Take Me to Your Leader (I’m sorry, she’s off on Friday)

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I find it interesting that before modern electronic communications, we had the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, Homer. Now, well.. yes. I feel I need to apologize to someone.

I was thinking about this ever as I dig a bit deeper into Calculating God.

Many other stories have aliens observing humans without direct contact, and many of them have mentioned (after an establishment of relations) that such observation was done through radio and television broadcasts eminating from Earth, much like from one of my first and favorite Sci-Fi movies as a kid, Explorers, and of course the granddaddy of them all, Contact (the book is better).

In Calculating God, the visiting alien justifies her first contact because she has reached the limit from what could be gleamed from broadcast, and waxes sorrowfully that she knows far too much of the trivialities that are so very much human,

He paused for a moment. “As you have probably gathered by this point, my colleagues and I have observed your Earth for some time—enough to absorb your principal languages and to make a study of your various cultures from your television and radio. It has been a frustrating process. I know more about your popular music and food-preparation technology than I ever cared to—although I am intrigued by the Popeil Automatic Pasta Maker. I have also seen enough sporting events to last me a lifetime. But information on scientific matters has been very hard to find; you devote little bandwidth to detailed discussions in these areas. I feel as though I know a disproportionate amount about some specific topics and nothing at all about others.” He paused. “There is information we simply cannot acquire on our own by listening in to your media or through our own secret visits to your planet’s surface. This is particularly true about scarce items, such as fossils.”

So that just begs the question: what is humanity telling to the rest of the universe? And, to turn it around like an Alfred Eiesenstadt photograph, what are we telling ourselves? Is it that as we get both closer to each other and more advanced technologically, we give up on the promise that is true computer networking–that of human minds, working together in a perfect synthesis to create things spectacular–for the sake of, well, mere fun?

The Trinity (otherwise known as the perfect analogy of a computer network) creates the space-time-contiuum in six days, we, after 50 years of the internet, create a catchy tune to remember the days of the week.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Aliens, Part 2 (Evolutionary Brethren)

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Started reading a new book while taking a break from everything on Thanksgiving, Calculating God.

But as the first contact between alien and human unfolds very interestingly in some random Canadian museum, an evolutionary pondering erupted in my mind forcing me to put the book down and, well, ponder.

Considering from what we know of the evolutionary theory (or, for that matter, what I know of it), would it be possible for multiple intelligent species to evolve contemporaneously on the same planet? Yes, many believe this is very much happening on a more cosmological scale of the universe, but what about on the same celestial body with one another at the same time?

More pragmatically, what if humanity had little and older brothers growing up?

Indeed, what if it happened here on Earth? Because we humans, with our history of prejudice, arrogance and outright penchant for evil, would definitely bring the drama by the bloody, gory bucket full to the table. Can you imagine if, perhaps, humans had such an evolutionary dance partner that could have been more like, say, Vulcans with their methodological love of reason and logic? Or what about Neanderthals? Or the Nephelium of the antediluvian era? Would we have killed-off or enslaved a “lesser” species, or would we be the receipient of such subjugation from a “superior” one?

Some would posit, for sure, that angels and/or demons would fit this bill quite well (Jesus was murdered, after all), and having that supposition in the light of evolution seems mighty interesting, too. I think I remember a passage from the epic Left Behind series where the Antichrist uses that very idea to, quite literally, rally the troops for Armageddon–that God/Jesus are just highly evolved beings that beat Satan to the punch.

I guess the bottom line is if ET is real, the greatest question will be if they grew up as an only child, too, and acts as spoiled rotten as we do.

R.I.P. AT&T-Mobile

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I’m ecstatic that AT&T is throwing in the towel. Buying your way to the top without growing there organically is so Google (<cough>Android<cough>). To put in context, AT&T is the jilted Winkelvoss twins trying to buy T-Mobile (and the hot girl doing their ads) just to increase it’s chances of being crowned prom king, snatching it away from the front-runner Verizon. Which is futile, because Verizon is the nerd everyone loves as it just plugs along focusing on a decent, reliable, kick-ass network. Verizon is the cool geek that does everyone’s homework. Even their mascot, the “Can you hear me now?” guy is nerdy-cool. Of course he’ll get voted in. AT&T doesn’t even have a mascot; I had to graft in the Winkelvii.

