The Machine Stops

"Beware of first- hand ideas!" exclaimed one of the most advanced of [the lecturers]. "First-hand ideas do not really exist. ... Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation." -- E.M. Forester, "The Machine Stops" That short story, published in 1909 in the Saturday Evening Post still vibrates with erie echoes of a future accurately predicted. http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html to read the whole story. As I now read Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains" it's easy to write myself off as a luddite, but it's more complex than that. An English instructor once told our class that he'd read "A Tale Of Two Cities" under the covers with a flashlight when he was seven. I remember reading Jane Eyere at aged nine. But today, I can't hardly absorb anything with long descriptive paragraphs. Today I am as impatient as Vashti, the main character in the Forester story who waits fifteen seconds for her son to speak with her long-distance. "I really believe you enjoy dawdling.", she tells him. I'm unsure whether my increased ability to rapidly shift attention from one task to the next is a plus. In "The Shallows" Carr spends several chapters analyzing how the internet was not the first paradigm shift that adjusted the way we work with time and attention. In analyzing the spread of literacy, he discusses both the gains and losses of the vanishing oral tradition. I've always been fascinated by the ways in which the train changed rural America, and how the car drove the new culture even more. It's too easy to think either that enhanced multi-tasking is bringing us greater intelligence or that a more superficial view is turning minds to mush. What really got me was joining Twitter and reading through what were mostly retweets; people passing on information that I might, but probably do not find interesting. It reminds me of Vashti, always in search of original ideas, while simultaneously abhoring their creation.

Unable to Access Google from Cisco

Cisco Systems is a business park complex in itself, a sprawling multiplicity of buildings on Tasman avenue. 

It's also on my paratransit route home; we frequently pick up workers in wheelchairs there.

It's my afternoon commute, and here I am in a Cisco parking lot waiting for my driver to locate our next passenger, load him and strap his scooter down. 

And would you believe it; there are forty-nine -- count em, forty-nine active wi-fi access points. Most of course are locked, but a few have an SSID of
"Welcome Guest" or something similar. 

Being an enforced guest on the Cisco campus rather regularly, there DHCP servers have seen my little laptop before. But today, the famous router company
seems to be blocking all access to google. Is this an April fools thing I wonder! 

The Beta Version of My Ebay

Tonight, when trying to pay for a won item, I noticed that Ebay has a beta version of My Ebay, which is only marginally accessible. When I selected the "Buy Now" link, nothing happened that JAWS could discern. I was able to "opt out" of the beta version, and as soon as ebay reverted back to the original My Ebay screen, the Buy Now link worked as expected.
Paypal was behaving a little funky as well. It insisted that I add a new funding source, and when I provided details for my old, tried-and-true credit card, it kept complaining that I needed to use the "update" button instead of the choice to add a new card. But it only offered the choice to add a new card.
At this point, I summoned my sighted husband, who verified that there was no update button. He didn't even get grumppy about me spending over $100 on a Braille Lite -- wht a sweet guy!