[alt-photo] Re: how to be wrong GLOBALLY !

[sam wang]

Judy,

I remember the Stoller book very well, and actually had my dean read it to
convince him NOT to spend the money that the computer support folks wanted
us to spend. Eric Stoller was a folk hero at the time, especially right
after the PBS documentary on how he caught the overseas hacker when to most
"hacking" was a foreign term and concept. But that was a heck of a long time
ago, about the time that a colleague in Kentucky told me he wasted $10K on
an IBM system and couldn't do a thing with it in graphics!

When Clnton and Gore pushed for the Information Super-highway, the Net was
so slow as to be painful to use, and there were pitifully few people I knew
who used email. I was even ridiculed by colleagues for "wasting time" with
computers. So we can't really blame Stoller. He was simply, to borrow a
remark, "no Steve Jobs". Few can be right through such tumultuous changes.

Sam Wang

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 5:08 AM, Judy Seigel <jseigel at panix.com> wrote:

>
> Speaking of false prophets of the modern age, Chris... I'll see you and
> raise you on the sneers about digital...
>
> Somewhere in our house (put away so carefully I'll never find it until I
> stumble over it looking for something else) I have a book that was a best
> seller some 15 or 20 years ago:  "Silicon Snake Oil" by Eric Stoll.  It's an
> "expose'" of the Internet in general, and how it isolates people, sitting
> alone with their keyboards, without human connection or live friendships.
>  At the end of the book he throws it all out, pulls all the plugs... and
> heads back to the *human* world.
>
> I think of this "wisdom" again & again and again, every time some new/old
> friend from "the list" drops by, every time there's mention of meet-ups and
> tutorials and conferences of listers, and the continuing expansion of other
> activities -- feuds, fun, romance (oh let it be !!), classes, projects,
> conferences, shows, and in more ways than we can count, ongoing myriad
> "list" friendships... Surely, if we bumped into someone from "the list" in,
> say, a Florida photo gallery -- we'd feel instant connection (even if it
> was, um, not even a gum printer !!!)...
>
> As someone we all know & admire would put it...
>
> heh heh heh heh heh....
>
> PS. Speaking of "blabbing secrets," Chris -- I doubt that a *real* artist
> would depend on a "secret process."  In fact, wouldn't it show how superior
> they really are if other folks do it and it's NOT so special (like how many
> x, y & z prints are really a great big bore ?)
>
> Judy
>
>
>