Because President Bush Said So

November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month because President Bush said so. Well, President Regan said so first in 1983, but that sort of fizzled out.

But, we can’t look at this as just some political good deed, but as a time for awareness about the disease as it becomes more prevalent in our world. As this number of people with Alzheimer’s begins to rise, so does the cost of living and healthcare for many. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that nearly 4.9 million Americans over the age of 65 are currently suffering with the disease. Many of us are among the 4.9 million families that have been affected by Alzheimer’s.

As the disease becomes more common, the simplest action for us to take is to gain a knowledge and understanding of the disease so that we can know the warning signs and symptoms, as well as know how to support our friends and family as they deal with Alzheimer’s.

The Alzheimer’s Association has a wonderful website that gives basic information about the disease, as well as resources for people suffering with the disease, their caregivers, and their support networks.

http://alz.org/index.asp

My favorite book dealing with the subject is The Wind Garden by Angela McAllister. It’s a lovely children’s book about a young girl named Ellie who looks out for her Grandpa. Her Grandpa reminds me of my own Grandma as he spends his days sitting on this porch remembering. The book itself is aimed at children 10 and under, but shoot, I read it all the time. It’s a really beautiful book.

SAFETY FIRST!

Wedgie-proof is the new black. Just in time for the holiday season.

The Internet is Magic, or “But the problem is, how am I supposed to believe in miracles anymore now that I know how the internet works?”

Today, Emily and I had an exam on the Internet. And by that I mean, we took an exam on concepts related to the internet for SI 502. The exam made us kind of crazy, and we sat in the office recovering, talking in the sort of manic, stressed-out haze that characterizes a lot of our conversations about the work we do at SI.

Emily said the things we've learned in this class have reduced her sense of wonder about the internet, that learning its basic workings has made the whole thing somehow less awe-inspiring. She compared this to the plight of young children (I'm paraphrasing here): "It's like when you hear rumors at recess that Santa Claus isn't real, and even though you know that Christmas is really about Jesus, some the magic of the holiday is lost."

Many of us on this side of the digital divide use the internet every day, without feeling the need to understand how it works. Some of us might even feel that trying to learn how the internet works is a little like asking to have Santa spoiled for you. The internet is pretty freaking complicated. It's hard to sum up, and it requires time to understand. Some day we beleaguered 502-ers might get there.

Although, we are already miles ahead of some. Consider:


Part I

and


Part II

As Jon Stewart suggests, the internet is not just a series of tubes. Ted Steven's tube analogy (while it sounds half-cocked) is thought-provoking because it reminds us that the internet has physicality – cables, computer hardware, servers, and routers that can "talk" to each other. But the higher-level result of all that underlying architecture – the fact that in less than a second you are able to get a webpage that is stored on a server thousands of miles away to display on the screen in front of you in a format you can comprehend – is mind-blowing when you really think about it. And the layers in between the physical and the conceptual -- they might as well be a series of tubes, for all most internet users care.

My 502 GSI has told us that the core question in this course is "Who's talking to whom?" We perceive with our senses, and communicate in human terms. We've created machines that perceive and communicate in numbers, in bits and code, in simple electronic signals. How do we talk to computers in a language they understand, how do different computers talk to each other, and how do layers of hardware and software work together? The fact that computer systems work, that networks work, is a miracle of communication and coordination.

So as much as I sympathize with Emily and all those little kids (including wee young Katie, circa 1993) who discover their parents lie to them to make life seem cooler, learning some basics about the internet has only increased my wonderment. For me, it's more like discovering Santa isn't real, realizing your parents pulled off a massive, long-term hoax in collaboration with parents all across the Western world, and then settling into an appreciation for the system that could enable the conspiracy to continue from year to year and generation to generation. Well, something like that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the more I learn about the internet, the more I think that the fact that it works at all is truly, fantastically, completely magical. The more I learn about the internet, the more I feel like doing new-agey pagan rituals in its honor.

Not really.

Well, maybe a little.

Better OFF

I recently finished reading Better OFF: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende. Brende was a graduate student in Science, Technology, and Society at M.I.T. when he began to feel overwhelmed by the dependency of society on technology. Brende frames technology in terms of machines, motors, and natural resource guzzlers. Determined to find “how much was too much” technology Brende and his wife move to an Amish community and live without electricity for a year. Brende, describing this lifestyle overly utopian and very unhumble terms at times, does give insight to finding a balance between what machines should and shouldn’t help us to do in our daily lives. A graduate student at the time himself he writes, “In the modern university, with its rapid turnover of assignments and fast-paced technology, the human brain is treated as just another processing device and is expected to keep pace with electronic blips…In the absence of fast-paced gizmos…we can simply take our time…by speeding through life with technology, you reduce what any given moment can hold. By slowing down, you expand it.” He concludes that he does need some technology to get by, and that conveniences like running water aren’t just luxuries. But, he prefers living a slower dearer life without “fast paced gizmos”. Though Brende is a bit condesending at times, his book is worth reading.