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

[Diana Bloomfield]

Though it sounds like he was somewhat correct in that the internet  
does seem, at once, to pull people together (on a global scale,  
really) and also isolate us.  I sometimes feel I go for days without  
actually talking to anybody-- you know, face-to-face.  The sad part  
is, I don't think I really care.  Now that can't be good, can it?  And  
how many people actually use a home phone anymore?  The only calls I  
get on it are solicitations, recordings, and reminders of doctor and  
haircut appts.  I'm shocked when somebody "real" calls me.

I do remember that the first home computer we ever purchased, we saw  
it advertised in the newspaper and had to drive to TN to pick it up.   
No one in NC even sold them.

Diana

On Apr 28, 2010, at 10:39 PM, sam wang wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>>
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