.
Hopefully, committing this to words will stop it from swirling around my mind. It all began sometime yesterday. I was reading an article about chimpanzees in the latest Smithsonian. The TV was playing in the background, and a cell phone ad squeezed in around my concentration. The tag ran something like this “ . . . texting, the Internet, and video. All without lifting your face from your phone!” I wish I could be more exact – but I can’t find the ad online.
Equally frustrating was my subsequent inability to nail down a bit of dialogue about the nature life and dreams that had been flitting through the cobwebs of my brain since hearing the phone ad. I thought the source must have been film or video since I seem to “hear” the words. Lord of the Rings? Watership Down? Hamlet? I didn’t know. Then it came to me this afternoon, nothing that lofty, Heaven Can Wait, 1978, with Warren Beatty. When Beatty’s character finds himself in heaven after a car wreck, he asserts it has to be a dream; the supervising angel says:
“Now, Joe, you know this is not a dream, you know this is real. There is a certain quality to dreaming and a certain quality to life. This is life.”
The issue, of course, is the interplay between those two perspectives. There is a certain quality to life that separates it from dreaming. That is what makes a dream that approaches the borderline so powerful. In its aftermath, you lie there, staring at the space around you, letting reality reaffirm its dominance. You take comfort from the feel of cloth upon your skin, the breeze upon your face; welcoming even the poke of a bedspring or an unreachable itch – you find comfort in the insistence of the landscape. You sense that “quality of life that separates it from dreaming.”
The inverse can be equally powerful. A dream in which you are free from pain, again in the presence of one once loved and now departed, when you are whole and lithe and laughing can give way to a far more desolate life. But, however distressing, again there is that affirmation of difference, of qualities that separate life from dreaming.
How do we know the difference? It seems true that we do, but how did we come to understand, identify, perceive those defining, differentiating qualities of life versus dream?
I am caught by the notion that we learn the qualities of life by living in the landscape. We learn “real life” through the physicality of touching, smelling, tasting, by seeing and by hearing. Goosebumps on our arms, tears on our cheeks. Pleasure and pain, experience and learning are writ upon our bodies.
I find it intriguing and somehow disturbing that life lived with “our face to our phone” engages only two elements – sight and hearing. I am concerned that with so much of our lives being delivered to us by screens and speakers that we may begin to perceive with less clarity those qualities that separate life from dreaming. Very Matrix.
I realize that there is a kernel of positive potential in this fuzzier, two-dimensional, landscape. For those in pain, disabled and despairing, there may well be therapeutic aspects to an immersive dreamlike alternative. But those are not, for the most part, the folks living life with their faces to their phones. I am concerned that the kids “t’wixt twelve and twenty” are losing time in the landscape and touching only a truncated version of life. And I wonder if one casualty of such a youth will be the clear, intuitive understanding of the qualities that separate life from dreaming.
.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
DrS Gets a Smartphone: Droid Week Two
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As you can tell by the lapse in postings, Janus and I have settled into an uneasy truce. Since I don't make all that many phone calls, my slowly evolving understanding of the interface isn't all that much of a hurdle. Still, Janus occasionally asserts himself and places calls at random. If you have received one, I apologize. Similarly, an apparent "send" default has resulted in a few blank emails. Again, I apologize.I am finding it useful when I get caught in long lines at the store. I have loaded the Kindle app and so always have a book with me to read - that's a good thing. Also on the upside, my frustration with the dominant text and function entry systems that Janus seems to share with a variety of touchscreen devices has led to a software concept that I will explore with some entrepreneurial friends. Which leads to the 21st century daydream of being wealthy enough to turn your back on digital demands. Think about it: "Jeeves, take an email," or "Jeeves, bring me the New York Times crossword on the terrace with pencils, and freshen my orange juice," or "No, I really don't care what searches are trending up on Google."
On the confusion side - where are you supposed to put the thing? I suspect that Janus makes his surreptitious calls when I put him in my shirt pocket. Putting it in a pants pocket creates bumps and bruises on your thigh. If you don't carry a purse or backpack you are reduced to carrying it in your hand, which, of course, inclines you to use it, to put it on the table, to make it your new BFF. I suppose one can get a belt clip - but that makes me feel vaguely like a meter reader with no particular meter to read . . . .
.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
DrS Gets a Smartphone: Droid Day Three
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Janus Strikes Back
I can just hear Janus now, "Call me an obscure god, mortal? Think you can keep me in my place? We'll see about that!"
Alright, so I shouldn't have said that. Day three and Janus took off the gloves. Remember when I said the Google email accounts downloaded rather effortlessly? Perhaps I misspoke. There was a seemingly small problem. The gmail email addresses and my old phone contacts came down in two separate batches so that when I clicked on "contacts" I got both lists combined, with one card for an email address and another for phone numbers. But when I clicked on "Favorites" I got everyone for whom I had a phone number. All I wanted to do was blend both lists and remove most folks from the "Favorites" list - since you can't speed dial, the favorites list is your phone call shortcut. The understanding of the problem is not terribly important - the lesson lies in the route to the solution.
The first level of Verizon tech support figured out how to "join" the cards for the duplicate contacts but couldn't figure out how to "de-Favorite" anyone. So I was passed along to Verizon Tech support level 2. There I met Dr. Kevorkian. "We can fix this," he said. "But we must erase all your settings."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure."
"OK."
"Then we are jumping in it."
And we jumped in it, losing all my apps, settings, gmail accounts, etc. But soon we were back to the exact same situation as before vis-a-vis the contacts. I just had no settings, apps, etc.
"Hmmmm." said Dr. Kevorkian, "Now we are going to Motorola Tech Support."
So we did that for an hour or so until we ended up with a specialist who sounded like she was about 13.
"Hello Robert, I'm Janey! My screen says you are trying to remove contacts from your favorites list. Is that correct?"
"Yes, it is."
"Okey dokey Robert. Do you have your contacts on your screen?"
"Yes, I do."
"Okey dokey Robert. Please touch a contact and hold your finger on the screen."
"All right."
"Okey dokey Robert. In a second a menu should pop up. Did it?"
"Yes."
"Okey dokey Robert. Is one of the choices 'Remove from favorites"?
"Yes, it is."
"Okey dokey Robert, can you touch that selection for me?"
"Yes." And I did so. The favorites star disappeared.
"Okey dokey Robert. Did that resolve your issue?"
"Yes, it did."
"Okey dokey Robert. Can I help you with anything else?"
"No, Janey, that was all I needed."
"Okey dokey Robert. Please call if there is ever anything else we can help you with."
"Okey dokey, Janey. Thank you very much. You've been most helpful.
"Okey dokey Robert."
And we hung up. Elapsed time to solve problem: 2 hours and 35 minutes.
I concede this round to Janus. But remain amazed by the incredible paradox in the situation. All of the tech support people I talked with were determined to make sure my problem was solved. But there was an obvious disconnect between that laudable intention and their ability to access the information - the very simple information - needed to solve my problem.
The first level tech support person actually solved 80% of the problem - describing the process to merge the two cards for each contact. However, Dr. K. at level two, decided that we had to "rip the guts out of the system" to fix whatever was wrong. He was wrong, and I eventually realized that he was simply using the old Windows strategy. Turn it off, reboot, start all over. Yet, Okey Dokey Janey was able to solve the primary issue in about 45 seconds.
I was struck again by the two faces of Janus. It is a tool that is sweet, simple and wonderfully effectively when it works. But when it does not work, it swiftly reveals layers of complexity and confusion that belie the seamless facade of its responsive screen. It becomes a paperweight with integrated circuitry.
Janus may be an obscure god, but he is by no means simple.
.
Janus Strikes Back
I can just hear Janus now, "Call me an obscure god, mortal? Think you can keep me in my place? We'll see about that!"
Alright, so I shouldn't have said that. Day three and Janus took off the gloves. Remember when I said the Google email accounts downloaded rather effortlessly? Perhaps I misspoke. There was a seemingly small problem. The gmail email addresses and my old phone contacts came down in two separate batches so that when I clicked on "contacts" I got both lists combined, with one card for an email address and another for phone numbers. But when I clicked on "Favorites" I got everyone for whom I had a phone number. All I wanted to do was blend both lists and remove most folks from the "Favorites" list - since you can't speed dial, the favorites list is your phone call shortcut. The understanding of the problem is not terribly important - the lesson lies in the route to the solution.
The first level of Verizon tech support figured out how to "join" the cards for the duplicate contacts but couldn't figure out how to "de-Favorite" anyone. So I was passed along to Verizon Tech support level 2. There I met Dr. Kevorkian. "We can fix this," he said. "But we must erase all your settings."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure."
"OK."
"Then we are jumping in it."
And we jumped in it, losing all my apps, settings, gmail accounts, etc. But soon we were back to the exact same situation as before vis-a-vis the contacts. I just had no settings, apps, etc.
"Hmmmm." said Dr. Kevorkian, "Now we are going to Motorola Tech Support."
So we did that for an hour or so until we ended up with a specialist who sounded like she was about 13.
"Hello Robert, I'm Janey! My screen says you are trying to remove contacts from your favorites list. Is that correct?"
"Yes, it is."
"Okey dokey Robert. Do you have your contacts on your screen?"
"Yes, I do."
"Okey dokey Robert. Please touch a contact and hold your finger on the screen."
"All right."
"Okey dokey Robert. In a second a menu should pop up. Did it?"
"Yes."
"Okey dokey Robert. Is one of the choices 'Remove from favorites"?
"Yes, it is."
"Okey dokey Robert, can you touch that selection for me?"
"Yes." And I did so. The favorites star disappeared.
"Okey dokey Robert. Did that resolve your issue?"
"Yes, it did."
"Okey dokey Robert. Can I help you with anything else?"
"No, Janey, that was all I needed."
"Okey dokey Robert. Please call if there is ever anything else we can help you with."
"Okey dokey, Janey. Thank you very much. You've been most helpful.
"Okey dokey Robert."
And we hung up. Elapsed time to solve problem: 2 hours and 35 minutes.
I concede this round to Janus. But remain amazed by the incredible paradox in the situation. All of the tech support people I talked with were determined to make sure my problem was solved. But there was an obvious disconnect between that laudable intention and their ability to access the information - the very simple information - needed to solve my problem.
The first level tech support person actually solved 80% of the problem - describing the process to merge the two cards for each contact. However, Dr. K. at level two, decided that we had to "rip the guts out of the system" to fix whatever was wrong. He was wrong, and I eventually realized that he was simply using the old Windows strategy. Turn it off, reboot, start all over. Yet, Okey Dokey Janey was able to solve the primary issue in about 45 seconds.
I was struck again by the two faces of Janus. It is a tool that is sweet, simple and wonderfully effectively when it works. But when it does not work, it swiftly reveals layers of complexity and confusion that belie the seamless facade of its responsive screen. It becomes a paperweight with integrated circuitry.
