Cycles of tech
[url=http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2003/tc20030114_8995.htm]This article discusses the end of the program called “Graffiti.”
Ah yes, my Newton. Long gone, dead to the world. I had, in order, a 120, a 2000, and I upgraded that 2000 to a 2100 or whatever it was called. Pretty cool technology. Slow on the synchronization, but being a bleeding edge geek has never been easy.
The deal was, as I recall, the graffiti program made all the difference in the world, for my input needs. I could get up to 30 or more words per minute, I could, and did, just show up at the airport armed with my ticketless number in the device, show my ID, and board a plane. No more lugging a laptop around.
With a cellular capable modem, I would fetch up e-mail, and answer queries. All from my handy, not-quite-pocket-sized device. It was, at the time, way cool.
I figure I was doing that in 1994. Might have been 1995, and I didn’t get my first Palm until 1998, but that was natural switch for me – I’d already mastered the graffiti handwriting program.
The other evening, I was jotting down a note, just a quick succession of “A B A C E” letters. I made the letter E in graffiti-style script rather than a loopy E that is closer to my normal (read: illegible) handwriting. Probably not the first time this has happened, either. Just drove home the point. Then I read that graffiti is at the end of its technology cycle. That’s less than a decade.
How has technology affected your life?
Coldwater flat
Many years ago, when I was an undergraduate student, I was living in an “efficiency apartment” that was one decent spit from the corner of University and Mill Ave., in fashionable downtown Tempe, AZ. I considered it a coldwater flat, although, it’s hard to imagine a “coldwater flat” (Brit term is good: bedsit) when the summer temperature easily clears 110. I did computer work on the side, to support myself.
Among other projects, I recall doing a fair amount of database programming one semester – which had nothing to do with Medieval Literature – and I’d sent a query note to a local area computer consultant of name and fame, asking a pointed question about a technical issue concerning database architecture.
The e-mail answer was something along the lines of, “Computer consulting, database design and construction, programming, $100 per hour.” End of note.
I got a valuable lesson from that short and terse note, and it’s something I’ve carried forward. No, the reply irritated me to no end. Where was the “Mac-friendly” camaraderie? Where was the “we’re all in this together” spirit?
Further reflection, though, would reveal that I was actually seeking information for free. These days, I could just plug a few key words into a search engine, and come up with several responses plus any number of opinions, and probably a blog or two that dealt with that very topic. The more savvy search engines would even have an annotated ad off to the side, “Database construction & consulting” link. Or two.
A series of e-mail questions last night prompted this chain of thought. When I whack together a web page, one of the first steps I take is to cruise around and look at other sites of similar ilk. Then I look at the underlying code, the stuff that makes it tick – view source. I’ve learned a few tricks there, and I’ve even developed a few of my own tricks.
The first rule is to keep it simple. Then, make the whole page accessible. Above and beyond that? You have two choices, look at my source code for a web page and figure it out yourself – or you can pay me the big bucks to do the tweaking.
Same principles apply with astrology readings. It’s nothing that anyone can’t access, but my patient and persistent study has evolved into my own school. Or brand. I’ve looked at several branches of the art, but I keep coming back to basics.
A rival astrologer recently asked me if I was doing any important research. My first answer, rather quick and to the point, was, “No. Not really.”
But that’s not true. I test theories and permutations and planet possibilities in a lab, a writing lab. Each week. Figure Saturn averages 2.5 years in a sign. Now, figure a way to express that for 2.5 years. I’ve been doing this for half a cycle of Saturn, on and off.
My laboratory is a weekly column. Answers to questions? Those run $65 per half hour, not unlike that note, years ago, in a coldwater flat.