Technology: The Drug of a Nation

Over drinks last night at a local bar I happen to strike up a conversation with the art director of the local newspaper. His tasks consisted of recieving stories, editing some of them, and then deciding on the layout of the actual text and pictures for all sections of the newspaper from the front page to the ops. I was curious about how he felt in regards to the shift into digital media from the traditional print media over the past ten years. At first he didn't feel it was too bad at least for the local newspaper, but nationally there had been quite a large amount of downsizing in the ranks of actual news writers, something like 3000 writers had been given their walking papers due in some part to the move of news information into the digital realm, even though some credit was also given to the downturn in the economy. Blogging, insert ironic humor here, has taken over the internet where people are writing about all sorts of things right as they happen, yet I jumped in with the idea that even though the immediacy of information might be great for the reader, it does not actually mean the information is accurate or truthful, kind of like wikipedia, which is to the best of my knowledge, collective information assembled by people believed to have some sort of knowledge and or authority in regards to all varied sorts of subjects.

The man gave me a news example from a meeting of his early in the day where discussion consisted of whether the front headline should be the grand opening of a local multi-billion dollar hotel project or that President Obama had just ordered 30,000 troops to be sent off to Afganistan. His arguement in the meeting centered around the idea that with the immediate nature of news via his work computer, laptop, or cellphone he could easy have heard about the troop deployment long before the ink was even dry on the next mornings paper, so why send out news that people locally have more than likely already heard, as opposed to a more locally center news piece regarding the hotel opening that will have more of a direct impact on the community with regards to employment, economic boost, and architectual praise. I understood his point, granted there is a large Air Force Base in Las Vegas, where I reside, so there is some impact from the troop deployment as well. In the end, I think he was saying that with the instantaneous nature of information in the 21st century, any large sort of national and global news shall be well recieved by the time the first newspaper hits the early morning stands.

Next, I wanted his opinion on the future of news, is the print paper format slowly becoming obsolete, will the transformation of information over the internet become the primary and possibly the only source for people to gather information, pushing past even television. I mean who really watches the national evening news anymore on any of the major networks, can you remember, before cable and satellite television, before CNN, Fox News, and E Entertainment. As a kid I can remember waiting for the 5:30pm national news with Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley or Peter Jennings, these guys might have been face men or prompter readers yet they brought forth a sense of journalism as information literary works of art, no 30 second news wraps of the day, information scroll bars, and various other graphic effects that seem to clutter every single frame of all major television news sources today. Like the fantasy information in football, isn't football stressful enough, the emotional rollercoaster of watching your favorite team play on Sunday, but then to have to be distracted by the ever present scrolling of information for those crack gambling junkies who cannot get enough action by betting the games but have to send themselves into near stroke status because their receiver of the week has 1 reception for minus 7 yards.

In the end though I could sense an attitude of impending doom for the newspaper as we know it, a slow sailing off into the sunset where only icebergs await, sinking away into the depths of history, left to be about as relevant as the telegraph. Maybe the conversation depressed him a bit as he finished his drink and then got up to leave. I told him I would check out the morning paper to see his work first hand, luckily another friend of mine gets the newspaper at his house, so there was the big headline with the opening of the mega resort to end all mega resorts, the new standard going into the next millenium, this fantasy like science fiction future all done up on poster boards and 3D graphics, sitting smack dab in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip, the new Death Star, the latest in decadent buildings whose importance will never have the lasting power of the pyramids, the Coliseum, or even the Effiel Tower, these buildings are the last artifacts of an era where wealth took on proportions the Roman Empire could only dream of, this oil barron funded projected, our personal cross of four dollar a gallon gas ressurected as a tribute to the most hedonistic, profit mongering whores of all time, a monument of self indulgence no drug addict could ever outperform even with an unlimited supply of drugs. Funny, though now how the rest of the strip as well as the city is in various processes of decay, with unfinished buildings and other new hotels along with the contemporary hotels who have more empty rooms than they know what to do with, which is great for the customer, but spraypainting a turd with gold, only results in a gold plated turd, no matter what fancy name you might call it.

So many others tonight, at the other local bar I hang out in, texting or just looking at their cellphone like love sick teenagers waiting for someone to call as they sit there alone with a beer sort of playing with the trackball, maybe going over emails, surfing the web, or wondering what movie to go see later, possibly even sexting, what is that, probably have to ask Tiger Woods, he could tell ya. The masses have become engrossed with cellphone culture from Facebook to instant messaging, it has become all about, "Hey, what are you doing?", other replies "Nothing", then asks "Hey, what are you doing?, other replies, "Nothing" as the spiral of steady spiritual, intellectual, and rational humanity moves further beyond sight.
For myself, the cellphone is like a home arrest ankle bracelet and a 80's doctor's pager, it's on at all times, most of my income is dirived from answering calls, making calls to others, and organizing on the various other media formats of cellphone technology, such as IM, text, and email, while working on MS Office based programs to be sent off from the above technologies.

But who can forget about the picture phone, won't even get into the ones that do video, but how many people have seen pixs of some other guys GF, spouse, etc, can't speak for the ladies but I imagine they might do the same around their girlfriends, what a watershed this technology has become, when I get the occasional stomach churning pornographic sex picture that has been forwarded at least 8000 times, hey the boob shot powerpoint slide shows are great and even finding someone else's cellphone and accidently stumbling on to some nude pics of her taken on her phone, then sending them to himself takes on a whole entirely new preverse reality to the point that sex is almost like in the novel Brave New World, so desentized, mundane, and instutionalized at such young ages that the once taboo nature of it almost seems urban legend.

Lastly tonight, moving through two seperate points in time, physicists have been stumped, Einstein woed in agony at his inability to experience such a thing, Nasa is in the dark ages compared to my recent discovery. Thanks to technology, specifically the invention of the Digital Video Recorder which can be hooked up to a cable television box to record shows of any sort to be played back at the owner's convenience one of the time streams is born, well tonight the DVR was recording a college basketball game that had been put on pause in order to take care of some last minute preperations for a small gathering which included dinner, this moment of paused motion is time phase number one. Number Two is the immediate informative nature of the Iphone, which my friend sitting next to me at the time, stews in agony in having to delay the start of the DVR version of the game, techically, the game has not started, sure the players are playing the game in reality but in the television stream they have merely taken a bit more time to shoot some more digital lay ups out in the cyberspace arena. Well my friend pulls up some Iphone application that will give him updated information about the game being played on the Iphone, time phase number two. So after another ten minutes, the television DVR version of the basketball game is unpaused, yet now behind the Iphone version as my friend sits their in an array of facial expressions mosts of them tending to be on the disgusted and dejected side. Now I can move back and forth into moments of the game from the tv to the Iphone where the same game is being played at two different points in time co-existing. Everyone else in the room is ignoring him just so they can remain somewhat in the moment with the game on the television, but my friend wears his emotions on his sleeve and more than once lowers his Iphone face down on his lap while shaking his head in disbelief, this emotion slowly carries over into the television DVR game, but by now, what does it matter, except for the idea of the two games in two different points in time, yet not having previous knowledge of the game while watching the DVR version of the game helps, my friend did not help, thankfully halftime arrived and both media streams arrived at the same point once more, maybe next time when I talk about technology I can go more in depth into the grasp it has on me in my life, but another time.

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