I ditched AT&T earlier this year for two reasons. First, their network for all intents and purposes sucked. Secondly, yes, they were the first to have the iPhone, but the rest of their collection sucked as much as their network. Wanting a decent Windows Phone, I snagged with T-Mobile perhaps the best buy-one-get-two-free deal in the cell phone universe by getting the phone I wanted, along with a better price for more minutes and customer service that actually answers the phone when you call (imagine that!). Plus that girl is hot. Did I mention that yet?

So there remains the Big Four of telecom–AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Four is not the most ideal, but it’s a healthy number for competition. Though T-Mobile doesn’t have the iPhone yet, three do, and all have Android and Windows Phone, which means there is a healthy diversification of the three largest mobile operating systems. All providers have their core competencies of price (T-Mobile), reliability (Verizon), unlimited bandwidth (Sprint) and, well, AT&T doesn’t really bring much to the party. And now they’re $4 billion poorer for trying to buy a girl to bring to the prom.

Maybe the Winkelvii, also famous loser wannabes of multi-billion dolar companies, would be fitting for a AT&T mascot afterall.

The Future: Idiocracy, or Star Trek?

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I came across this new gadget, a laser that creates a keyboard on any surface for your iPad (or any other bluetooth enabled device).

In the video that demonstrates the product (I admit, it’s pretty cool, even though the technology has been around for a while) what’s typed on the iPad is funny, yes, but kind of haunting from a societal perspective, “It’s the most fun with lasers you can have without a cat.”

Maybe it’s because I just saw the viral pic about the relationship between the cassette tape and pencil that made me worry.

The thing is–the cool, nerdy technology that is become more and more proliferated, is it being used for its fullest potential? Or are we just using it to amuse ourselves? YouTube is the greatest evidence of crowdsourcing, but how many cat videos can there really be? Yes, I know, laser pointers used more for cats being a concern isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s the overall worry that as technology becomes more and more sophisticated and widely available it will have unforseen effects on society as a whole. Like, will our penchant for entertainment win out over productivity and intellectual advancement?

The greatest example I can think of is the degradation of grammar with teens who have always grown up with texting on phones or instant messaging on their computer. Before, abbreviations and other grammatical tricks was somewhat needed, especially texting on cell phones because it used to cost per each text before unlimited plans became the norm. But now, even with spell check built-in to many smart phones there really is no reason for bad grammar and spelling. But it persists. Even I do it.

The other is how “lol” has lost its true meaning. Do people really laugh out loud when they say that anymore?

Maybe I’m just getting old, the stereotypical crusty curmudgeon talking about the old days, but if I’m 30 and already acting like I’m 70, that says something. Each succeeding generation has stopped rising on a linear curve and is now accelerating faster on one that is exponential. Has that ever really happened in human history, where technology and the social effects of its growth has happened so much, so quickly, that before it can soak in it is replaced by a brand new technological paradigm? I’ve seen the beginning and end of VHS, Laserdisc and, as some say, the CD. In 30 years. How long was the horse-drawn carraige around before Henry Ford had a better idea? Thousands of years.

Thankfully, or ironically, I’ll get to see the answer to all my questions, and then some. One of the other, more benign affects of incraesing technology is increased lifespan, after all. But with all my additional years that Joe Caveman and even Henry Ford couldn’t have, I’m just wondering if maybe, sadly, the future will look more like Idiocracy than Star Trek.

Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.

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I know it’s been a done deal for a while, but I’m still caught every now and then: the Space Shuttle no more. The United States of America no longer has an independently- manned presence in space. In fact, Russia will now be the exclusive carrier of all American astronauts to the International Space Station. Ironic? Yes. Sad? No.

But wait, what did John F. Kennedy say in that oh-so-awesome speech?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon… (interrupted by applause) we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. (via Wikisource, emphasis mine)

Many will belittle and belabor, with high patriotic flair, the President’s decision to end the Space Shuttle program as an abortion of national pride. But the truth of the matter is that the Space Shuttle was becoming our version of the Mir. I’m not saying the Columbia disaster happened because we had Soviet-style inefficiencies and incompetence, but the Space Shuttle program was using computers that my tiny, cheap Windows Phone could handle. In sleep mode. It isn’t that we got soft, but it’s that we can do better, and do it more safely and cheaply. And we will. NASA is just going through what GM, et al., have gone through against the competition of cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars.

