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the inevitable rip tide of technology
Two vaguely related observations that connected itself as I was sleeping last night:
Robert Crais's Demolition Angel is clearly supposed to be set in the Here and Now. Even nine years after its initial publication, it holds up pretty well in that respect... except for the computer technology. It's subtle, but computer technology is still changing fairly quickly. If he were to write the book now, everyone would still do the same things, but the ways they would do them would change. For example, everyone needed phone lines for their computers, and everyone used AOL. People had to get back to their computers in order to use them.
Computer technology hasn't advanced in a way that breaks anything that happens in the story. I think this is because the story isn't about the tech. That's just there to enable the characters to meet when they otherwise might not. It's not hard to mentally substitute more up to date tech as I'm reading. Having said that, I did find myself doing this.
Making the main character utterly unaware of computers turns out to be a nice bit of future proofing on Robert Crais's part. That should hold until the nifty things we do with computer tech becomes thoroughly mainstream. (e.g., many more people know how to drive a car than they know how to build or fix one. Ditto for the cellphone.)
The other thought was something someone brought up at the Boskone gripe session. He didn't put it this way, but his idea was basically that they should put the daily con newsletter on the internet. Now, this is a terrific idea. It's mostly work they're already doing. Not everyone stops by the information desk every day to pick up the latest newsletter. I usually forget there is such a thing unless someone reminds me.
The ensuing conversation was interesting because of the differing assumptions of the people in the room. The guy who brought up the idea clearly assumed that everyone at the con had ready access to a portable, web browsing type device. He talked about blogs, wikis, ways of keeping multiple views of information in sync, and an iPhone app to view all this information. (He volunteered to write the iPhone app!) Others immediately made the opposite assumption because they started talking about whiteboards in high traffic areas. i.e., how to get information across to people like me who are too forgetful to pick up the con newsletter, regardless of internet access. (Ok, there are a myriad of reasons why one doesn't pick up the newsletter...)
Where the two intersected was when the guy who brought up the initial (and I, repeat, terrific) idea suggested that posting a digital photo of the whiteboard on Flickr was the "lowest tech solution." I, and every other engineer in the room, knew exactly what he meant. i.e., that was the easiest way of keeping all the different ways of accessing the same information in sync. However, not everyone in fandom is an engineer (nor should that be the case). So there was a quip about living in an age where posting a digital photo on Flickr is considered the lowest tech solution.
(Actually, you don't need to be an engineer to know exactly what he meant. You just need to recognize where everyone was coming from and realize that they were not the same place.)
Anyway, technology may change the details of how we do something. It doesn't actually change, though, what it is that we do.
BTW, it just occurred to me that I actually had a portable web browsing capable device with me at the con,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ts52's Nokia N770. I've been using it as an ebook reader. (This will have to be the subject of another blog entry.) In some ways, reading the con program from the web would have been more convenient than carrying the pocket program around. Of course, I don't even know if Boskone makes WiFi available. (I think they might only because no one made the suggestion during the gripe session. However, I showed up a few minutes late.) Of course, there's always data access via the cell radio. However, I suspect more people have WiFi access than a data plan for their cellphone.
Oh, one more random data point. I saw a few subnotebooks at the con. I didn't see any standard sized notebooks. Of course, this was maybe 3 out of whatever fraction of the 900+ (or how ever many) Boskone attendees. Obviously, your average ISCA is going to be more tech savvy. What I saw at Boskone is still an interesting hint of what people are taking with them on the road.
(ISCA is the International Symposium for Computer Architecture. The last one I attended, they told you, unasked, at registration how to access their secure wireless networks. Yes, plural. Pretty much everyone had a laptop and wanted WiFi. They also realized one of the keys to a successful conference is to keep the attendees well fed at all times. Of course, the cost to attend ISCA is maybe an order of magnitude more expensive than any SF con. I suspect food is where a lot of that money goes.)
Robert Crais's Demolition Angel is clearly supposed to be set in the Here and Now. Even nine years after its initial publication, it holds up pretty well in that respect... except for the computer technology. It's subtle, but computer technology is still changing fairly quickly. If he were to write the book now, everyone would still do the same things, but the ways they would do them would change. For example, everyone needed phone lines for their computers, and everyone used AOL. People had to get back to their computers in order to use them.
Computer technology hasn't advanced in a way that breaks anything that happens in the story. I think this is because the story isn't about the tech. That's just there to enable the characters to meet when they otherwise might not. It's not hard to mentally substitute more up to date tech as I'm reading. Having said that, I did find myself doing this.
Making the main character utterly unaware of computers turns out to be a nice bit of future proofing on Robert Crais's part. That should hold until the nifty things we do with computer tech becomes thoroughly mainstream. (e.g., many more people know how to drive a car than they know how to build or fix one. Ditto for the cellphone.)
The other thought was something someone brought up at the Boskone gripe session. He didn't put it this way, but his idea was basically that they should put the daily con newsletter on the internet. Now, this is a terrific idea. It's mostly work they're already doing. Not everyone stops by the information desk every day to pick up the latest newsletter. I usually forget there is such a thing unless someone reminds me.
The ensuing conversation was interesting because of the differing assumptions of the people in the room. The guy who brought up the idea clearly assumed that everyone at the con had ready access to a portable, web browsing type device. He talked about blogs, wikis, ways of keeping multiple views of information in sync, and an iPhone app to view all this information. (He volunteered to write the iPhone app!) Others immediately made the opposite assumption because they started talking about whiteboards in high traffic areas. i.e., how to get information across to people like me who are too forgetful to pick up the con newsletter, regardless of internet access. (Ok, there are a myriad of reasons why one doesn't pick up the newsletter...)
Where the two intersected was when the guy who brought up the initial (and I, repeat, terrific) idea suggested that posting a digital photo of the whiteboard on Flickr was the "lowest tech solution." I, and every other engineer in the room, knew exactly what he meant. i.e., that was the easiest way of keeping all the different ways of accessing the same information in sync. However, not everyone in fandom is an engineer (nor should that be the case). So there was a quip about living in an age where posting a digital photo on Flickr is considered the lowest tech solution.
(Actually, you don't need to be an engineer to know exactly what he meant. You just need to recognize where everyone was coming from and realize that they were not the same place.)
Anyway, technology may change the details of how we do something. It doesn't actually change, though, what it is that we do.
BTW, it just occurred to me that I actually had a portable web browsing capable device with me at the con,
ts52's Nokia N770. I've been using it as an ebook reader. (This will have to be the subject of another blog entry.) In some ways, reading the con program from the web would have been more convenient than carrying the pocket program around. Of course, I don't even know if Boskone makes WiFi available. (I think they might only because no one made the suggestion during the gripe session. However, I showed up a few minutes late.) Of course, there's always data access via the cell radio. However, I suspect more people have WiFi access than a data plan for their cellphone.Oh, one more random data point. I saw a few subnotebooks at the con. I didn't see any standard sized notebooks. Of course, this was maybe 3 out of whatever fraction of the 900+ (or how ever many) Boskone attendees. Obviously, your average ISCA is going to be more tech savvy. What I saw at Boskone is still an interesting hint of what people are taking with them on the road.
(ISCA is the International Symposium for Computer Architecture. The last one I attended, they told you, unasked, at registration how to access their secure wireless networks. Yes, plural. Pretty much everyone had a laptop and wanted WiFi. They also realized one of the keys to a successful conference is to keep the attendees well fed at all times. Of course, the cost to attend ISCA is maybe an order of magnitude more expensive than any SF con. I suspect food is where a lot of that money goes.)