Tools of the Trade: Dino Corvino
The founders of Citizen Wausau (Marcus, Andy and me) are all what you could safely call “technology guys”. We’re Apple guys, brand evangelists, proud watchers of keynotes, and enthralled with gadgetry in general. And because Citizen Wausau was born partly because of this obsession, we thought the three of us would put together a list of gadgetry that we couldn’t live without. We know that the world is turning to this sort of thing, so off and running we go. We would love to hear from you about the things that you guys use on a daily basis, and what they do for you. I’ll kick this off, and I’m sure the other two are already hard at work on their lists.
Everything for me revolves around the calendar. I have an insane desire to manage my time, and make sure I can get to the things and places I want to get to. I somehow think this control leads to freedom, but I do not honestly know. So lets take a look.
- BlackBerry. I cannot imagine a better tool. The truth is, I think of my phone book as an extension of this thing we call social capital. I have a address book on my computer of over ten thousand cats and kittens. All of them contextualized, and it all makes sense to me. The BlackBerry allows me to have access to that context, and a complete phone book in my hand each and every time. With that I am able to synchronize my calendar completely and easily with my Apple products, and I am sure that this smart phone is a wonderful part of my day.
- Gmail. Google, the largest this or that, a giant monolith of information company that has never had any sort of backlash. Well, their mail app is second to none. Free and limitless in its storage. Integrated with my Apple Mail client as well, but this is something that is amazing. I have no idea why I would ever use another mail service. I have been around since the beta, and thankfully gotten some amazing stuff from it.
- 37 Signals. I put my entire life on the thing. Basecamp and Backpack run my work life, and I feel confident in the ability to do the work I want to do anywhere. It allows work flow to be viewed by many on the team, allows for the tracking of collaboration, and it allows for the ability to check things off when completed. We all need that.
- Quicksilver. This tool is for OS X only, so you PC people should make the change. It is shortcut keystroke tool. I got it from Merlin Mann at 43 Folders, and man has it made my already fast PowerBook even faster. I wish Andy and Marcus would become bigger Quicksilver users, as I think it allows OS X to unlock its efficiency and intuitiveness even more, but so it goes for the haters.
- Flickr. It’s a digital age. I have a digital camera. How simple is that? It allows us to show our photos, to share our photos, to host our photos. It’s awesome. I love it. I think that I got hooked by my friends Kelly and Heidi, after seeing what they could do.
- XBOX. I have not made the change to the 360, but it is right around the corner. I have to admit that sitting and playing driving games for me is the bees knees. I borrowed my buddy Tom Jordan’s 360 not too long ago, and bought the game DiRT, and totally fell in love. Wireless controllers, and amazing graphics lead to an addiction second to none.
I cannot wait to read what Andy and Marcus have in mind. And you too! I bet there are some other cool things out there to be discovered.
Barry Liss said:
I think it’s going to be a rough go for labor that isn’t plugged in - we are fully in the knowledge economy…I just got this from the Wausau Chamber of Commerce…scary:
“Retail Sales; Wholesale Prices Rise Dramatically
(FOX Business) - …the Labor Department said that wholesale prices jumped by 3.2% last month. That was the biggest gain in 34 years and was propelled by a record 34.8% rise in gasoline costs. Even outside energy, inflation pressures emerged.”
Economic Shock Therapy!!! What about the paper mill closure?
Barry
December 17th, 2007 at 9:00 am #
erik said:
Very cool post, Dino. I too am an Apple whore, I’m working on a new Hackintosh for my desktop since I am still using the 12″ PowerBook I picked up for college. Portability was king at that point, I need more power now.
I’ll totally join in the listing:
1) Treo - Much like Dino I have a smartphone and I honestly don’t know how I lived without it. My Treo has my e-mail, my calendar, MP3s, Google Maps, NFL Mobile, Web Browsering… Oh, and I make calls with it too. The Palm OS syncs nicely with my OSX and Sprint’s data plans are not only dirt cheap, but work really well. I just wish we had true mobile broadband in the Wausau area like they do in other metropolitan areas in the state. I also use this guy as a modem for my lappy if no WiFi source is available.
2) Gmail - The best thing to happen to e-mail. Seriously.
3) Facebook - I’m horribly addicted to this and let it run my life. Previously I was horrible at keeping up with my friends, but Facebook has changed all that. I now actually keep up with long time friends that geography has kept away from me. This thing is also great for the Events application, which allows my friends to remind me of stuff we planned in yet another avenue. I can also shamelessly flirt with my girlfriend in a whole new way.
