Interesting observation. I am wondering if I could do this. I love this comments that he felt like he was Neo from the Matrix. Outside the system looking in.
So off I went into the streets of New York City sans a cell phone. At first, I felt liberated, like Neo in “The Matrix” when he took the red pill and could finally see the “real world.”
Instead of texting or checking my e-mail, I began to actually look at the people I was sharing the streets with. It truly resembled a movie set filled with extras from all walks of life. A beautiful woman walked quickly past me while fixing her make up. Asian tourists were busy snapping photos. A businessman looked busy talking on his phone. A group of Hasidic men were kibitzing while an Arab man sold falafel from a cart.
Dean Obeidallah
Don’t get me wrong I am not going to pull a Paul Miller and go offline. I think for someone as connected as me though this would be a good challenge and even a refreshing time away. Instead of a vacation… a tech-cation. I need to trademark that.
I always tell brides/grooms/family when I do their portraits that posing this way may feel awkward but it definitely helps them look trimmer. Great video detailing different aspects of that good portrait headshot.
This company maybe the one supplying the mapping information for iOS 6. Really great write up done by 9to5Mac gives a feature by feature breakdown of what C3 is bringing to Cupertino.
I love big dogs, especially Great Danes, but for some reason I just love Corgi animated gifs. Seriously I don’t know what is wrong with me. More importantly is that the internet is so ready to fulfill a Google Search with somanyoptions.
I think animated gifs are the brilliant new level of granular video. Check out a site like GifSoup and almost any video can immediately be turned into your own animated gif.
Paul Miller: Pioneer Pundit Pontificates Online Presence (This was my original title)
This one goes out to Paul Miller. I have followed his work from Engadget to The Verge and truly appreciate his view of technology and dare I say even his world views. His most recent project though is an interesting undertaking.
He’s quitting the internet for a year.
I know I am surrounded by devices that ping, buzz, and pop-up with innumerable notifications about anything and everything around me. I know at times I have to make an extra effort to focus on an activity and not incessantly check for any new updates from Twitter, G+, Facebook, even email or texts. I wonder at times what would it be like to be disconnected entirely from such a constant stream. The closest I could imagine would be my experience during my flights from BWI to ATL (though now even Gogo in-flight brings it back). What do I do… I rest and by rest I mean sleep. I know some people cannot but I love the low resonance and hum of the engines and I just go into an knockout comatose like sleep and wake refreshed but I digress.
Let me bring it back to Paul and his experiment. By being offline for a year he is challenging himself to use the sneakernet to do his work, actually walking over to co-workers and handing them files via USB keys instead of just emailing them. Going to the library for research (non-internet based) and for music (unlimited free music before Spotify/Rdio). All in an effort to quit cold turkey the insane inundation we have all around us.
This brings me back to my own brief stints with no communication on a plane or while riding through some distant stretch of highway. My only reaction in both of these instances is to sleep (except for when I am driving obviously).It just makes me wonder if I am really really worn out. I know the last thing I see as I sleep is a glowing screen with a Movie/TV show playing and the first thing I do is reach for those slew of devices to see what I missed during my mental disconnect for a few hours.
Maybe I need to purposefully disconnect more. I will be following Paul’s exploits to see how he does. Funny enough there’s no way for me to get Paul’s updates about being off the internet except by going on the internet. Obviously I am not in a place yet where I could go so completely offline, but maybe at least I can try it from time to time. Who knows maybe I will just end up sleeping.
A sandbox overlayed with some awesome augmented reality visuals powered thru Kinect. I mean why not! This could be an awesome platform for rapid prototyping of effects to ecosystems due to construction. Also a great place to fight GI Joe wars with crazy cool environments.
