Matamore! Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lady Penelope Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > Matamore worries me.
>
> You are not alone.

Yeah! I worry me too!!!!!

If we digitize and computerize everything, doesn't it make it easier for someone to shut down a nation by killing the electric grid? Never mind a solar flare, just one bomb (a graphite bomb or EMP weapons) could disable electric grids through out the USA and the EU.

I do like the modern convenience computers have made in life, but people who access the internet with their phones and iPads never being out of touch, I can't understand that. I heard a short blurb today, maybe on the Limbaugh show where the host was talking about Apple perhaps moving away from the internet and just use apps for their electronic gear. This probably won't happen for another 15 years or so yet, but when you think of what the internet was 15 years ago and compare it to what it is now it's not difficult to see changes that are coming.

Sunshine Superman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Every (technological) advance is neutral. Not
> good, not evil. It is the application of the
> advance that matters. How does one use it?

I totally agree, SS, but I would add that it is not necessarily the end user sitting at his or her PC who has control. Very often it is the programmer who produces something that neither meets the intention of the originator nor the needs of the end user. So often I see quetionnaires or forms where the programmer may have understood the technicalities (I doubt it but I am incompetant to judge) but he certainly does not understand the suject of the programme and therefore the document does not elicit the information that the person who commissioned it wanted.

True, this happens with conventionally produced forms either through incompetance or because the originator has designed it with malice aforefort to lead the respondent to give a particular answer (e.g. "leading" ( Yes/No questions ), but one can amend those, even at an extreme produce a new form or attach a covering letter. Too often computer generator documents do not permit this. A simple example is forms that cannot be sent without a zip or a post code. Even though they might be inviting world wide participation the originator/programmer are too ignorant to realise that some countries do not have post codes -- or at least not in the configuration they prescribe. Result people simply borrow someone elses code or make on up in order to send the form - which may be compulsory! Since, presumably the requirement for a post code is to ensure the genuineness of the response, or to collate the original, this is of course totally counter productive. I have contacted several organisations (including British Government departments) pointing this out and neverhad a response.

The BBC (this is a familiar rant) presumably want people to chose and access their programmes but it is extremely difficult to locate a particular programme because the people who design their Websites have absolutely no idea of how to catalogue - and they are listed completely at random, sometimes under title, sometimes under author (first or second name) and sometimes under potaginist (first, second name or designation )
>
> Be so engrossed on a computer that one doesn't get
> enough excercise and fresh air? The last
> generations that had the same problem were those
> who then had access to cheap literature,
> Paperbacks came into the mass market in the late
> 60s. Then there was the temptation to sit around
> at home and just read. And read and read and read
> some more. I could give lots more examples -
> technology is neutral. Believe me. It's what we do
> with it that counts, and for the individual it's
> their willpower that's the important thing.

Well agreed, but only to an extent. If I want to procrastinate, I dont need a computer - I can just as easily - in fact usually preferably - put off a task by picking up a book, or a crossword or a piece of embroidery or a sketchpad as sit down at the computer. Two differences - one I can take the book, crossword with me into the garden, or to the side of a swimming pool or the beach. (Or to bed, or a comfortable chair befre a roaring fire or even the Dentists surgery) and while I am reading my other senses are alert - I can hear the birds , smell the sea or the roses, et. etc etc. And I may well be inspired to put down the book while I go for a swim or a walk or pull up some weeds andmull over what I have read. With a computer I am tied to one place, all my concentration seems to focus on the screen in front of me, and as well as eye strain I am sitting basically in one position (adjustable chair not withstanding). OK, OK I know - there are portable gadgets I can use but they all cost money, time and effort to chose and purchase and yet one more equipemnt to lose break, break down, become absolute and cost more time and money etc.

As for those **************** forms I am programmed to fill forms in sitting at a desk with the paper flat in front of me, reference books and files to hand. I just can do it on screen. Consequence half the time I have to run them off (after often having to set up a programme to receive them and provided the *******printer is working ) fill them in and them transcibe them back to the computer. Time saving. Not for me.

And computer applications are designed to distract and to lead you on - again admittedly so are so some magazines etc. but on the whole the average book does not face you with adverts that literally jump about on the page and flash coloured lights until you get a headache. Again often counter productive - apart from the headache which eventually lead to switching the whole d**m thing off - due to lack of political and geographical knowledge and shotgun tactics (spray the shot wide enough and you might actually hit something) Icouldnt understand a word of the language.

