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Friday, September 30, 2011

30 Day Photography Challenge - Technology

UPDATED: Summer exposes the Mirror of Erised.

There's no question that I am a fan.

I love it that I can Skype with my friend in France or that we can join in the family holidays even when they're in Chicago and we're in Georgia.

I love that I can watch live music remotely.

It's wonderful that people who would have died not so long ago can now live because of science and technology.

An aside - don't you love it when people use technology to proclaim a disdain for science? Silly humans.

I'm glad that when a hurricane or a tornado or a blizzard is heading our way, we can now prepare for it.

I am still a little amazed that I can walk around with a roomful of milk crates jammed full with record albums and audio books in my pocket.

It's pretty damn cool that my kids can watch movies and TV shows and read books on these little devices they hold in their hands.

I like that when I talk to my mother, I share with her the Rising Sun gossip and goings on because I'm on Facebook and she's not.

I will never regret the worlds I've tapped into because of this infernal typing machine. (Love you guys!)

I love it that when my kids need me that they can reach me. And I'm pleased that they've done a good job of figuring out when it's really important to call. Or text. They text when they don't want a lecture.

I don't exactly love it that MathMan can text me every time he pees, but it still makes me laugh.



The daily essentials.



A gratuitously edited shot.


My old friend. I miss you. And all the content that died with you.

I love that I can take a million photos and keep the best.

But all this comes at a price doesn't it?

Technology is changing us.

And I'm not even talking about the ridiculous bitching that goes on when Facebook changes something or that people tweet about what they're eating (me included!) or reality television or spammers who fill our inboxes with penis enlargement emails or that haters can more easily spread their hate and scammers can expand their reach or that I'm struggling to keep up - Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Blogger, Wordpress, Klout, iTunes, Amazon, Goodreads, Pinterest, and who knows what else I'm forgetting or that when something doesn't work right, people (read: me) lose their shit in the most appalling displays of crybaby hysterics or that we're seriously fucking up the environment and all this technology won't be able to save us from ourselves.

No, I'm talking about the fact that this technology creep, this influx of stuff is turning me into a charger hoarder.


Summer at Phoenix Berries is someone I know only through blogging, but over the years, I feel like I've gotten to know this incredibly intelligent, talented, and spiritual young woman. One of the beautiful things she shares with her readers is her children. I've watched Summer's little family grow from three to four and it's been a delight to see how she's raising her young children in this changing world. Yesterday she told the story of how Pip got his name.

Randal gets very artsy and angers his muse.

Geoffrey reaches out and touches somebody.

Love/hate technology? Let us count the ways in comments.

14 comments:

  1. I love the bit about your husband texting-while-peeing (peexting?).

    It does leave us with an abundance of chords around the house, doesn't it.

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  2. I love the fact that I can take pictures with a great camera that fits in my pocket. I used to use a Canon EOS 650, which was large and used film.

    Many rolls of film never got developed, because that was an expensive pain and the part I liked was taking the pictures.
    ~

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  3. The worst part of charger hoarding? No chance they'll ever be useful bartering material post-apocalypse.

    Pros: gotta second If; daguerreotyping is much cheaper these days. Met some swanky folks.

    Cons: met some swanky folks.

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  4. It seems I've been a tech geek forever. I love all of it.

    Have a lovely weekend Lisa!

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  5. The chargers? Ha!
    The paragraph before that, beautiful, just beautiful.

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  6. We would've never "met" were it not for the inner-webs!

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  7. Love: New buddies like you and not having to print out/mail manuscripts anymore.

    Hate: The inevitable crashes, glitches, obsolescence and addiction. And all those cords and chargers as displayed in your pic.

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  8. In a way we are all already cyborgs and have been since the day "man" invented the first tool.

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  9. There's no question about it: I'm more than a little Luddite. I miss the little brown pocket-sized Hilroy notebooks I used to write stuff in. No cell-phone. I got my first dvd player two years ago. My tv is ancient. No cable. Prefer radio. Museums over tech-toys. Railways stations over airports. Women rather than men. The good earth rather than sky-gazing.

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  10. Our library is finally doing e-books and I am not happy about it but I'll live I expect :)

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  11. You have to ask yourself that one bold philosophical question. Do I run technology or does it run me?

    Call me old school but when the boss scrambles for her (fill in the latest hand held device) and discovers that she either left it at home or forgot to charge the damn thing I reach into inside jacket pocket and pull out small note pad with all the answers she'd like to have. And they call us the Peonage as Randal would say. Let's see who makes it through the Apocalypse now baby!

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  12. You don't have to be a celebrity to look like one. At JB Photography we make sure you get the picture that tells the story of the wonderful person you are. We specialize in engagement portraits, childrens pictures, family portraits, and senior portraits.

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  13. I love all the possibilities that technology offers but loathe how dependent I've become upon it. It's freedom and servitude, all at once.

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  14. It's amazing how much technology has changed our world.

    I'm a charger hoarder too, but they remind me of my grandpa. When he died, we found five boxes of chargers. I sat and cried about it because it just showed his cute (always be prepared) personality.

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