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A thought about technology

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mschf

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The subject line combined with the photo above is not meant as a joke. After observing the elderly woman for a few minutes reading a letter, and then taking the photo of her, I had some thoughts about where certain technology is (or may be) leading us to.

I sometimes think about how much time I spend (or rather waste) sitting at my computer, doing what exactly? Typing away at the keyboard to keep up with family and friends through email; reading the news sites; researching various stuff; shopping for gadgets & gizmos... the list goes on and on. And while computers and internet has made our lives much easier in certain ways, I'm finding that we're all sort of reverting to a past age where we idled most of our days living in caves. The woman, sitting in a nice, shady little spot on the street, seems to understand computers and internet much better than I do: that they're in many ways perhaps unnecessary. she enjoys reading her mail in a casual, pleasant environment and she'll write back to whoever it was that sent it, when she feels like it... there's no expectation of immediate response from the sending party here. No pressure.

So it goes for reading the news: subscribe to the local paper and/or one of the big nationals and find out what's going on in the world over a cup of coffee or glass of juice in the morning. If it's a nice morning, do it on your balcony or patio.

Researching: visit your local library and maybe run into your neighbour and find out what his/her name actually is, and strike up a convo. Then stop and smell the roses on your way back home with a couple of books in hand.

Shopping: go to your local brick and mortar! Who cares if it's a few dollars cheaper to buy the same thing online, if you don't support the old-fashioned business model, you'll one day find it closed up shop and is being replaced by yet another Mcdonalds or Pizza Hut.

Call me a luddite but I think I'd rather be part of the world around me than to be well-versed on, and using, the latest technology from the comfort of my own "cave" 24/7. And as my parents used to say, "listen to your elders"... while the woman pictured above didn't speak a single word to me, her advice to me and anyone who may have paused to really observe her was loud and clear!

Ironically, I'm stating this using a keyboard and monitor and sending it up to an online forum. So I'm gonna go out right now and send my folks an old-fashioned postcard, if for nothing other than to refamiliarize myself with the process of placing a postage stamp on a piece of paper!

Cheers! :)
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
Many of us are lucky------we grew up at a time when we had no electronic communication or entertainment, other than a wired telephone and a radio. We learned how to have a good life without those things and now that we have them, we could easily revert back and re-discover the way we were before. We are like no other generations before or after us, because we have one foot in the old world and the other foot in the new one. We can survive in either of them or in a good combination of the two.

But, I wonder about those who have never known an existence without those electronic contraptions embedded in every part of their lives. I hope that enough of the enduring basics, from times past, are getting through to them. The age of electronics may all go away sometime in their lives and they'll have to know how to function without it.
--
Steve McDonald
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22121562@N00/

 
would have any idea of what to do if she had to start with a live chicken to fix dinner?

How many men out there could get the bacon out of the hog in the backyard.

I consider myself fortunate to have lived when farming was still done with horses and the milking was done by hand. I cranked the cream seperator for my grandmother and churned butter and carted the water from the well. Carried wood for the kitchen stove and shoveled coal into the furnace.

When I was five there was a telephone in our block. Across the street and down three houses.

Computers? Not even the government had them.

And the ice man came with the ice for the icebox. With the ice in a horse drawn wagon. We kids got slivers of ice from the wagon and petted the horses.

Electricity? In town but not on the farm until the mid-fifties. Gas lamps and white gas lanterns. You could see the stars at night.

Life? Oh yes harder and more fun then today I think.

Travel? National Geographic. One wonderful page at a time. Only place a young boy could find topless photos. Some pictures were even in color. Other sexy photos? Sears catalog, lingerie section. Now you know why older men are hung up on underwear. LOL 8=)

Toilet? Out back, a two hole place.



--

Marion
[email protected]
 
I bet the old lady never goes through these moments of contemporary angst & self-examination. Most likely for those of her generation, especially in eastern Europe, she just ruminates on the pain & suffering she's seen over her lifetime & hoping for a peaceful hereafter.

