 | In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hardware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies. |
✖ Via White Noise by Don DeLillo, Penguin Books, [1985]1986, p. 46 White Noise won the National Book Award in 1985. Learn more about it on Wikipedia. |
↳Shareskandalon
Mar 17 link notes reblogged from chatarra
art
communication
technology
machine
computer
network
interaction
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user
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money
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DeLillo
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system
 | I’ve been watching with bemused interest as US geeks (apparently 120.000 of them, although I’d take any initial figures with a large grain of salt if I were you) rushed to pre-order their iPads and, deprived of the thrill of actually using it until it arrives, gushed forth on the details of their purchase and reasons thereof as if they were boasting about the pedigree of a puppy that is yet to be weaned and handed to them in a little basket. |
✖ Via The Tao of Mac: “Undercurrent” Mar. 13th, 2010 The Tao of Mac is Rui Carmo’s blog:
“I’m someone with a Systems Engineering degree, a decade and a half of overexposure to the Internet, and (horror of horrors to the uninitiated), Marketing experience – as well as social graces that allow me to mediate between geeks and “regular” folk. I’ve pretty much done it all where it comes to the telco world, having been immersed in Wi-Fi, 3G (UMTS) and IP-related stuff at a major GSM operator for several years (ten, actually, going on eleven at the time of this writing).”(more) |
↳Shareskandalon
Mar 13 link notes
technology
communication
addiction
iPad
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computer
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 |
As many others have noted, the release of the iPad might be the cannonball into the consumer device pool the iPhone dipped its toes in. It’s also been referred to as a thing that sits between that iPhone and your laptop. I see it as more of a fork in the road. It’s the thing many people will get INSTEAD of a laptop.
The iPad isn’t the future of computing; it’s a replacement for computing. |
✖ Via Mule Design Studio’s Blog: “The Failure of Empathy” by Mike Monteiro, Feb. 3, 2010 Mike founded Mule Design in 2001 along with Erika Hall. Follow him on Tumblr.
First discovered via The Daring Fireball. |
↳Shareskandalon
Feb 08 link notes
technology
communication
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evolution
iPad