A recurring theme on this blog is how technologies can change ones life in a positive way. I think that during my life I have avoided computer games but may actually spend more time interacting via the computer than even hardened gamers.
This weekend I have been to see a band, The Enid, in the UK who have essentially been revitalized via the Internet I have used an "External Brain" in the form of Evernote to remember and organise my thoughts and sights into a searchable database. I have used my iPhone and its Internet connection for instant answers. Once again I have used a mixture of Microsoft, Apple and open source technologies to enable me to be connected 24 hours a day without having to carry a laptop or a big bag of electronic gizmos
When I drove from place to place I used a GPS for navigation and, more importantly, to avoid traffic and to find alternative routes. Finally, I think I had the most fun experience I have had in, well, decades I suppose when I danced the night away in a silent disco at the Wychwood Festival near Cheltenham in the UK. For those of you that have never seen one, a silent disco is one in which the revellers are all equipped with headsets that can receive one of several channels of music that can be as loud as one desires but does not annoy the neighours. When you remove the headset you are returned to a room containing perhaps a thousand people and a low hum of conversation punctuated by the occasional snatches of songs sung by the crowd. In any case, the deafening thump of base and ear splitting noise that has made the disco or club a health hazard is replaced by pure participatory fun and, who would have guessed, conversation.
As I live this technologically enabled existence I can truly say that computers, the Internet and the things which some people revile as a waste of time and which pollutes the human experience can be, and often is demonstrably a boon and a blessing.
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