Bytes and Bites

Bytes and Bites From Altitude Data And no, that's not my computer. Not me either, but hey. Sometimes I learn things that some folks might be interested in, sometimes I just run across a particularly interesting case, or make new connections or observations that eventually wind up in the bottom of my ever growing pile of other soon-to-be moot bits of data stored on my biological hard drive. Might call it a mental compost heap. Tech is sorta like a garden, if you think about it. The veggies you live on, the flowers for fun, the weeds that come from nowhere and the bugs you hate. The compost of the ancient stuff. (From, like, last year.)

Buried Virtually


I know someone who absolutely, positively, unwaveringly refuses to own or condone a smart phone. And I get the point. To a degree. The argument goes that the smart phone is just another way for already overburdened and harried individuals to be forced to carry more workload and stress themselves out even further. I mean, how can you go on vacation when your email follows you everywhere and you can research any project at any time and edit that Google doc that the team needs and schedule a meeting and attend a web conference and EVERYBODY KNOWS IT?

So, okay, I get that part. And the temptation is always truly there to take care of these things in the middle of the night, and sometimes I secretly do just that. But other times, especially when the mountain is just getting so tall, I remember Nancy Reagan and I just say NO! As in Not Online. Not going online, not acknowledging online just keep me away from it and it from me. And you know what, it works. The alerts turned off, the phone silenced, nothing coming through (unless I am really online but *GASP* not working??).

The temptation is still there just to peek at the email, keep the pile from piling, the stacks from stacking, and the docs from docking, but why? Somebody else is just gonna come along and pile and stack and doc me again, so really, what IS done? Clue: It's the yeti's cousin who lives up in the mountains and howls elusively down at us as we struggle to emerge from our smart phoned world and taunts us that we are down here buried and he's running around free. Nobody has ever seen him and lived to tell, the only ones that can accurately identify him are those that have been "done in" and they don't tell tales. Or "done for" but they really haven't seen him yet, they just think he's on the way.

In other words, the phone is a tool like everything else. But now, I can if I choose get some things done while I am out doing fun stuff that otherwise I wouldn't be getting to do because I really should be in front of the computer monitor but I don't wanna right now. Like those Colorado commercials for the bank where they say they get us? Call in to work because of 6 inches of snow and drive through 12 to ski? Yeah, you know who you are. So smart phones are more like that, the office we don't really have to sit in. For the rest of you, one word. Really?

DATE POSTED: 07.14.2011

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