technology rant or not...........

So I am finally back home from work and in my little nest. Been perusing the permies forum and relaxing. Started to post a rant about all of the crazy technology stuff that is driving me batty at work and then realized

.................I am on a computer.................talking to my virtual friends.

Nevermind. Time for me to go to bed now.

Ah, I have those kind of realisations all day long
Contradictions are fine, it's when I decide I'm being a total hypocrite I get a bit uncomfortable!
Night night

Am I just crazy or am I just old fashioned? I have no cell phone, no games for the kiddo and we don't watch TV when eating.

I watched a mom of two yesterday occupy her two kids with separate video games. She was at a seminar at my work place and she wanted to keep her two boys quiet obviously. Well, it worked. Neither boy looked up from their game for 2 hours and neither spoke a word.

Gawd! What a great lot of misfits the next generation will be!

I do have a cell phone, but very rarely use it. Mostly it was so I could be summoned back to the old man if I dared to escape for a couple of hours and leave my son in charge, and I really haven't used it much since. The internet I use on and off all day long. The telly is still sitting in the corner, but the service went digital-only a couple of weeks back and our response was to buy WiFi instead so we could all use the internet at the same time. The internet keeps me in touch with the rest of the world, lets me learn and share stuff, and also enables my son to study with Open University from home, which means he spends a few hours a day studying at a much higher level than he would be at school, or if I was still trying to teach him, and can still spend the rest of the time doing real stuff at the farm (important stuff like barbeques, sleeping in the wheelbarrow, playing with the ducks and donkeys, )

Yeah, technology is a two-edged sword, but it certainly has its uses!

I live a dual life... on the one hand the "dayjob me" with the lawfirm, flashy BMW (that gets traded in for a battered 4x4 in four weeks, jay), Iphone, filofax, the whole shebang. On the other hand the "real" me with the spiritual interests, permaculture and organic gardens, contacting local farmers, foraging in the forest...

The two slowly merge together, because as my firm and quality of work get established, the people in town become more forgiving about my "weird quircks" They are getting used to seeing me sneek in to the forest at ungodly hours and accept that from my conferencetable, you can see my garden, with the chickens, rabbits, windchimes and stuff.

For myself, I find that for example the Iphone is fun to have for a bit, but when my phonecontract ends, I'll sell it and go back to a simple phone. I'll make me a T-shirt "I owned an Iphone" or something. It's really no enrichment, it just adds mental, energetic amd fysical clutter to your life. That said, I'm happy that we have the internets and forums like this!

Folks at work give me a hard time because I don't text or have any data services on my phone. I tell them that the only thing missing from my cell phone is the cord to the wall.

The only time I ever turn on the TV is to play my Rodney Yee yoga video.

But I do spend LOTS of time on the internet. I love that any little question that pops into my head or song I want to hear can immediatly be answered. I have music playing all the time and most times I'll keep the puter on the kitchen counter so I can chat back and forth with people or listen to podcasts while I am doing other stuff.

The techno stuff that drives me crazy are the 'dumb' programs: I spent two hours yesterday alone putting a tiny amount of data into one system and I just got back from a workshop to learn how to use another new system. I'm training another person on the new system and having to explain "don't touch this button or it will clear out your profile, don't touch this button or it will clear out your certificates, and you can't make typos or errors because they cannot be corrected and will become a permanent part of the record". This is a classic case of where someone like Paul needs to go in and look at how or why money got spent on these systems in the first place.

@ Jeanine.

I like your Rodney Yee yoga comment.
Personally, David Swenson does it for me . OMG!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UcIn2W6ghw

Twenty years as a radar tech for the navy...computers, robotics, weapons...used to be really computer literate, but now am deprived, as I got sick of trying to keep up with the changes...For the record..I hate TV..really. Hate. T.V.

My favorite bit of technology is a Woodmizer sawmill..mine is all mechanical, and all manual, which is not alot of fun on the old back, but hey, ya gotta carry the boards off of it anyway..
Old tech, I cut a strip of oak this afternoon, rounded it some, and attached it to the busted rake from last summer...used some of the same oak, to make myself a hayrake of sorts...that sawmill has given me a workshop, soon to be two, the goat barn is underway..chicken tractors have flowed off of it...goood tech...

could use it to build a ballista which could then chuck this damn phone over the horizon.

Well, I carry a Nokia E-71, which is like a blackberry. Then again, I live where there are no phone lines. Our internet used to be a wireless bridge, and cost about 250 dollars a month, thankfully it is now 3G, and costs about 30 dollars a month.

