A long way in a short time.

A bedtime post. I thought I'd make a short commentary on technology tonight, in anticipation for the upcoming week.

Technology. Mention it, and the first thing that most of us in the older end of the "internet generation" can think of is, "We've come a long way. I remember when..." Many of the early teens out there probably know a lot about how their older siblings or parents had to deal with 14.4 modems, or how they could get free phone calls with Cap'n Crunch whistles. They probably haven't heard of the Bell Labs stuff, the beginnings of BSD, or vacuum tubes. My friend Casey recently moved out to California and had a professor who had to explain programming with vacuum tubes, and how punch cards worked. Even at (almost) 23 years, I feel old knowing this when so many of my younger peers don't.

The reason is that technology progresses, and at an increasingly more astonishing rate. Blah blah Moore's law, blah blah blah cheaper, blah blah blah blah blah, blah innovation blah.

Now, I'd like to call to attention an article from Lifehacker's Kelly Abbott, entitled "How Zach Braff (and I) Get Thank-You Notes Done." The article explains how both the auther and Zach Braff use an "old-fashioned" (compared to computer, I suppose) typewriter to personalize their own thank-you notes. Kelly Abbott contributes weekly to a series of articles called "Ungeek to Live" at Lifehacker.com. I read it religiously.

In a time where technology improves close to light-speed, it's nice to take some time out and remember to do things slower. Not just remember, but learn how to, and why it's sometimes better to do things in a "dated" manner. I've taken up calligraphy, and I write things in an even more old-fashioned way than standard pen and paper. I've ground my own ink, fixed my own quills, and scratched a lot of paper before I learned how to "paint" words properly, and I still am nowhere near consistent. But talk about letting your emotions unfold! As I write, my hand gives words an incredible character, almost akin to changing fonts at will depending on how I'm feeling whilst I write, automatically. Quick, determined writing is scribbled in print, while poetic thoughts turn out with (attempted) graceful cursives bends. If I'm rushing, afraid, enthused, or bored, it shows up without me even having to. Or, should I so choose, I can make my handwriting appear to be any of those even when I myself am not.

Just an example. It's rewarding to take a step back from fast-paced everything (including progress) now and again. It's a "rebuilding" moment that gives you some room to prepare mentally, so that when you rush in again, you're primed. It has become a science in and of itself, much like a lot of the byproducts of habits in our tech age, like blogging and programming VCRs (if any of you still know what those are). For the first time, I see how new fields, subjects in school, and departments in universities pop up.

So, should you ungeek, or supergeek to live, take a bit of time to consider why the opposite is so important, and spend some time intertwining the two. I think you'll find that together, technology and nontechnology can go well together.

---

In retrospect, I should've alluded to the bauhaus again.

And, I realize that "Just an example" should have gone with the previous paragraph, as that would have been more proper. Screw prescriptive tendencies. I like my leftist writing style.