01 June 2005
Weakest link
I realise this blog is for assessment purposes and the contents of my entries should relate to virtual cultures but...
I had just left the final lecture on virtual cultures where every-one is stressing about their blogs. I myself feel a bit uncertain of my blog as an assessible item because I have tried to keep my content focused on interesting personal observations, that somehow relate to the lecture content. Today's entry relates to the lecture in that, I was leaving the lecture when I saw the news headline:
"Do shock tactics really prevent car accidents?" A photo of fire and destruction on the road illustrating this point. "Hell yes," I thought as I wondered about being a wheelchair bound vegetable for the rest of my life. As I walked back to the car, I noticed crumpled car panels and wondered about the nature of collisions. I got to thinking that matter is more space than it is solid. The nucleus of an atom is magnitudes smaller than its surrounding electron cloud. If things are made of more space than matter then why do we have car crashes?
At first I blamed the ionic bonds that hold molecules together. Then I realised even if the bonds could let go for a second, then there are still all the nuclei that have to collide against one another. I started thinking it was the thickness of matter that made it impermiable. What if it was a thin foil that wanted to pass through another thin foil? I reckon that could work, provided all the electrons could be neutalised for a second.
I caught myself pondering this idea of transpermiability of matter and wondered why I was even thinking about it at all. Why are we humans still so attached to material concerns when it is obvious that the next millenium is going to be about higher levels of interaction which rely less on physical interaction and more on electrical computer mediated communications. Ideas are what are flourishing across the web of shared consciousness. Ideas exist beyond matter, even though they are still connected to biological brain tissue somewhere. Instead of trying to reshape the atom, the forces of discovery have pushed technological progress into the internet realm. Here virtual things can permiate other things without collisions or traumatic accidents. It's time to give up cars and transport, particularly for menial tasks such as going to work. Instead work needs to be brought into the cyber world where ideas can abound in all directions, at the speed of light. We need not end up vegetables by traveling in faster cars, when we can instead become screenbound potatoes, with big overdeveloped brains!
That is our future. Welcome the new generation of potatoeheads!
I had just left the final lecture on virtual cultures where every-one is stressing about their blogs. I myself feel a bit uncertain of my blog as an assessible item because I have tried to keep my content focused on interesting personal observations, that somehow relate to the lecture content. Today's entry relates to the lecture in that, I was leaving the lecture when I saw the news headline:
"Do shock tactics really prevent car accidents?" A photo of fire and destruction on the road illustrating this point. "Hell yes," I thought as I wondered about being a wheelchair bound vegetable for the rest of my life. As I walked back to the car, I noticed crumpled car panels and wondered about the nature of collisions. I got to thinking that matter is more space than it is solid. The nucleus of an atom is magnitudes smaller than its surrounding electron cloud. If things are made of more space than matter then why do we have car crashes?
At first I blamed the ionic bonds that hold molecules together. Then I realised even if the bonds could let go for a second, then there are still all the nuclei that have to collide against one another. I started thinking it was the thickness of matter that made it impermiable. What if it was a thin foil that wanted to pass through another thin foil? I reckon that could work, provided all the electrons could be neutalised for a second.
I caught myself pondering this idea of transpermiability of matter and wondered why I was even thinking about it at all. Why are we humans still so attached to material concerns when it is obvious that the next millenium is going to be about higher levels of interaction which rely less on physical interaction and more on electrical computer mediated communications. Ideas are what are flourishing across the web of shared consciousness. Ideas exist beyond matter, even though they are still connected to biological brain tissue somewhere. Instead of trying to reshape the atom, the forces of discovery have pushed technological progress into the internet realm. Here virtual things can permiate other things without collisions or traumatic accidents. It's time to give up cars and transport, particularly for menial tasks such as going to work. Instead work needs to be brought into the cyber world where ideas can abound in all directions, at the speed of light. We need not end up vegetables by traveling in faster cars, when we can instead become screenbound potatoes, with big overdeveloped brains!
That is our future. Welcome the new generation of potatoeheads!
