Exploratorium

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

 > From: http://www.cs..edu/~bh
 > Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:16:34 -0700
 > Subject: FW: I'm so afraid!
 >
 > Last night Laurie and I went to a donor preview of the new
 > Exploratorium building, and while Laurie was in the ladies'
 > room I ran into Dennis Bartels, the head honcho, who asked
 > me if I thought it was up to par.  I had just been saying
 > to Laurie, and so said to Dennis, that the ratio of things to
 > see over things to do seems higher than it used to be.  He
 > says that the absolute number of things to do hasn't gone down,
 > but appreciated that the ratio might be important in determining
 > whether the overall experience feels like a museum or feels like
 > the Exploratorium.
 > 
 > Anyway, thinking it over since then, I think part of the problem
 > is an ambiguity about how to categorize certain new exhibits,
 > the ones that have a touchscreen that drives a computer that
 > displays something or other.  What I realized is that I count
 > these as "things to look at," and I bet Dennis counts them as
 > "things to do" because they're interactive -- in the newfangled
 > sense of the word.
 > 
 > Thing is, I used to have arguments with Frank Oppenheimer because
 > he was so adamantly opposed to computer-driven exhibits, and now
 > I have to apologize to him posthumously.  He was right not to want
 > computer mediation between the viewer's senses and the real stuff
 > of nature.  A few of those are okay, but when it becomes a lot of
 > them, it just doesn't feel the same.