Rhoneisms

The |ashnb|referrer|haeri
first quarter of my life was spent in a world where there was no such thing as a “personal computer”. The idea of someone having a computer in their home was as futuristic when I was, say, eight years old as a jet pack or rocket car. By the time I was in my teen years, they were as much of a reality, at least for the folks I knew who could afford one, as a toaster. The generation just after mine, has never lived in a word where personal computers were a not common possession of almost everyone they knew. I’ve been thinking recently about the probability that my two year old daughter may hear about something called a “keyboard” or a “mouse” and stare at me just a blankly as today’s college grads would when you mention running programs off of a cassette recorder (“What’s that?”) from a computer you hooked up to the antenna jack (“What’s that?”)  on a TV. 

When I see Beatrix pick up my iPad and, after some very brief instruction, launch the Photo app, gleefully squeal “Pinch!” and “Swipe!” as she does just that to navigate the interface, I can’t help but think that this is all she will ever need to know about how one interacts with the computer for the foreseeable future. I can’t help but think that one day, we will be down in the basement, and she will see some old system we should have disposed of long ago, and it will have these strange things attached to them, things we never imagined doing without, and she’ll ask “Daddy, what’s that?”.

There are these little myths we often let ourselves base important decisions and major purchases around. I like to call them the “What if” myths. Because of my business I seem to hear them all the time. That said, the tech savvy are not immune either. I myself have fallen prey more times than I care to admit. In almost every case, these phrases lead us to spend more money than necessary, pack more in our bag than we have to, and purchase far more machine than we will use . It also keeps us from truthfully examining our day to day needs.

Here are a couple of common examples:

“What if I need to run Photoshop?”

This is the common excuse I hear from designers as to why they need, in addition to a desktop machine with a large screen and powerful graphics card, a portable machine that can perform with suitable aplomb.

My challenge to this myth is two fold: a) How often do you really need this kind of power in a mobile situation? Can these rare times not wait until you return to your desk? b) Do you really need a desktop machine as well as a portable? Why not sell the desktop and have one machine that is both powerful and portable.

“What if someone sends me a Word document?”

This is usually the myth I hear from people who are convinced they need Microsoft Office. These folks are certain that they run into such situations “all the time” but, when pressed or investigated, I usually find out it is about twice a year and the documents themselves are things like kids birthday party invitations where the information within is far more important than the formatting.

My challenge to this myth is that TextEdit can open any Word document to the extent that you need it to. Most times, it will do so flawlessly. It can even save out in MS Word formats so if you need to make some simple edits and send it back to someone who has fallen prey to this same myth, you can. Even those funky new .docx files all the MS kids are crazy about these days. If push comes to shove, you could get the iWork suite so that you can open Excel files (in Numbers) and Powerpoint files (in Keynote). The bottom line, you don’t need Microsoft Office.

Don’t you mind about the future? Don’t you try to think ahead? Save tomorrow for tomorrow; Think about today instead.

– “What’s The Buzz” from Jesus Christ Superstar ‘

The thing with all of this is, why plan for and base such choices on the boundary cases? Why buy something for what you hardly ever do as opposed to what you do all the time? If you encountered such a scenario, is the fallout so costly that you can justify spending more or having more than you need up front and every day? If so, then I can understand such a choice. If not, then why not purchase what you need (or even better, find a way to make do with what you have) when you need it?

One day, when I was 8 years old, I found a twenty dollar bill on a city bus. My Grandmother’s house, where I spent more than a few days every week, was at the beginning of a bus route. It was not uncommon, when boarding the bus, I was the only one on. That day, I had just boarded and paid my fare and, on the way to seeking out my usual seat, I saw it. As I remember it, it was the most money I had ever held in my hand at the time. I was, at least for a few seconds, somewhat in awe of it.

Even still, I knew what to do. I walked back up the aisle to the Driver, stretched out my arm with bill firmly grasped betwixt my fingers and said, “Excuse me, mister. I think someone lost this”

The Driver looked down at it, smiled, and said, “That’s very honorable of you kid. But, you know, all money looks the same. I have a lot of people on each ride. Even if I wanted to, there’s no way I could find out who’s it is… Go ahead and keep it. It’s yours now.”

I stood there, a little stunned.

“Go ahead kid. Really, it’s yours.”

I walked back to my seat solemnly. Of course, my first thoughts were to what I could do with that much money. The candy I could buy. The toys. The comics.

Then, not much more than a moment later, I started to think about what the person who lost it was going to do with that money before they lost it. Maybe they really needed it. Maybe it was a single mom, like mine, struggling to make ends meet. To whom twenty dollars represented two days worth of food (perhaps even three if you stretched it right).

Yes, eight year old me really did think about such things because I lived them. I thought about those things because my Grandmother, the daughter of a preacher and sister of a bishop, taught me that is how you treat people – the way you would want to be treated. And, if I lost a twenty, I would want someone to find me, by what ever means necessary, and give it back.

It was a very long time before I broke down and finally spent that twenty. I still feel guilty about it to this day.

In case you had not heard, it was a very sad day on the internet today. I won’t go into details or link to any of them because, to repeat them, in my mind, would make me just as guilty. Suffice to say that someone lost something important, someone else found it, that someone then sold it to another party that decided to not only plaster it all over the internet, but also name and shame the person who lost it. Potentially destroying his name and career for good…

Not what we believe in (and if you do believe in such a thing, please stop reading, unsubscribe, and never return. Seriously.)

I don’t pretend to be a journalist. I have never been invited to any event and provided with credentials that may label me as such. I don’t consider what I do here “blogging” and, therefore, for these purposes, I’m not a blogger. I only recently had to admit to being a writer because of a gig I was honored to be asked to do (and, thankfully to the reader, that gig comes with an Editor).

The role I perform here, and the title I assume is “Curator”. I want to find interesting items that fall under a specific topic area and gather them together with some commentary that will hopefully provide both interest and context and cause you to investigate further. Sometimes, and only sometimes, those items may be original to this site.

That said, here is my pledge to you:

1. Anything I provide here I will have found through only the most ethical means and with great care and concern for my visitors time and attention.
2. There is nothing more important than item No. 1.

Everyone has daydreams and fantasies. I’m betting for the most part, the things people fantasize about are fairly common. Being wealthy, for instance. Traveling the world. Secret crushes. Super powers. You know, the usual.
That said, I’m not sure about mine. I don’t know if the central theme of my daydreams are universally shared or if I am a kook and should be voted for the most likely to hospitalized for their own protection. Hence my desire to share it. To put it out there to see how others respond. I need to know if I should check myself in somewhere “safe” as soon as possible.
There is one theme to all of my my deepest and most personal fantasies. One that propels me into internalized fits of longing and desire. One I think about daily, and some days hourly. The central theme that seems to intersect every thing I dream…
Silence.
Gosh, you have no idea. You have no idea how many collective hours I have spent fantasizing about what it might be like to live in a monastery practicing a vow of silence. How compelling the thought is of walking alone down some long cobbled road as far as it will take me away to distant places. How I see the dystopian movies depicting the last man on earth, and think “Lucky him!”, right before the zombie hoards arrive and destroy what I see as his world of quiet bliss.
I’ve had this fantasy for as long as I can remember. Perhaps it is driven by my introverted nature. Perhaps it is because I have always obsessed over the things I’m not good at. Perhaps it is a very common and universal desire. Perhaps I am really odd in this respect. Perhaps it grows stronger the more “connected” I feel thanks to our modern world. All I really do know is that there are many moments I would trade all I have for a life of simple silence, contemplation, and solitude. Is that really so strange?