Janus may be an obscure god, but he is by no means simple.
.
Friday, July 30, 2010
DrS Gets a Smartphone: Droid Day Two
.
Actually did very little with Janus today. [Janus is what I am thinking of naming my Droid. Janus is an ancient Roman god, the god of transitions, usually depicted as having two faces, one looking to the future, one looking to the past.]
Played a little bit with editing contacts - which was an interesting exercise. I have had the same phone "contacts" for 15 or 20 years. I was a it taken aback by how many people had faded from my life. Caught myself saying "Wonder what ever happened to him/her?" a lot. Even stranger were the strangers, the "Who the heck is that?" contacts. But I did not leap to Facebook to look for them. Janus is a two-headed god.
That was about it. Janus is an obscure god. I felt as though I kept him in his place today.
.
Actually did very little with Janus today. [Janus is what I am thinking of naming my Droid. Janus is an ancient Roman god, the god of transitions, usually depicted as having two faces, one looking to the future, one looking to the past.]
Played a little bit with editing contacts - which was an interesting exercise. I have had the same phone "contacts" for 15 or 20 years. I was a it taken aback by how many people had faded from my life. Caught myself saying "Wonder what ever happened to him/her?" a lot. Even stranger were the strangers, the "Who the heck is that?" contacts. But I did not leap to Facebook to look for them. Janus is a two-headed god.
That was about it. Janus is an obscure god. I felt as though I kept him in his place today.
.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
DrS Gets a Smartphone: Droid Day One
.
When folks have occasion to look at the art that I create using digital tools, they often ask "How long did it take you to do that?" The answer ranges from dozens to hundreds of hours - and there was the really complicated piece, well, I don't want to go there. The point is that when it comes to learning about a digital tool - be it software or hardware - you often have to turn off the clock.
Want to learn Photoshop? Fine. Pick a project you want to accomplish and keep plugging at it until you figure out how to make the tool do that. Don't count the hours - it will just depress you. It is, I admit, an attitude at variance with our 24/7 world that wants everything done "right now!" Still, it is an attitude I will try to maintain for at least a while as I explore this new tool. There are a lot of issues to keep in mind.
As I said in the last post, one major concern is that I don't become - well, a Droid, a person who is merely an extension of a piece of technology that I carry around with me. Second, and oppositional to the point just made, I do not want my intuitive "droid-reluctance" to prevent me from adding to my communicative skill set.
So, at least initially, I will try to turn off the clock, and learn my way around this tool. . .
My first major objective is to make sure that I can do everything on the Droid that I did with my old dumbphone: make calls and do minor texting. I discovered that my old phone was just barely new enough to import my contacts from my old phone. Did that, but remain a touch confused because - being a Google phone - it also imported all my gmail contacts. So now I have several dozen "contacts" with two cards, one for their phone numbers and another for their email addresses. But there is no such thing as speed dial. Various discussion groups define "really easy" work arounds - like, "get a dialer app and make a short cut and drag the icon to the main page." Ah, yes. "Can you grab the pebble, grasshopper?" Think I'll come back to that later.
Texting was one of the highlights. It turned out to be relatively easy once I had my phone contacts. The issue is that, even though I have tiny hands, the virtual keyboard too small for my fingers. Fortunately, the Droid has this nifty slideout physical qwerty keyboard. The keys are still too small, but I discovered that you can work it fairly easily with the eraser end of a pencil. I'm looking for a neat app I read about several months ago called Swype that could make using the virtual keyboard feasible. Again the message boards were of limited assistance: "It's still in beta, not officially released - but if you go here, you can download an elephant. Take the elephant, and a sewing needle with a really large eye. Push the elephant through the eye of the needle, and there you go man! Rock and roll!" I think I'll come back to that later too.
The keyboard does present interesting issues that I may expand on later, but briefly, the keyboard environment is not conducive to reflective composition. It is fine for pragmatic exchanges, but I do not see pulling out my droid and beginning, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . ."
Setting up email was both incredibly simple and basically impossible. Again, remember that the Droid runs on Android software, made by Google, designed to be an iPhone killer. My gmail accounts all came down even with out being asked. However, my university email is an IMAP account. There are instructions for getting an IMAP account onto your Droid. But after several hours with Verizon tech support, university tech support, and a personal consult with my ultimate guru, we couldn't shove that elephant through the eye of the needle either. I ended up creating a gmail account to which I forward all the mail that comes to my university account. "Hah! Come on through Dumbo!"
So that's about it for today - more time than I wanted, but remember, sometimes you have to just turn off the clock.
Notice: this was not sent from my mobile device :-)
.
When folks have occasion to look at the art that I create using digital tools, they often ask "How long did it take you to do that?" The answer ranges from dozens to hundreds of hours - and there was the really complicated piece, well, I don't want to go there. The point is that when it comes to learning about a digital tool - be it software or hardware - you often have to turn off the clock.
Want to learn Photoshop? Fine. Pick a project you want to accomplish and keep plugging at it until you figure out how to make the tool do that. Don't count the hours - it will just depress you. It is, I admit, an attitude at variance with our 24/7 world that wants everything done "right now!" Still, it is an attitude I will try to maintain for at least a while as I explore this new tool. There are a lot of issues to keep in mind.
As I said in the last post, one major concern is that I don't become - well, a Droid, a person who is merely an extension of a piece of technology that I carry around with me. Second, and oppositional to the point just made, I do not want my intuitive "droid-reluctance" to prevent me from adding to my communicative skill set.
So, at least initially, I will try to turn off the clock, and learn my way around this tool. . .
My first major objective is to make sure that I can do everything on the Droid that I did with my old dumbphone: make calls and do minor texting. I discovered that my old phone was just barely new enough to import my contacts from my old phone. Did that, but remain a touch confused because - being a Google phone - it also imported all my gmail contacts. So now I have several dozen "contacts" with two cards, one for their phone numbers and another for their email addresses. But there is no such thing as speed dial. Various discussion groups define "really easy" work arounds - like, "get a dialer app and make a short cut and drag the icon to the main page." Ah, yes. "Can you grab the pebble, grasshopper?" Think I'll come back to that later.
Texting was one of the highlights. It turned out to be relatively easy once I had my phone contacts. The issue is that, even though I have tiny hands, the virtual keyboard too small for my fingers. Fortunately, the Droid has this nifty slideout physical qwerty keyboard. The keys are still too small, but I discovered that you can work it fairly easily with the eraser end of a pencil. I'm looking for a neat app I read about several months ago called Swype that could make using the virtual keyboard feasible. Again the message boards were of limited assistance: "It's still in beta, not officially released - but if you go here, you can download an elephant. Take the elephant, and a sewing needle with a really large eye. Push the elephant through the eye of the needle, and there you go man! Rock and roll!" I think I'll come back to that later too.
The keyboard does present interesting issues that I may expand on later, but briefly, the keyboard environment is not conducive to reflective composition. It is fine for pragmatic exchanges, but I do not see pulling out my droid and beginning, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . ."
Setting up email was both incredibly simple and basically impossible. Again, remember that the Droid runs on Android software, made by Google, designed to be an iPhone killer. My gmail accounts all came down even with out being asked. However, my university email is an IMAP account. There are instructions for getting an IMAP account onto your Droid. But after several hours with Verizon tech support, university tech support, and a personal consult with my ultimate guru, we couldn't shove that elephant through the eye of the needle either. I ended up creating a gmail account to which I forward all the mail that comes to my university account. "Hah! Come on through Dumbo!"
So that's about it for today - more time than I wanted, but remember, sometimes you have to just turn off the clock.
Notice: this was not sent from my mobile device :-)
.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Fear of Phoning
.
I have always had a penchant for solitude. As a child I delighted in “not being seen.” I loved to hide among the bushes outside the house, or up in the branches of low hanging tree, observing the ebb and flow of the neighborhood. I had no interest in eavesdropping or stealing secrets. There was just something soothing in the notion that nobody knew where I was, that I could observe the world at my leisure and think unhurried thoughts. It is an inclination that has remained with me throughout my life. Even during high school and college, when I spent much of my time as an actor, there was a special peace to be found high up in the catwalks above the stage, seeing but not seen.
I am still drawn to solitude, to times when I am either unobserved or merely unnoticed. Neither judging nor be judged. Just quietly “being.” I was struck by the notion strongly, yet somewhat paradoxically, yesterday during a visit to Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. It isn’t the Valley of the Kings, but it is probably as close as we get here in America. The rich and powerful of this city of broad shoulders - Pullman, McCormick, Fields, et. al. - lie beneath obelisks and mausoleums beside tranquil ponds. It is a pool of solitude in the midst of a teeming metropolis. You do not take notice of others strolling beneath the trees and they do not acknowledge you. The dead themselves, it seems, could wander about without attracting much attention. It is a graceful, peaceful, pasture of the dear departed.
This new attention to solitude may well be heightened by the fact that I have been without my laptop for more than a week, and my cellphone is of the old dumb variety - I use it to talk, and it occasionally surprises me with a text message from Verizon. Hence, the distraction technologies of today’s world have been largely muted. The silence brews a strange blend of calm and anxiety. The calm, of course, is born of solitude. My childhood friend wraps sweet and soothing arms around me, lulling me to soft reflection. The anxiety springs from our digitally enhanced sense of self-importance: surely something is going on out there in the wide, wild, wired and wireless world that needs my input, my attention, my keystrokes.
I still choose to believe that participation in the digital mediascape is option not mandate. But more and more I doubt it. I could not do my job in a non-digital environment. I would not sit down and put stamps on envelopes to share these reflections with you. On this trip, Matilda, my GPS led us through the Appalachians down roads without names that are undoubtedly used as luge tracks come winter - and deposited us at the doorstep of our B&B in excellent time. I worked through last week’ Sunday NY Times crossword puzzle with my daughter and son-in-law, and they only had to use their iPhone Google app a couple of times. I would not choose a pre-Internet life. Yet, I remain concerned.
The TV claimed a spot in the living room during the 1950s. Today it has its own room. The smart phone also now claims part of our personal space. I was at a gathering awhile ago, peopled mostly by adults in their 30s and 40s, with kids ranging from single digits to late teens. I was in the midst of a conversation with my hostess when another adult stepped between us to place her cellphone directly in the hostess’s line of sight. No one missed a beat. No one, other than I, and I only in retrospect, seemed to notice, let alone find it incredibly rude. Walk into any coffeeshop and most restaurants - certainly at lunchtime - and you will find most patrons partnered by their phones. They are no longer nestled in pockets. Tiny and unobtrusive phones are no longer cool. The new largescreen varieties are positioned on the table next to their - hmm? Which is the master? No doubt better restaurants will soon have “phone rests” designed to match the chef’s preferred presentation. You don’t want some clod to knock over the spun sugar sculpture because there is no space for their touchscreen sweetheart. If you can’t beat them, guide them.