4) Nestopia - Is an emulator that makes my Mac act like a good ol’ 8-bit Nintendo. I can now replay all my favorites from my childhood like Dragon Warrior IV, Ultima: Quest of the Avatar and Super Mario Brothers 3. I play this daily.
5) Nintendo Wii - WIIIIII!!! It’s fun. It’s so fun I almost always have a shit eating grin on my face while I’m playing it. Whether it’s a party game like Wario Ware with friends or my franchise in Madden, I love Nintendo’s truly innovative approach to gaming. I can’t wait to pick up Super Mario Galaxy, which according to critics is the second best game ever made right behind Nintendo’s other classic: The Ocarina of Time.
6) iLike - This is an add-on for iTunes (and I think Window’s Media Player) that does a couple of things. When you play a music track it tells you what related artists you have and lets you automatically make a playlist of these artists. You also receive recommendations of other songs you might like based on the current track playing in two separate lists: one of signed and popular groups, and one of unsigned newer acts. Best part is you can listen to samples and then even download full MP3s by those lesser-known acts directly into your media library. Additionally if any of your other friends have iLike you can see what their listening to. And finally your favorite artists can send you bulletins of their latest news like new concert announcements and the like.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:16 pm #
Andy Laub said:
erik, I too am ambling along on my own little 12″ Powerbook Jr. Soon. Very soon.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:37 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
I have a Mac Pro at work.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:39 pm #
Andy Laub said:
Dino, I know.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:42 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
It has 1.2 terabytes of storage Andy.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:59 pm #
Barry Liss said:
You people are whacked - for whatever benefit you derive from your efficient technology, you give upsomething…most likely face to face interaction…technological progress doesn’t equal social progress…
Barry
December 17th, 2007 at 5:25 pm #
erik said:
When did you become such a Luddite, Professor Liss? :P
December 17th, 2007 at 5:34 pm #
Barry Liss said:
I aint no luddite boy - I just get uneasy when people start talking about machines like they were erotic artifacts…
Neil Postman was right…
Barry
December 17th, 2007 at 6:38 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
Barry, I cannot speak for anyone else, but my workflow is such that I need and appreciate help in managing the multiple directions and deadlines that flow directly out if it.
As far as negating personal contact, I think that it is a valid sort of posture, but one that is simply that. My list, is one that shows a desire for productivity tracking. I do not make mention of so called social networking, as a matter of fact I pride myself in using my name in the places that others embrace anonymity. I think your comment is based on the idea of social networking as a limiting factor, and that is not the purpose of this thread.
These are the tools that I use in my day. Essentially this could be a thread about screwdrivers or torque wrenches, but I am not a mechanic.
In fact, there is nothing as cool as spending time with Andy and Marcus, but I need to ensure that I have the threads of my day managed so I can focus on one thing at a time, as I believe that multi tasking is a myth.
December 17th, 2007 at 7:15 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
And what did Postman say?
December 17th, 2007 at 7:15 pm #
Andy Laub said:
I need a computer that I don’t have to wait for.
December 17th, 2007 at 9:09 pm #
erik said:
Postman’s most famous work was “Amusing Ourselves to Death” in which he argued that television was destroying society by making all forms of communication base level and requiring them to be entertaining. The passive way in which we in take television is one of his biggest beefs. Rather than actively interacting as with say a lecture or face to face conversation, we just veg out. He’s influenced pretty heavily by Marshall McLuhan who argued that the medium, not the content, is the most important part of any type of communication.
However, I think Barry might be missing the mark with his parallel to Postman when it comes to new media, especially in a Web 2.0 world. When we look at the internet today we see that user created content is the key to it’s success. Without interacting with the medium, we aren’t actually partaking of it. This is no different than video games, where the user is required to interact with the new media in order for it to even work. While television is indeed a very “warm” medium (a medium that requires little interaction), the use of the internet is mostly cold, it invited, really requires, the user the interact in order to function. While obviously still very different from a public forum or debate, many of the principles the same. When we look at many objects in new media, we see that even the language is barrowed for the metaphor: we have forums (web boards), we have conversations (instant messaging, gmail stores email as “conversations”).
I think to disregard new media simply because it has come after television is a grave mistake. While I do agree that television is a horrible medium (don’t tell my boss! :D ), just because we have a new technology afterward doesn’t mean it’s continuing the downward trend. This is not the feelies of Brave New World, this is the best example we have of Jürgen Habermas’ Public Sphere.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:54 am #
deepintheheart said:
The heady technology conversation above spurs me to create my own list. What is “new media?”
