tech
To Search
I wrote this poem with the typical complaint of smalltime bloggers or website owners in mind. This is a complaint, not a cry for help. I mean to say that there is something wrong, when the system’s complexity obfuscates the very purpose it was meant for. Also, to see what a very long way the …
Hive Mind
This poem imagines the hive mind, or what Star Trek lovers will recognize as “the Borg“. I first heard the expression “hive mind,” when I listened to the Ezra Klein podcast, The Ezra Klein Show, when he was interviewing Cal Newport, author of A World Without Email. Transcript of podcast. Cal Newport seemed to …
Without a Thought
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Describing our Brave New World, to borrow from a famous title. Thanks for coming by to read! We wake in peace. We dress in peace. We eat, with mediocrity. We tend to needs, unspeakable, Without a thought to privacy. We read a book With opaque brains. We drive, …
Sparkly Things
This poem talks about how our attention is so easily distracted, by things of little importance, causing us to neglect things of value. This may be a factor of youth, or busy-ness, or indifference. Who knows. But the headline, that Howard University was cutting its classics department made me weep a little. It’s like cutting …
Source Code
This is my homage to the spirit of invention. I use “He” in the broadest possible sense, encompassing all possible genders. I also cannot vouch for any of these scenarios actually having played out. I make no effort at historical accuracy. I merely state the rather obvious proposition, that the source of all inventions …
Alarming
When you’ve had your smartphone for a while, you accumulate a lot of clutter. You know the kind I mean: old texts, emails from people you hardly remember, screenshots, reminders and notes to yourself, bookmarks, saved articles and e-books. Our phones have taken the place of photo albums, journals, messages scrawled on the back of …
Security Blankets
Warm. Soft. Cozy. This is the time of year when we snuggle under them, wrap ourselves in them, tuck old and worn ones under our favorite shivering pets, cover our legs with them, ready for an invigorating sleigh ride. And rumor has it, some of us even knit them! I am not such …
Robotics Revisited
First Time Around Two years ago, my sons went to a First Lego League training class at the beginning of the school year. They showed varying degrees of interest: My younger, more scientific son, whose interests include programming and 3-D modeling now, was already starting to fiddle around with programming then. He very quickly took …