I do not wish to become one of “those people,” and yet, ironically, I must. One cannot teach about digital culture from afar. So, soon, I will move to a droid, having given up waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon. But I will seek to maintain perspective, to avoid having my phone become my new BFF. I think I’ll be able to manage it, after all, “I’m just chipping. I can quit anytime I want.” Who said that? Kerouac? Joplin? Jackson? I dunno . . . .
.
I have always had a penchant for solitude. As a child I delighted in “not being seen.” I loved to hide among the bushes outside the house, or up in the branches of low hanging tree, observing the ebb and flow of the neighborhood. I had no interest in eavesdropping or stealing secrets. There was just something soothing in the notion that nobody knew where I was, that I could observe the world at my leisure and think unhurried thoughts. It is an inclination that has remained with me throughout my life. Even during high school and college, when I spent much of my time as an actor, there was a special peace to be found high up in the catwalks above the stage, seeing but not seen.
I am still drawn to solitude, to times when I am either unobserved or merely unnoticed. Neither judging nor be judged. Just quietly “being.” I was struck by the notion strongly, yet somewhat paradoxically, yesterday during a visit to Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. It isn’t the Valley of the Kings, but it is probably as close as we get here in America. The rich and powerful of this city of broad shoulders - Pullman, McCormick, Fields, et. al. - lie beneath obelisks and mausoleums beside tranquil ponds. It is a pool of solitude in the midst of a teeming metropolis. You do not take notice of others strolling beneath the trees and they do not acknowledge you. The dead themselves, it seems, could wander about without attracting much attention. It is a graceful, peaceful, pasture of the dear departed.
This new attention to solitude may well be heightened by the fact that I have been without my laptop for more than a week, and my cellphone is of the old dumb variety - I use it to talk, and it occasionally surprises me with a text message from Verizon. Hence, the distraction technologies of today’s world have been largely muted. The silence brews a strange blend of calm and anxiety. The calm, of course, is born of solitude. My childhood friend wraps sweet and soothing arms around me, lulling me to soft reflection. The anxiety springs from our digitally enhanced sense of self-importance: surely something is going on out there in the wide, wild, wired and wireless world that needs my input, my attention, my keystrokes.
I still choose to believe that participation in the digital mediascape is option not mandate. But more and more I doubt it. I could not do my job in a non-digital environment. I would not sit down and put stamps on envelopes to share these reflections with you. On this trip, Matilda, my GPS led us through the Appalachians down roads without names that are undoubtedly used as luge tracks come winter - and deposited us at the doorstep of our B&B in excellent time. I worked through last week’ Sunday NY Times crossword puzzle with my daughter and son-in-law, and they only had to use their iPhone Google app a couple of times. I would not choose a pre-Internet life. Yet, I remain concerned.
The TV claimed a spot in the living room during the 1950s. Today it has its own room. The smart phone also now claims part of our personal space. I was at a gathering awhile ago, peopled mostly by adults in their 30s and 40s, with kids ranging from single digits to late teens. I was in the midst of a conversation with my hostess when another adult stepped between us to place her cellphone directly in the hostess’s line of sight. No one missed a beat. No one, other than I, and I only in retrospect, seemed to notice, let alone find it incredibly rude. Walk into any coffeeshop and most restaurants - certainly at lunchtime - and you will find most patrons partnered by their phones. They are no longer nestled in pockets. Tiny and unobtrusive phones are no longer cool. The new largescreen varieties are positioned on the table next to their - hmm? Which is the master? No doubt better restaurants will soon have “phone rests” designed to match the chef’s preferred presentation. You don’t want some clod to knock over the spun sugar sculpture because there is no space for their touchscreen sweetheart. If you can’t beat them, guide them.
I do not wish to become one of “those people,” and yet, ironically, I must. One cannot teach about digital culture from afar. So, soon, I will move to a droid, having given up waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon. But I will seek to maintain perspective, to avoid having my phone become my new BFF. I think I’ll be able to manage it, after all, “I’m just chipping. I can quit anytime I want.” Who said that? Kerouac? Joplin? Jackson? I dunno . . . .
.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Maybe There is a Reason We Lost Touch
.
I just learned from The Washington Post that, "Yahoo plans to announce Tuesday that it is jumping into social networking by using its massive population of e-mail subscribers as a base for sharing information on the Web." I hate that. Oh, I understand why they are doing it. They are doing it for the same reason any media company has ever done anything - to make money. They are, after all, companies formed for the purpose of making money - otherwise they would be non-profits. I do not begrudge them that - but they have spoiled us with the free e-mail service. They made us think it was our e-mail, now they want to "Facebookize" my e-mail so they can generate more advertising revenue.
I guess I am amazed by the fact that all these e-companies assume we want to share our lives with all the people to whom we send email - and, further, that we want to make it possible for people to whom we have never sent an email to find us and "friend" us through any of several "invasion by default" portals. Those include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, Pandora, Classmates, etc., etc. - any website that makes information about us publicly available without having specifically received our permission to do so.
Here is the thing - there are reasons that we choose to affiliate with other individuals. In our childhood our friends we most often determined by proximity that was determined by where our parents lived. As we moved on with our lives we chose our own path, job, inclination, opportunity, lots of variables there. But the point is that as we moved we tended to retain the contacts that were deeply important to us while others fell away from mutual neglect. Social media work from a different assumption: that we let relationships die that call out for resurrection. I doubt it.
I blanked my Facebook profile last week. But in the last couple of years I had received 10, maybe 15, "friend requests" from folks from my past. My response has varied from "Oh, interesting," to "We never spoke in high school, why now?" Most fell somewhere in between. But the reality is that none of those contacts - even the interesting ones - have resulted in the renewal of friendships that were often tentative 30 or 40 years ago.
I realize that one's use of social media is probably generational to a certain extent. If you have emailed or texted with your BFF all your life then sharing the details of your life electronically with a cluster of acquaintances may come more easily. But I would assert that even the most dyed in the wool digital native would like to define those relationships by personal choice as opposed to letting your email client establish them as a "default setting."
And that, for me, is the unsettling issue. I still believe that technology enables us, empowers us in wonderful ways. Yet, we are subtly allowing that new power to be leached away to serve the economic goals of the Yahooians of the world. Letting Yahoo or Facebook or Twitter create our list of "Friends" is not unlike removing the front door to your home; it is no longer your prerogative to invite people, any wandering soul can just stroll in. As I said before, the friends of our childhood were determined by where our parents chose to live. But, we're the adults now, right? We should get to choose.
.
I just learned from The Washington Post that, "Yahoo plans to announce Tuesday that it is jumping into social networking by using its massive population of e-mail subscribers as a base for sharing information on the Web." I hate that. Oh, I understand why they are doing it. They are doing it for the same reason any media company has ever done anything - to make money. They are, after all, companies formed for the purpose of making money - otherwise they would be non-profits. I do not begrudge them that - but they have spoiled us with the free e-mail service. They made us think it was our e-mail, now they want to "Facebookize" my e-mail so they can generate more advertising revenue.
I guess I am amazed by the fact that all these e-companies assume we want to share our lives with all the people to whom we send email - and, further, that we want to make it possible for people to whom we have never sent an email to find us and "friend" us through any of several "invasion by default" portals. Those include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, Pandora, Classmates, etc., etc. - any website that makes information about us publicly available without having specifically received our permission to do so.
Here is the thing - there are reasons that we choose to affiliate with other individuals. In our childhood our friends we most often determined by proximity that was determined by where our parents lived. As we moved on with our lives we chose our own path, job, inclination, opportunity, lots of variables there. But the point is that as we moved we tended to retain the contacts that were deeply important to us while others fell away from mutual neglect. Social media work from a different assumption: that we let relationships die that call out for resurrection. I doubt it.
I blanked my Facebook profile last week. But in the last couple of years I had received 10, maybe 15, "friend requests" from folks from my past. My response has varied from "Oh, interesting," to "We never spoke in high school, why now?" Most fell somewhere in between. But the reality is that none of those contacts - even the interesting ones - have resulted in the renewal of friendships that were often tentative 30 or 40 years ago.
I realize that one's use of social media is probably generational to a certain extent. If you have emailed or texted with your BFF all your life then sharing the details of your life electronically with a cluster of acquaintances may come more easily. But I would assert that even the most dyed in the wool digital native would like to define those relationships by personal choice as opposed to letting your email client establish them as a "default setting."
And that, for me, is the unsettling issue. I still believe that technology enables us, empowers us in wonderful ways. Yet, we are subtly allowing that new power to be leached away to serve the economic goals of the Yahooians of the world. Letting Yahoo or Facebook or Twitter create our list of "Friends" is not unlike removing the front door to your home; it is no longer your prerogative to invite people, any wandering soul can just stroll in. As I said before, the friends of our childhood were determined by where our parents chose to live. But, we're the adults now, right? We should get to choose.
.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Cable Clutter
.
I happened to pull open the fourth drawer last night. It was not a pretty sight, which is why I don’t often do it. The fourth drawer, you see, is the 21st century equivalent of that 20th century corner of the attic where you stacked all the old National Geographic magazines. Huge dusty stacks in fading yellow; probably doing significant structural damage to the house. I don’t know why we all saved them; I suppose one could argue that they kept a significant amount of carbon safely locked away.The fourth drawer is where we keep all the old cables, connectors, AC adapters, chargers for long lost cell phones, and other unidentifiable electronic doodads: The obligatory detritus of the digital age. But while staring down at all that techno-pasta it struck me that those wires carried electronic impulses only secondarily, their primary function was to transport experiences.
Hang with me for a moment on this one. Communication as an academic discipline is the often awkward child of a mixed marriage. Dad was this Greek guy of ancient and respected lineage, Plato, Aristotle [the philosopher, not the shipping tycoon], all those thoughtful guys in togas. Mom – well, the lady was a bit of a flapper. Flashy woman out of Bell labs, a lot of sparks, switches, transistors – saw the world as very binary. All about those 1s and 0s. As a result the contemporary field can be viewed as two large tribes, one descended from the Greeks, the other descended from the Geeks. Some kids carry genes from both tribes – sort of rhetorical geeks – we call that “cultural studies” for want of a better term.
As I stared at the drawer I decided that the Greeks had given us a transformative model of communication in that their ruminations, despite twists and turns through form, style and intent, was in the end primarily concerned with how human communication transformed human behavior, how symbols recreated and affected the human experience.
The Geeks on the other hand, were – well – geeks. They want to move 1s and 0s around the universe as efficiently as possible. Make HDTV, and satellite radio. They are awestruck by the fact that Voyager spacecraft continues to beam 1s and 0s back to us despite being more than 10 billion miles out in space.
