Dinosaur Bones

I'm sitting in a lecture right now about the issues produced by new media forms, and how new mechanics work.

I suppose it is useful to understand what theorists 60 years out of date think about modern technology (ex. it's interesting, fascinating, magical, bizarre, etc.) I suppose I've been spoiled. I've grown up with technology, and in a sense, it's grown up with me. I see nothing bizarre or magic about the migration of content onto the Internet. It's the product of an iterative process that's been ongoing since humans first decided that the information stored in our heads would be better preserved on a medium like clay or paper.

I'm amused by how badly some theorists want to try and explain technology. There's a huge push to define its relationship to society, and how people drive (or are driven by) it. The truth is, technology is an aspect of society, and society itself a technology that allows humans to exist communally to varying degrees of intimacy.

There. I've just saved you $6,500 and a year of lost time.

Syria's been on my mind a lot of late. I'm studying it for another one of my lectures. If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to read about what's happening over there. It's shaping up to give Rwanda a run for its money, but the UN can't seem to get its permanent seat holders to pull their heads out their asses, so we're likely just going to sit on the sidelines while people are butchered in the streets.

More categorizations.

The world we're set to inherit isn't in very good shape right now. There's going to be another economic collapse, probably starting in Europe. I'm banking that there's another country there that's teetering on default, but they haven't mentioned anything yet because it would cause a global panic. So instead, we're waiting, stacked like nervous dominoes. The arrangements that led to the first collapse in 2008 are still in place, and the guilty parties walked away from that mess scott-free.

Break time. I'll write more later.