I caught Becca one day, setting up some “boards” on Berkman Island that link us to the course Web site. She had been talking about (and actually working on) creating a robot that would serve as a tour guide for the island, but making a tour guide is apparently not an easy task that requires extremely advanced scripting skills. So she decided that the first thing to do was to let people know what we’re doing at Berkman, and that providing a link to the Web site would do just that.
Whenever I talk to Becca through chat, I feel very comfortable with her and only sense her as a very intelligent, young woman. However, when I actually hear her speaking, it is an entirely different story. There is something very empowering about her voice that awes you. It is funny because Professor Nesson also has a very empowering voice, only their styles are completely different. He is the mesmerizing, hypnotizing chanter, sending out heavy puffs of his own logic that settles around you like a thick incense. She is as clear and crisp as an early winter morning, her thoughts ringing out like bells.
Although this is taking place on a cyber platform, I feel there should be a certain level of decorum, but I don’t know what that level should be. Also, it seems that the senior and junior Nesson, at least, are more liberal-minded that I am, so perhaps they do not care about those kind of formalities. It is strange how some societies work very hard to establish such cultures and some already have it but don’t know how precious it is. For instance, when a professor walks into a classroom, in the past, the students stood up, like when the judge enters a courtroom. These days, however, students don’t even stop talking even when the professor is standing at the podium.