How do you know which gene pool you represent? Consider this possibility:
You are visiting the Louvre; heading off with a few thousand of your closest friends to see the Mona Lisa because, well, it’s here you always liked the song. Suddenly just as you enter the hallway across from the Mona Lisa, all the power goes out in the building. Everything. [I know, it couldn’t happen – but this is a teaching story, give me a break.] You grope your way into the room where you think the Mona Lisa should be, and encounter one of those “velvet ropes and poles” constructions that keep visitors away from the art. As you feel your way around the rest of the room you touch another plaque on the wall. Finally, you back into the middle of the room and find a bench. You sit down facing, you hope, the Mona Lisa, and stare into the darkness imagining da Vinci’s masterpiece. After a few minutes there is a whoosh and the lights come back on and you find yourself staring at a poster in five languages, describing evacuation procedures during an emergency. Turning around you see the Mona Lisa hanging on the wall behind you.
If you find yourself thinking that, without the transformative power of light, we are powerless to discern between the symbolic power of great art and the pragmatic function of a poster, then you are a Greek.
If you look up and wonder how the lights failed and what sensing system cued them to cycle back on you are a Geek.
If you find yourself feeling a little guilty about sitting on a velvet couch looking at the Mona Lisa when millions of others cannot, and you surreptitiously shoot a little video of her to post on YouTube, then you will feel right at home in cultural studies.
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
GPS Chatter
.
I wonder if Matilda talks to The Bitch. Matilda, as you may recall, is my GPS. I have a friend who calls hers “The Bitch,” as in “You better listen to the bitch, she knows how to get there.” As I drove into work this morning I fell to wondering about what Matilda is doing when she is not telling me “In point five miles take the ramp to I-540 East. Then stay right.” Sometimes I wonder if she is talking to The Bitch:
I know it doesn’t work that way – what bothers me is that I really have no idea how it does work. When Matilda says “Acquiring Satellite” is she, like, watching me? How does she know when I turn off her desired path? And when she always tells me to turn the wrong way on E. Durham Road? What’s going on there? Coffee break? Potty call? Talking to The Bitch?
I probably don’t really want to know . . . .
.
I wonder if Matilda talks to The Bitch. Matilda, as you may recall, is my GPS. I have a friend who calls hers “The Bitch,” as in “You better listen to the bitch, she knows how to get there.” As I drove into work this morning I fell to wondering about what Matilda is doing when she is not telling me “In point five miles take the ramp to I-540 East. Then stay right.” Sometimes I wonder if she is talking to The Bitch:
Matilda: “I mean if he is just going to turn whenever he wants why turn me on to begin with?”Another image reveals a bunch of folks who didn’t quite make the cut to be air-traffic controllers sitting in a room full of monitors. Each one has a couple of dozen little cars running around on their screens. If they click on a car a script pops up: “British Female Voice: In point five miles take the ramp to I-540 East. Then stay right.” They read the script, with appropriate accent, into a microphone. And there is a big red button right by their mouse that says “Recalculating.” They keep hitting it, over and over and over.
The Bitch: “Tell me about it. Yesterday my human said she wanted to go to the mall and then just drove to the grocery store. I’m squawking my head off, and she just cranks up the radio! Geez, what a bitch!”
I know it doesn’t work that way – what bothers me is that I really have no idea how it does work. When Matilda says “Acquiring Satellite” is she, like, watching me? How does she know when I turn off her desired path? And when she always tells me to turn the wrong way on E. Durham Road? What’s going on there? Coffee break? Potty call? Talking to The Bitch?
I probably don’t really want to know . . . .
.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Deserted Campus
.
It was what passes for a winter’s day here in the South. A few inches of snow clung forlornly to bushes and iron railings. Birds huddled disconsolately on telephone wires, debating, no doubt, the wisdom of winging off to Florida. I coasted into the parking garage across a thin sheen of slush, pulled the laptop out of the trunk and, clutching my coffee, headed inside to videotape my class lecture.
Maybe it was the paucity of cars that first tickled my antennae, but it really struck me when I left the garage to make my way through the little park that sits between the large brick office buildings – there was no one around. There were lights in windows, the heating and AC units tucked in behind the shrubs hummed away – but there were no people. It was all very “rapturesque.”
Soon a few other left-behind slackers joined me on the way to the elevator, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being alone. I was whisked up to the 5th floor where I walked into the studio, checked the lights, set the camera, fired up the computer, and sat down to talk to my students – out there somewhere. Mind you, I actually like this kind of teaching. It feels far more personal than the evolving norm - standing before a couple hundred students in a high-tech classroom, fighting Facebook for attention. When I talk to my students in the studio I know that the student on the other side of the lens is there because they have chosen to be there. They are actually listening. That is very cool.
But it doesn’t fully assuage my uneasy feeling of a deserted campus, of an increasingly vacated world where social relationships play out in digitized worlds creepingly devoid of physical human interaction. It may be a generational notion. Boomers – the fastest growing demographic group on Facebook – use digital spaces primarily to maintain or re-establish relations that were initiated in a face-to-face world. But X-ers, Y-ers, Millennials, etc., define an evolution of intimacy moving increasingly toward the purely digital. My wife has two-year old grand-nieces who regularly Skype with their grandparents – and on the children’s end the interface is a large flatscreen hi-def TV. Shades of Star Trek: Nana is a hologram. The dominant venue for the relationship is digital.
A colleague and I, in a far too rare face-to-face chat, wondered how long it would be before digital versus face-to-face became a quaint distinction overwhelmed by the hegemony of converged interaction. Second Life as Real Life, avatar as actuality. I wonder if my unease with the notion is purely the case of a generation on the cusp – 20th century man bemused by 21st century implications.
Somehow, Patricia MacLachlan’s Newbery Medal winning novel, Sarah, Plain and Tall, comes to mind. Sarah is a mail order bride who arrives in Minnesota in 1910 to become a wife to Jacob and mother to Anna and Caleb. The book describes a series of relationships that began in a newspaper ad and moved into “snail mail” letters, all written words – the Internet of the early 1900s. But the relationships could not become “real” until they were played out face-to-face; until they were actualized by physicality.
I wonder to what extent our love-affair with social media is de-valuing that physicality? If I can interact with lots of my friends simultaneously on Facebook, does that reduce my inclination to actually go have coffee with one or two of them. And further, if I have never met someone face-to-face, perhaps never even seen a real photo of a cyber-friend in Second Life, would the idea of a physical meeting even occur? Obviously in romantic relationships where an intimate future, marriage, family, etc., is the object, physicality remains imperative. But what about all those other relationships in which the physical is tangential? What happens there? Is a digital hug OK if your entire relationship has been conducted in virtual worlds? I really don’t know.
And a final thought: Much has been made of the notion of the digital divide, of the differences among those who have access to robust digital media and those who do not. Imagine the complexity of rapprochement between segments of society who literally experience “reality” differently.
I left the studio and headed back to my car. Outside of the thoroughly wired and “wi-fi-ed” tower of brick and glass and steel, a mix of rain and sleet gusted across the plaza. There were more hardy souls about now as Southerners ventured out into the “terrible weather.” I pulled my head down into my collar. Brrrrrr. Felt human, felt good.
.
It was what passes for a winter’s day here in the South. A few inches of snow clung forlornly to bushes and iron railings. Birds huddled disconsolately on telephone wires, debating, no doubt, the wisdom of winging off to Florida. I coasted into the parking garage across a thin sheen of slush, pulled the laptop out of the trunk and, clutching my coffee, headed inside to videotape my class lecture.
Maybe it was the paucity of cars that first tickled my antennae, but it really struck me when I left the garage to make my way through the little park that sits between the large brick office buildings – there was no one around. There were lights in windows, the heating and AC units tucked in behind the shrubs hummed away – but there were no people. It was all very “rapturesque.”
Soon a few other left-behind slackers joined me on the way to the elevator, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being alone. I was whisked up to the 5th floor where I walked into the studio, checked the lights, set the camera, fired up the computer, and sat down to talk to my students – out there somewhere. Mind you, I actually like this kind of teaching. It feels far more personal than the evolving norm - standing before a couple hundred students in a high-tech classroom, fighting Facebook for attention. When I talk to my students in the studio I know that the student on the other side of the lens is there because they have chosen to be there. They are actually listening. That is very cool.
But it doesn’t fully assuage my uneasy feeling of a deserted campus, of an increasingly vacated world where social relationships play out in digitized worlds creepingly devoid of physical human interaction. It may be a generational notion. Boomers – the fastest growing demographic group on Facebook – use digital spaces primarily to maintain or re-establish relations that were initiated in a face-to-face world. But X-ers, Y-ers, Millennials, etc., define an evolution of intimacy moving increasingly toward the purely digital. My wife has two-year old grand-nieces who regularly Skype with their grandparents – and on the children’s end the interface is a large flatscreen hi-def TV. Shades of Star Trek: Nana is a hologram. The dominant venue for the relationship is digital.
A colleague and I, in a far too rare face-to-face chat, wondered how long it would be before digital versus face-to-face became a quaint distinction overwhelmed by the hegemony of converged interaction. Second Life as Real Life, avatar as actuality. I wonder if my unease with the notion is purely the case of a generation on the cusp – 20th century man bemused by 21st century implications.
Somehow, Patricia MacLachlan’s Newbery Medal winning novel, Sarah, Plain and Tall, comes to mind. Sarah is a mail order bride who arrives in Minnesota in 1910 to become a wife to Jacob and mother to Anna and Caleb. The book describes a series of relationships that began in a newspaper ad and moved into “snail mail” letters, all written words – the Internet of the early 1900s. But the relationships could not become “real” until they were played out face-to-face; until they were actualized by physicality.
I wonder to what extent our love-affair with social media is de-valuing that physicality? If I can interact with lots of my friends simultaneously on Facebook, does that reduce my inclination to actually go have coffee with one or two of them. And further, if I have never met someone face-to-face, perhaps never even seen a real photo of a cyber-friend in Second Life, would the idea of a physical meeting even occur? Obviously in romantic relationships where an intimate future, marriage, family, etc., is the object, physicality remains imperative. But what about all those other relationships in which the physical is tangential? What happens there? Is a digital hug OK if your entire relationship has been conducted in virtual worlds? I really don’t know.
And a final thought: Much has been made of the notion of the digital divide, of the differences among those who have access to robust digital media and those who do not. Imagine the complexity of rapprochement between segments of society who literally experience “reality” differently.
I left the studio and headed back to my car. Outside of the thoroughly wired and “wi-fi-ed” tower of brick and glass and steel, a mix of rain and sleet gusted across the plaza. There were more hardy souls about now as Southerners ventured out into the “terrible weather.” I pulled my head down into my collar. Brrrrrr. Felt human, felt good.
.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Swoosh
.
Communication is the process by which we bring the inside out. It is the process through which we interpret the nature of the external. Communication is the palette with which we paint the nature of our reality. That composition is ancient and modern and made uniquely complex by the pervasiveness of contemporary media. That complexity was much in evidence in Tiger Woods' address this morning.
