IDEATH Log Out | Topics | Search
Moderators | Edit Profile

RAMSEY CAMPBELL » Discussion » IDEATH « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.147.65.96
Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 04:38 pm:   

"...the Forgotten Works that gradually towered above us until the big piles of forgotten things were mountains that went on for at least a million miles."
- from 'In Watermelon Sugar' by Richard Brautigan

Brautigan's vision of iDEATH in 1968.

But what is iDEATH - the Internet implosion of Self?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.147.65.96
Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 04:55 pm:   

iDEATH is sic.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.140.118.61
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 10:45 am:   

I once went into a big second hand book shop in Morecambe. It went deep into the bowels that went gradually down. The books are always the same, and down at the back they seem to be holding up the building itself. They've become damp and smelly, and some rooms are so full of books you cannot get in them, are dark, like caves. These rooms have not changed in all the years I have gone in them, are *becoming* the bookshop.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 80.5.8.49
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 12:00 pm:   

Mobile phones...all my students always have the very latest models (I don't, I still have the same very basic phone purchased in 2008), so what happens to the previous models and the ones before that and so on? Millions and millions of perfectly good phones stored away somewhere, all those minute sparks of electronic communication intelligence all crushed into the same space...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 80.5.8.49
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 12:10 pm:   

And deleted files and electronic text. all those words, sentences, phrases that we write on our word processors and then delete...

Tony, I love your description of that bookshop. There is a story in that place; a bookshop made of books, whose bricks and mortor are words...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 31.112.209.147
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 12:53 pm:   

We recently found a very old phone belonging tot our son. In it were photos of his first job travelling the country, smiling, kissing his new girlfriend. It was profoundly moving in a a way I can't even begin to describe.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 08:00 pm:   

Millions and millions of perfectly good phones stored away somewhere, all those minute sparks of electronic communication intelligence all crushed into the same space...

Mmm... here, I have to somewhat disagree with you, Terry. You have to really define that "perfectly good" phrase specifically to feel this way: do you mean, they can make a phone call at all? Sure. But as technology advances, the older models are simply unworkable. So okay, a Blackberry from 5 years back can make calls, and "surf the web"... but in today's world, with todays tech advancements, etc., it'd be tedious and painful and pointless. I got a new HTC-V1 a month back, and I absolutely love it—I can't imagine going back to a phone even 6 months older than this! It makes my Samsung Galaxy Captivate from exactly 2 years previous, a lugubrious slowpoke worthless blah. Going back to old devices most of the time, would be like going back to a rotary phone....

Technology (and other related areas) advances so fast, it makes all sorts of things of just a few years old—a few months old!—feel more ancient than the dinosaurs. Take "blogs," for example: I saw a Yahoo! News item where some "yahoo" was saying we need to ditch various terms as being hopelessly out of date, and he included this one. I at first was ruffled... but then, thinking it over, about blogs... you know, the "blog" does seem old and dated and worthless, doesn't it? The massive bulk of blogs out there, I'm sure, are—well, abandoned, I bet. But the ones not, I just think to myself as a vast welter of ranters commenting on things no one fucking gives a shit about anymore. Who really cares anymore (who ever did?) what some well-spoken and erudite, sure, but unknown no one in Indiana thinks of pulp magazine covers from the 1930's? Who cares about the essay-form comments of some other, sure, perfectly insightful fellow from Oregon on obscure film noir from the 1950's? Let alone, the scattered blank-verse incoherent ruminations of even less interesting nobodies from hither and yon. I'm not being insulting—how often does anyone really visit a "blog" anymore?

Facebook is increasingly feeling quaint (admittedly, I'm not on it—partly because it feels too quaint to me); Twitter seems blah now. This bulletin board here, the RCMB, feels far more relevant and current and fun and "now" than most sites I can think of! And it's just white words against black type with some blood-red bordering. But then, it does contain much of my own rantings... maybe why I'm partial to it....
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 80.5.8.49
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 08:41 pm:   

It may be my age, but the discarding of artefacts so quickly makes me uncomfortable. I understand what you’re saying Craig, and having once worked for BT (as an electrician then technical author in its research labs, once the biggest in Europe I believe), I saw the oncoming hurricane, of technological advance in...well...in advance. What niggles is the waste. inevitable I know, but my parents were the last of a generation that abhorred waste, that repaired things and bought furniture they considered would "last a lifetime". It’s just a sense of unease, I'm no luddite (and far from being a horder)and often in awe of what technology is achieving. However, I do see technology simply as a tool and have no interest in the "thing" itself. Cheers
Terry

Add Your Message Here
Post:
Bold text Italics Underline Create a hyperlink Insert a clipart image

Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action:

Topics | Last Day | Last Week | Tree View | Search | Help/Instructions | Program Credits Administration