It’s just that in this scenario, there is no space-born Toyota or Honda. It was one of the reasons why we kept with the ancient shuttle. There was no more competition. No more need to out-innovate or out-race, no reason to, as Kennedy said, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

Simply put, it’s hard to do something we don’t think we have to.

We, as a nation, ended the Space Shuttle program because it was too easy, and are taking upon ourselves something that is monumentally hard both in ego, and in accomplishment (do you know how hard it is to land on an asteroid with more than one rotational axis?). It’s time to win “those others” that Kennedy mentioned.

How do we do that? Kennedy mentioned in his speech of a decision to switch to “high gear.” I see we are doing nothing less. It’s time to switch gears again. We’re moving from the ease of safe, easy low-orbit missions to the hard, non-easy adventures of going farther and further beyond on more difficult stretches of road.

I for one can’t wait to see our new ride.

Bibliography (The Message is Irony)

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I’ve always wondered about singers and artists who write songs about a fictional love. Who are they writing it to? Is it the ideal instance that the song describes, or as I listen to more and more of Kesha’s self-aggrandizing-drunk-party-girl-empowerment lyrics, a carefully researched machination to elicit from a target demographic a need to buy that particular album? (read Josie and the Pussycats)

I picked up an old book I haven’t read in a while, The Oxford Book of English Verse. One poem by Thomas Parnell caught me wondering, titled Song:

When thy beauty appears
In its graces and airs
All bright as an angel new dropp’d from the sky,
At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears:
So strangely you dazzle my eye!

But when without art
Your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes through every vein;
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your heart,
Then I know you’re a woman again. 

There’s a passion and pride
In your sex (she replied),
And thus, might I gratify both, I would do:
Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
But still be a woman to you.

After the obvious reaction of, “Why don’t musicians write like this anymore?” was another wonderment: how has poetry and prose describing love changed over the epochs of human communication, from the genesis of the alphabet, the printing press, and the cataclysm that is the internet?

More specifically, have we reached a point that real love no longer creates the song, but the song creates not only the longing for love, but shapes the expectation of it? And would love be the only casuality to this sad predicament, but also, say, success, contentment and life itself, where all of media shape the lives of those who devote more and more of their time and money to it’s consumption? Another movie, The Joneses come to mind. Also, what Marshall Mcluhan said: “the ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.”

Case in point, a story I heard about a while ago, where a girl is contemplating suicide because she found out she was 10 pounds heavier than Justin Bieber and, according to her logic, would never have a chance of dating him.

What happens when fiction is the guidepost for reality? Much more, what happens when that fiction is filled by the toxic smoke from the fire it stokes within us? How many kids today base their perspectives on what they see on Jersey Shore, or like I did when I was younger, on The Real World? (Side note: ever since moving to Seattle, I’ve been trying mightily to find the Seattle season, to no avail. Sad.)

There seems to be a trend line throughout the human evolution of language, literature and communication, and it’s direction is somewhat disturbing.

Once again I find myself strongly thinking that yet another movie, Idiocracy, is really not so much a faux documentary and more outright prophecy. And it’s really kinda funny that with all these movies, it’s as if the one feeding us that “juicy piece of meat” is doing so with a wink and a smile, much like an advertisement for cigarrettes has a subject looking like a twin brother to John Wayne next to a health warning about cancer.

Indeed, Marshall McLuhan had it right again: the medium is the message, and the message is irony.

Teamwork

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In the afterglow of Steve Job’s death, I’ve been caught in wonderment in how so many choose to remember him. It’s as if he’s not just a technological savior, but a creator, an ancient Greek good of technology reincarnated, bestowing gifts unto humanity, all the digital wonders by which we have been transfixed. He, alone, it seems to go. No mention of Johnathan Ive or the other countless thousands of Apple engineers that have contributed to the excellence of the Apple product line. Was Steve Jobs really that titular to deserve such singular and exclusive adoration, even worship?

As I’m finishing a documentary on the reunification of Germany right now, After the Wall: A World United, I was caught thinking maybe the same thing about Helmut Kohl. A snippet of him was given as he was drinking to the final reunification, after a whirlwind of circumstance and negotiation where he, himself, said that would it take five to ten years which, in the end, was less than one. “Finally, he had accomplished all he wanted, the reunification of Germany,” the narrator bequeathed. Did he singularly, much like many claims Jobs have done in many things, reunify Germany?