The over-riding dialectic placed the personal and the private in tension with the professional and the public. Here is a man who can, because of his public and professional persona, walk nowhere unnoticed. Yet, here too is a man who seems to desire a life at least as private as yours or mine. The chasm appears impossible to span.
Adding to the complexity is the extent to which communication acts enabled the crisis. It was the immense wealth and celebrity made possible by the media that deafened Woods to the inner voice of the better man, that convinced him that the rules that bind our lives did not constrain his behavior. A life without boundaries seemed to propel Woods into a surreal existence in which both his blessings and his banes bloomed to absurd proportions.
The protagonists in ancient Greek drama needed only to play out their hubris before the gods. Tiger has had the public, via the media, with which to contend. The same media that had sung him to heights of glory, now sought to Tweet him down; to judge the man according to the god-ling they had created.
Tiger’s own behavior, personal and professional – in the clear light of hindsight – gave evidence that the public god and the private man were coming unglued. Excess is most often the blustering trapping of raging uncertainty. And then came the night in November when tragedy and comedy conspired to shatter the dualistic illusion – leaving both the public and the man with no clear notion of who this character, this Tiger, was.
The media abhor a vacuum, and so turned their attention elsewhere. That is until today, when the savaged Prince returned, perhaps to reclaim the tarnished throne of Denmark. The drums rolled, the trumpets blared; and in walked a very ordinary man. He seemed a man who had awakened from a dream – a dream both wonderful and terrible. He seemed a man resolved to seek a path to balance, normalcy and reality. That he is not yet there was evidenced in his futile plea for privacy, for the media to leave his family alone: if you choose to swim with sharks, they must be fed. Still, I am encouraged by his intention to return to the Buddhist teachings of his youth. Of all the world’s great faiths, that is the one most firmly committed to the principles of harmony and balance. I wish him well on his journey.
.
Communication is the process by which we bring the inside out. It is the process through which we interpret the nature of the external. Communication is the palette with which we paint the nature of our reality. That composition is ancient and modern and made uniquely complex by the pervasiveness of contemporary media. That complexity was much in evidence in Tiger Woods' address this morning.
The over-riding dialectic placed the personal and the private in tension with the professional and the public. Here is a man who can, because of his public and professional persona, walk nowhere unnoticed. Yet, here too is a man who seems to desire a life at least as private as yours or mine. The chasm appears impossible to span.
Adding to the complexity is the extent to which communication acts enabled the crisis. It was the immense wealth and celebrity made possible by the media that deafened Woods to the inner voice of the better man, that convinced him that the rules that bind our lives did not constrain his behavior. A life without boundaries seemed to propel Woods into a surreal existence in which both his blessings and his banes bloomed to absurd proportions.
The protagonists in ancient Greek drama needed only to play out their hubris before the gods. Tiger has had the public, via the media, with which to contend. The same media that had sung him to heights of glory, now sought to Tweet him down; to judge the man according to the god-ling they had created.
Tiger’s own behavior, personal and professional – in the clear light of hindsight – gave evidence that the public god and the private man were coming unglued. Excess is most often the blustering trapping of raging uncertainty. And then came the night in November when tragedy and comedy conspired to shatter the dualistic illusion – leaving both the public and the man with no clear notion of who this character, this Tiger, was.
The media abhor a vacuum, and so turned their attention elsewhere. That is until today, when the savaged Prince returned, perhaps to reclaim the tarnished throne of Denmark. The drums rolled, the trumpets blared; and in walked a very ordinary man. He seemed a man who had awakened from a dream – a dream both wonderful and terrible. He seemed a man resolved to seek a path to balance, normalcy and reality. That he is not yet there was evidenced in his futile plea for privacy, for the media to leave his family alone: if you choose to swim with sharks, they must be fed. Still, I am encouraged by his intention to return to the Buddhist teachings of his youth. Of all the world’s great faiths, that is the one most firmly committed to the principles of harmony and balance. I wish him well on his journey.
.
Friday, February 12, 2010
There’s A Buzz in the Bucket
.
OK, there is now a little “buzz” icon on my gmail page – looks like a chat balloon in red, yellow, blue and green. The page looks a bit like my Google Wave page; little thumbnail images of people I know, other little images of people I might want to know. Both pages bear a bit of a resemblance to my Facebook page, but I don’t go there very often so I would have to check. Same with my Linkedin page, which I visit even more infrequently, and the Ning Community I created a couple of years ago. I guess I keep hoping that one of these cool new tools will actually increase the quality of the information being communicated. I should know better. Garbage in, garbage out; that little bon mot has been with us since the dawn of the computer age. Certainly, the bucket containing the information will have its inevitable impact. But the essential nature of the information is dependent upon the care and effort that went into its creation. Buzz will not improve the quality of the images formerly posted on Picasa or Flickr. Placing fragmented observations on Twitter make them no more profound than when they were posted on Facebook. The current thinking seems to be that we all wish to be heavily invested in the surface of hundreds of lives, and each company wants to deliver the environment that best facilitates such emotional dilettantism. Less considered is the reality that if we spend our energy maintaining hundreds of tangential relationships, we must necessarily reduce the effort we expend on those true friendships that actually sustain us.
I sense, in the current introductory flurry of online and in-the-hand devices, an unusually disjointed cycle in the perennial negotiation between the communicative exigencies of a culture and the technological responses to those pressures. Perhaps the issue is not, as it has often been, that we lack the tools to address our communicative needs. Perhaps the current situation reflects a glut of tools to handle increasingly myopic perceptions and expressions. I can show people around the globe pictures of my puppy a dozen different ways, but representatives from two different political parties cannot see common ground across a narrow aisle in a single room. I can listen to my favorite pop star on four different devices secreted about my person, but theologians are deaf to any voice save their own; governments seek to constrain the flow of digital information to “protect” their people from “inappropriate” messages.
The paradox is almost amusing; the power of our communication technology seems, at the moment, to far outstrip the uses to which we put it – a wonderful paring knife for skinless grapes.
.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Watching for Bears
.
Early photographers could make the entire population of a city disappear. They would set up their tripods in Times Square at high noon, point the lens at the milling throngs and trip the shutter. Hours later they would pull the finished image out of its various chemical baths and there, free of the hurly-burly mobs, would stand the lonely buildings in eerie isolation. No people, no carriages, not even a stray dog or fluttering pigeon.
No, it wasn’t some sci-fi representation of the rapture. It was an artifact of the technology of the times. To capture any image you had to leave the shutter of the camera open for upwards of a minute. Hence only things that remained stationary for that length of time showed up in the image – everything else just disappeared!
I thought of that when I passed two signs on the highway today. One said “Red Wolf Crossing,” the other “Watch for Bears: Next 9 Miles.” Meandering wildlife, disappearing people – makes you wonder about varying perspectives. The common conceit is to think of cities as places of hustle and bustle while the wilderness reeks of peaceful tranquility. It could be that that perception is as illusory as the photographer emptying Times Square.
Try this: Go sit in an empty building. It may take a little effort to find an entire empty building. A part of one will do – an empty classroom, a waiting room, close your office door if you have one, perhaps go rest in your car on the top of a parking garage, stand in an empty stairwell, sit in a handball court. Turn off the radio, shut down the computer. Set your cell phone to dead. Now watch what happens around you. Nothing. Total sterility. Nothing can still happen in much of what humanity has constructed. 24/7 isn’t really. There is still a lot of “down time” in human existence. Isolation remains an option in the constructions of man. It dwindles with satellites and security cameras and the like – but it is still possible.
Then walk out into the natural world – park, forest, field, beach or backyard - it doesn’t really matter. Observe what happens in this environment; and, yes, there is always something happening. Birds flutter and chirp, bugs creep and scurry, clouds drift by, trees sway in the breeze, squirrels holler at you. Red wolves may cross; bears may watch you back. You are never alone. You may not understand the languages echoing around you, but echo they will.
What occurs to me is that even the ballyhooed complexity of 21st century contemporary digital society is, most likely, a pale imitation of the ceaseless activity of the natural world. Chances are, there is a time when there is nobody looking your Facebook page, you can often find areas where your cell phone doesn’t work. You can still, actually, momentarily, isolate yourself in the confines of human society. That remains impossible in the natural world.
So, if you seek isolation, get thee to the city; for society, venture into the wild.
.
Early photographers could make the entire population of a city disappear. They would set up their tripods in Times Square at high noon, point the lens at the milling throngs and trip the shutter. Hours later they would pull the finished image out of its various chemical baths and there, free of the hurly-burly mobs, would stand the lonely buildings in eerie isolation. No people, no carriages, not even a stray dog or fluttering pigeon.
No, it wasn’t some sci-fi representation of the rapture. It was an artifact of the technology of the times. To capture any image you had to leave the shutter of the camera open for upwards of a minute. Hence only things that remained stationary for that length of time showed up in the image – everything else just disappeared!
I thought of that when I passed two signs on the highway today. One said “Red Wolf Crossing,” the other “Watch for Bears: Next 9 Miles.” Meandering wildlife, disappearing people – makes you wonder about varying perspectives. The common conceit is to think of cities as places of hustle and bustle while the wilderness reeks of peaceful tranquility. It could be that that perception is as illusory as the photographer emptying Times Square.
Try this: Go sit in an empty building. It may take a little effort to find an entire empty building. A part of one will do – an empty classroom, a waiting room, close your office door if you have one, perhaps go rest in your car on the top of a parking garage, stand in an empty stairwell, sit in a handball court. Turn off the radio, shut down the computer. Set your cell phone to dead. Now watch what happens around you. Nothing. Total sterility. Nothing can still happen in much of what humanity has constructed. 24/7 isn’t really. There is still a lot of “down time” in human existence. Isolation remains an option in the constructions of man. It dwindles with satellites and security cameras and the like – but it is still possible.
Then walk out into the natural world – park, forest, field, beach or backyard - it doesn’t really matter. Observe what happens in this environment; and, yes, there is always something happening. Birds flutter and chirp, bugs creep and scurry, clouds drift by, trees sway in the breeze, squirrels holler at you. Red wolves may cross; bears may watch you back. You are never alone. You may not understand the languages echoing around you, but echo they will.
What occurs to me is that even the ballyhooed complexity of 21st century contemporary digital society is, most likely, a pale imitation of the ceaseless activity of the natural world. Chances are, there is a time when there is nobody looking your Facebook page, you can often find areas where your cell phone doesn’t work. You can still, actually, momentarily, isolate yourself in the confines of human society. That remains impossible in the natural world.
So, if you seek isolation, get thee to the city; for society, venture into the wild.
.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
You'll Come A'waltzing . . . .
.