>
> My own bete noire is the food industry.

SS I though your comments deserved a thread of their own - so I have started one - look forward to seeing you there.
>
>

> .

May I knock a fallacy on the head?

"Every (technological) advance is neutral"

That's absolute tosh. Research science involves testing and searching for goals that will achieve a development in the field in which you're involved. This usually means that you're looking in specific areas for confirmation of theories. Research involves funding, so you don't get much (any?) blue sky work these days.

If anything really unexpected emerges then that's serendipity. Serendipity is also known as a bonus, which is a Good Thing unless you're a banker.

FWIW, I was a research scientist until I retired.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020 Jun 14 2012 by Kronalias.

so when Archimes' wife told him off for spraying water all over the bathroom floor, he immediately thought "Gee wizz, there is money in this", and rushed off the found a plc"!!!!!

Seriously, I plead guilty to speed reading: I read "technology is neutral" and then compounded the error by failing to define the term. Google's definition:

"Technology is information on anything that man makes for his benefit out of resources available, in order to make tasks simpler to perform. (stone tools, fire, wheel etc) " (or "the appliance of science" , pehaps)

So the natural resource or law on which technology is founded is neutral: fire is a good example, it can be life enhancing or saving, or totally destructive, or both at once as in cautorizing a wound

I accepted SS ' contention that technology itself is neutral and it is the application that can be two edged , bu t K makes the point that the motive behind the development (let alone the dissemination and application) of technology may be suspect. Research costs money and the main beneficiary may be the person , or entity, which funded the research in order purely to make more money regardless of consequences , or for prestige or power.

I return to my original query as to whether modern "digital" (I am not even sure of the correct term) technogy is on balance beneficial , both to specific indviduals and to mankind as a whole.

Meantime it has taken me three times as long to prepare this message as it would using a good quality electronic typewriter and perhaps twice as long as by hand! But then I would have had to put it in several envelopes and take them to the Post Office, perhps to FAX it!

OTOH, from my Chambers 20th Century: Technology = The practice, description, and terminology of any or all of the applied sciences of commercial value.

Definition-wise you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Swerving a little, your reference to the Post Office brings me to some more definitions, all of which are taken from Kronalias' 21st Century (I will preserve the use of the apostrophe, and I promise to use it correctly, whatever Waterstone's Waterstones' Waterstones do).

Postcode: A type of food that UK satnav devices need in order to function.

Satnav: A device spawned of the devil to direct drivers of large vehicles down narrow Welsh roads in order that they may get to where they didn't want to go, only to find that they cannot turn around. Also known as TomTom. Erroneously. It should have been marketed as NagNag.

NagNag: TomTom speak for "Turn around when possible".

TomTom: A drum with no snare. They got that one wrong.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2150 Jun 15 2012 by Kronalias.

Well Thank Goodness Satnav is one piece of technology I dont have to grapple with.! Just keep the mountains on one side and the sea on the other and remember to stop when I reach the sea. Mind you I can got lost in my own back garden, - fromthe sound of it Satnav would make me even worse.

Lady Penelope Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Well Thank Goodness Satnav is one piece of
> technology I dont have to grapple with.!

I've never even bothered learning how to operate a car.

Lady Penelope Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>

> Mind you I can got lost in my own back garden, -
> fromthe sound of it Satnav would make me even
> worse.


Blimey Lady P, just how many acres do you have?

I only wish I'd had a few more acres, IE.

As a result of technology (hoist by my own petard?) I currently await either three points or a speed awareness course.

Sod it.

I suppose that there are some advantages to only travelling in an area where the amount of traffic precludes the opportunity to speed.

. Ivor



The original and real cat with the swishy tail.
Accept no imitations.

K, didn't your Tom Tom warn you about the cameras?

The speed awareness course always makes me think of the old, "drinking problem" joke.

Regrettably, IE, the satnav wasn't on - I was driving locally and got clocked at 36 in a 30.

Go on, I'll buy it, what's

Quote
Ironeyes
the old, "drinking problem" joke

I drink. I fall down. No problem.

I thought that it was:

Wife leans forward and says, "Ignore him, Officer, he's been drinking!"

. Ivor



The original and real cat with the swishy tail.
Accept no imitations.

Jan's right.

Of course she is; She's a woman!

. Ivor



The original and real cat with the swishy tail.
Accept no imitations.

I can't tell whether you've found your sarcasm or lost your marbles.

Both, I think.