Moving Day
Today, my wife and I will be moving in to our new house. This means we will be without an Internet connection for two or three days, so I won't be online until the weekend or early next week. Also, moving doesn't leave much time to be online for the next week or so.
To make matters more complicated, I have a medical procedure in the middle of the day. I started this morning packing boxes, trying to get what I can done before the out-patient procedure. You never know how long it will take to recover from the anesthesia and general discomfort when you have any medial procedure.
The notion of being off-line, disconnected from readers and friends, is a little frustrating. What does that say about our culture and our strange need to be connected at all times? It's as if we don't exist without a network connection.
Last year, I tried to have at least one "tech free" day a week. This didn't mean no phone, but it meant no sitting at a computer and working. Even my "tech free" was something closer to "tech-light" instead of entirely free. I compulsively read online news, various blogs, and forums like Slashdot. Only when my wife and I leave the house do I really find myself tech free.
Anyway, I'll be returning next week. I keep promising that my schedule of a new post each week, to each of our blogs, will be revived. Life does keep getting in the way, but a new house and stable routine should help.
As I prepare to spend time off-line, I'm reminded of how interconnected the topics about which I write can be. We imagine technology solving problems, improving our lives, but at the same time these great inventions can cause alienation, economic disruption, and other unintended consequences. Imagine all the electricity networks require, the plastics, the chemicals used to make chips, and so forth. A "good thing" can have a lot of costs, many of them hidden from our daily thoughts.
I am compiling a long list of blogging ideas as we prepare to move for this second time in under a year. If you have any topics you'd like me to address, feel free to post those, too!
To make matters more complicated, I have a medical procedure in the middle of the day. I started this morning packing boxes, trying to get what I can done before the out-patient procedure. You never know how long it will take to recover from the anesthesia and general discomfort when you have any medial procedure.
The notion of being off-line, disconnected from readers and friends, is a little frustrating. What does that say about our culture and our strange need to be connected at all times? It's as if we don't exist without a network connection.
Last year, I tried to have at least one "tech free" day a week. This didn't mean no phone, but it meant no sitting at a computer and working. Even my "tech free" was something closer to "tech-light" instead of entirely free. I compulsively read online news, various blogs, and forums like Slashdot. Only when my wife and I leave the house do I really find myself tech free.
Anyway, I'll be returning next week. I keep promising that my schedule of a new post each week, to each of our blogs, will be revived. Life does keep getting in the way, but a new house and stable routine should help.
As I prepare to spend time off-line, I'm reminded of how interconnected the topics about which I write can be. We imagine technology solving problems, improving our lives, but at the same time these great inventions can cause alienation, economic disruption, and other unintended consequences. Imagine all the electricity networks require, the plastics, the chemicals used to make chips, and so forth. A "good thing" can have a lot of costs, many of them hidden from our daily thoughts.
I am compiling a long list of blogging ideas as we prepare to move for this second time in under a year. If you have any topics you'd like me to address, feel free to post those, too!
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