I think of her as Matilda, which is rather bizarre given that she has neither gender nor personhood. I have never personally known a Matilda, other than the waltzing variety who also seems more imagined than real. Matilda: a disembodied female voice. Maddeningly distant. Perhaps it is the total lack of affect in her voice. I have never heard her sound excited, nothing rattles her. I can completely ignore her, countermand her every suggestion, and she never retaliates. She pauses for a moment and then intones with frustrating placidity, “Recalculating.”
And still, I love her. The cheapie USB A to USB A cable that powers the cooling pad for my laptop had died – meaning I can only run it for a half hour or so before I can fry eggs on it – push it much longer and it simply shuts down. You’d think it would be an easy thing to replace – but no, nobody carries them. Not Staples, not Best Buy, not Radio Shack – nobody except a funky little computer shop called Connect-IT up in some corner of the city I never frequent. I gave Matilda the address and off we went – “going 1.3 miles and turning right on Chapel Hill Road.” 35 minutes of dispassionate dialogue later there I was – “arriving at Connect-IT on the left.” I admit it – I need her. Which is, of course, why my wife bought her for me this Christmas.
Still, I wonder about the place of the GPS in the contemporary technology negotiation. Matilda can be as capricious as any woman I have ever known. As I drive into to work she instructs, “In .5 miles stay left on E. Durham road” despite the fact that both her map and the road curve right. “In .4 miles turn right on Western Avenue.” An obvious left. Yet on the return trip her instructions are flawless. What is it with that? Shades of Hal in 2001 – “Turn left into on-coming traffic. Trust me Robert, it will be all right.”
Then as we approach campus she says, “In 2 miles turn right onto Avent Ferry Road.” This time the directions are correct but the pronunciation is wrong. Everyone who lives here knows that the proper pronunciation is “A”-vent, as in A, B, C. But Matilda says “Aw-vent” as in “Aw-shucks.” “Turn right onto Aw-vent Ferry Road.” If I were to return to Raleigh in 20 years, I wonder if I would discover that all the freshman were telling their friends back home that they live on Aw-vent Ferry Road - because that is how the GPS on their smart phones pronounced it.
The idea is that the more ubiquitous the communication container, the more significant its potential to affect our communicative style – “gr8! on the right in .2 miles.”
.
I think of her as Matilda, which is rather bizarre given that she has neither gender nor personhood. I have never personally known a Matilda, other than the waltzing variety who also seems more imagined than real. Matilda: a disembodied female voice. Maddeningly distant. Perhaps it is the total lack of affect in her voice. I have never heard her sound excited, nothing rattles her. I can completely ignore her, countermand her every suggestion, and she never retaliates. She pauses for a moment and then intones with frustrating placidity, “Recalculating.”
And still, I love her. The cheapie USB A to USB A cable that powers the cooling pad for my laptop had died – meaning I can only run it for a half hour or so before I can fry eggs on it – push it much longer and it simply shuts down. You’d think it would be an easy thing to replace – but no, nobody carries them. Not Staples, not Best Buy, not Radio Shack – nobody except a funky little computer shop called Connect-IT up in some corner of the city I never frequent. I gave Matilda the address and off we went – “going 1.3 miles and turning right on Chapel Hill Road.” 35 minutes of dispassionate dialogue later there I was – “arriving at Connect-IT on the left.” I admit it – I need her. Which is, of course, why my wife bought her for me this Christmas.
Still, I wonder about the place of the GPS in the contemporary technology negotiation. Matilda can be as capricious as any woman I have ever known. As I drive into to work she instructs, “In .5 miles stay left on E. Durham road” despite the fact that both her map and the road curve right. “In .4 miles turn right on Western Avenue.” An obvious left. Yet on the return trip her instructions are flawless. What is it with that? Shades of Hal in 2001 – “Turn left into on-coming traffic. Trust me Robert, it will be all right.”
Then as we approach campus she says, “In 2 miles turn right onto Avent Ferry Road.” This time the directions are correct but the pronunciation is wrong. Everyone who lives here knows that the proper pronunciation is “A”-vent, as in A, B, C. But Matilda says “Aw-vent” as in “Aw-shucks.” “Turn right onto Aw-vent Ferry Road.” If I were to return to Raleigh in 20 years, I wonder if I would discover that all the freshman were telling their friends back home that they live on Aw-vent Ferry Road - because that is how the GPS on their smart phones pronounced it.
The idea is that the more ubiquitous the communication container, the more significant its potential to affect our communicative style – “gr8! on the right in .2 miles.”
.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Fig-ure it out.
.
My colleagues over in Design would be quick to point out that "form follows function." A well-designed utensil will not only be visually pleasing, it will also do an exemplary job of performing the task for which it is intended. iPods are wonderfully designed pieces of technology, but we wouldn't plunk down our hard-earned cash for them if they didn't store and reproduce high quality audio, graphics and video. Their little touch wheel navigation gizmos were the epitome of form following function until the touch screen came along with an even more parsimonious solution.
It strikes me that form should also follow philosophy. The container should be harmonious with the essence of that which it contains. Hence, I have a bit of trouble, for example, with splendid cathedrals and jewel encrusted religious costumes as trappings of a faith that, in theory, eschews wealth and ostentation. Beauty pageants awarding college scholarships give me a similar feeling of vertigo.
I encountered a commercial recently that seemed more than ordinarily disingenuous in the whole form follows philosophy arena. I'm talking about Sunsweet Ones - individually packaged prunes. The general narrative of the ads attempts to shade itself green. They mention high antioxidant content, great taste and convenience. Hmmmm. I admit to being curious as to the amount of energy and resources it requires to wrap a single prune and then wrap those single prunes up in a larger package, then box up those larger packages in a big box and put them in a truck and then . . . . Well, you get the idea.
I'm thinking I may have found some new candidates for that special circle of hell that I had previously reserved for the people who invented shrink wrap.
.
My colleagues over in Design would be quick to point out that "form follows function." A well-designed utensil will not only be visually pleasing, it will also do an exemplary job of performing the task for which it is intended. iPods are wonderfully designed pieces of technology, but we wouldn't plunk down our hard-earned cash for them if they didn't store and reproduce high quality audio, graphics and video. Their little touch wheel navigation gizmos were the epitome of form following function until the touch screen came along with an even more parsimonious solution.
It strikes me that form should also follow philosophy. The container should be harmonious with the essence of that which it contains. Hence, I have a bit of trouble, for example, with splendid cathedrals and jewel encrusted religious costumes as trappings of a faith that, in theory, eschews wealth and ostentation. Beauty pageants awarding college scholarships give me a similar feeling of vertigo.
I encountered a commercial recently that seemed more than ordinarily disingenuous in the whole form follows philosophy arena. I'm talking about Sunsweet Ones - individually packaged prunes. The general narrative of the ads attempts to shade itself green. They mention high antioxidant content, great taste and convenience. Hmmmm. I admit to being curious as to the amount of energy and resources it requires to wrap a single prune and then wrap those single prunes up in a larger package, then box up those larger packages in a big box and put them in a truck and then . . . . Well, you get the idea.
I'm thinking I may have found some new candidates for that special circle of hell that I had previously reserved for the people who invented shrink wrap.
.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Most Important Container
.
While riding home the other evening I heard an interview with vocalist Norah Jones. She asserted that she would like to be able to sing with "a little more of an edge." But whenever she sang something it came out sounding like Norah Jones - beautiful.
Upon hearing her say that, and while listening to a brief clip from her new CD, The Fall, I was struck again by the realization that we are our own container. More surely than any website profile or YouTube posting, we are the molder of our expressions.
Certainly we can hone our expressive skills - we do it all our lives. Barring some tragic mishap, you will be a far better writer, singer, mathematician, engineer, painter, photographer, dancer, or philosopher, in ten years or twenty years than you are now - if you work at the skills.
But that very process of self-definition and improvement will make it very difficult for you to "play yourself falsely." When music moves through Norah Jones it comes out beautiful. It is the message being true to the container.
As you move through your life, a variety of pressures will be brought to bear upon your "container." Physical, emotional and intellectual demands will be made of you. Consider your options in fulfilling those demands. You are molding the most important container of your life. Mold one from which the only possible expressions are those of which you will be proud; expressions which must be beautiful.
WXPN-FM, 88.5 (2009). Norah Jones: A Star Is Reborn. Retrieved Nov. 17, 2009, from National Public Radio, Washington, DC. Web site: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120384820.
While riding home the other evening I heard an interview with vocalist Norah Jones. She asserted that she would like to be able to sing with "a little more of an edge." But whenever she sang something it came out sounding like Norah Jones - beautiful.
Upon hearing her say that, and while listening to a brief clip from her new CD, The Fall, I was struck again by the realization that we are our own container. More surely than any website profile or YouTube posting, we are the molder of our expressions.
Certainly we can hone our expressive skills - we do it all our lives. Barring some tragic mishap, you will be a far better writer, singer, mathematician, engineer, painter, photographer, dancer, or philosopher, in ten years or twenty years than you are now - if you work at the skills.
But that very process of self-definition and improvement will make it very difficult for you to "play yourself falsely." When music moves through Norah Jones it comes out beautiful. It is the message being true to the container.
As you move through your life, a variety of pressures will be brought to bear upon your "container." Physical, emotional and intellectual demands will be made of you. Consider your options in fulfilling those demands. You are molding the most important container of your life. Mold one from which the only possible expressions are those of which you will be proud; expressions which must be beautiful.
.
References:WXPN-FM, 88.5 (2009). Norah Jones: A Star Is Reborn. Retrieved Nov. 17, 2009, from National Public Radio, Washington, DC. Web site: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120384820.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Radio Daze
It happens every year. My favorite radio stations go off the air for a week or ten days. Technically speaking, there is still a signal being broadcast. But all that you hear is a string of phone numbers, URLs, and people - who have neither the skills nor the personality - seeking to impersonate the late and unlamented Billy Mays: “If you call in the next ten minutes you will be automatically entered in the drawing for our trip to Darfur!”
Bless their hearts, I know these are tough times for public radio stations, but they just have to re-think their whole approach to fundraising. Here the Raleigh area, the best classical station, the best jazz station and the only middle-of-the-road-hesitant-delivery NPR station, all have their “Fall Fundraisers” at the same time. It is certainly not a coincidence. Someone told them it was a good idea. I can hear the pitch at the meeting: “We gotta stick together on this. Everybody hates pledge drives. They hit the channel button as soon as they hear “919.” But if NOBODY plays regular programming, there will be nowhere to run to!”
In your dreams, Fundraising Consultant.
Never have there been so many ways to put sound in our ears. But, still, let’s pretend you get into your car without your iPod or CDs and you let the satellite service go as another small economy. We can still get away from “The programs you love cost more now than ever before. . . .” I discovered ESPN radio.
Wait! Wait! It isn’t as bizarre as it seems. You see, when I can’t listen to NPR, jazz or classical I just want some sound buzzing in my ears without commercials designed for teenagers. So I started listening to ESPN radio on my commute. It is quite cool in some very strange ways.
