Monday Morning, Back on Form
Monday Morning, Back on Form
Granny J said...
When I was in high school, I refused to learn typing (a mistake), shorthand or any of those low-level office skills. In college, I avoided education, social work and nursing. Wound up as a journalist, which worked out quite well, even tho in the early days, a business lunch required hat, gloves and girdle, not to mention nylons. My daughter thought that typing was cool, so she did a course on tape & is now a whiz. Whenever the IT biz slows down, she fudges her background and quickly finds secretarial work.
DaviMack said...
Public discourse may not have any knowledge of gender: that's part of the beauty of the internet, and part of the sad loss of the new video technologies, bringing it all back....
5/16/2009 10:04 PM
Blogger Tales from the Birch Wood. said...
I can type like a frenzy, thanks to the fact that all the teachers in the country went on strike for several weeks in the late 1960's and I spent the time practising.
I know what you mean about the secretarial syndrome, however.
Fearful that I would end my days being dictated to, I made sure to get onto a literature and language degree course.
The irony that it took decades to bring the dreams of the Sufragettes into the real world is probably best expressed by G.K. Chesterton...
"Ten thousand women marched through the streets of London saying 'we will not be dictated to,' and then went off to become stenographers."
As for the new video technologies, I doubt that you spend hours, Davimack, preparing for online video-conferencing. Happily, most people seem to still think I'm some sort of ageless old retainer of indeterminate gender, given the fact that this is what a gardener is supposed to be.
Of course anyone who reads my blog knows better...
Thank you both for such insightful comments...
I finally got to finish my comment on the previous post today.
Half asleep due to the howling wind and rain yesterday,
we spent a lazy day researching 50mm lenses on the net
and just keeping warm.
Then I started to think (again) how technologies have changes
our lives forever.
Having mastered every trick from playing with rgb levels
to telling the difference between a .wav and an mp3 file,
I drew the line at linking up to a camera on the computer.
Why I refuse to move with the times is not just due to age.
The idea of having a camera stuck in one's life daily is nothing new.
I'm used to security cameras everywhere I go in public places.
Somehow the idea of inviting the public sphere into my personal private
life has never been appealing.
Also, all this interaction with machines is time consuming.
On Friday night we were invited to a wonderful concert by
The Attrampe Quartet. The young musicians have come to the end of
their four years of playing together, and the long concert of music by
Barriere, Beethoven and Schubert was a sort of swan song, as well
as a moment of looking to the future.
As we settled into the pews in Calery Church, way up on top of the Wicklow
Hills, I felt real.
Technology was suddenly back in its place...
Granny J said...
When I was in high school, I refused to learn typing (a mistake), shorthand or any of those low-level office skills. In college, I avoided education, social work and nursing. Wound up as a journalist, which worked out quite well, even tho in the early days, a business lunch required hat, gloves and girdle, not to mention nylons. My daughter thought that typing was cool, so she did a course on tape & is now a whiz. Whenever the IT biz slows down, she fudges her background and quickly finds secretarial work.
DaviMack said...
Public discourse may not have any knowledge of gender: that's part of the beauty of the internet, and part of the sad loss of the new video technologies, bringing it all back....
5/16/2009 10:04 PM
Blogger Tales from the Birch Wood. said...
I can type like a frenzy, thanks to the fact that all the teachers in the country went on strike for several weeks in the late 1960's and I spent the time practising.
I know what you mean about the secretarial syndrome, however.
Fearful that I would end my days being dictated to, I made sure to get onto a literature and language degree course.
The irony that it took decades to bring the dreams of the Sufragettes into the real world is probably best expressed by G.K. Chesterton...
"Ten thousand women marched through the streets of London saying 'we will not be dictated to,' and then went off to become stenographers."
As for the new video technologies, I doubt that you spend hours, Davimack, preparing for online video-conferencing. Happily, most people seem to still think I'm some sort of ageless old retainer of indeterminate gender, given the fact that this is what a gardener is supposed to be.
Of course anyone who reads my blog knows better...
Thank you both for such insightful comments...
I finally got to finish my comment on the previous post today.
Half asleep due to the howling wind and rain yesterday,
we spent a lazy day researching 50mm lenses on the net
and just keeping warm.
Then I started to think (again) how technologies have changes
our lives forever.
Having mastered every trick from playing with rgb levels
to telling the difference between a .wav and an mp3 file,
I drew the line at linking up to a camera on the computer.
Why I refuse to move with the times is not just due to age.
The idea of having a camera stuck in one's life daily is nothing new.
I'm used to security cameras everywhere I go in public places.
Somehow the idea of inviting the public sphere into my personal private
life has never been appealing.
Also, all this interaction with machines is time consuming.
On Friday night we were invited to a wonderful concert by
The Attrampe Quartet. The young musicians have come to the end of
their four years of playing together, and the long concert of music by
Barriere, Beethoven and Schubert was a sort of swan song, as well
as a moment of looking to the future.
As we settled into the pews in Calery Church, way up on top of the Wicklow
Hills, I felt real.
Technology was suddenly back in its place...
posted by Tales from the Birch Wood. at
11:15
2 Comments:
I read an article, yesterday, on video technology which can recognize when someone falls, and automatically call for help. Apparently, 1/3 of people over 55 yrs old fall, and 50% of those falls involve the person spending a significant amount of time on the floor, because they can't get up, and this affects their health. So, they're developing a video technology to recognize when people have fallen, to ring for help.
You may end up on camera 24x7 ... for your own good.
Again, you have made me laugh, though a tad nervously.
I have known old people bristling with bells and whistles that are supposed to alert the Nation if they should fall down.
I suppose the new technology should be welcomed...
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