Mysterious Digital Dependence

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

There were no cars, no electricity, no TV, no computers, no refrigerators, no central heating, no A/C. People like my parents were growing their own food, sewing their own clothes, and chopping a lot of wood. It was not the paradise that people imagine, or that some recall. Memory is selective.

I dont think John is saying the past was better, I interpret his post as a refusal to get on the digital hamster wheel where we are promised things will "faster and better." OTOH you seem to imply that growing your own food or cutting some wood is "bad." I dont know about cutting wood since I never had to do it, but I do grow my own fruit and vegetables in my back yard. There is nothing more satisfying than eating fruit ripened on a tree, you would not believe the difference, but it takes effort and care. Yes you might go to the supermarket and spend a lot of time choosing your fruit, but it is not the same.

I think John is fed up with the half promise digital delivers. Yes, we are told we can get a digital radio with satellite capability and listen to 10000000 channels, but we are not told we need an electrical engineering degree to set it up, that we will need to make 3 trips to the store to weed out the non functioning ones and then once we have one that works, it might not last longer than the vegetables in the refrigerator. While "more simple" is not always "more better", neither is more complicated. Specially when one takes into account the planned obsolecense, yes your digital camera might not be obsolete in 3 or 4 years, but will it be compatible with the next generation computer? It is like buying a car and the salesman telling you: " you will need to change the tires in this car every 6 months because the ones you have now wont be compatible with the new roads."

Digital is not bad, but then it is not the panacea we have been told it is either.

[Ellen Stoune Duralia]

I think balance is the key here... Well, I think balance is the key period!

I really, really like my iPod, my Mac, the heated seats in my VW... these electronic devices do, indeed, add convenience and comfort to my life.

I also really, really like my old Chopin albums complete with the hissing, popping, and other noise debris that comes with old vinyl. My grandmom's old strainer that still hasn't rusted and has outlasted every other strainer I've ever purchased - oh and her old cast iron skillet.

I'm a real speed demon on the computer keyboard - but the tactile feeling of putting (a good) pen to (quality) paper is sublime and opens a whole new creative stream.

Balance, my friend, is the key.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

We need to embrace technology- it is our friend! The so called "obsolescence" that products go through is largely an invention of the companies that sell tham. For example, is a shiny new 2005 Mustang really any different than one from 2004, 2001, or 1965? They will all get you to the same destination! In fact, cars have now "gone retro", so the styling looks more like the old classic models! Now, I know that the technology behind digital cameras and computers is moving much faster than that behind cars, and there's still a lot of improvements ahead, but eventually it will reach a plateau of quality. I suppose the individual user must decide when the quality has reached the level acceptabnle for his or her uses. As someone pointed out about, even the first digital cameras from a decade ago still do the job they were designed for, so how is that obsolete?
People often reminesce about "the good old days", but I'm very happy to be living now (although, I admit, I'm probably younger than most of the users of this forum). As they say, the grass is always greener! Personally, I can't imagine how anyone did anything before e-mail and the internet- these have certainly greatly accelarated my productivity in almost all aspects of life. I think the answer is to use a combination of the new technology (drum scanning, light jet printing, etc.) and classic photographic methods (large format cameras and state of the art lenses and film)- truly the best of both worlds!

[Stew]

Yesterday, while using a laptop computer to control a Nikon D70 I concluded that both Nikon Capture software and the camera are worth every cent that I paid for them. Among other things, this setup allowed us to take a whole series of closeup photographs in changing natural light. We could fine tune at will, knew exactly what we had, had no need for controlled artificial lighting and saved a bundle on film, processing and scans.

I do a lot of sailing. Until not so long ago, all the old codgers went on ad nauseum about the need to own and be able to operate a sextant because GPS units are "unreliable". The electronics could fail. The satellites could fall out of the sky. Sure, and the sextant could fall overboard. One night, in the Bay of Biscay, we wound up in a situation a mile or so off shore where we had three knots of wind and a dead motor. In the pitch black, a sextant would have been useless. The GPS unit told us instantly where we were, what the currents were doing to us, where we were in relation to a French navy submarine zone. It took hours, but the GPS got us into port safely.

This whole pseudo-Walden Pond way of thinking is tiresome, if only because it is so repetitive.

[paulr]

"This whole pseudo-Walden Pond way of thinking is tiresome, if only because it is so repetitive."