For example, the other night I was listening to a Notre Dame football game. I don’t know who they were playing. I know it wasn’t Alabama because I get really conflicted when Notre Dame plays Alabama - I really don’t know whom I want to lose more. But that is not the point, the point is that the announcers sounded like voices from the 1940s or 50s. There was the play-by-play guy who called each play with a sense of awe, as though it really mattered. I could see him in my mind’s eye – a Jimmy Stewart kind of a guy, with a crumpled fedora, but who wears a tie and sports coat out of respect for the game. Every once in awhile he would toss a question to “Coach” whose voice was a Southern drawl deeply steeped in whiskey and cigarettes. No, Doctor of Footballology here. It went more like this:
You get the idea. Who writes this stuff? It is classic. Radio from the Twilight Zone.
Then this morning was a show called “The Herd” hosted by someone named Colin Cowherd. No, really, it says that on the website. Anyhow, this morning he was on a rant about major league baseball rejecting the idea of an official review of video replays of close calls because it would “affect the flow of the game.” Colin waxed wroth. I have never heard a radio host do longer pauses:
“Baseball is a game that has no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] It has no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] But major league baseball is worried that taking two minutes to look at the video and get the call right will disrupt the flow of the game. [PAUSE PAUSE] Baseball has [PAUSE] no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] How many times does the manager come out of the dugout to dispute a call? [PAUSE] How long does that take? [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] “Five minuets?” PAUSE PAUSE, Three? [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] Baseball is a game that has no clock.
Poetry in a strange kind of way.
Colin then proceeded to ramble on about the seventh inning stretch, the potential for a week’s break between the playoffs and the World Series, inserted a little faux commercial for baseball on Thanksgiving, hit on conferences on the mound and multiple changes of pitchers during an inning, before circling back with perfect symmetry to “Baseball is a game [PAUSE PAUSE] that has no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] This is The Herd.”
Strangely, listening to The Herd has finally allowed me to understand the heretofore unfathomable appeal of Rush Limbaugh. The delightful self-seriousness of The Herd, is genuinely entertaining. Poor Colin must rail against the glaring stupidity of those in power. Major League Baseball will blunder blindly ahead oblivious to the fact that “Baseball is a game [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] that has no clock.”
Limbaugh does much the same, only he rails against Major League Liberals, The Guv’munt and now, “Obama’s America.” His rants are, for his audience, both affirming and amusing, while he does his fundraising the old-fashioned way – with traditional commercials that our 21st century brains completely ignore. Of course, neither Colin nor Rush have to worry about actually building their particular fields of dreams – that is someone else’s job.
So I was startled the other day my new friends on ESPN radio began affirming the wisdom of booting Rush from a group trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams because he would be “a complication PAUSE and a distraction, PAUSE PAUSE.” Colin likes stating the obvious as though it were news. You gotta PAUSE PAUSE love it. Personally, I have nothing against Rush being an NFL owner, as long as he is willing to participate in scrimmages. After all, “Football is no game PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE for sissies!”
Hold on, let me check NPR for a moment . . . .
Any of you want to have lunch with Fiona Richie? You still have 20 minutes to meet that listener challenge. Sigh. “Public Radio Fund Drives [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] never end. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] This is the Schrag.”
Bless their hearts, I know these are tough times for public radio stations, but they just have to re-think their whole approach to fundraising. Here the Raleigh area, the best classical station, the best jazz station and the only middle-of-the-road-hesitant-delivery NPR station, all have their “Fall Fundraisers” at the same time. It is certainly not a coincidence. Someone told them it was a good idea. I can hear the pitch at the meeting: “We gotta stick together on this. Everybody hates pledge drives. They hit the channel button as soon as they hear “919.” But if NOBODY plays regular programming, there will be nowhere to run to!”
In your dreams, Fundraising Consultant.
Never have there been so many ways to put sound in our ears. But, still, let’s pretend you get into your car without your iPod or CDs and you let the satellite service go as another small economy. We can still get away from “The programs you love cost more now than ever before. . . .” I discovered ESPN radio.
Wait! Wait! It isn’t as bizarre as it seems. You see, when I can’t listen to NPR, jazz or classical I just want some sound buzzing in my ears without commercials designed for teenagers. So I started listening to ESPN radio on my commute. It is quite cool in some very strange ways.
For example, the other night I was listening to a Notre Dame football game. I don’t know who they were playing. I know it wasn’t Alabama because I get really conflicted when Notre Dame plays Alabama - I really don’t know whom I want to lose more. But that is not the point, the point is that the announcers sounded like voices from the 1940s or 50s. There was the play-by-play guy who called each play with a sense of awe, as though it really mattered. I could see him in my mind’s eye – a Jimmy Stewart kind of a guy, with a crumpled fedora, but who wears a tie and sports coat out of respect for the game. Every once in awhile he would toss a question to “Coach” whose voice was a Southern drawl deeply steeped in whiskey and cigarettes. No, Doctor of Footballology here. It went more like this:
Play-by-play: My gosh, what a play! Fantastic effort by that plucky little back who disappeared under a heaving mass of linebackers. I hope he’s OK! What do you think, Coach? Was that the right play?
Coach: Well, I never would’a run it. Sure not then.
Play-by-play: Thanks Coach! Oh, jeepers, I can’t believe what I’m seeing now! The quarterback is . . .
You get the idea. Who writes this stuff? It is classic. Radio from the Twilight Zone.
Then this morning was a show called “The Herd” hosted by someone named Colin Cowherd. No, really, it says that on the website. Anyhow, this morning he was on a rant about major league baseball rejecting the idea of an official review of video replays of close calls because it would “affect the flow of the game.” Colin waxed wroth. I have never heard a radio host do longer pauses:
“Baseball is a game that has no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] It has no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] But major league baseball is worried that taking two minutes to look at the video and get the call right will disrupt the flow of the game. [PAUSE PAUSE] Baseball has [PAUSE] no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] How many times does the manager come out of the dugout to dispute a call? [PAUSE] How long does that take? [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] “Five minuets?” PAUSE PAUSE, Three? [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] Baseball is a game that has no clock.
Poetry in a strange kind of way.
Colin then proceeded to ramble on about the seventh inning stretch, the potential for a week’s break between the playoffs and the World Series, inserted a little faux commercial for baseball on Thanksgiving, hit on conferences on the mound and multiple changes of pitchers during an inning, before circling back with perfect symmetry to “Baseball is a game [PAUSE PAUSE] that has no clock. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] This is The Herd.”
Strangely, listening to The Herd has finally allowed me to understand the heretofore unfathomable appeal of Rush Limbaugh. The delightful self-seriousness of The Herd, is genuinely entertaining. Poor Colin must rail against the glaring stupidity of those in power. Major League Baseball will blunder blindly ahead oblivious to the fact that “Baseball is a game [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] that has no clock.”
Limbaugh does much the same, only he rails against Major League Liberals, The Guv’munt and now, “Obama’s America.” His rants are, for his audience, both affirming and amusing, while he does his fundraising the old-fashioned way – with traditional commercials that our 21st century brains completely ignore. Of course, neither Colin nor Rush have to worry about actually building their particular fields of dreams – that is someone else’s job.
So I was startled the other day my new friends on ESPN radio began affirming the wisdom of booting Rush from a group trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams because he would be “a complication PAUSE and a distraction, PAUSE PAUSE.” Colin likes stating the obvious as though it were news. You gotta PAUSE PAUSE love it. Personally, I have nothing against Rush being an NFL owner, as long as he is willing to participate in scrimmages. After all, “Football is no game PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE for sissies!”
Hold on, let me check NPR for a moment . . . .
Any of you want to have lunch with Fiona Richie? You still have 20 minutes to meet that listener challenge. Sigh. “Public Radio Fund Drives [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] never end. [PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE] This is the Schrag.”
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
One Size to Fit Millions
I noticed a post on PC World this morning regarding potential redesigns for Facebook’s home page.
[See: http://www.pcworld.com/article/173254/is_facebook_prepping_a_new_homepage.html?tk=rss_main]
I’m not much of a Facebook fan, I glance at it every few days, but it doesn’t play much of a role in my life. Still, I can feel their pain. I run my classes using a “learning management system” called Moodle. It, too, creates a specific structure upon a page designed to meet the needs of a group. But my group numbers in the mere hundreds and still the page generates considerable confusion and chagrin. Facebook has what, 250, 300 million people to please? OMG! as the texterati would write.
People are possessive about Facebook – they refer to it as My Facebook Page. Not my page on Facebook. Sitting there on your screen, the difference may seem slight – but viscerally the difference is immense. Users think they “own” Facebook. Never mind that it is free and there remains the nagging question of who “really owns” all that stuff y’all post up there. Regardless, feelings about Facebook definitely remain “personal possessive.”
How do you change the “look and feel” of something that 300 million people think they own? We will see, perhaps, in the next few weeks. Who knows? I will make a prediction – somehow the ads will become more prominent. “Ads?” you say? Sure. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the little link next to About that says Advertising. See? You too can be up there pushing product on those millions of “My Facebook” pages.
[See: http://www.pcworld.com/article/173254/is_facebook_prepping_a_new_homepage.html?tk=rss_main]
I’m not much of a Facebook fan, I glance at it every few days, but it doesn’t play much of a role in my life. Still, I can feel their pain. I run my classes using a “learning management system” called Moodle. It, too, creates a specific structure upon a page designed to meet the needs of a group. But my group numbers in the mere hundreds and still the page generates considerable confusion and chagrin. Facebook has what, 250, 300 million people to please? OMG! as the texterati would write.
People are possessive about Facebook – they refer to it as My Facebook Page. Not my page on Facebook. Sitting there on your screen, the difference may seem slight – but viscerally the difference is immense. Users think they “own” Facebook. Never mind that it is free and there remains the nagging question of who “really owns” all that stuff y’all post up there. Regardless, feelings about Facebook definitely remain “personal possessive.”
How do you change the “look and feel” of something that 300 million people think they own? We will see, perhaps, in the next few weeks. Who knows? I will make a prediction – somehow the ads will become more prominent. “Ads?” you say? Sure. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the little link next to About that says Advertising. See? You too can be up there pushing product on those millions of “My Facebook” pages.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Mind Meld? Yeah, There's an App for That
I see it as a sort of swim cap - although, I'm sure a more dapper model could be produced. Slip on the cap, think something and the words would appear on your computer screen - maybe with the soundtrack you imagine. You could "think" the cursor around the screen to revise and edit. Then you think "save" and its done. You could have the computer play it back to you.
It is not nearly as sci-fi as it sounds. Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist with ALS uses a "talking computer" to articulate the words he creates with very slight muscle movements. As early as 2000 scientists had figured out how to let other "locked in" people manipulate computers directly from a "neural implant" (Kennedy et al). Monkeys learned to "think" their way through a computer game even when the joystick was removed (Graham-Rowe). So, we can do it. The question is should we?
