[SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference

[Irish, Sharon Lee]

Since Mike Williams didn’t say it, this site gives this origin: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~ravenben/humor/csfunny


If it's there and you can see it   - it's real.
If it's not there and you can see it   - it's virtual.
If it's there and you can't see it - it's transparent.
If it's not there and you can't see it - you erased it!
        -- Old IBM VM Statement (Scott Hammer)


Sharon Irish
FemTechNet Co-Facilitator, 2014-16
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
501 East Daniel Street, MC-493
Champaign, Illinois 61820 USA
slirish at illinois.edu<mailto:slirish at illinois.edu>
sharonirish.org
femtechnet.org


From: <Ceruzzi>, Paul <CeruzziP at si.edu<mailto:CeruzziP at si.edu>>
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2014 at 8:12 AM
To: "'thaigh at computer.org<mailto:'thaigh at computer.org>'" <thaigh at computer.org<mailto:thaigh at computer.org>>, "members at sigcis.org<mailto:members at sigcis.org>" <members at sigcis.org<mailto:members at sigcis.org>>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference

I heard it from Mike Williams, when he had his professor of computer science hat on! Here’s how he said it:

If it is there, but you can’t see it, it is transparent.
If it isn’t there, but you see it, it is virtual.
If it is there, and you see it, it is real.

For the purposes of symmetry, what if something is not there and you can’t see it?

Paul

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org<mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org> [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Haigh
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 7:01 PM
To: members at sigcis.org<mailto:members at sigcis.org>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference

Hello SIGCIS,

I am trying to locate a quote I remember reading circa 1998. It is something along the lines of “Something virtual isn’t really there but looks as if it is. Something transparent is really there but looks as if it isn’t.” That is of course the computer science sense of transparency as making the work of software invisible a user or process – for example how the network stack shields applications from whatever network media the data is travelling over to present the illusion of a connection.

Google is not helping me. Does anybody know the source and correct wording?

Thanks,

Tom
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