Obviously this leads to the idea of more of a systematic pattern across human history–our penchant for elevating single people in a quasi-godly, and very much idolatrous way above others. Sports teams may be different (which reminds me of a NPR story by Frank Deford who pretty much says we’re all whores for team sports), in a way, but we’re bound to know the stars of teams more than each individual, save for the rampant sports enthusiast.

So what does this mean? Why does humanity become fixated on individual people instead of a group? It’s to the point we do have teams, but teams for single people (Team Jacob, anyone?). What if we did, indeed, have not just the ability, but the proclivity of recognizing teamwork and the dynamics of collaboration instead of the typical, go-it-alone Jack Bauer/Chuck Norris/Ronald Reagan hero?

Teamwork makes a dream work, as they say.

But really, where my thoughts have led me is this: does that fixation on individual people reveal our spiritual predisposition of our need, and purpose, to worship g/God, who is manifested primarily in monotheistic religions today? Or is it just a predisposition that is more genetic or evolutionary, since we tend to have just one spouse/significant other at a time, so it just bleeds through in society?

But maybe the most important question is this: as it seems healthy to have just one (or a few) close loved ones, will it be dangerous for us as a society to extrapolate that outwards as we cheer on contestants on American Idol, vote for the best living reincarnation of Ronald Reagan, or take an hour of our day to know where Lebron James is going to be living next?

…where, meanwhile, there’s things like Africa. The Global Financial Crisis (or whatever the new term is). Poverty. Things where there is no single idol, just numerous individual victims.

Teamwork makes a dream work. But what does “individual”work make?

As I once heard it say by my favorite spiritual/technological author, Shane Hipps, it makes a “tribe of individuals.”

So’s Your (Type)Face

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I, for one, loath the very existence of the Comic Sans typeface. Appanrently the Department of Defense doesn’t.

What’s so wrong with Comic Sans, though? And why do typefaces engender a personality?

To answer the former, honestly, there isn’t anything wrong with it. It’s just how it’s used, like in the above article, in a presentation for the organization that has the power to wipe out every living being on the face of the planet multiple times over. It’s like seeing Hitler sing “I’m a little tea-cup.”

But that last question has always befuddled me, especialy learning to read by the roadside signs my parents quizzed me about as a kid. Why do we particulary use a font for one thing, and another for something else in the same piece? Is the purpose purely for aesthetics, to highlight a certain word and engender a particular feeling or thought, or is it simply because we’re so freaking creative as a people?

Of course, it’s all the above. But I’m just still lost in wonder that of all the different species of animals in this world, we are the only ones that have so many different ways of saying the same thing a trillion times over.

Just, dear God, not in Comic Sans.

I have seen the future, and it’s lol

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How will the proliferation of social media effect the evolution of language? Like, say, the hashtag?

Just now I posted a simple musing on Facebook. I realized that if it were Twitter, like a few of my friends who cross-post between the two, I would include a hashtag. One I see a lot is one I find particularly relevant in America, #firstworldproblems.

We’ve seen this every year when the various committees who control dictionaries select new words, mostly from technology. But what about longer periods usually seen in more scientific realms, like evolution? Since modern-day technology will either be with us for a while (lest of course, aliens, the apocalypse or some other fun worldwide tragedy) or as it will no doubt, increase dramatically, will the (over)use of hashtags, text-slang (is that the term?) or emoticons find a lasting presence in human language like so many other ones in the past?

In Rome, there were no spaces. For the Hebrews, there were no vowels. Will we be a similar footnote in some distant future where the absence of a smiley or a number sign be as ostentatious as truly runaway sentences or the absence of a, e, o, u, i and sometimes y?

If on Wheel of Fortune you have to buy a vowel, in the 30th century would you buy a smiley?

As usual, when thinking deep and long about a practical question, it’s usually the wrong initial question. Perhaps that more fitting pondering is this: with which new medium of communication will we be using far into the future? Will, perhaps, symbolic language itself be the ancient concept?

I believe that Moore’s Law and Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law will continue to dazzle each new generation, and, as it has in the past, within generations (like my Windows Phone being more powerful than the computers in the now obsolete Space Shuttle). So, will it be me or my children who will be at that awesome place where we’ll simply be reading each other’s thoughts and marveling at an ancient and elementary need of converting static, cumbersome symbols on a page or screen? Will some–like those of us who know Morse code or have a Ham radio–get together and quote Shakespeare, Knock Knock Jokes or, the greatest of them all, puns?

