the wonders of technology
I just have to take a moment from my busy weekend to make an observation.
I was driving home after working on a group project in my Social Work class, when I noticed that my phone was ringing. It's usually on silent, but I made a point of turning the ringer on in case the other group member got lost and needed directions. Anyway, it was my sister, rano_kwiatek. She was calling me from a train station in NJ, on her cell phone, and wondered if I was near a computer. I just happened to have my laptop with me, because I brought it along for the ride; all my school stuff is in the same bag in which I typically carry my laptop. She wanted to know if her train was delayed, or if she'd missed it because she had the wrong schedule. (The station where she was waiting was basically a platform, with no clerks or monitors.)
I was very close to Brewed Awakenings, which I know has free WiFi, so I took a little detour and dropped in. It's pretty empty because the weather is gorgeous; the few customers are outside enjoying an all too rare glimpse of the sun. So I plopped myself down on a comfy love seat, took out my computer, and looked up NJ Transit's website. There were no service advisories (in fact, the website specifically said that everything was running on time, and it had been updated within the last half hour) but it looked like she had the wrong departure time; the next train was scheduled for about ten minutes later. That made things dangerously tight for her at the other end, and she wasn't quite sure where she was going. So I opened another tab on my browser, fired up Google Maps, and gave her specific directions so that she'll make it to her final destination on time.
(So then I had to buy something, out of a sense of... not really guilt, more like fairness; I'm using your WiFi connection, so the least I can do is actually be a customer.)
Yeah, I know that for many people this is ordinary and unremarkable. For me, it's still kinda nifty. Everything about the interaction, from the cell phones (calling from anywhere to anywhere) to having a portable computer to knowing where to get free WiFi (even the concept of WiFi, free or not) to having websites that tell us so much information, updated information... the complete package didn't exist five years ago, in a form where it was ordinary and affordable to normal people. Even for rich geeky people, little of it existed ten years ago. None of it existed twenty years ago, although the potential to create it and the beginning of the infrastructure was there.
At the risk of sounding like people in my parents' generation who probably marveled at the wonders of microwave ovens, VCRs, and debit cards, I can't help but feel a little bit in awe of the pace of change, at the conveniences we have available to us now that were a techie fantasy a generation ago, that were unthinkable a few generations ago. Maybe I'm more aware of this right now because the last lecture in my Western Civ class was about, among other things, leisure activity in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, what people did with themselves in their spare time before electricity and all the toys that came with it. I don't know. I also realize that many of the conveniences we currently have might disappear in another generation or two, as climate change and diminishing resources affect the way we do things.
In any case, we live in a miraculous time. For all the problems we face, we really do have a lot of neat stuff. Perhaps part of the reason I remain cautiously optimistic about the future of the human race is that I appreciate the enormous creativity and brainpower that put us where we are now, and if we have any hope of navigating through the next few years and coming out of it in one piece, we're going to need all of that potential. At least we can say that we have it. Whether or not that potential gets applied in a constructive and successful manner is another issue, but at least we have it.
I was driving home after working on a group project in my Social Work class, when I noticed that my phone was ringing. It's usually on silent, but I made a point of turning the ringer on in case the other group member got lost and needed directions. Anyway, it was my sister, rano_kwiatek. She was calling me from a train station in NJ, on her cell phone, and wondered if I was near a computer. I just happened to have my laptop with me, because I brought it along for the ride; all my school stuff is in the same bag in which I typically carry my laptop. She wanted to know if her train was delayed, or if she'd missed it because she had the wrong schedule. (The station where she was waiting was basically a platform, with no clerks or monitors.)
I was very close to Brewed Awakenings, which I know has free WiFi, so I took a little detour and dropped in. It's pretty empty because the weather is gorgeous; the few customers are outside enjoying an all too rare glimpse of the sun. So I plopped myself down on a comfy love seat, took out my computer, and looked up NJ Transit's website. There were no service advisories (in fact, the website specifically said that everything was running on time, and it had been updated within the last half hour) but it looked like she had the wrong departure time; the next train was scheduled for about ten minutes later. That made things dangerously tight for her at the other end, and she wasn't quite sure where she was going. So I opened another tab on my browser, fired up Google Maps, and gave her specific directions so that she'll make it to her final destination on time.
(So then I had to buy something, out of a sense of... not really guilt, more like fairness; I'm using your WiFi connection, so the least I can do is actually be a customer.)
Yeah, I know that for many people this is ordinary and unremarkable. For me, it's still kinda nifty. Everything about the interaction, from the cell phones (calling from anywhere to anywhere) to having a portable computer to knowing where to get free WiFi (even the concept of WiFi, free or not) to having websites that tell us so much information, updated information... the complete package didn't exist five years ago, in a form where it was ordinary and affordable to normal people. Even for rich geeky people, little of it existed ten years ago. None of it existed twenty years ago, although the potential to create it and the beginning of the infrastructure was there.
At the risk of sounding like people in my parents' generation who probably marveled at the wonders of microwave ovens, VCRs, and debit cards, I can't help but feel a little bit in awe of the pace of change, at the conveniences we have available to us now that were a techie fantasy a generation ago, that were unthinkable a few generations ago. Maybe I'm more aware of this right now because the last lecture in my Western Civ class was about, among other things, leisure activity in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, what people did with themselves in their spare time before electricity and all the toys that came with it. I don't know. I also realize that many of the conveniences we currently have might disappear in another generation or two, as climate change and diminishing resources affect the way we do things.
In any case, we live in a miraculous time. For all the problems we face, we really do have a lot of neat stuff. Perhaps part of the reason I remain cautiously optimistic about the future of the human race is that I appreciate the enormous creativity and brainpower that put us where we are now, and if we have any hope of navigating through the next few years and coming out of it in one piece, we're going to need all of that potential. At least we can say that we have it. Whether or not that potential gets applied in a constructive and successful manner is another issue, but at least we have it.