When Old Tech Was New: Technical Support

For all of you technophobes out there, a gentle reminder at the jump:



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Another Reason Big Black Birds Totally Rock

Crows wield tools with human-like skill - life - 16 August 2007 - New Scientist

Bird brains. Ha!

Humans are freaked out over ravens and crows, not necessarily because of their traditional association with death, but because they're wicked smart - and smart birds scare some people. :-) Not that Alfred Hitchcock helped matters any, I suppose.

Sorry - I have a soft spot in my heart for these animals. They're fun to watch, especially when they mistake golf balls for eggs. If I ever make it to England, I mean to visit the ravens at the Tower of London. *sigh*

Next up: The Official JGR Welcome-Abord Pinkbelly

Busch gives Joe Gibbs Racing powerful 3-car lineup - NASCAR - Yahoo! Sports

Wow, what a combination of personalities. Seems to me that the next order of business is for Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin to pin young Rowdy down and give him a "welcome to the team" pinkbelly.

Seems only fitting.

Strangely, I think this combination is going to work out well. Not easily (LOL), but well.

Note to J.J.: Absolute best of luck to you, dude. You're going to go places... But whatever you do, don't, don't, sign with Wood Brothers, please. You saw that Boris Said couldn't finish higher than 14th with one of their cars at Watkins Glen on Sunday. Don't do it!

Otherwise... let the pinking begin.

Nice Toy, but Why "Make" Someone Hear if They Don't Want To?

Technology Review: Making Deaf Ears Hear with Light

While this isn't earth-shattering news in terms of technological advancement, as someone sympathetic to Deaf culture, and as someone who recognizes that language isn't merely an aural thing, I was really annoyed with this title.

This is perhaps one of the most troubling aspects of transhumanism and its embrace of human-"improving" technology - who gets the right to decide what, precisely, is a deficiency that needs to be corrected or improved in the human condition? Hearing people may think of "curing" deafness as a no-brainer, but members of Deaf culture in the U.S. and elsewhere don't see their not-hearing as a problem, simply another way of being in the world. IMHO, the #1 handicap that Deafies have to deal with is the "benevolence" of a bigoted and closed-minded hearing majority.

We have a lot more to gain by learning from, and cooperating with, a community that carries its culture in its hands than by plugging every last member in to the hifi and hoping for the best. It would be kind of nice if the PTB figure this out before we exterminate another culture.