Category Archives: computers

On contemporary culture

Posted on by

It is hard to know what to think of contemporary culture. I know I am an old foggy, and that the current generation has left me behind, but am I really that much of a fifth wheel? The kids today can handle computers as easily as they handle breathing. They can’t write a full sentence without breaking thirty-three grammars rules, but the can text like the wind–150 words a minute, or at least they call them words. I won’t give them any points for originality, but they are persistent and fast. Creatively, they are stunted, and are often surprised when one their own comes up with a great idea, only to find that someone else already did it fifty years ago. Originality is not their strong suite. Today’s generation is pretty much addicted to cell phones, ignorant of Vietnam and Watergate, willing to spend megabucks on coffee and sandwiches, and are convinced of their own importance, which means they are just like we were thirty years ago. I have never lived under the illusion that I am either important or original. The sixties, Flower Power, ecology, Vietnam, the Domino Theory, the space race, hippies, the Manson murders, several assassinations, and Watergate burst my innocence bubble, and left me foundering in the fetid waters of the Disco era, Studio 54, platform shoes, bell bottoms and big hair. I think that contemporary society is stuck on itself, obsessed with consumerism, and buying everything, ignorant of most politics, addicted to digitally mediated communication, isolated and afraid, sleep deprived, malnourished, and impatient. I think that we live in a nation of gluttons who want their next super-sized meal now and are totally unprepared to either wait or compromise. They don’t want fast food; they want instant food, and they wouldn’t know how to cook it if they had to. There fix for instant communication has taught them to be impatient and nervous, like junkies waiting for their next fix. I think the current generation eats too much, and eats out too often, unwilling to learn to cook or to buy food that needs preparation, and the only exercise they get is walking from the car to the table in the restaurant. Yes, I am cynical about the current generation, and many of my generalizations are exaggeration that are untrue and unkind. Yet the rise of big box retailers, which put the little guys out of business because they cannot compete, is also another sign of the times, and although I see nothing ominous in the big box retailer per se, I do think those places have become a part of the national landscape and are now a part of our national past-time and our identity: we go to those places to have fun shopping. Contemporary culture shops to have fun, but I’m not sure that is either healthy or sustainable. Again, I pass judgment on an activity for which I don’t care. I would be nostalgic and say that the past was somehow better or more ideal, but I know that is also untrue, but I feel the current society drifting on a tide of consumerism that is directionless and pointless. All most people do is fill up their garage with a lot of junk they don’t need, but they aren’t happier, or richer, or better off than they were before. The current season, the Christmas season, always seems to drag out my worst thoughts about how superficial and facile our culture has become, unwilling to discuss its direction or the black hole it has become. Christmas carols have become horrible caricatures of the wonderful hymns and songs of my youth only because people want to sell more junk. Perhaps that is the key, our contemporary culture has become a desolate landscape of detritus, flotsam and jetsam, because it’s all junk. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I drinking too much coffee.

On contemporary culture

Posted on by

It is hard to know what to think of contemporary culture. I know I am an old foggy, and that the current generation has left me behind, but am I really that much of a fifth wheel? The kids today can handle computers as easily as they handle breathing. They can’t write a full sentence without breaking thirty-three grammars rules, but the can text like the wind–150 words a minute, or at least they call them words. I won’t give them any points for originality, but they are persistent and fast. Creatively, they are stunted, and are often surprised when one their own comes up with a great idea, only to find that someone else already did it fifty years ago. Originality is not their strong suite. Today’s generation is pretty much addicted to cell phones, ignorant of Vietnam and Watergate, willing to spend megabucks on coffee and sandwiches, and are convinced of their own importance, which means they are just like we were thirty years ago. I have never lived under the illusion that I am either important or original. The sixties, Flower Power, ecology, Vietnam, the Domino Theory, the space race, hippies, the Manson murders, several assassinations, and Watergate burst my innocence bubble, and left me foundering in the fetid waters of the Disco era, Studio 54, platform shoes, bell bottoms and big hair. I think that contemporary society is stuck on itself, obsessed with consumerism, and buying everything, ignorant of most politics, addicted to digitally mediated communication, isolated and afraid, sleep deprived, malnourished, and impatient. I think that we live in a nation of gluttons who want their next super-sized meal now and are totally unprepared to either wait or compromise. They don’t want fast food; they want instant food, and they wouldn’t know how to cook it if they had to. There fix for instant communication has taught them to be impatient and nervous, like junkies waiting for their next fix. I think the current generation eats too much, and eats out too often, unwilling to learn to cook or to buy food that needs preparation, and the only exercise they get is walking from the car to the table in the restaurant. Yes, I am cynical about the current generation, and many of my generalizations are exaggeration that are untrue and unkind. Yet the rise of big box retailers, which put the little guys out of business because they cannot compete, is also another sign of the times, and although I see nothing ominous in the big box retailer per se, I do think those places have become a part of the national landscape and are now a part of our national past-time and our identity: we go to those places to have fun shopping. Contemporary culture shops to have fun, but I’m not sure that is either healthy or sustainable. Again, I pass judgment on an activity for which I don’t care. I would be nostalgic and say that the past was somehow better or more ideal, but I know that is also untrue, but I feel the current society drifting on a tide of consumerism that is directionless and pointless. All most people do is fill up their garage with a lot of junk they don’t need, but they aren’t happier, or richer, or better off than they were before. The current season, the Christmas season, always seems to drag out my worst thoughts about how superficial and facile our culture has become, unwilling to discuss its direction or the black hole it has become. Christmas carols have become horrible caricatures of the wonderful hymns and songs of my youth only because people want to sell more junk. Perhaps that is the key, our contemporary culture has become a desolate landscape of detritus, flotsam and jetsam, because it’s all junk. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I drinking too much coffee.