It's actually genuine Walden Pond thinking--even Thoreau was quite full of if. His account was highly fictionalized (at least highly romanticized) and it greatly underplayed how much time he spent in town, at friends' houses for dinner, etc.. Though I don't think he had a digital camera or a GPS.

[Stew]

When E.B. White wrote about living in the country or about his first experience with a Model T ford, he wrote beautifully but not nostalgically. I love Chesterton's essay "A Piece of Chalk", but he had more sense than to use that essay to denigrate oil paint or photography.

Being a Luddite is easy. It is also terribly unoriginal.

[Bob Salomon]

John,

How do you participate in this newsgroup?

You are probably doing so with, gasp, a computer! About as electronic and prone to being outdated at any time.

You want to shoot film - shoot film. You want to shoot digital do that as well.

But could you imagine all the images coming out of the London tube explosions if people down there had not had digital cameras, video cameras and camera phones? Don't think you would be able to have set that 11 x 14 up while the event and the evacuation was going on.

[wfwhitaker]

I can surely understand John's point about the frailty of new technology items. But I don't think his point is so much whether or not one chooses to embrace digital technology, but to what degree. There is always risk with buying the newest and the latest. Fortunately world economics drives technological advancement so that there is room even for some of us luddite-inclined throwbacks to participate. It's really about a choice of lifestyle.

I use cameras from the 40's and 50's and lenses which are a hundred years old for work which is dear to my heart. I also have a digital point & shoot camera for grabbing snapshots to share or for scouting a location.

I have a cell phone which makes me more accessible to the world; and the world more accessible to me. I also have a house full of 75 year-old telephones which are aesthetically much more pleasing and frankly sound about 10 times better.

I have a computer, but it's just a simple laptop and does just fine what I need to do. When it dies I will replace it with whatever the bottom-end laptop is at the time. All I need it for is basic internet access (like this) and letter writing. I also have nice old Royal typewriter from the '30's so I can write letters rather than email. (And sometimes I do.)

But I've never owned a fountain pen.

[RichSBV]

All the "luddite" screamers here obviously have nothing to add or say for themselves. And you're obviously missing the whole point, which is part of the global problem caused by commercialism, advertising and being sucked into having to have the latest gadget to accomplish the simplest thing.

I've heard noone say that the old times were 'better' in every way. But what there was, appreciation. There were goods made by hand that lasted lifetimes. Simple devices to accomplish simple tasks. Appreciation for an object, created by someone's hands that performed a simple task efficiently.

Do digi-phone images make the world better. Would we all have suffered terribly if we didn't see almost live shots from the London tubes? Come on, get real!

You want to talk about cars? In 1970, you could buy a brand new car for $1500.00 (NO mistake in the decimal point!) It was comfortable, got good gas milage, had a heater & radio. It was enough for anyone to get around. Why now do we HAVE to spend $35,000.00 on new cars? All because they have dvd player and video for the kids (so we don't actually have to talk to them!), gps's and all those gadgets... Plus all the high priced repair bills... Those cars from the 60's and 70's could be completely rebuilt from the gorund up in your backyard, which I've done many times for fun and profit. Try that with a brand new car. It's not only impossible, but illegal...

Computer/digital equip[ment doesn't go rapidly obsolete??? I would suppose you simply haven't been around computers long enough and are too young to appreciate longevity. I hvae dozens of computers here. FOUR of them can run today's software. THREE of them can run ALMOST anything I want. ONE of them can run ALMOST any of the current software, and it's only a year old. Yes, I could fire up DOS 5 or 6 or linux on any of these boxes. But functionally, they would be slugs and not worth the time...

Oh, but digital cameras will last forever... Yep, thet's why I have one here that can only be read by it's original software as the format hasn't been supported in years. Oh, yes, but the format YOUS uses is better and "standard". Yeah, they've been saying that for 20 years now and it still don't hold any water!

But everyone who doesn't fall for the advertising, gotta have the latest and best, "computers will save us" is a luddite.... It just proves how limited and short your life is. When you gain more experience, and hopefully become a bit more wise, you'll know better. Althought in life I have learned that not everyone does learn. There isn't hope for everyone. Some people just never get it... And that's a shame....

Thanks for the posts John. You're always right on the mark and good to read. It just a pity that some people don't understand. All we can do is hope for them...

[Paul Cocklin]

John,

You should have gone with Sirius Satellite...:-)

Paul