1) Lil’ Samsung cellphone. It receives calls and makes them when I push numbers into the keypad. Sometimes it also sends and receives text messages. I think it can also connect to the internet, but I don’t think I want to pay for that.
2) A black pen taken from the bar at the historic Menger Hotel in San Antonio. I no longer need to twist it to expose the inky part cause the tip fell off. It writes with black ink.
3) College ruled notebook accepted from some old folks as a “gift” while faxing from their print shop in Paris, TX. It has a calendar for last year printed on the upper left of each page.
4) Honda Accord sedan powered by a V6 engine and equipped with XM radio so I can listen to Opie and Anthony and Willy Nelson songs. It has black carpet, so if I drop my pen (see #2) sometimes it is hard to find while I am driving.
5) Calculator purloined from Market Street check out aisle that appears to have no power source. When you push a little button, this leg pops out of the back and it kinda sits up.
6) Apple iBook, purchased used for $500 in 2003
7) Cigarette lighter from Country Boy convenience store bearing some sort of skull logo and adorned with several beer bottle cap gouges on the tail end. It is made by BIC.
8) Zodiac Seadragon wristwatch. It smells like vanilla and people seem to like it cause it is green. If I twist the ring on the top it clicks and this works as a effective signal of my impatience.
I had no idea how technology driven my life really is.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:39 am #
erik said:
“4) Honda Accord sedan powered by a V6 engine and equipped with XM radio so I can listen to Opie and Anthony and Willy Nelson songs. It has black carpet, so if I drop my pen (see #2) sometimes it is hard to find while I am driving.”
This made me laugh.
New media is basically the academic term for digital media. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the big thing. Stuff most often cited as new media are blogs, wikis, video games, podcasting, etc.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm #
Barry Liss said:
Erik my friend,
I can sum up all this new media in 3 words HOT HOT HOT - all this new media is super non-participational - it’s hands off compared to the spoken word and the written word is almost always crippled when funneled through the newer media.
You can fetishize this stuff all you want. The reality is that it denotes a diminishment of the aesthetic dimension of communication.
Face-to-face interaction is ice cold, reading is icy cool. Playing a musical instrument is super cool. That’s why so few people can do these things anymore - they take effort.
Call me a curmudgeon.
Barry
December 18th, 2007 at 3:14 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
Barry, I do not see how it diminishes the aesthetic dimension at all. In fact I think it enables another layer of communication to exist where others had not in the past.
In my life, I used to have a phone in my apartment, and an answering machine, and when I was not there it answered. Then suddenly they came out with ones that can remote answer. Amazing. Then voicemail services, then pagers.
I find it amusing that as a communications professor your holding firm to ideas that existed before the cultural shift that has occurred in our lifetime. I would think that at a certain point it has to move forward.
Look at your curriculum models, moving classes online, MIT moving its entire catalog online to include notes and reading material, discussion groups that are enabled by these tools, students submitting papers electronically.
How does the curmudgeon answer those? We have a real point of adoption of the internet across the statistical boundaries of class and race and gender…these are tools that allow people to learn.
Children and adults are able to attend classes that did not exist before.
NTC has a big grant to provide podcast education to the kids in the Center for Students with Disabilities.
What would you have us choose instead?
What is the cost of embracing this new technology?
What do you think will be the impact?
December 18th, 2007 at 4:27 pm #
Barry Liss said:
No you fools, people are made of words. I am on that frontline bro - I am very aware of technological effects - the strengths and weaknesses in students of these technologies. I’ve taught distance ed classes. They don’t even come close to the experience of a solid face-to-face experience. Images are non-hierarchical - words are. You have to earn a book, a 7 year old or a 70 year old can watch American idol. Books involve patience - your new media seeks to please your immediate gratification at every turn. Eloquence is the outcome of the book culture. Efficiency is the outcome of the electronic culture.
You’re right - I can’t really stand up and lament the death of book culture and hope to win converts - so be it…but that aint going to stop me from trying. I offer you this warning - you are word creatures and the complexity in literacy can never be approximated by televisual means - images are iconic and analogic - words are abstractions of abstractions. Infinitely more complex. This effects how we talk in everyday life too - if someone is literate they have a more grounded lexicon - the concepts they use are wider with more scope and depth - they are enjoyable to listen to and interact with because they can fully rise to the symbolic occasion. Thus our experiences with them are meaningful and satisfying.
My wife wants me to make dinner.
Barry
December 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
But Barry, I am a word guy.