On the medium is the message

Posted on by

“In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” (McLuhan 7) Fascinated by ambiguity, I find McLuhan’s assertion both intriguing and beguiling, if not downright cute. I have read his work, his explanations, his rants, his assertions, his reasoning, but I remain unconvinced. I think the secret to his famous assertion about mediums and messages is more poetically interesting as a puzzle or conundrum that it is as an actual statement of theory or philosophical position or ideological battleground. The beauty in his statement lies in the ambiguity of both words which work in tandem to deconstruct each other. So medium and message work together and against one another to form a line of poetry that might mean practically anything, which also means they signify practically nothing. Yet therein lies the beauty of the phrase: since it is bereft of a clear meaning, it is full of ambiguous ones. We might argue until the next millennium arrives and nothing will be resolved. You see, his own explanations make no more sense than anyone else’s. His intention of clarifying the meaning only serves to befuddle clarity and understanding. If he is trying to say that as human technology develops, the ways we communicate will change, then I get that, but I also think his point is totally obvious. In other words, he himself cannot clear up the structuralist problem posed by his assertion that the medium is the message. Confusion is working in his favor because there is no clean way to explain his aphorism. In a sense, his own fame as a pop culture icon and hipster writer is due entirely to the anarchy he creates, not the clarity he provides. Everyone is talking about what he means, but nobody is really sure, and no one wants to admit that. Though I suspect he is sincere, I also suspect a bit of the “emperor’s new clothes” syndrome: I can be hip and cool by offering to explain McLuhan’s fabulously intelligent, but totally unintelligible, bumper sticker slogan. I also suspect that if he had tried to create confusion and chaos on purpose that he would have never succeeded. His success lies in his genuine earnestness, his ability to perceive major changes in human communication, and his intuition about how those changes would change human beings, the way they interact, and the way they perceive the world around them. Twitter may be the medium, but the message constantly changes. Does Twitter as a medium “mean” anything? Probably, but those speculations are probably best left to the prophets, a couple of pop star icons, mystics, philosophers and Silicon Valley gurus.

On the laptop

Posted on by

In a March 1977 article in Computer magazine Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg lay out their ideas for what will eventually become the laptop computer. Though the mass market production and sale of laptops wouldn’t happen for about another twenty years, they describe the dynamic interface between user and computer that, up to that point in time, did not exist. Having lived through most of the history of the computer and its development, I can bear witness to what Kay and Goldberg were up to, the reigning paradigms for computer usage that they were battling in the seventies, and how it took IBM and Apple to break out of the computing rut and put computers and useful software into the hands of users. In fact, thirty-five years later, their article, though revolutionary in its thinking, seems rather quaint. Although they were correct in suggesting that the interface between user and hardware had to be instantaneous and dynamic in the sense that users could input all sorts of data and get results back continuous in real time. Software needed to be flexible in real-time in order to make the computing experience both viable and creative. In 1977 computing was still limited to time shares, main frames, writing input, downloading input, compiling, and reading results. This is horribly time consuming and not particularly useful if you want to write a document or play a game. Perhaps computing pi to the millionth decimal place might be an interesting intellectual challenge, but it doesn’t go beyond that. It’s like a magic trick where the magician pulls a rabbit out of hat: neat spectacle but it ends there. Kay and Goldberg proposed a system where users could draw, write and design in real-time and then save and print out their results. The actual computer could no longer be the size of an aircraft carrier, and everyone, including children, would have easy access. Computers would no longer be the domain of mystical and obscure computer geniuses, but the dynamic interface would have to work. The implications for artists, writers, designers and engineers are limitless. Of course, the technology, the miniaturization of the components, had not yet occurred to build a fabulous laptop, but once the idea was on the drawing board, the market drove the investigation and development. Today, Apple Corporation is the largest company in the world with estimated assets at over 500 billion dollars, and I have a feeling that they will just continue to grow. What we saw people do with computing tablets on Star Trek is now a reality and is changing our world in ways which are still unimagined.