I am very computer literate (used to work in the field from developer to Chief architect, director, you get the idea) but few things make me happier than puttering in a garden, planting a new tree, or walking through our hundreds of acres of reforestation.

But you ain't prying my GPS away from me, when I go afield in hundreds of acres of forest, or when I go into the Central Valley of Costa Rica.... best invention EVER!!!

The techno stuff that drives me crazy are the 'dumb' programs: I spent two hours yesterday alone putting a tiny amount of data into one system and I just got back from a workshop to learn how to use another new system. I'm training another person on the new system and having to explain "don't touch this button or it will clear out your profile, don't touch this button or it will clear out your certificates, and you can't make typos or errors because they cannot be corrected and will become a permanent part of the record". This is a classic case of where someone like Paul needs to go in and look at how or why money got spent on these systems in the first place.

Jeanine, I have seen WAY more bad software than good software. I have written both. People who want software and use it are frequently isolated from the process of its creation, so it is created without their feedback. People who write software have many goals other than customer satisfaction. People who hire software developers are often easily fooled into thinking someone is a good software developer when they are not. People who sell software- well, they are like most people who sell anything, profit driven. Lately I have begun applying permaculture principles in order to help me understand the ecosystem where software "grows"; it turns out software needs sunlight (transparency), air (feedback), healthy soil (healthy organization), and water (talented workers maybe?). Mistakes are compost.

I am very computer literate (used to work in the field from developer to Chief architect, director, you get the idea) but few things make me happier than puttering in a garden, planting a new tree, or walking through our hundreds of acres of reforestation.

Fred, I am right where you used to be, a software architect hoping I will be able to make the leap to full-time dirt farmer in 5 years or so. Hell, I don't even get to see most of the money - it goes to my ex and my kids, and I don't even miss it because I don't want money. I want TIME. I get frustrated at being stuck between these worlds. I am actually struggling to make time to interact with folks on here, because otherwise I am so stuck between my 9-5 job, my family, and trying to get *anything* done on the "farm". I would love to spend all my time "observing and interacting" to better understand my farm ecosystem, kibbutzing with you folks, or getting the message out like Paul is doing.

I have begun applying permaculture to these frustrations as well, and it turns out that all these different areas of my life are helping me develop myself. As Fukuoka said, "The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings". Now I recognize that I am the tree, and all these seemingly opposing forces in my life are my "edges" of opportunity. My farm is making me a better software developer and father, and my knowledge of patterns, resilience, and simplicity in software design are making me a better farmer. There is value in diversity. This is probably my favorite quote from my favorite author, Robert Heinlein:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Y'all keep up the good work!

I'm crazy like the rest of yinz. I am on the internet and that is as much as I can stand. I have a cell phone only because I have to. I hate the thing.

T.V. Yes I too hate TV. Pure torture is to strap me to a chair in front of one.

BUT...... I am considering.......buying......an iPod. Can't believe I'm thinking about it. But I am using Spotify for music and I absolutely LOVE it. I can take my laptop to work with me - no internet for my laptop there - and listen to all of the music I love. I even take it, the laptop, with me in the car so I can hear my music. Spotify will let me listen to and change my music as often as I like but if I want to listen to it on something other than my laptop I have to have a fancy phone or an iPod.

Some people can't envision a world without TV but I can't envision a world without music. So I'll have to think about this iPod thing for a while - in the meantime I'll just lug around my laptop. Oh, and my singing sucks so I'll just listen to the professionals.

They seem to have some kind of nice TV shows in Australia: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/default.htm?clip=http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/gardeningaus/prog_streams/farmingspecial_ep10_2012.mp4&title=Farming%20Special

As someone who has lived in vehicles at jobsites for many years, I've become an expert at living like a cave man. Starbucks and the WiFi within allows me to explore all of the ideas of the universe on my computer.

I look forward to the day when I have the Star Trek computer at hand all the time. A personal robot slave would be handy too. (Reginald- that's his name- look up every relevant fact on this or that and then read it to me in your Morgan Freeman voice) aah, never bored again.

I'm putting a 46 inch TV on my bus, so that every night can be movie night. Technology is good if you manage it. For those whose work tethers them to machines, I suspect that the technology manages the person to some degree. For me it's educational and recreational and for my business it's free promotion. When I need something, I look for it on the computer, when I need to get rid of 50 tons of stuff in a hurry, I run a free add which channels calls to a cellphone which has unlimited minutes. I hope to never place an ad in the newspaper again.

Technology good.

@ Jeanine.