Find a stash of old Readers Digests, didja? ;)

pj
--
I like making pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inframan
 
Martin,

Having come to the same conclusion that having a computer was too much like having a dog and barking yourself, I have cut my browsing to 30 minutes per day, unsubscribed from a lot of sites and forums, cancelled my sub to Wired, turned off many of the auto-update checks for my software, reverted to cash instead of plastic when I'm out and stopped trying to find solutions in the computer - which having a computer has itself caused.

I posed a question to a friend recently: How long do you think we have spent looking at progress bars in the last 25 years?

Contemplating the answer was too scary.

Personal computers have always demanded too much - it's time to relegate them to the position they deserve in our personal priorities.

Joel.
 
Hi Martin,

interesting post, but in the first place, a wonderful picture. Lovely, just perfect.

The topic is very complex, as the answers show. The essence is communication. The lady receives a letter, and that means news, this means information, this means contact, this means communication. I read your message the same way, the tool is just the tool we have to handle now.

And that's maybe the point where the essence can be seen as the overall identity. If you would read my message in a letter, or see some of my pictures I would put in the enveloope... or if you read it here, this is just the way the essence is transported, but will never change its state of the art or meaning, nor will it be better or worse, more or less, etc.

I found very interesting the comment of PL (infra). He was overwhelmed by your shot (me too, no wonder) and could see a part of the essence of the scene. Your skills and your camera were in that moment the transporter, and then internet.

If he would have received that picture instantly, with a new technology that would perhaps evoke the image in his mind (year 5000, whatever)... he would have answered the same. I would have done too. The essence is there, and its an essence developed during ... who knows.

The stupid thing is that still the tools for the transport of the essence of communication are only for some, not for all. The stupid thing is that we HAVE TO USE THIS SYSTEM, and not another one we found very interesting, suited us very well, but is now 3, 5 or 15 years out of fashion or evolution.

The very stupid thing is, like in 1459, that if you cannot afford the transportation system of knowledge of your time, you loose access to knowledge.

Still a lot to do. Nearly all. Great changes on earth are measured in millions of years, so hopefully in the next thousands of years we will be able to establish a system of transport of knowledge that does not need to evolute that damn quick as to survive. A thing like the sun.

Here a shot from a 'knowledge temple', some 400 years old. Now think about receiving this photography in an envelope. With... stamps, exotic stamps. A lot of notes in a language you find different. Would be great, right?



My big hope was that technology would help to preserve nature, but never in history of mankind we made so much printing. For example, think about all the receipts or tickets we generate all over the world.

Still a lot to do. Nearly all, don't you think so too?

Salu2, regards,

Miguel

--
Moving as smooth as possible on a thin skin of ice protecting me from myself
 
Good observation there, Steve. I never looked at it from the angle of the old and the new coexisting for some of us. I was born in the mid 60's so by the time I was a teen, there already was quite a bit of the gadgetry etc., Sony's Walkman would probably be the most memorable thing from those years. But things were still pretty "prehistoric" otherwise compared to the huge advancements made in the last 10-15 years.

I'm not sure that future generations of young adults will be able to appreciate a life without all this communication technology. I really wonder what kind of lifestyle people will live 10-20 years from now... we might even get to a point where we could "visit" exotic & ancient places around the globe, all from some virtual reality device installed in our living rooms, connected via internet with others who are in the same virtual space as you... sounds fun but so unnatural.

We already have a very large number of serious photographers who don't even know what a roll of film looks like, let alone a piece of darkroom equipment. For them, instant results are the order of the day (and I can't say that's a bad thing) but there's something about film and developing negs & printing in a darkroom that really jives with me. The next step, I think, will be the obsoletion of prints... we'll just buy a big OLED wall panel and load random photos into it... it'll probably even offer choices of different digital frames LOL.

The day that I can't print my images on a piece of paper is the day I will ditch all my digital cameras, I swear. That's the only aspect of it that still keeps me interested in taking pictures.

