I have a Blutooth keyboard. Quite handy, even use it while on the treadmill.
I agree that a lot of written thought is dumbing down. It is becoming so easy to use text that people expect it to be as simple as communicating via voice. To be successful though outside a very small group that requires context and understanding and trust and an understanding of the medium's failings and the coded messages we all give.
I agree about the iPhone, I only use an iPhone because that's what the company gave me. IMO they were too cheap and too tied to thinking that they need voice communication outside face to face meeting to take the leap to an iPad.
Since I have my own iPad I transfer most of the 4pt stuff over there to read and manipulate.
I'm not saying that everybody can do without a Laptop or desktop. What I am saying though, is that the majority of the world can do very nicely without them.
The hurdle in a productive sense isn't really the data transfer rate, it's the reliability. If the data we are working on is in the cloud (only transferred "up" once), and the program is there on the server too, then all we are doing after the upload is using our local devices to move things around in the cloud; we're sending text and control commands that require very little bandwidth.
I heard a thing on NPR, a piece on a new book, a while ago about disappearing technologies.
The upshot of the piece was that that no technology that has ever been developed by man has ever completely disappeared. Not even one.
I do agree that we, as a community, aren't really discussing the right things and that ego and emotion very much get in the way because of our fears.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ~ Mark Twain
I think people need to realize Bruce's writing is titled "New Thoughts on Digital Photography". Not "An Authoriative Thesis on Digital Photography". That it appeared on his website -- not Scientific American or some peer-reviewed technical or cultural publication. It has not even appeared in Popular Photography (is that still around?)
His website, for cripe's sake! He forced no one to read it, he makes no claim of it being the "last word" on the subject.
We are a silly bunch of people...
When photography entered the world 150 years ago the great painters did not embrace it!!!! It was the devils work; it took 80 years before it became a significant art form.
One has to remember that Eugene Atget, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, and all of our past photographers waited for new technology to enter into their world, and embrace it with open arms. One has to remember Ansel Adams and what he did to help Polaroid photography along and his work in digital photography in the early early years.
But one thing is evident there’s a lot more people in the world photographing and having their images published, good or bad.
It all comes down to one thing for me, it doesn't matter if it was done under the dark cloth or in a wet darkroom or a printer generated by a computer. If it can’t hang on the wall and please you, year after year after year the image is not worth it. No matter how it was produced.
Photography is a technology-based art, always has been and always will be, so combine the two, old and new together to create something great.
Keep the passion, the journey is the art.
mark,
I think I might have confused you. The logical structure of an argument is much like the structure of an equation, with the elements of argument (premises, inferences, conclusions,etc.) substituting for the terms of an equation, and an argument is strong or weak depending on its logical structure, but proving an argument isn't absolute the way solving an equation is. The persuasiveness of an argument depends not only on its relative strength, but also on the biases of the person(s) argued to. If you want to argue that I'm very attractive and smell like vanilla and rose petals, I might be persuaded by even a very weak argument containing obvious logical fallacies, due to my biases, but if you want to argue the same for yourself, I might be less persuaded by even a strong argument due to my biases.
So an argument can be weak and persuasive, or strong and unpersuasive, and it can contain true premises and arrive at a false conclusion or have false premises and arrive at a true conclusion. Understanding the structure of an argument, and learning to identify logical fallacies and biases provides tools for evaluating premises and arguments. For example, when you say:
That's a premise. As worded, it's absolute -- in sales and politics, emotion trumps logic, period. As a rule of thumb, absolute statements are usually false, so i'm not inclined to agree with your statement without a supporting argument that is persuasive. One reason absolute statements send up red flags is because any person can rely on personal experience alone to disprove one. If I say, "I've personally made purchases and/or voted based on logic alone, so your premise is false", how can you respond? For your premise to be true, mine must be false, and we've entered into a zero sum game prone to degrade to logical fallacies like ad hominem, appeal to strength, numbers, etc. -- in other words, to get emotional.In sales emotion wins over logic, in politics too.
If instead, you'd written:
"Emotion can play a dominant role in sales and politics"
I'd be more likely to agree outright, even if I'm not sure what point you're trying to make by your premise.
Yes, I thought it might generate some insightful discussion, or at least help a few members consider the issues.
Personally, I don't think that we can ever reach a judgement about any aspect of technology, because "progress" is inherently paradoxical, like the proverbial double-edged sword.
A vacuum cleaner makes it easier to clean a room, but requires electricity and all the problems that come along with getting it. The net effect of so many household devices may be greater pollution and flabbiness. Advanced medicine may save countless lives (or prolong them at least), but introduces problems of overpopulation. We may send our children to school in a bus instead of making them wal, but we need to set aside hours of exercise for them during the day, lest they become restless and... obese. And while buses may be convenient, providing fuel for them introduces a host of problems. In the casino, the house always comes out ahead, because the game is rigged. By analogy, scientists observe something called Entropy.
Those cave-painters depicted in the cartoon, may have been right all along. They were perhaps the first "Carbon printers", and some of their works have lasted 35,000 years.
Last edited by Ken Lee; 13-Apr-2012 at 10:50.
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