April 08, 2009

How is the web changing how we deal with "cognitive surplus? A four-year old looks for the mouse while watching a dvd. What will she expect when she grows up?

How much patience will on-coming generations have with passive appreciation of movies, tv, music...? The times they are a-changin' I will never forget how blown away I was when we could communicate with Iraqis and with US troops via the internet shortly after the US invaded - I don't think that getting the reaction of the folks who had to deal with the results of an invasion was ever so possible in human history. That surely won't seem as surprizing to future denizens, but where eill we go from here?

posted by path 15 years ago
  • "eill" = "will."
  • and via http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/bifurcated/rivets/
  • Path, nice post... I had to sit and think at the quote "However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter." been there, done that...both of them....
  • *swills gin while watching Gilligan's Island on Hulu, imagining that Mary Ann would be the cuter elf*
  • Excellent article, Path. If one Wikipedia is 100 million hours of human thought I wonder how much time and thought has been wasted spent contributing to teh Monkeyfilter. I must now take back my criticism of the Arphenotype power towers - they might look naff and be impractical but at least it was creative and shared, unlike wasted time watching TV. Time to stop now and go watch the Daily Show - well, there have to be exceptions ;-)
  • One of my all-time favorite internet quotes is, ^ "if you’re not using your free time to [build an exacting scale replica of Minis Tirith out of candy], what the hell else are you doing with it?" (Ooh, and I see that this year they did The Mines of Moria!)
  • Excellent post.
  • The Future It must have a reason for concealing Its many surprises from us, And that reason must have something to do With either compassion or malice. I know that most of us fear it, And that surely is the explanation We've never been properly introduced, Though we are neighbors Who run into each other often By accident and then stand there Speechless and embarrassed, Before pretending to be distracted By a pigeon on the sidewalk, Or some children walking to school Past the hearse filled with flowers Parked in front of a small, gray church. --Charles Simic