Thanks for chiming in, well put and something additional to think about!
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
Marion, funny thing is most of the examples you cited ring true for me when I was a kid, but maybe 20-30 years after you... except for the Sears catalogue part, I already had easy access to Penthouse by the time I stopped hating girls ;)

One thing I did almost every single evening when I was a kid growing up here in Europe, was to go up the street to get a couple of litres of fresh milk and 10 fresh eggs (no dozen here, we're metric eh!) at a small farm. As a kid I hated the job but loved the side benefit of being offered a slice of freshly baked bread and homemade salami while I was there! Thing is, that farm's still there as well as the lady that lived there 30 years ago... and what do I do almost every day now?? I absolutely relish hopping over there and getting eggs & milk, and she still offers me the same side benefit! I guess even with all the "evolution", there are some things that haven't changed, hopefully never will!

Thanks for posting what you did... more things to reminisce over and rue ;)
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
Boredom is the new zen sport, didntcha know?
Like watching paint dry...
Before threads like this people just sat around & bit their nails.
alfred e. newman

--
I like making pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inframan
 
The idea of the photo isn't about remembering the "old days" in regards to conflict that went on here and in other places, neither did I mention a location because it's not connected to what I'm attempting to say. I could've captured something similar in North America, Asia, Oceania, etc.

I saw this woman approximately a block from where she eventually sat down. She was smiling the entire time, and when I noticed she went to (what seemed to me like) a specific place to sit down & open and read a letter, that's when thoughts began running through my head. She's smiling in the photo, presumably happy to be reading news from a faraway friend or family member.

What I'm trying to say in the example photo though, is that she's enjoying the environment, I mean she seems to have made a point of opening the letter in a pleasant spot, to make the most of the act of reading. We "emailers" just sit at our desks and often think of email as just a routine thing done daily. It has no "personality" or "anticipation", for lack of better words or phrases to describe what I'm saying.

However... it's interesting, your comment. Maybe the photo has several viewpoints, which is cool with me, actually it's great to know that some(one) sees something else in it.

Reader's Digest? Hehehe, funny you mention that! I have visitors here all week from Peru and was showing them some of the old books stashed here in a closet, in Slovenian. They're perplexed that some words, even up to 4-5 letters long, don't have a single vowel... found a few Hemingways too, gotta send you pics as soon as the intrud... errr... guests leave and give me back my peace & quiet ;)
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
Hey Joel, I hear you all the way!

I really liked the question about the progress bars, it seems such a minute part of our daily work on a computer but I'm curious to know how much that adds up to for the average user. It makes me think about movies too: you go to the cinema or rent a DVD, you thoroughly hate the flick but wasted 90-120 minutes of your life finding out that it sucked ;). Do that once a week or so and you've lost YEARS by the time the ticker gives out ;)
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
Hi Miguel! Whoah, some thoughtful remarks there! I had to read your message a couple of times and think over what you said, but I think I see now where you're coming from.

You're totally right that the issue is complex and the answers would be many, especially based on age groups and probably geographic location (maybe even gender in some way). Still, from what I can recall anyway, as students in high-school (in my generation) we were taught new technology, of course, but there was usually a history lesson and hands-on stuff in the introduction. With computers, for example, the big thing was MS-DOS and Basic programming. Futuristic stuff then! But my introduction to computers came in the form of a bloody abacus!... and then two long semesters of punch cards! Before we took the typing course, we first learnt to write with pen & paper... nowadays all "writing" is performed on MS Word and the "art" of writing seems to be fading and getting replaced with scribbling at best.

About natural resources and cutting down trees to make paper, yes, it is strange, isn't it, that stats show we use it more than ever before. That is one thing that technology could have improved or even solved for us but it seems with every technological solution, we devise new problems that marginalize the prior solutions.

But some things, like receiving a postcard from you with your own photo on it and a hand-written message, would be far more exciting to see than the digital equivalent of it, definitely! Even the stamp, if from another country, would be interesting, hey, even collectible if it's a hobby of ours! Sure, I'm now contradicting my words on conserving natural resources but I think we have the means to maintain our forests. The computer as the solution is sort of a boring, generic proposition though, which slowly robs us of our culture, I think, because a postcard with an eloquently hand-written note on the back IS cultured compared to the icons and cheesy interfaces of our beloved Outlooks and Thunderbirds :)

Bahh, this is getting too much into things! I have a dozen new photos of "drunk farmers on tractors" to process (seriously)... that should lighten things up :)

Saludos! Cuidate!
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
You said it, Brother..

