First, my thanks to everyone who responded to my blog post below. Some responses were comments, some were emails. I really do appreciate the feedback, support, questions, and concerns.
Second, a few clarifications. The “wall” I talk about in my prior post is not a person or even (in this case) a response from anyone. Rather, it’s the essential difficulty or paradox or irony–call it what fits–that emerges from the communications revolution we are currently experiencing. Massively disruptive, massively promising, and full of peril. I understand most high-stakes human experiences are exactly that mixture. Somehow, though, this particular revolution seems even more so to me–more of all those things. That’s one of the many reasons I peg the scale of this change to the invention of the phonetic alphabet.
I should also clarify that I have no intentions of giving up, though I may utter cries of distress from time to time. 🙂
Today’s seminar: Engelbart II, along with small questions like “what is technology?” (ten minutes of video there) and “what is a computer?” (some Turing and some Mother of all Demos there) and “what is the meaning of meaning?” (no kidding–but that’s another story).
I’m just consistently impressed with your optimism! It makes it a joy to be in your seminar. I feel like a I’m slowly warming up to all of this new technology in a very positive way. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend was in China and our communications were very limited. After attending the New Media class where we used our iPods to create video and then uploaded it to you on Bearspace, I thought to myself: “I could do this with him!” In just a few minutes I had created a video of myself saying “hi,” shared the folder with him, and then uploaded it for him to view. He was so impressed with my technological savyness (haha…if you can even call it that), and he then proceeded to become more and more intrigued with this seminar I am a part of. All that to say, I think that despite the limitations of all of this stuff, it really is amazing how it can keep people connected (both personally and professionall). So thanks for leading the charge!
Gardner! The joys of Google! I love your blog; you look and sound so much happier. I especially love it that you and your son visited Chris Bell’s grave.
Give Alice my best.
Elizabeth