Category Archives: Technology

Dead air.

In an article on the social impact of new technologies, The New York Times reports on how cell phones (and digital video recorders) are changing people: “As the sociologist Erving Goffman observed in another context, there is something deeply disturbing about people who are ”out of contact” in social situations because they are blatantly refusing to adhere to the norms of their immediate environment…. Listeners don’t always passively accept this situation: in recent years, people have been pepper-sprayed in movie theaters, ejected from concert halls and deliberately rammed with cars as a result of rude behavior on their cellphones.”

Continue reading

Posted in Society, Technology | Leave a comment

Technology and society

Written in 1945 by Vannevar Bush and entitled “As we may think“, it is considered a classic in the field of computer science and one of the seeds of the Internet. A second thought-provoking article is “The computers of tomorrow” … Continue reading

Posted in Society, Technology, World | 1 Comment

It weren’t me.

Though I DO have great teeth, a unique sense of humour and an irresistible personality.
Continue reading

Posted in Technology | 1 Comment

Green acres

Artificial turf is the subject of an article in the Sunday Times magazine. It briefly mentions the origins of astroturf – a Ford FOundation grant in the 1950s develop an “all-weather low-maintenance grasslike surface for city kids to play on”, … Continue reading

Posted in Technology, World | Leave a comment

Pachinko lives!

When I was but a wee gaffer (OK, maybe a little less wee) my Dad bought me a pachinko machine for my birthday.
Continue reading

Posted in Technology | Leave a comment

Where Google goes…

The New York Times has a very interesting article on Google, the most popular search engine out there, and the challenges it faces going forward.

Posted in Technology | Leave a comment