I think about this all the time. I'm 52 years old, and have been in working in the electronics industry for over 30 years. The stuff I'm working on now is the most challenging work I have ever done, and it's a struggle to keep up. I spend all day, every day, troubleshooting and repairing circut boards about 14" square, containing 4 industrial processors, a digital signal processor, a dozen analog multiplexers, the nuts and bolts to communicate over RS-232, SDLC and ethernet, and 1,000 or so components needed to make the whole thing work. Some of this stuff is really small. The DSP is a 100 lead part, and is about 1" square. A 508 profile part is about half the size of a grain of rice.

Computers..

Maybe I'll be summoned away from my work when my cell phone rings..

Computers..

Then I may say to myself I have had enough, how much longer do I have to go. I take a peek at my digital watch to find out..

Computers..

When it's time to go home I jump in the car and head home. My little Corolla uses several embedded processors to do it's thing. Computers control fuel delivery, timing, emission control, dashboard gauges and indicators, even the radio is controlled by a pair of embedded processors. Traffic signals rely heavily on computers. Vehicle detectors, controllers, bus interface units, malfunction management units, power supplies, network stuff. All this to make traffic signals work. Another slew of processors.

When the weekend comes I grab a camera, which is controlled by a few microcontrollers, likewise, the IS lenses I use employ a microcontroller or two. The images are stored as digital files, which are transferred to another computer. My printers are operated by embedded processors, and when the images are sent up to the internet dozens (if not hundreds) of computers come into play, computer, router, nameservers, servers, all the stuff that makes the internet work..

Digital technology is very invasive. No doubt that during the course of a typical day, dozens of computers affect my life in one way or another. There is no escaping it. The postcard you sent was manufactured by a computerized process. When you send it, it's destination will be determined by optical character recognition, the card will be automatically routed throughout the postal system. The final stop will be a manual one, when the postal worker actually delivers it.

No doubt that the pen you used was manufactured by an automated process that relies on computers.

I think this is why I'm so attracted to birds, they're not digital..

Cheers
--
At this phase in my life, I'll settle for a talking frog...

rich
http://www.iceninephotography.com
 
Member said:
mschf wrote:
The idea of the photo isn't about remembering the "old days" in
regards to conflict that went on here and in other places, neither
did I mention a location because it's not connected to what I'm
attempting to say. I could've captured something similar in North
America, Asia, Oceania, etc.

I saw this woman approximately a block from where she eventually sat
down. She was smiling the entire time, and when I noticed she went to
(what seemed to me like) a specific place to sit down & open and read
a letter, that's when thoughts began running through my head. She's
smiling in the photo, presumably happy to be reading news from a
faraway friend or family member.
Click to expand...
Sounds to me like you have a case to make & have stacked the evidence. You have no idea what she was thinking or feeling, your shot is only a subjective interpretation of same, as in all photography.
Member said:
What I'm trying to say in the example photo though, is that she's
enjoying the environment, I mean she seems to have made a point of
opening the letter in a pleasant spot, to make the most of the act of
reading. We "emailers" just sit at our desks and often think of email
as just a routine thing done daily. It has no "personality" or
"anticipation", for lack of better words or phrases to describe what
I'm saying.
Click to expand...
You don't believe in emails? Fine, but some of us see it as the natural evolution to good old-fashioned letter-writing. Again I have no idea what It has no "personality" or "anticipation"> means in this context.
Member said:
However... it's interesting, your comment. Maybe the photo has
several viewpoints, which is cool with me, actually it's great to
know that some(one) sees something else in it.
Click to expand...
Nah, I don't see it as being about viewpoints or anything as effete as that. I see it as more analogous to people who complain that the shows on TV are getting terrible. Hey, The TV has an off switch.

pj
--
I like making pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inframan
 