It could happen. It is happening. Look at the decline in penmanship in this generation vis-a-vis those of our grandparents. Or the fact that when people type ‘lol’ they very rarely do so.

And not just that, phones will now automatically convert an old-school smiley, :) , into a graphic, :) . Is this evolution? It may not seem so, but I think it is. Let me explain. (The fact that WordPress will not allow me to actually type an ASCII smiley should say it by itself).

Emoticons, like smilies, are themselves symbols of expressions where it is impossible to do so in reality, like in IM or a chat room. But now, the technology that conceived them is translitterating them into a whole no dimension where there is no longer a need. Where, before, a simple :) or ;) or lol would suffice, we can now, via video chat or FaceTime actually smile, wink or laugh outloud. We can now do everything we could in real life conversation except touch or smell (for now, I should say). But those initial symbols, like :) , exists and are changing, and like lol, is no longer the same as it’s original intention. Or needed for that matter. In fact, with now animated emoticons abounding, a whole new species has evolved.

So, with that said, in the words of Pearl Jam, let’s all do the evolution.

lol.

;)

Connections

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When I was younger, like a lot my age then, I watched a good deal of TV. However it was more TLC and the Discovery Channel than Disney or those smarky After School Specials. Home improvement type shows, like Bob Vila and Hometime were my personal favorite. However, there was one particular show that I watched not that often, usually stumbling upon it while waiting for the commercials of another program to be over. It wasn’t until recently after downloading it from the interwebz that I realized it had a profound impact on the way I think, reason, and for the most part, wonder about life and all that is in it.

The show? Connections², with James Burke.

To my astonishment, I didn’t realize that it was a second iteration of three, one in the late 70′s, the one I knew in the late 80′s, and a new one in the 90′s. All the more to watch and in which to be lost in wonder, all over again.

As I’m going through each episode waiting for that great moment of de ja vu where I get to remember watching it 15 years ago, I’m amazed at how media, when we’re younger, can influence the way we think, and really the way we are.

In Connections series, James Burke takes an interconnected view in how scientific invention and ingenuity relate to each other throughout the long view of history. A light switch is connected to someone getting a cold in the 17th century, or a helicopter came about because someone a hundred years ago stubbed his toe (none of which are true, by the way, but you get the picture.) Here’s a better example:

Is this one of the reasons why my brain salivates at the minute, analytical and granular detail of each vein on each leaf on each tree in the marvelous forest of the universe? I’m not quite sure, but one thing I do know for sure is I am absolutely thankful that as much TV I watched as a child, I was blessed enough to be attracted to more meaningful programming as much as I was shows like Inspector Gadget, and later, sadly, The Real World.

So the question is, with children now growing up with the same panoply of informational programming on TV but, also, the insane amount of education that can be on the Internet, how will the neural pathways be wired for them? Especially with the concept of Xbox LIVE, where you can sit on your couch and play Halo with people across the world? Or we can not just text and IM each other, but pretty much for free video chat with each other regardless of time, distance or language (and on our phones while we wait for a movie, at that!)?

Simply put, how will our children, or their children for that matter, think with the insane amount of interconnectivity they have now growing up? From the silliness of YouTube or the acceptable voyeurism of TMZ and celebrity gossip, to knowing about an earthquake, bombing or revolution in real-time across the world, will they get wrapped up in the minutia of daily happenings at the expense of learning from the past, or even more, dreaming of the future? Or even care, not when there’s that fight on Jersey Shore last night?

I’m worried that as life and technology grow exponentially, five years will go by with as much change that would take 20 in my generation, or 50 in my parent’s generation. Will we get existentially near- or far-sighted? How will this affect our conceptualization or critical thinking when we can’t fathom a world without cell phones while our grandparents couldn’t fathom a world with them in the first place?

Only one way to find out, I guess.

To me, I’m thankful that somehow I got to live at this hinge of history, where I’m at the elbow of the great exponential curve, where I get to see the long, shallow slope of hundreds of generations in the past to where I am, and the great, high wall into the heavens where it appears we are going within the generation after me.

What a view. What a view indeed.