The benefits are myriad and obvious. The physically disabled, but mentally robust, would have a wonderful new ally for enriching their lives. Folks like my 97-year-old father could talk and think their way through memoirs. The computer might even be able to track multiple tellings of the story about Ozzie and the runaway horses, and morph it into one composite version with all the details, while highlighting obvious discrepancies to be fact-checked at a later date.
I, too, would benefit. I do some of my most insightful thinking in that wonderful place between waking and sleeping. Sometimes I manage to remember, sometimes I even get to pen and paper. Often I do neither. The Vulcan MindMeld Dreamcatcher application would snare those butterfly thoughts.
The dark side is also obvious. How do you turn it off? Like OnStar which is only a good idea if you want people to know where you are, VMMD is only a good idea if you want to have your thoughts captured. What if you don't? Makes the prompt "What are you thinking now?" seem a little less cheerful, eh? What is to keep someone from using VMMD to capture those thoughts I wish to keep safely enfolded in my skull? Googlemind? Yeeech. On the other hand, it might make torture unecessary - after all, you could just open the mind.
Graham-Rowe, D. (2003). Monkey's brain signals control 'third arm'. Retrieved Aug. 30, 2009, from http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4262-monkeys-brain-signals-control-third-arm.html
Kennedy, P. & Et Al., . (2000). Direct control of a computer from the human central nervous system. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON REHABILITATION ENGINEERING,, 8(2), 198-202.
It is not nearly as sci-fi as it sounds. Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist with ALS uses a "talking computer" to articulate the words he creates with very slight muscle movements. As early as 2000 scientists had figured out how to let other "locked in" people manipulate computers directly from a "neural implant" (Kennedy et al). Monkeys learned to "think" their way through a computer game even when the joystick was removed (Graham-Rowe). So, we can do it. The question is should we?
The benefits are myriad and obvious. The physically disabled, but mentally robust, would have a wonderful new ally for enriching their lives. Folks like my 97-year-old father could talk and think their way through memoirs. The computer might even be able to track multiple tellings of the story about Ozzie and the runaway horses, and morph it into one composite version with all the details, while highlighting obvious discrepancies to be fact-checked at a later date.
I, too, would benefit. I do some of my most insightful thinking in that wonderful place between waking and sleeping. Sometimes I manage to remember, sometimes I even get to pen and paper. Often I do neither. The Vulcan MindMeld Dreamcatcher application would snare those butterfly thoughts.
The dark side is also obvious. How do you turn it off? Like OnStar which is only a good idea if you want people to know where you are, VMMD is only a good idea if you want to have your thoughts captured. What if you don't? Makes the prompt "What are you thinking now?" seem a little less cheerful, eh? What is to keep someone from using VMMD to capture those thoughts I wish to keep safely enfolded in my skull? Googlemind? Yeeech. On the other hand, it might make torture unecessary - after all, you could just open the mind.
Graham-Rowe, D. (2003). Monkey's brain signals control 'third arm'. Retrieved Aug. 30, 2009, from http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4262-monkeys-brain-signals-control-third-arm.html
Kennedy, P. & Et Al., . (2000). Direct control of a computer from the human central nervous system. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON REHABILITATION ENGINEERING,, 8(2), 198-202.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Some Buckets are Barrels
Metaphors are powerful constructions. By linking a known concept with an unknown body of knowledge we can “jump start” a dialogue much more quickly. Consider this blog for example. You know what a bucket is – you have used one. You put stuff into it in order to move the “stuff” from one place to another. Hence, the title of the blog tells you that it will be discussing the ways in which new communication media will be moving content from one place to another.
The title of today’s post indicates a shift. The image I have is of communication software like Photoshop™, and GarageBand™, transformative software. Photoshop claims it will give users “more intuitive user experience, greater editing freedom, and significant productivity enhancements.” (Adobe) and GarageBand™ asserts “If you want to learn to play an instrument, write music, or record a song, GarageBand can help. (Apple)
These bits of software obviously intend to do something far more than simply contain content. They intend for content to pass through them and come out the other side as something different, hopefully better. I see grape juice going into a barrel. Time passes, the barrel and the juice work together for awhile, and voila, out the other side comes wine.
Our authors assert that “The Internet has unleashed an explosion of creativity. . .” (Palfrey and Gasser, p. 12.) That may be true, but it wouldn’t have happened if Digital Natives didn’t have this “barrelware” to play with.
Citations:
Adobe Software.. (n.d.). Create powerful images with the professional standard. Retrieved Aug. 25, 2009, from http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/
Apple, Inc.. (n.d.). Musicians wanted: No experience necessary. Retrieved Aug. 25, 2009, from http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives. NY, NY.: Basic Books.
The title of today’s post indicates a shift. The image I have is of communication software like Photoshop™, and GarageBand™, transformative software. Photoshop claims it will give users “more intuitive user experience, greater editing freedom, and significant productivity enhancements.” (Adobe) and GarageBand™ asserts “If you want to learn to play an instrument, write music, or record a song, GarageBand can help. (Apple)
These bits of software obviously intend to do something far more than simply contain content. They intend for content to pass through them and come out the other side as something different, hopefully better. I see grape juice going into a barrel. Time passes, the barrel and the juice work together for awhile, and voila, out the other side comes wine.
Our authors assert that “The Internet has unleashed an explosion of creativity. . .” (Palfrey and Gasser, p. 12.) That may be true, but it wouldn’t have happened if Digital Natives didn’t have this “barrelware” to play with.
Citations:
Adobe Software.. (n.d.). Create powerful images with the professional standard. Retrieved Aug. 25, 2009, from http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/
Apple, Inc.. (n.d.). Musicians wanted: No experience necessary. Retrieved Aug. 25, 2009, from http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives. NY, NY.: Basic Books.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
One Web Doesn't "Fit All"
There is an interesting story in today's NY Times. The headline is: Health Debate Fails to Ignite Obama’s Grass Roots.
Here is the link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/health/policy/15ground.html?th&emc=th
I am surprised that they seem surprised. The author, Jeff Zeleny, appears to have made a classic mistake in assuming that if you pour a message into the "right" media container it will have the same effect as it had the last time you poured a message into that container. No, it doesn't really happen that way. The negotiation that goes on between our communication needs and the technologies that meet those needs is dynamic on all levels. The message, the medium, and the individuals who use the medium to encounter the message, the transformation of the message by all of the preceding, and behaviors resulting from the on-going negotiation - those are all elements in a dynamic process.
President Obama's digital election campaign made significant use of electronic resources to revitalize the PPPE [a Previously Passive Portion of the Electorate :-)] that shared both his agenda and his technology. My guess is that much of the PPPE is under 30, certainly under 40. Healthcare is a hot button issue for FFOFs [Fearful Folks Over Fifty] who, largely, do not "techno-verb": blog, tweet, Facebook or Google. Sure, that is changing, but not to the extent that we can expect the communication strategies that work for the PPPE to be equally effective the FFOFs.
The PPPE still feel immortal. They don't get sick. They want their "healthcare" to deal with accidents - car, bike, skateboard, tri-athletic, whatever. They will not be the important stakeholders in this issue - except to the extent that their lack of attention might make things more difficult for their parents who tend to be FFOFs.
As Mr. Zeleny does point out in his article, to leverage the support of the FFOFs who are concerned about healthcare, the Obama administration is going to have to address the negotiation differently, perhaps starting with a new container.
Here is the link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/health/policy/15ground.html?th&emc=th
I am surprised that they seem surprised. The author, Jeff Zeleny, appears to have made a classic mistake in assuming that if you pour a message into the "right" media container it will have the same effect as it had the last time you poured a message into that container. No, it doesn't really happen that way. The negotiation that goes on between our communication needs and the technologies that meet those needs is dynamic on all levels. The message, the medium, and the individuals who use the medium to encounter the message, the transformation of the message by all of the preceding, and behaviors resulting from the on-going negotiation - those are all elements in a dynamic process.
President Obama's digital election campaign made significant use of electronic resources to revitalize the PPPE [a Previously Passive Portion of the Electorate :-)] that shared both his agenda and his technology. My guess is that much of the PPPE is under 30, certainly under 40. Healthcare is a hot button issue for FFOFs [Fearful Folks Over Fifty] who, largely, do not "techno-verb": blog, tweet, Facebook or Google. Sure, that is changing, but not to the extent that we can expect the communication strategies that work for the PPPE to be equally effective the FFOFs.
The PPPE still feel immortal. They don't get sick. They want their "healthcare" to deal with accidents - car, bike, skateboard, tri-athletic, whatever. They will not be the important stakeholders in this issue - except to the extent that their lack of attention might make things more difficult for their parents who tend to be FFOFs.
As Mr. Zeleny does point out in his article, to leverage the support of the FFOFs who are concerned about healthcare, the Obama administration is going to have to address the negotiation differently, perhaps starting with a new container.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Honey, I Broke the Internet.
In much of the industrialized world we have come to see the Internet as a force of nature. Like sunshine and storm, it rolls uninterrupted around the globe and out to the ubiquitous flock of satellites that buzz like bees around the azure bloom of Planet Earth. The events of the last few days demonstrate that in reality the Internet, like aspects of nature, is fragile indeed. Here’s what happened:
Russia and Georgia [the nation, not the US state with the football team] have, shall we say, "issues." As the Soviet Union crumbled and previously independent nations and wannabe nations sorted out the new maps, Russia and Georgia asserted rights to the same turf. As a war it was smaller than most – but it got a lot of press here because at the time we liked Georgia and didn’t like Russia. The shooting part of the war has been over for a while but the bad blood continues to bubble up.
These days, bombs and bullets are taking a back seat to bits and blogs. Among the current players is an economics professor from Georgia who is a strident nationalistic blogger. The professor seems to have rubbed his Russian counterparts the wrong way. They responded with a “denial of service”* cyber attack on the blogger’s tools: Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal. Twitter went down for most of a day and the other two were severely compromised.
The point is this – two or three angry and immature geeks brought down large portions of the Internet in a fit of personal pique. They either did not stop to think, or did not care, that others depend upon the Internet for information, and communication, for work, for directions, for entertainment and for revenue. More frightening still is the thought that they had no idea of the potential scope of their personal feud. In any case, the big old monolithic Internet got zapped in a personal fight. A number of questions come to mind:
- How dependable is the Internet?
- To what extent do you assume your Internet connection will always be available?
- How disrupted is your life when you are separated from your technology?
- Do you most often use the Internet as “big and public space” or as “small and private space”?
*In a “denial of service” attack, the attacking computer(s) overwhelm the target computer with a flood of bogus messages that prevents the victim from making normal use of their computer. For a more complete definition see this article from US-CERT: The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team: http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-015.html
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