It’s 2008! 2008!!! For some reason my sense of time seems to revolve around the year 1996; a formative year for an awkward 16 year old recent import from Canada. 1996 found me using the internet for the first time (and not just gawking over the shoulder of my friend a couple of years before, scouring the “Information Superhighway” for Kings Quest tips). It was about the time AOL started sending out “550 Hours Free” discs, and when the general public began dipping a collective toe into the digital abyss. I remember being fascinated by the still-operational Chathouse site where I could find hundreds and hundreds of conversations taking place across the globe. I recall finding so many of my favorite tunes recreated in MIDI format FOR FREE!! The age was ripe with a sense of endless possibility. Patience was abundant with the infant internet, as evidenced by a users willingness to sit through 45-120 seconds of the most annoying sound in the world while their 28k modems connected them to a dreadfully slow page where butterflies would chase their mouse around the screen.
12 years of technological leaps and bounds later, it’s difficult to get really excited about anything “new”. A handful of hens teeth that stand out: Google Earth, YouTube, SecondLife, and of course the “OMG! LOL!” that came with connecting with the long lost through social networking platforms like facebook and MySpace, but to be totally honest, I’m not as impressed with “the future” as I thought I would be. I do not own a Lightsaber, I have never rode a Hoverboard (although I did ride the next best thing last summer in Chicago), and my calander has no spaceflights scheduled.
This whole “future” thing would seem like a bit of a farce had it not been for a little device “Designed by Apple in California” that found itself in my palm this past December 22nd. The Apple iPhone is the single most impressive piece of technology I have ever owned. Not a day goes by when I don’t think or say aloud “damn it feels good to be an iPhone owner”. It’s been over a month and the device hasn’t shown a sign of what I call “The Trampoline Effect” – where you beg your parents for like half your childhood to buy a trampoline (like the one your cousins have) and when they finally break down and cough up the the $250 to buy one you bounce on the thing like an ape for two solid weeks until you are so thoroughly unimpressed by the possibilies of the big aluminum and vinyl mess in the backyard that you stop using it.
The iPhone has me so giddy after 33 days that I can’t imagine I’ll even buy a Lightsaber when they finally come out.
(From the desk of a photo-nut) The Library of Congress has recently started digitally archiving and uploading thousands of brilliantly-detailed images from their collection onto Flickr. The images offer a crisp glimpse into early to mid 20th century America, and cover a number of topics, mainly the war machine and the vibrancy of American industry. Don’t tell my boss, but when I’m not working on 120+ different websites, I will often drift into a digital daydream on Flickr, recharging my batteries with countless user-added images (10,444 of which are mine, forever preserved and wherever I want them). If you haven’t Flickr-surfed before, a good place to start is the Flickr World Map.