What is your feeling then about a device like The Kindle from Amazon dot com?
If you look at my list, it is not about eloquence, or interconnectedness, it is in fact about archiving and time management.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:26 am #
Barry Liss said:
Yeah, maybe you are surfing the technological wave my friend…
B
December 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm #
Tom Neal said:
I’ll chime in and try to explain what I “hear” in Barry’s words … and they reflect in large part some of my own feelings, but I can’t be sure that the “target” of my frustration is the same as Barry’s. First of all, it IS a frustration. It’s about my perception of the diminishment (not sure if that’s a word, and neither is my computer) of the art of language in personal discourse, and indeed, the perceived value of disciplined discourse itself. Maybe “art” is taking it too far. Maybe I’m just talking about the willingness to ponder openly and engage in a non-hurried interchange of concepts and opinions, and endeavoring to do so with clarity and eloquence and without arrogance. I experienced much of this sort of communication in my earlier years (high school, college) and maybe that gets to the gist of the matter: maybe at that age (which I’m far, far past) we’re more curious, disingenuous and accepting of alternatives and possibilities. Maybe it is a symptom of our later curmudgeonliness (another likely malapropism) that as we advance beyond the younger age of intellectual and philosophical exploration, too many of us become cemented, rigid, impatient, hopeless, cynical, and probably afraid … of rejection. So, does the abbreviated, lightspeed, ultra-gigabyte, gear-and-gadget, downloadable, LOL, :), wiki world we now live in detract from our humanity? Or does it define our humanity? Ask yourself: when was the last time you sat with a friend and considered, at leisure and without pretext, the nature of the spirit, the nature of the artistic temperament, the nature of nature? Who has time for that! Today, when something is seen as positive, it’s referred to almost exclusively as “amazing” or “awesome” (we don’t even break into the “B” words). People are now less apt to use other evocative words like “thrilling,” “invigorating,” “uplifting,” “overwhelming,” “heartening,” “wonderful” … why should they when “amazing” is good enough? As we abbreviate our language and our shared expression thereof, we abbreviate the value in our lives; we skim through our heritage, jog through the museum, surf past the heart, fly over a lush cultural landscape … and leave so much behind.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:20 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
I have time for that.
I did that last week with Pat Peckham.
I have time for that, I do that activity, and I read heavily.
I even am going to do a book report series here.
I spent my 20s almost exclusively reading poetry, and poets.
Ezra Pound and TS Eliot wrote about the sole task of humanity is to connect, that is all we are here for, that is simply what our soul is for. I believe that.
I think that places(are they places?) like myspace can in fact lead to a culture of shut ins, but I do not see that as what they are for. I think they are for meeting. Whether it be sexually or for a concert.
I see technology like a screwdriver. It does something for me. For me, my blackberry manages my calendar, so I am allowed to think about this, or HPV vacceines, or ways to intergrated Forum writers into this.
Hard drives collect information. That way I do not have to hold it, but can draw it open when I want. Allowing my brain freedom to talk about blues music, or The Black Keys, or pretty girls.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:27 pm #
Tom Neal said:
Well … you’re “amazing” .. after all. Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’d have to say, Dino, that I consider you outside the norm of my current experience.
You, of course, are completely correct in your views as stated. But does the speed of it all detract from your composure while composing? Is your locution as eloquent and rich as it might otherwise be? Do your thoughts have time to germinate and blossom? Or are you apt to hastily write, hit send and then reconsider in “fire, ready, aim” fashion? Are you now more short-changed and hyper-linky in your communications than you were in your poetic 20s? Just questions, not observations. And, not just directed at you; I also ask these questions of myself. But these are possible symptoms of the new media age. Today, technology brings everything closer; the world is a much smaller and more accessible place. And that is “amazing.” But I also remember several decades ago when the world was much, much larger and more mysterious, and that was kind of cool, too … even bewildering at times. Maybe, for every advance, there’s a price. Consider what was left behind when village/agrarian life was supplanted by urban/industrial life. That “new age” brought amazing changes with it, but much was plowed over in the process.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:59 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
You know that the size of the world has not changed? Right?
I am probably outside of the norm. I do see the tools used for different reasons that I think they were built. But that is okay.
Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right
Every tool is useless if you never pick it up
December 19th, 2007 at 3:11 pm #
Tom Neal said:
A little added anecdote:
My 15-year-old son approaches the computer hutch in the corner.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Checking to see if Danny’s home,” says he.
“Why?” I ask.
“I have to ask him a question about homework,” he replies.
