Quality of the Internet

Tonight after updating my laptop and catching up on a few overdue e-mails, etc., finding nothing worth watching on TV, I poured myself a drink, popped in a CD that I haven't listened to for a while, and started playing Freecell. Everything seemed right in the world until suddenly the music brought tears to my eyes.
( for those that don't know, not that you care, I am a musician ( not noise maker ) at heart , though not by trade. )

I decided to check the Internet to see what the artist ( Douglas Yeo ) was up to nowadays. ( Back in the early days of the Internet I was a member of a mailing list we mutually belonged to. Unfortunately circumstances took me away. ) Back in the day I came to respect this individual, and it appears I still do.

To shorten this, anyone who uses the Internet should, IMHO, read his What Happened to the Internet?

( Anyone claiming or caring to call themselves a musician should also review his site. )

Few if any not being of his generation could understand completely where he comes from, but believe me, he is dead on ! ( Being of his generation aside. )

A computer is a tool. ( that is period! )
Communication is a tool. ( that is period! )
Not all noise is music. ( IBID )
Music is not only a language, ..... an art, ..... it is a universal abstraction, quantified only by its existence !

I wish Mr. Yeo well, hope he finds what he is seeking during his sabbatical , and hope this post will enlighten, educate, and enrich some.

And if Mr. Yeo ever reads this, ... Your pictures are not the man I remember ... you are getting old pal ( though we never met in person ... wish we could have met in person when you were teaching next door! )
I guess I shouldn't look in the in the mirror!

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Communication is a tool. ( that is period! )

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Nope, "communication" is an "activity" or "action" One uses tools and media to achieve it. ;)

The distinction I am making is that communication has an objective, it is a means to an end. "Tools" do not satisfy that criterion; it is the way in which they are used that does.

IKnowNot:

Interesting article. I read through it and I have to thank you for posting it today. I was actually pondering what and where I would be had it not been for the internet. It does feel, in many ways, that the identity of the person I am today is entirely mired in "MsMittens" (or my other online pseudonym) and there is no distinction from that. In fact, it feels like people only see me as an avenue to fix things or help them with their computer issues and nothing more.

I do remember a time when there was respect online, that it was earned through knowledge (and you had to dig deep and long for it); and there was great joy at being able to pass that on to others in their endeavours to dig deep and long. Perhaps I'm feeling cynical these days.

And if I may disagree and agree with both you and Nihil. Communication is a tool. It can be a means to an ends: the pursuit of knowledge in the purest of forms. But it is a method of exchanging ideas, concepts and understanding that makes it more than a simple tool of fire and stone. It is, to me, both the tool of achievement enlightenment and understanding as well as a way to convey new concepts and ideas, of forming bonds and creating cultures, societies, etc.

A last note: IKnowNot: look up Mr. Yeo's domain name and you'll find an email address. That's what I used to thank him for the article. ;)

A long yet worthwhile read.

I agree that communication is a tool. We only communicate to achieve something, whether our goal is to gain information, give information or just to pass some time away; ergo it is the tool we use to achieve our goal.

Well, I wouldn't hire any of you lot as a business or systems analyst or a systems architect :D

Communication is not a tool, it is a process. The actual "tools" are things like radio, TV, printing, telephones, computers and so on.

The difference is that a "tool" does not achieve anything per se. It is actions with tools (processes) that achieve objectives.

A hammer is a tool, a screwdriver is a tool, an automobile is a tool. By themselves they achieve nothing, zilch, nada. You have to use them (by invoking a process) to achieve anything.

You all seem to be confusing "communication", that is the process or activity with "communications" which is a generalisation referring to the actual media or technologies that are the tools.

;)

I think you can consider it anything you want. If my objective is to get in some girl's knickers, communication could be a tool toward that objective. Although, generally speaking I think for most of us it is a process.

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If my objective is to get in some girl's knickers, communication could be a tool toward that objective.

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No, it would still be a process. The tools would be phones, e-mails, speech and so on............ IRL :drink:is a very effective tool :D

On the other hand, one might argue that the level 0 process is "seduction" and that communication is a sub-process or "procedure". That still doesn't make it a tool :D

From dictionary.com :

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5. anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose: Education is a tool for success.

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:drink:

Another misnomer. Education is also a process, not a tool. :D

EDIT:

My main point here is regarding analysis, architecture and process re-engineering. You cannot hope to analyse, design and re-engineer if you do not understand the hierarchy of:

1. Objectives (including critical success factors)
2. Processes (that support the objectives)
3. Procedures (that support the processes)
4. Tools (that are used to implement the procedures)

Hasn't anyone here studied and used structured design and documentation methodologies? They actually force you to make those distinctions.

