Behind the Curve
I've certainly spent alot of time using computers since my family first got one back in 1992 when the first wave of the information revolution hit the public. In the intervening 16 years, I've used a succession of desktops, but never really a laptop (or a Mac). Currently I'm on karenjeane's work laptop - a brand new and very spiffy MacBook Pro. I'm not really sold on all the hype surrounding the Mac (particularly because of its limited selection of games), but using a laptop is absolutely exhilarating.
The simple reason is the wirelessness. I have wireless internet, but a desktop really can't take full advantage of the utter freedom it provides. Perhaps I'm still high on the novelty of it, but walking around the house, going through every room, and being able to access the whole of human knowledge without any sort of physical connection just seems [...]. I can watch Israel pound the shit out of Gaza live, learn who was the last Byzantine emperor, and roleplay a character in a massive, virtual fantasy world - all without getting off the toilet.
I have never experienced so directly what I have described in a number of my sci-fi short stories - the coming ubiquity of the internet. And not merely through specialized terminals like this laptop, but in every object, a wireless internet of things, giving our environment an ambient intelligence - a Post Stupid Age.
I have a plot for my novel finally. In short it revolves around three characters in different parts of the world dealing with different situations and outlooks, set in the next 15-20 years. Overall it looks at the globalizing power of the internet (esp the wifi variety), its tendency to ignore geography, leading to a fragmentation of society and culture, both of which are fundamentally accidents of geographical proximity and how politics, religion, language, and our socially constructed methods of perceiving the world around us must be re-evaluated. Ambitious, yes. But hopefully not out of my reach to accomplish well, provided I actually write the damn thing.
More on this later however, when I write a belated post about my thoughts on this new year. I have been doing a lot of thinking in the last week about what the hell I'm doing right now, and where I am headed.
Anyway, since even Livejournal is not immune to this once in a lifetime downturn, I can be reached at "williamrorygillies@gmail.com" in case this site suddenly goes kaput and you want to keep in contact (I would like to remain in contact). However I wouldn't hold my breath about lj failing suddenly.
The simple reason is the wirelessness. I have wireless internet, but a desktop really can't take full advantage of the utter freedom it provides. Perhaps I'm still high on the novelty of it, but walking around the house, going through every room, and being able to access the whole of human knowledge without any sort of physical connection just seems [...]. I can watch Israel pound the shit out of Gaza live, learn who was the last Byzantine emperor, and roleplay a character in a massive, virtual fantasy world - all without getting off the toilet.
I have never experienced so directly what I have described in a number of my sci-fi short stories - the coming ubiquity of the internet. And not merely through specialized terminals like this laptop, but in every object, a wireless internet of things, giving our environment an ambient intelligence - a Post Stupid Age.
I have a plot for my novel finally. In short it revolves around three characters in different parts of the world dealing with different situations and outlooks, set in the next 15-20 years. Overall it looks at the globalizing power of the internet (esp the wifi variety), its tendency to ignore geography, leading to a fragmentation of society and culture, both of which are fundamentally accidents of geographical proximity and how politics, religion, language, and our socially constructed methods of perceiving the world around us must be re-evaluated. Ambitious, yes. But hopefully not out of my reach to accomplish well, provided I actually write the damn thing.
More on this later however, when I write a belated post about my thoughts on this new year. I have been doing a lot of thinking in the last week about what the hell I'm doing right now, and where I am headed.
Anyway, since even Livejournal is not immune to this once in a lifetime downturn, I can be reached at "williamrorygillies@gmail.com" in case this site suddenly goes kaput and you want to keep in contact (I would like to remain in contact). However I wouldn't hold my breath about lj failing suddenly.