I'm 63 and if I'm not doing something involving technology, particularly computers, I would go nuts.
--
Sarge
Duck Club Member.
Miranda, Pentax K2-K1000, Sony FD-71-707-H5-H9
Albums at http://www.sony-snapper.com (now updated!)
 
inframan said:
Sounds to me like you have a case to make & have stacked the
evidence. You have no idea what she was thinking or feeling, your
shot is only a subjective interpretation of same, as in all
photography.
Click to expand...
Dude, not making a case nor fabricating evidence, I think it's clear enough that I'm simply using the shot symbolically. Whether it represents an elderly woman who's happy to get a letter from a friend or if it's something else, wasn't at issue until you brought it up. What can I tell you? My post isn't about people who've gone through hardships and likewise the photo isn't there to represent that. Now, if I were just posting the photo and leaving it as-is to be interpreted, then it can be whatever anyone wants it to be. If someone insisted I give it a title, personally the title would have nothing to do with hardship, reflection on bad times, lament, etc. because I observed her and saw what to me was a warm and content elderly woman.

Since we've drifted into this topic though: I am aware of this country's history and the personality of its people, and can confidently assume that she's not scarred by some past. Slovenia itself does not have a history of great hardships, even in WWII it was neither very heavily occupied nor did it experience large scale atrocities. Very, very few people, still alive today from WWII, would be haunted with bad memories. After WWII it was quite independent from Yugoslavian politics and economically strong. The possibility that this particular woman is some kind of war "survivor" is, at best, very slim. If she's a "victim" of socialist-era politics, she'd probably be the only one, as the older generations here, and some of the younger ones too, lament its passing. But, as I said, anyone's free to interpret the image whichever way... it's not the subject of my post anyway.
inframan said:
You don't believe in emails? Fine, but some of us see it as the
natural evolution to good old-fashioned letter-writing. Again I have
no idea what It has no "personality" or "anticipation"> means in
this context.
Click to expand...
I don't know how to express what my point was, maybe there's no good word or phrase for it. I'm fine with emails, I'm saying that in many situations, the "old" ways of doing things indirectly made us more social. Miguel brought up the use of paper having an effect on the environment. I agree with that and I remember how they predicted the 'paperless office' eons ago due to computers one day becoming commonplace (which they now generally are). Well, there's still no 'paperless office' and computers (in my opinion) have turned us into modern-day cave dwellers on top of that. Email may be an evolution in one way but we're simultaneously taking a step backwards in another way. And I'm not just talking about emails per se, I'm looking at technology as a whole. It's not email that's making us anti-social, it's the computer & internet in general.

Remember a post here from almost 2 years ago where we bitched and moaned over the younger generations becoming illiterate and using acronyms and cellphone shorthand for everything? My argument here is related to that, I would question the butchering of a language that way as somehow being "evolutionary" due to it saving us time in sending messages.
inframan said:
Nah, I don't see it as being about viewpoints or anything as effete
as that. I see it as more analogous to people who complain that the
shows on TV are getting terrible. Hey, The TV has an off switch.
Click to expand...
Ahhh, yes, but no imo ;). The TV has an off switch and I can still function in today's society without watching even one minute of it. But if I turn off my email? Nope! That's pretty much forced down my throat, unless I'm OK with not fitting in with society anymore. Almost every person wants me to interact with them via email (or worse, chat), almost every business insists on it. Not having it can alter the course of my day/week/month/life. That's just email. If I threw the whole PC out the window, then there'd be even more I'd miss out on because someone or some entity insists that I communicate through the damn thing. The TV being off affects me very, very little, there's pretty much no consequence in it.

Well, in closing, I can say thanks for the back & forth, it's cool to get into something other than sterile gear talk, thanks to my PC and internet connection. Ooops, just contradicted myself ;)
inframan said:
pj
Click to expand...
maninfra? :)
--
~ Martin
Personal: http://www.mpolanic.com
PhotoShelter: http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/mpolanic

Alamy: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/59EA39C4-7960-4B90-BDB5-23CC81654FD1/Martin+Polanic.html
 
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