Concatenations - Blog

18/05: Musings convergence, money, democracy, alternatives

You know you've come full-circle (later about circles) when your 79 year-old father asks you about moving his computer to his living room, buying a really big monitor and watching news stream from sites all over the world. He has been listening to and watching stream from BBC for years now, it was only logical that he should want a little more variety and better quality video and sound.

Still I was surprised. Although we tend to be early adopters, we are pretty conservative too. I thought 'oh so this is it, this is where it all winds up...this is THE convergence... it wasn't worth the extra 50 dollars for the HD television set.'

Maybe the jury is still out.

I have learned that the only things that really thrive on the net are things that make money...the technology that makes the most money is the one that will become come alive despite the simplicity, stability and beauty of the other technologies...I learned that many people are suspect of things that don't make money...don't even try...like my site:)) So service provider costs have climbed and climbed. The first few years I was on the net it was all completely free, all you needed was the right code to connect--but where's the commerce?

One of the reasons my father wants to watch stream instead of TV is because he is tired of being held hostage by the cable company for inferior quality TV. He wants to know what is REALLY happening in the world. I know of at least half a dozen other people who have done the same thing. Another reason will be (if I know him:)) that he has seen a possible future, and return of a class or caste system that divides along the lines of how much technology or information one can buy. (And then we've all heard about the proverbial (I think?) 'dark net.' He is voting with his dollars on a particular way of distribution in that is (at least for the time being) democratic.

My mother, arguably the brightest of us all, simply will not use the computer or watch TV. She reads, and reads and reads. She spends a fortune on books that end up being read by all of us and our friends...books--cohesive or semi-cohesive little worlds...but that's another
blog.

I am just now going to check my internetInternet bill to find out how I could have wound up with a 25 dollar charge when the payment is made automatically by the bank. There has not been a month in the last six months when I have not had to call either the phone company, the mobile company the TV company or the internetIcompany to have a hefty charge removed that shouldn't have been there to begin with. (don't even think it--bundles only make it easier to sneak in extra charges or for the 'provider' to make those nasty little "mistakes").

There are at least two hundred candles in here and quite a few good books in the condo
library downstairs. I have actually contemplated flipping all the circuit breakers and canceling all the 'info' accounts. It would be like a vacation. It would be like what I did for the five years after McLuhan's first big seller came out. I could, as my mother would put it, "hear myself think." "Be quiet!" she would say, "I can't hear myself think!"

:)) :)) Full Circle.

...there's another blog...maybe we don't want to think or scrutinize what we are thinking.

Maybe it's just one big escape with tsunamis on the brink...


...And about the computer in the living room--This is huge as the TV was always been banned from the living room--it's always had it's own room, even though the room my mother called the den (read globe, encyclopedias, back editions of Atlantic Monthly, folios of prints by famous painters, books books and more books, desk, leather arm chair) had to be sacrificed for it. Television wasn't allowed to be where people were talking and thinking!)

Check out the arrangement of your furniture:)) It could be telling:)) At the moment I have two computers, all the TV paraphernalia, the phone, the mobile phone and a two radios (one works with the power out and no batteries) jammed into the bedroom. Check the whole environment. The space my windows face is full of people designing web site--there must be at least a dozen. I have Chinese screens up--otherwise I'd be completely surrounded. And I think it is significant that that space used to contain a commercial photo studio. Then I go to work and sit in front of a computer screen non-stop.

Surrounded...

Maybe I will morph into something stranger:))

I'd really like a vacation, but I'm just too busy.

Nigel calls--one of the computers is his--or I guess he's given to me, he's like a vacation, a walking celebration...he always comes bearing gifts, like Dremmel tools and voltage meters or tiny tiny Allen keys...the things I really like :)) :)) He brings other things like Mexican silver and crystal paper eights, but I like the tools the best. We are going on photographing trips this summer. I want to photograph the caverns and ponds and ravines at the Hart House Farm. We have come to know them well over the years...I'll resurrect my ancient cowboy boots...I only ever use them for hiking...they are black with lavender and blue stitching. I ordered them that way.