Ye olde blog

kellyphone

Over at Yahoomblr!, Rob Walker asks some folks, including me, “What is your most outdated device?” Here’s my reply:

“The ‘device’ that feels most outdated to me is my blog,” says Carr. “When I started the thing, in 2005, the personal blog was the iconic expression of ‘new media’; having one put you in the oxymoronic category of journalist-hipster. But the action has moved away from blogs, to the more conversational social networks like Twitter and their bite-sized bulletins. To be a blogger today makes you feel a little like Norma Desmond after silent movies were replaced by talkies: ‘I’m still big; it’s the internet that got small!’”

Here’s Kevin Kelly:

“I have a Panasonic land-line telephone from the ’80s right here on my desk I still use every day,” Kelly says, adding: “I don’t have a handset for the phone, I use a headset and a glass globe to hold down the off button.”

That’s the phone in the picture above. The orb is priceless.

9 thoughts on “Ye olde blog

  1. Seth Finkelstein

    I still have a slide-rule I got as a gift back in high school. It’s a good quality wooden one, not cheap plastic or metal. I don’t ever use it, but it’s kind of pretty in its way, and it’s a nice tech memento.

    Regarding blogging, I feel the opposite of “still big” – I’ve shrunk even more into insignificance.

  2. yt75

    My speakers are still the ones I bought 20 or 25 years ago or something.

    As to blogging seems to me that important info still happens there more than in the kind of Alzheimer of the media sphere that is twitter.

    Take for instance the basic reason of current crisis which is alas only starting : the fact that the world is right now at the peak of oil production (maximum of flow, of extraction rate), it for sure is discussed much more on blogs than twitter, such as :
    http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/05/23/oil-limits-and-climate-change/
    or :
    http://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.fr/2013/05/disruptive-technologies-really.html

  3. Andreas

    My brains. They were developed as a result of biological evolution and the latest model is believed to be released around 50000 ago. Many people such as Ray Kurzweil and followers in the Singularity University believe that soon, after technological singularity technological evolution will replace biological evolution. So my brain is the latest model of the outdated technological process. Many people believe that brains are not needed for humans anymore since companies such as Google will collect all information needed for you (replacing “memory” functionality of brain), process it in the most efficient way in their data centers (replacing outdated human “reasoning” functionality, The Machine Learning over The Big Data, I apologize for mentioning names of two great gods in such a profane place as this blogs, technologies such as Google Now are intended to do it) and deliver it in the most efficient efficient way to human (sensory technologies starting with Google Glasses are believed to do it). Human abilities to memorize, reasons, decide and select are not needed any more. I do not to remember birthday of my wife, I will be reminded about it by software running at a datacenter, I have no need to think what she may like as a gift, a software agent in a datacenter will process a log of her queries sent to a search engine, and GPS tracks of her travels and will tell me what she likes and what she needs.

  4. yt75

    “singularity theory” is nothing but the vulgar ultra-utilitarianist version of the messianic myth.
    (and Ray Kurzweil your average boring charlatan peddling his stuff from door to door)

  5. Rich

    I’ll see your singularity, and raise you my HP-35 programmable calculator, morse key, and ’87 Honda with 310k miles.

  6. Daniel C.

    Keep the blog. Compared to social networking, it’s downright literary. Of course, I’m speaking based on self interest here.

  7. Tim

    I am very thankful that your blog exists. Thinking deeply may be out of fashion, but, it isn’t outdated.

  8. Raj Karamchedu

    What goes around comes around, don’t give up on blogs yet. It’s only a matter of time before these social networks completely commercialize themselves, which is when everyone begins to rediscover blogs. I for one am looking forward to Ghost, the new just-for-blogging platform, still in beta though.

    Raj

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