My metacortex

I was recently accused of knowing about modes through the use of Google. While I wouldn't claim extensive knowledge of the subject, I'm not completely clueless and had not, in this case, resorted to everyone's favourite source of quiz answers. However, why on earth not? It's now quite routine for people to use a calculator/phone/spreadsheet to carry out the most routine calculations, when even ten years ago it was seen as a bit lazy, and people would complain that the Youth of Today are Not Getting a Proper Education etc. Similarly, there are still a few holdouts who have not placed their lives in the hands of mobile phones and bemoan the modern lack of memorised phone numbers, while the rest of us are relying on the things to store fifteen numbers, addresses and email addresses just for Mum. I, and many other I know, see t'internet as an extension of myself. It's reached a point where there is little that I can't find at least something about using my Special Search Superpowers, so I regularly pull up a Google or Wikipedia search, perhaps popping into the BBC News pages, in order to clarify something I may have heard in passing or seen on a headline. And really, why not? If it's there, and reliable most of the time, and easily accessed (thanks to the ubiquity of broadband and an unlimited data tariff - see how important mobiles are!?) then why on earth shouldn't I use a vast source of knowledge rather than relying on my puny brain? My ideal state, I think, is Charles Stross's character Manfred Macx in his delightful novel Accelerando (available to buy or for FREE download). In chapter 3 he loses his connection to the electronic world and in the process is so cut off from his resources that he is almost lobotomised. I'm not saying that I want an electronic lobotomy, but I long for a state where I can be that connected, nay integrated. The follow-on from this is my disgust at the idea of closed-book exams. A woman at my work is doing an HNC in administration stuff, pretty much just getting her up to date in MS Office. Now, when at work, everyone and I do mean EVERYONE has at some point or another come to me for advice on Word, Excel, Outlook, the printers... most offices have a resident Chris of one form or another. This woman has come up to me a few times for advice on her coursework, since the teaching standards are less high than the testing standards. I know from experience that these softwares are best learned through practical experimentation and experience, but these people are being given the teaching without the practice. I've become a great fan of the Help function in Excel, whenever I can't think of how do do anything, and there's also an extensive online help and advice system. In the Real World you have access to all of these systems: Help, t'internet, Chris... and yet for their exams they have to hold it all in their heads. What use is that!? It's not a useful exam, it's a test of memory. What they should be testing is the ability to learn how to find out! To know how best to use Help, where to look online, who to talk to. This is another area in which the System cannot keep up with the pace of technological change. Welcome to the Singularity.

I miss my interlolz

Last week we were due to change ISP, for some reason that seemed good at the time. Alas, BT got involved somewhere in the middle - something technical so it's their department. After about 4 days of no internet they were pestered and eventually said they would re-do whatever it was they (had supposedly) done; it was then announced that there was a fault on the line. Since the line has been working perfectly, at good speeds as well, I can;t imagine what BT have done to brek it, but I'm sure it's their fault. Now, after a week of no internet at home I'm getting cabin fever. I've missed Torchwood, Sarah Connor, Skins... well, perhaps there is a bright side after all. Sunday ended up as a sit-about-and-watch-Babylon-5 day. In fact, the wekkend was mostly a writeoff due to not knowing what people were planning to do. After about 12 hours sat in front of the computer, doing my maths project and shuffling files around to tidy things up a bit while being sucked into the early days of the Shadow War, I discovered that my posture had done me in and I now have a sore back. Typical.