Your favorite blogs about the Philippines and Filipinos in one place.
Choose a color
You are currently browsing the Pinoy Blog Machine weblog archives for the day Wednesday, March 21st, 2007.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Feb | Apr » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |
Posted by Top Dog on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 11:42 pm in Personal - Philippines.
Posted by Top Dog on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 11:16 pm in Personal - Philippines.
Posted by Possum on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 10:57 pm in Personal - Philippines.
Saturday, March 24, 2007, is Shutdown Day. If you sign up, you're supposed to go 24 hours without turning on your computer.
I've signed up. From the time I get back to my apartment on Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon when I leave to spend the weekend at my parents' house, my computer is on. I leave it on literally all day. The first thing I do every morning is to roll over and check my mail, read a few blogs, catch up on my forums, and respond to comments. I spend many more hours in front of the computer throughout the day. Yet I didn't hesitate to sign up for Shutdown Day.
The reason is that computers as we know them are becoming obsolete. I know most of you North Americans wouldn't agree, but that's because you're behind the rest of the world in mobile telecommunications. In my little backward town in this little backward country, mobile phones have begun to replace computers to a certain degree.
Aside from making phone calls and sending text messages (which I do a lot on any given day), I check my mail on my cell phone. I use 3G or WiFi, if it's available, to surf the net in full color (most sites look exactly the same on my phone as they do on my computer screen) and to make VOIP calls (using Skype or GTalk) for free to friends who are thousands of miles away. I can also IM or chat using most messengers and make video calls with people anywhere in the world.
I take pictures on my phone's 3-megapixel camera with flash, and sometimes I choose to have them automatically upload to Vox or Flickr. I take on-the-spot videos of things I would miss if I had to hunt for my video cam, like the cheese-headed one explaining patiently to me why Runescape (an online game) is so addicting. Or I can record on an audio file my nephew counting in French. I have a few hundred mp3s on my phone which I listen to when I'm driving (the stereo's loud enough) or whenever I feel like it. Every night I connect my phone to my computer to upload all its contents (media and messages) into Lifeblog, a program which creates a diary of sorts out of it all. You'd be surprised how much of my story can be told by looking at the things on my cell phone.
I play flash (lite) games on my phone. I have my resume in a word document on my phone, just in case, along with the transcripts of several seasons of House, which I sometimes read before I go to bed. I sometimes put school files, in excel and powepoint, on my phone so that I can go over them before my presentation/exam between (or during) classes. I have several episodes of the latest season of Grey's Anatomy in a compressed digital video format on my phone, which plays them all quite well. Its speakers are actually louder than my laptop's.
I have not just people's numbers but their addresses, notes about where I met them, and classes I've had with them. I have sensitive information like my bank account numbers, trivial information like usernames and passwords on internet sites, and things like my passport and visa details. I make my to-do and grocery lists on my phone, and consult the calendar (later synchronized with my Google Calendar) several times daily for my schedule.
During blackouts or in movie theaters, I turn on my phone's camera light and use it as a flashlight. In restaurants I use it as a calculator. In other countries I use it to convert currencies. I store several cities' timezones on it so I can always check and see if it's a good time to call my friend in, say, Canada. I use the alarm clock on my phone to wake up every morning and to remind me of important meetings. I even use my phone's second camera, the one in the front, as a mirror, when applying lipstick in the car or checking to see if my bangs are falling right.
I signed up for Shutdown Day because I can live several days without my computer, as long as I have my phone. I realize that sort of defeats the purpose, but I really think I'd have a nervous breakdown if I lost my phone.
I've been accused by several different people of being too dependent on technology. On my cell phone.
They say, what if you were lost without a cell phone? What would you do?
They say, what if you had to live without technology for a day?
They say, shouldn't you be weaning yourself off your addiction to technology?
Maybe I am dependent on it. I'm the kid whose parents gave her a cell phone and a pager on the first day of primary school, back when everything was analog and text messaging didn't exist. I was raised on mobile technology. So yes, maybe I am dependent on technology. And yes, if for some reason cellular phones were banned or confiscated or forgotten, it would take me some time to recover my sanity. Yes, call me dependent.
But what would you have me do?
Call me crazy, but I think embracing progress and being excited about technology is much more healthy than actively avoiding it and refusing to use it to its full potential out of some fear that someday, it will be taken away.
Maybe it will be. So what? By the same logic you could argue a good case for suicide.
So all you technophobics out there can have your candles and your open air and your country roads. Me, I'm going to be in my little apartment in the middle of the city, talking on my cell phone in the twenty-first century.
Posted by HyukTa.net on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 4:04 pm in Personal - Philippines.
Posted by CelebritiesCorner on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 11:03 am in Entertainment.
Posted by Cyber Pedestrian Observer Viewpoint on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 10:43 am in Politics.
Posted by Top Dog on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 @ 10:26 am in Personal - Philippines.
