNation <http://www.humnat.org>
> admin@humnat.org
>