Contemporary Learning

From http://blip.tv/file/1793515/

I think Louis CK has a point here.  Everyday I see things that excite the hell out of me.  Sometimes others share my enthusiasm; other times I am met with prolongued looks of indifference.  Tumbleweeds roll through.  The sound of crickets can be heard…

I work in tech and the reason I work in tech is because it amazes me.  I’m one of the lucky ones.  I haven’t lost the sense of wonder when I click on a button and something happens.  Perhaps I’m easily amused but I think it’s better to be easily amused than hard to impress.

I thought I’d compile a list of technologies that have captured my goldfish-like attention. Some of these things have been around for years but still amaze me.

Ten techy things that still amaze me…

1. My iPod

By iPod I really mean portable media player.  (I do have an iPod but it’s not the Appleness of it that does it for me – it’s the portability).  Train’s late?  Time to watch a podcast. Waiting in line for tickets?  In go the earbuds.  Pulling weeds out of the garden?  iPod time.  Mind-numbing tasks now are opportunities to shove a little more stuff into my cerebellum.  Waiting for things these days is fun.

2. Wireless controllers.

I have not so fond memories of the day I killed my first gaming console.  I was spending time on the Playstation whilst I was waiting for a phone call .  When the call came in, I jumped up, ran over to the wall-mounted phone and tripped on the controller cord, pulling the console off the table and hurtling it to a sorry end on the hardwood floor below.  Ah, good times, good times.

3. Flight

It’s been explained to me and I still don’t get it.  Planes are heavy.  Clouds are not.  I get why the clouds stay where they are.  You could spend all day explaining the aerodynamics to me and I’d still think it was pretty amazing that planes do not fall out of the sky like bricks.

4.  Microwave Ovens

I recently rediscovered the glory of microwaves when desiring popcorn whilst watching telly. By the time the ad break had finished I had a bowl of piping hot popcorn in my lap.

Incredible.

5. Google

Love them, loathe them or fear them, Google amaze me.  I am concerned that we are beginning to take them for granted and they might just walk away, leaving us to a much more primitive existence before they arrived.  If I want to know something, I google it.  It’s become so much a part of our lives, it’s now a verb! It’s not just search.  Google Earth is amazing.  Gmail is amazing.  For me, Google’s Picasa is still the best place to share pictures.  Google Docs – brilliant.  Google Reader – wonderful.  Google Maps and Streetview – essential.  Google Sketchup – mind-blowing.  And all of it free.  All I have to do is give up a little privacy and it’s all mine.

6.  Print-on-demand Services

We can be authors – all of us!  Now I’ll be the first to admit my feelings about the service some self-publishing sites provide fluctuates from pleasantly surprised to psychopathic frustration but that’s not the point.  It is still amazing that I can create novels and coffee table books that look perfectly at home on the bookshelf (and coffee table).  Shameless plug – see http://www.lulu.com/content/2796543 for more details.

7.  Wireless Networks

I remember the day I first set up a wireless network at home.  I had my laptop and went from room to room and stayed on the internet!  It was amazing.  I giggled like a schoolgirl (and not one of those cynical, seen-it-all schoolgirls – I’m talking excitable, silly 14 year olds here) every time the little popup said ‘You are connected to Home1‘.  I sat on the couch until the laptop burned my legs.  It was awesome.

8.  Movie Editing Software

When I was a kid long before anything was digitised we had an old Super 8 camera and we made a film about Martians invading Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. It was crude and limited (but cinematically adventurous).  It had no editing or post-production.  Now we have the tools to create movies with titles, effects, soundtracks, transitions and all those other things that distanced amateur productions from professional. And sites such as YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo gives us the means to distribute it.

9. The Internet. 

Really try to imagine life without the internet.  Can’t do it?  No.  I can’t either.

10.  Little Big Planet. 

Not just a game.  Read this post for more details.

Five techy things that annoy me…

This is basically a list where technology should improve life but doesn’t.

1. Automated ticket machines

Firstly a note to anyone reading this who doesn’t live in Melbourne – I am writing this froma local perspective.  I am sure there are many automated ticketing arrangements in other cities that are amazing, but in Melbourne they tend towards the simply annoying.

We know they can make ones that take notes – they’re in the big railway stations – but they won’t put them on trams .  (Actually one of these ubermachines ate my $10 note the other day.  I wrote to the MET asking for my $10 back – they replied with a letter stating it would cost $9.50 to process my request for remuneration.  Huh?)

2. The Flicker/Remote

I remember a time when the television would stay on the one station for more than 20 minutes.  I remember a time when a commercial break didn’t equate to a manic rush through all the other stations.  But the wireless remote changed that and now we have so many more stations to flick through, it’s become unbearable.

3. The Kindle 2

This isn’t so much a criticism of the Kindle 2 but rather Amazon’s inability to work out how to release it outside of the USA.  Other eBook readers have made it out to the antipodes (but they’re too expensive or not very good).  Please Amazon – I’d like to read a paperless book.  Put the kind back into Kindle.

4.  3D Movies.

Maybe it’s just me but things still look fuzzy.  And those glasses never look cool…

5.  Mobile phones on Planes

It’s bad enough having to endure them on trains, but at least you can always move to a different station or go to a different carriage.  If I have the seat next to the upwardly mobile business exec. on my next flight, I hope there’s a parachute under my seat.

Five techy things I’d like to see…

Lastly, I thought I’d end with 5 things I am still waiting to see.  My breath is bated for…

1.  Flying cars

Come on… we were supposed to have these by now.  If we can make something as big as a 747 fly, how hard can a car be?  I’d even settle for a floating car.  Star Wars came out in the 70’s.  Why don’t we have landspeeders already?

2.  Jet packs

Now I know a few of these exist, but I’d like to see them become as ubiquitous as bicycles.

3.  Teleportation

When I was a kid three decades ago, the original crew of the Starship Enterprise would beam up and down from planets with gay abandon.

4.  Mutation (of the super-powered kind)

I know mutations exist but that always seem bad or very slow (evolution).  I was hoping we’d see some super-powered mutants by now.  I still live in hope that some day soon I’ll be able to pop out some adamantium claws whenever somebody annoys me.

5. Video watches

Again, this idea heralds back to my childhood.  Dick Tracey had a video watch before anything was even digital.  I guess this one isn’t far away.  Pop a camera facing the user on the iPhone and use video chat on Skype and this one’s a reality.