I, too, hate TV.

I do LOVE my ipod though. I have 3000 songs or so.
I know a few ex-coworkers who are 20-somethings. It's not unusual for these young uns to have 20,000 songs on their devices. I love music and so many styles that I get bored easily listening to 1 or 2 genres. I put my ipod on shuffle and just enjoy the world of music out there.
I'm sure you'll find the same is true.

I'll look up Spotify. Never heard of it. Thanks.

Peony, spotify is free but the delux version is 9.99 a month. For that you can sinc as many devices as you want - you just have to sinc them every 30 days to keep your music. There is no pirated music so sometimes it can be limited if the artist hasn't agreed to release it to spotify. I don't have a problem with that.

I agree with this author on many points.
"Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other" by MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle.

She seems most upset by the banalities of electronic interaction, as our range of expression is constrained by our gadgets and platforms. We aren’t “happy” anymore: we’re simply a semicolon followed by a parenthesis. Instead of talking on the phone, we send a text; instead of writing wistful letters, we edit our Tumblr blog. (Turkle cites one 23-year-old law student who objects when friends apologize online: “Saying you are sorry as your status . . . that is not an apology. That is saying ‘I’m sorry’ to Facebook.”) From wired.com


In my job I get hundreds of emails that I just don't have time to reply to. It upsets me/ worries me that by missing an important email from a company/supplier/rep I could be fired. But hey, if it's really important they better have a ! I can't possibly read every email! It is just too easy to send an email and let the 'problem' get passed down to some other person.

Technology. Oy!

I go days without checking my personal email. It is amazing how nuts it makes other people.

"What? I sent you an email an hour ago, and you haven't answered it yet?"

People now expect instant gratification.

I am embarrassed to say that I actually avoid talking on the phone and use e-mail when ever possible.

First because when I want to talk and when someone else wants to talk it is usually not convenient for one of us.

Second, I find that people usually don't really LISTEN to what is being said. They hear mostly what is going on in their own head or what they think you 'mean'.

By writing it down it gives each party a chance to look at it when it is a convenient time and, I think, a way to respond that may be a little easier to keep 'on topic'.

We had our house-phone cut off years ago. I have a mobile/cell phone, but only about three people have the number. I also get short term memory loss, and attempting to talk of the phone frequently ends up with most of the important things I wanted to say completely disappearing from my rather vacant brain, or important words will disappear half way through a sentence. Typing is easier - I can put the whole thing on hold or google something to get the right word back, until anyone reading my stuff would think I was completely functional

Burra, me too.
It can be a bit trying for all involved when I'm going, "you know, the thing with the thing that goes on the thing!"

you know, the thing with the thing that goes on the thing!

I know what you mean. When I lived in the West Indies, they had a special name for those: "Whatchamacallit".

My mind is as sharp as a whatchamacallit!

Jeanine Gurley wrote:I am embarrassed to say that I actually avoid talking on the phone and use e-mail when ever possible.

I almost never use the phone. I don't want to bug anyone, they can read and respond to an email at their convenience.

I don't answer the phone either, but I'm a hermit.

hate t.v?

What do you hook your laptop up to then?

that 50" screen is much easier to read long tracts on then a widescreen laptop.....

and who wants to watch cheesey sci-fi on their laptops.

This Island Earth was just recolored, and is jaw dropping.

I don't even notice the cell fone chirping....

I haven't had a TV in maybe 8 years, but I do have high speed internet and a 22" widescreen monitor at home.

The way I see it, TV is a "push" technology, and internet is a "pull" technology. With TV, you have to pick around and find something from what is being offered, with the internet, you choose what you want, then go find it.

Both can be terrible time wasters, I mean, I am at work right now typing this while I should be doing my job. ;-0

back to work !!!

Tyler Ludens wrote:

Jeanine Gurley wrote:I am embarrassed to say that I actually avoid talking on the phone and use e-mail when ever possible.

I almost never use the phone. I don't want to bug anyone, they can read and respond to an email at their convenience.

I don't answer the phone either, but I'm a hermit.

This is the standard line that I include whenever I advertize free firewood, landscaping plants or other products that are likely to have wide appeal. ---- "If you're serious about wanting any of this stuff, use the telephone - do not send email. I won't respond, too busy." ---- After each project, I discover several messages where people say that they would like to have this or that. I check it once a month, so on average it's about 2 weeks too late.

If for some reason products don't move fast enough by phone, I check the email. Those people get to pick through the scraps left by those who called on the phone as instructed.

Guess I won't be calling you, Dale.