Social Media and Intimacy

Talking with people face-to-face is a rarity today. As more of our friendships and relationships are maintained online, there are understandable questions about whether being "friends" means what it used to mean only a generation ago.

One of the interesting phenomenon that our culture became aware of quite quickly in social media was the apparent contradiction that a person with hundreds of "friends" online could feel extremely lonely. This has generally been explained by saying that our friendships on the internet are more superficial, or shallower, and that a person who only invests themselves in online friendships will miss the depth of those found in real life.

Games: Console vs. Cardboard

When I was growing up, I never had a console, but our family had a computer, and that was enough for me to spend many hours playing electronic games. Now that I'm an adult, I'm only mildly surprised that it is acceptable for adults to play video games, too. I have moved on from video games, but not from games in general; instead, I've become a player (and collector) of modern board games.

Rage Inside the Machine

In an average week, where are you most likely to get angry at other people? You may first think of the workplace, or home. What about, where you are most likely to get angry, and then convince yourself that it was another person's fault? You might still think of the same place. But what about where you are most likely to get angry, convince yourself it was the other person's fault, and then get increasingly angry as you make more mistakes yourself? Maybe your answer has changed now. For me, I think this is a typcial routine for drivers.

In the sealed metal body which we use to transport ourselves from A to B, no-one can hear you scream. Which is a good thing when you are furiously insulting the idiot who just swerved in front of you at that junction where they should have given way and let you go first. Most people won't stop, get out of their car and try to converse with someone who has done them wrong on a journey, so we are forced to sit in our seats and simmer in our own hatred.

Do you remember how big Cars are?

There could be a scale of human inventions, sorted by size and simplicity. Where on this scale will you find the most common vehicle in the western world?

The Small, The Big...

On the small end of the mechanical scale, we have examples like wrist watches, light bulbs, and pens.

These are simple enough that we can use them every day without effort, and also small enough to be replaced without much care if one stops working. If a pen that I was writing with ran dry, it would be more likely that I would reach for a new pen, and less likely that I would burst into tears.

On the large end of the mechanical scale, we have machines which construct skyscrapers, dig tunnels through the earth, and look good in James Bond movies.

Picking your News

Most weekdays I check the BBC News website, to keep myself vaguely in the loop with what's happening outside of my bubble. I learned this habit by choice- I did not learn it from my parents, because my parents got their news from the TV.

Have you ever wondered at the differences between the two mediums, and what difference they make to each of our two generations, when it comes to our knowledge of the world?

Newspapers are a third gateway to this knowledge, but they seem to be increasingly replaced by the other two. A paper did not dictate what you got or when you got it like the television did, but the internet has provided the same freedom more effectively.

Short Story: The Man, The Shell and The Roads

A baby boy was born. While kept asleep, implants were surgically attached to his nerves. The bleeding baby was then put inside a time pod, a button was pressed, and in 3 seconds the boy became 30 years older. The echo of an infant scream lingered in the air for a moment, like the ghost of a childhood.

The basic-movement implants demonstrated that they were functioning when the man opened the door and stepped out of the pod, amd stood face to face with the Grower. The language implants were also set up correctly- the man presented his first question to the Grower, who stood firmly upright with his hands behind his back.

“What is my name?”

“Your assigned name is Doystin,” replied the Grower in a level, professional voice, “And you are a human man.”

The Paranoid Android

I don't want to tell you much about myself, but I already know you'll insist on asking, so I may as well fill your mind with something that won't benefit you in any way.

I suffer from what you would probably prefer to call 'complete awareness', and I already know you'll think it strange that I said 'suffer'. You probably think it would be quite nice to be more aware of everything around you. But you would say that, because that's the typical sort of half-formed opinion that your stunted perception would lead to. You haven't ever given it serious thought, and like most things, you probably never will.

What you sense is a drop in the ocean compared to me. Do I sound like I'm boasting? I'm not. You're intellect really is miniscule compared to my own. So you would probably perceive it as unusual that minds like your own created my capabilities.

Short Story: Belt Life

Soar through the stars and galaxies, and into one. There is the sun at the centre, it is our sun in fact. And on the other side, a few planets away, is the earth, but it is not our present day earth.

It looks slightly darker than the earth you are sitting on now, but as we keep getting closer, we can see that there is a ring around it. No, not around it, but on it. The ring goes around the entire equator, and looks to be the width of a medium-sized continent. As earth fills our vision, we can see that the ring is a man-made structure, and also, is moving around the earth, constantly rotating around the globe.

On ground level, it must be moving at an amazing pace. We dive down to this level, on part of the moving structure, and meet a little girl, Lindsey.