“Why don’t you just call him?” I inquire.
“What? No way!” he retorts.
“We have a phone,” I say. “We pay to have one. It offers immediate, real-time voice contact. And it’s even cordless.”
“I’m not going to make a random phone call,” he protests as he sits down to “connect” with Danny.
Clearly, I am out of my mind and out of touch with reality.
My 12-year-old daughter will sit and text for hours with friends (perhaps tempting early-onset carpal tunnel syndrome), whereas in days gone by, such girls would gab at length on a land-line vocal telecommunications device. How outmoded is that! “As if!”
How much of new media gadgetry is life-enhancing and how much of it is simply transient love of gadgetry? Not for me to say.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:19 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
It is for you to say.
What do you have to say?
December 19th, 2007 at 3:24 pm #
Tom Neal said:
I don’t know; I’m too out of the loop. More for you to say than me.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:30 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
What do you think Tom? That is the essence of this website, the entire purpose for it is to do just that, to hear what you think.
I will leave you with this…
http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/thegreatdebaters/trailer1/
December 19th, 2007 at 3:34 pm #
Tom Neal said:
Well, mister Dino, I’ve spilled a passel of thoughts in this present thread, and posited a number of questions, not all of them altogether rhetorical. I started it in consideration of Barry’s post that seemed to address the possible clash between the gadgetocracy and the human element. This is all wonderful stuff to talk about, and even more wonderful to mull. As to what I “think” … I did say this:
“As we abbreviate our language and our shared expression thereof, we abbreviate the value in our lives; we skim through our heritage, jog through the museum, surf past the heart, fly over a lush cultural landscape … and leave so much behind.”
In the amazing new media environments, I’ve witnessed much verbal “shorthand;” much deterioration of basic grammar, punctuation and simple spelling; a pervasive dumbing down of delivery style, with a resultant dearth of idiomatic sensibilities. Dino, you referenced the concept of “tool” in regard to gear. We can also reference language as a tool. But, even deeper, is the question of the effectiveness of the language tool. Do we employ a deft, finely honed, precision tool in the craft work of communication or do we slug away with a ponderous mallet to tackle every job? I think Barry has too often suffered the slings and mallets of outrageous discourse and lays more than a little of the blame on our materialistic, onanistic life choices. What do you think?
December 19th, 2007 at 4:12 pm #
erik said:
This debate has gotten up and ran far, far away from where I was so I’ll bow out and allow it to continue. But I will say that I beleive Barry is very erronous is calling new meida “HOT HOT HOT.”
McLuhan’s old ideas of the more electronic it gets, the more hot it is has gone out the window with the advent of Web 2.0. Hell, I’d argue it went out the window back in 1961 when two MIT students made Spacewar. User defined worlds, interactive media and the internet age have paved the way for a new way of thinking.
An instant message conversation may not be as cold as a face-to-face conversation, but it’s far colder than a preacher sitting on a pulpit that decrees without asking for, or even accepting, feedback from his audience. I agree with a lot of McLuhan to be sure, but to say that as something goes from the spoken word to electronic it gets hotter just isn’t true anymore. In fact, it may never have been when Understanding Media was written.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:45 pm #
Barry Liss said:
Sorry Erik, you have confused the hot-cool distinction.
Here’s a link to my notes from McLuhan’s chapter…
http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/communication_arts/barry/media_hot_cold.htm
The hot-cool polarity has to do with what the media require of the social actor. Face to face interaction demands homage to the verbal and nonverbal dimensions that your new media don’t. Put differently - do you really want to argue that your Web 2.0 girlfriend is as cool as the real thing?
I am excited though that you are at least mentioning Postman and McLuhan. Here’s a link to my freak page if you want to talk about any of the concepts via the authors’ actual ideas.
http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/communication_arts/barry/research.htm
take it easy, Barry
December 19th, 2007 at 7:36 pm #
Barry Liss said:
Dino - beware the technology…it will lull you into a sense of complacent comfort, become your master and then fail you.
Neal - you seem to grasp the heart of the dilemma and have shaped your life in a very cool, participational artful fashion. To a fellow aesthete it’s obvious and heart-warming.
cheers, Barry
December 19th, 2007 at 7:41 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
So I will confess that I have not read McLuhan or Postman. But how much of this is in fact what I bring to this experience? What this does for me?
I mean at the end of this, you make assumptions, and place discussion on the thread that it in fact had nothing to do with.
If the advent of Spacewar, or the imposed worlds incident was the beginning of this, I challenge you to say that is it not the birth of the narrative that infact changed this totally.
