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Archive for the ‘Hi Tech’ Category

Thanks, THanx

Posted in Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , on 19 Aug 2014| 1 Comment »

Ribbon vibrator. Platen roller. Type bar. Paper finger. Guide pointer.

Know what I’m talking about?

Smith-Corona. Remington. Underwood. Royal.

With me now?

I’m talking about typewriters. Manual typewriters. Old-fashioned, heavy, noisy, mechanical machines driven by the power of your fingers. Yes, those lovely old clackety-clack behemoths that used to be ubiquitous but now only exist as props in crime novels and on the “collectible” sections of eBay.

If you’re old (like me), you either love them or hate them. Otherwise, you may never have even seen one of these miracles of low-tech machinery, much less experienced the aching hands that come from a long session of literally “pounding the keyboard.”

I happen to love these old machines. As it turns out, so does Tom Hanks.

(more…)

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Tango with the Tiger

Posted in Books, Hi Tech, tagged , , , , on 24 Jul 2014| Leave a Comment »

NikeLast weekend, the Seattle Times ran two opposing op-eds on the Amazon/Hachette contretemps. Frank Schaeffer wrote in favor of Amazon, while Nina Laden countered in favor of Hachette, creating a “debate” of sorts. I put “debate” in quotes because, from a purely debating standpoint, it was no contest.

Unfortunately, both pieces missed the main point.

(more…)

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Resurfacing

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 03 Jul 2014| 3 Comments »

 

Simple Living

One evening, when I was courting my wife-to-be, we were at my place when the phone rang. Since we were talking, I ignored the phone. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Nope. If it was important, they’d call back (I didn’t have an answering machine). This was my relationship with technology in those days. Technology was my servant, not the reverse.

Well, sometime during the last three decades, that has changed, so I’m just now coming off a full week of an “internet fast.”

Overall, I am surprised at how easy it was. I stuck to my “going dark” guidelines so successfully that when I tried to go back online, I found that all my little electronic connectimoids needed to be charged up. The computer, the tablet, even the smartphone had gone almost entirely unused for a whole week.

What did I miss? What didn’t I miss?

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Going Dark

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , on 25 Jun 2014| 2 Comments »

TFL Problem

I will not be employing a shabbos goy this week.

When I lived in Jerusalem, I learned about the shabbos goy. The shabbos goy is a non-Jew who will do tasks of work which are forbidden to Jews on the Sabbath. To keep everything on the up-and-up, the shabbos goy should be someone who would be on the premises anyway, such as a maintenance worker or babysitter. Thus, on the Sabbath, a shabbos goy can turn on the house’s lights or rekindle the fire (both of which are forbidden to Jews), and everyone benefits from the work that the shabbos goy did. No commandments were broken. Nothing to see here. Move along.

So, as I said, I will not be using a shabbos goy this week.

In a prevoius post, I mentioned that I was considering an “internet diet.”

Well, today it begins. Today I’ll be going dark.

I’ll be taking it One Day at a Time, but my goal is to go a full week without major technological contact.

What does that mean, specifically? Good idea. Let’s define terms…

(more…)

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Considering the Plug

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , on 28 May 2014| 5 Comments »

RAWWWR by NickiStock on deviantART

My brother is an old-school kinda guy.

  • He licks bones for a living. (Well, okay, he licks rocks to see if they’re bones; he’s an archaeologist.)
  • His living room is shelved floor-to-ceiling with vinyl LPs.
  • He hates Facebook and eschews all social media.
  • He has a clam-shell flip phone that he’s used for a decade or more.
  • He’d rather walk, head up, looking where he’s going than plod along, head down, letting his smartphone’s GPS tell him where he is.

My brother has a lot going for him.

And I think he’s on to something. (more…)

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Permanent Code

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 23 Jan 2014| 12 Comments »

Box o' Letters

If you were born before 1980, it’s likely you are writing in code.

That’s right. Cryptic code.

We have a young houseguest staying with us. She’s nineteen. I literally have t-shirts older than she. Needless to say, having her with us has been an education, on both sides.

The other day, she watched with fascination as I sat down with pen and paper and slowly, over the course of the day, wrote a letter, by hand.

The fact that my correspondent and I had never met didn’t seem to faze her–in this day of social media, it’s commonplace. Nor was the idea of sending a letter by snail mail particularly foreign; presumably she’s sent a bill payment or a birthday card in her lifetime. She was curious about the slowness of the process, that it took several sessions at the desk to complete a single letter, but that wasn’t the big issue.

No, what really puzzled her was something much more basic. (more…)

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Old Man Gamer – PS3 Edition

Posted in Hi Tech, tagged , , , , , on 12 Aug 2013| 3 Comments »

Video games rarely surprise me. Disappoint me? Often. Surprise me? Rarely.

Journey, a PS3 game from Sony and thatgamecompany, surprised me.

First off, it’s rated E (Everyone) which usually means one of two things: good old-fashioned family fun or cartoon characters and jaunty tunes. This is neither.

The plot of Journey is simple: you are a wanderer in a wasteland, and your goal is to reach the top of a mystical mountain, seen in the distance.

That’s it. See that mountain? Go there.

Simplistic? Yes, but therein lies the beauty of this game. (more…)

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