I've always had several thoughts about people's relationship with technology. Technology, is well, 'us'. Technology would not exist without humanity, and they are not too removed from ourselves. I mean, technology might exist as disparate objects, but really, they are conceptually conjoined to us - people.
And so, we invest technological objects with our humanity, with ourselves. We leave traces of humanity in the technologies that we use.
I can't imagine how I might part with my current laptop, that stores all the IMs that are stored on the local hard disk, containing all my personal research and my personal writings. Sure - they can be stored somewhere else, but there is just this physicality involved having the memory embodied in the space of the laptop...
In just under 48 hours, the calendar says 2009 will be past, and 2010 will come. Hmm... I wonder what celestial mechanics would say. The points of reference to gauge these cycles are changing somewhat - its never quite exactly the same orbit...
On that thoughtful mode, I thought about the technological ecology that we have around us. 'Technological ecologý'? Huh? Well, as with any system composed of many units, it is usually somewhat more advantageous to have many diverse units, rather than to have, say a set of homogenous units. What am I really talking about? Well, I'm using my iPhone, which together with my Mac, means that I'm using Apple for my informational, communication needs. But the transition wasn't easy. I'm not an organised person - my contacts were messy, and disorganised. Also, I forgot to ask the dude at the counter to transfer the contacts from the old SIM card to the new one. Taken together, the transition then posed a serious challenge, the consequence of which I am still working out. As I thought about this, I weigh the pros and cons of going fully Apple-d. Sure, Apple products are nice to work with, but it also means that I have to keep the components sync-ed all the time, even more so now that they can communicate with each other, whereas with the old set-up, the mobile and the computer were quite separate. Well I guess now it requires a greater sense of diligence to maintain the contact list - which would require a lot of diligence on the part of the user.
This incident has also caused me to appreciate how intertwined the different devices are in our lives. By this I mean, not just in our communications, but in many other areas. Transportation, food, accommodation, energy.... Just as there are ecologies in nature, so there are ecologies in the human sphere, and just as there is the biosphere, so there is a technosphere, or rather, an eco-technosphere - that there isn't really a biosphere distinct from the technosphere, but both are now enmeshed intimately, and that this enmeshing is intensifying, yet there isn't a broad consensus about how to handle this relationship, and how it could translate into tangible changes in how people live their lives... Kevin Kelly got there first, again, I think. so... oh well.
So long 2009. Thanks for all the fish!
Been having this niggling feeling lately, that there's something for me to write, something big for me to write about, but I can't grasp it. Its there, intangibly, and all I have to do to... is to... just figure it out what it is. Bleargh.
Meantime, something to chew about: technological development is stranger than our imagination. I mean, perhaps the cyberpunk novels conceived of the social web, but the semantic web? There is something to be said about the human mind and its capacity to blow apart present assumptions and circumstances that just seems remarkable.
Minority Report was not about the future, but rather the present... Is it how sci-fi works anyhow? Speculate works about the future that actually reflect a piece of our present? Guess so.
I will soon be posting more elaborated tweets at ed-leading-edge.blogspot.com, but for now here they are:
Academic subject unimportance and labeling. Knowledge, nt parochial. Depth AND spread. multidisciplinary is only a fluff term if you don't know the disciplines in depth...
The unimportance of labels: move past ideology. Its not this ideo vs that ideo. Nowadays, it seems more like, this ideo is nice, combined with that component of another ideo... and then mash things up...
Design IS tech! You can't have good design without good technology (note: good, not BEST tech. very different things.)
People dont want tech! People want experience afforded by tech. Apple has been first mover, but MS catching up! Experience is design powered by technology! People DON'T want to know the technology behind their gadgets, they WANT the EXPERIENCE - and that can only be provided by DESIGN!
And a last note: running DOES create ideas!
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