What is the differance in any narrative expression of concrete wordplay?
In college, I sought to abstract language, to write without meaning. To completely tear it away, and to make the line in fact the dream state that is non linear and in fact abstract. I worked hard, hard, hard on it.
I do not fear the technology Barry, and it will not fail me. The technology is in fact a toy, my mind and the power that I seek to foster in my imagination is the thing in fact.
I am working on a post as we speak in regards to this very topic entitled “I live my life outloud”. It is about life lessons I have learned this year. Life lessons through this process, and the process of speaking.
Tom,
“As we abbreviate our language and our shared expression thereof, we abbreviate the value in our lives; we skim through our heritage, jog through the museum, surf past the heart, fly over a lush cultural landscape … and leave so much behind.”
Is that the case? Do I lose words when I add new words and life experiences? If I jog through the museum does it not mean that I am running somewhere, and by that am I not running somewhere that is of value to me?
Is it not the very thing that you do not want me to think, the thing that you have cautioned against, my limiting my thinking? If I have an experience that is not in the pantheon of the museum or the theatre, but in fact I find something in my xbox or in my journal, or in a bookstore that is of value, at what point does that become the same as the museum in the metaphor?
These discussions have no base for me in any cultural landscape, because those are trees that I do not prune, and you know that. The simple fact is, what moves us, what connects us, is intrinsic to each of us. It is rooted in the time, and the place.
To impose that sort of static idea that seems to be echoed in this thread is a limiting of the very rotation of this planet, and the changing of time.
Your question about the deft communication, is relevant only in that it reflects exactly what this blog or forum has enabled. I, personally, find words to be the very thing that limits me, and in that limit I find the hammer that I want. The words are not a tool, the words are in fact a rock to strike against.
But in a traditional, less personal, way of looking at it, do we not constantly add to the lexicon, and remove from the lexicon?
December 20th, 2007 at 1:17 am #
Barry Liss said:
“I mean at the end of this, you make assumptions, and place discussion on the thread that it in fact had nothing to do with.”
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this Dino? Perhaps it’s not as offensive as it seems to be.
Barry
December 20th, 2007 at 6:45 am #
Dino Corvino said:
Never mind Barry. It doesnt matter.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:04 am #
Tom Neal said:
As is usually the case, one thought leads to another. A post about gear leads to comments about life and interpersoanl communication. I found the views expressed by all to be valid and evocative. Nice that there was no degradation into an exchange about the war or the separation of church and state. There are numerous wonderful passages contained in this thread; there’s value in going back and reviewing it to extract the gems. I must be off for last-minute errands; a wonderful holiday season to all!
December 22nd, 2007 at 8:49 am #
Barry Liss said:
At least Rob Mentzter is reading:
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/includes/newspaper/blogs/mentzer/index.shtml
But I am just heartbroken that he thinks I am boring. How can I go on?
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm #
robertmentzer said:
I am sort of heartbroken that you can’t spell my name, Barry. But I will be okay.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm #
Barry Liss said:
It was a typo - please accept my most humble apologies…
Barry
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:58 pm #
robertmentzer said:
No problem. Sorry I said you were boring. On substance, count me as sympathetic to Erik’s view that the Web is post-McLuhan.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:03 pm #
Barry Liss said:
I’m less boring in person…
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
So today I spent a good chunk of my recreational reading time working through McLuhan, and my thinking is that at the end of the day he said that Medium is Message. I think I read that somewhere.
But, is the eye glasses through with he saw the world vastly changed. Should we take this scholarly work, and not move beyond it as the world has changed?
Did he forsee this world? Orwell saw a world that never happened.
“Funky fresh dress to impress and ready to party”
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm #
Barry Liss said:
Dino - that’s beautiful man - McLuhan came at the issue via what the ancients called the Sensorium - any new medium (technology) alters our 5 senses in some way - McLuhan’s idea was to somehow try to surf the technological wave - everyone is still trying to figure out his stuff because he wrote in figurative probes…
As for Orwell - that dude was so freakin smart - he predicted our current propensity to torture, wiretap, datamine - the hold on the body via pain…most people contrast Orwell and Huxley but the reality seems to be that we go lulled into a sense of complacency and that gets us nice and ready for a fascistic form of regulation.
take it easy, Barry
December 24th, 2007 at 6:21 am #
Dino Corvino said:
I did not read Sensorium. Or about it.
But I have a pile yet to read.
December 24th, 2007 at 11:24 am #