Hell's teeth, I hate to talk like a textbook tutorial, but this is real life, not philosophy or semantics.

I am sure that many of you will have heard of CMM? (Capability Maturity Model).

If you do not fully understand these distinctions I doubt if you would get to CMM l2 let alone the l4 or 5 that I am used to :cool:

I think for once you may have to just concede that others have different opinions from you Nihil.

In my eyes communication is a tool to achieve a goal.

If you agree that a direct action from a person is a tool. Then you must also agree that you yourselves are, in fact, a bunch of tools.

Yep, Nihil is the biggest tool I know :D

:rolleyes: We're getting so original in the pokes. :D

:D

Hmmm,

An interesting concept? "procreation produces tools" :D

I agree that a direct action is not a tool, it is a process or procedure. The problem is possibly that I am making an assumption about the precise use of the word "communication" in this context?

You know: noun, verb, adjective, adjectival pronoun, gerund, and so on.........

I made the assumption that, in this context, "communication" was being used as a verb, which implies an action or process.

If it were a noun, then it might well be a tool, on the grounds that it would be a subject or an object. However, I would then argue that the statement should have been:

"A communication is a tool" or,
"Communications are a tool"

I might sound very pedantic, nit picking and hair splitting, but IT is a science. This is an IT forum and we are discussing an IT subject, so I tend to use IT terminology and meanings, rather than those of common parlance.

Hell, if you put a comma or semi-colon in the wrong place in a program, what happens?

Having said that, I am not criticising the original author, because I do not believe that his comments were directed at an IT audience, but more at interested members of the General Public.

As an old fart myself, I am empathetic to his sentiments, and, given that my only discernible musical talents involve a hair comb and a sheet of toilet tissue, I certainly respect a Philharmonic Orchestra musician, not only for his talent, but for his courage and self-belief in choosing that career route.

Arrrgh! Nokia you are letting the side down,

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Yep, Nihil is the biggest tool I know

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A fundamental error in the English Language................ the verb "to be", and the verb "to have"?

Also, you seem to have problems with adjectives today? I mean, how could you mistype "sharpest" as "biggest"? :p

// off topic

Have you seen the latest Royal Navy recruitment ad on TV?

We have this Electrical Artificer who says something along the lines of:

"Out here, if the server goes down, I can't call in a guy to fix it...........sometimes I just switch it off and on"

Screen then pans to thermonuclear submarine..................:shocked:

:D

Lol, nothing but the best in the Royal Navy :D

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Arrrgh! Nokia you are letting the side down

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Perhaps a glissando in recognition the author's chosen musical instrument?

Ya know friends, this is kinda sad...We have a rather deep societal observation in front of us, and instead of discussing it we're arguing the difference between "tool" and "process".

I think he has some profound insight. I'm sharing this article on two other forums, including my own.

This is what I find particularly scary:

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The Internet as we know it won't exist in 10 years. Information technology is changing rapidly. Once the owner of an Internet forum decides to stop managing it, he will stop paying his server and all of the forum posts will be lost. There will be no hard copy, no library, no database. When the server shuts down - and it will sometime, probably sooner than later - Google will find nothing that was written on the forum. The same goes for archives of a list-serve. When the piper is no longer paid, the music stops. Our postings and replies will evaporate like the dew in the sun, like they never happened. A thousand years from now, if there is a human race on this planet, it will not discover a virtual "Rosetta Stone" to unlock the thought of those who wrote pages and pages for the Internet in the early 21st century. A vast history is being recorded in completely disposable media. Clay tablets may have seemed crude to modern archaeologists who discovered the Phoenician alphabet but if the Ancients had written in a virtual medium, we would not know anything about them. Thank God for their clay tablets which survived for thousands of years. The same can't be said for 21st century mankind. What will document our time so those in the future will know about us?

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From UrbanDictionary.com:

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Tool -
someone who tries too hard. a poser. one of those chic's who holds the sign saying "Carson Daly is Hot." the asstard who goes to a rock show because they heard one of the songs on the radio or mtv. or someone who insists on wearing velour sweat suits. Avril Lavigne.

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Now that we cleared that up.

The article was a bit wordy but the guy's summations are fairly accurate.

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Ask intelligent questions, give reasoned answers. Be patient. When you don't have something to say, don't say it. If you have something to say, think about it a little longer before you write. Show respect.

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I couldn't agree more.

AngelicKnight

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Ya know friends, this is kinda sad...We have a rather deep societal observation in front of us, and instead of discussing it we're arguing the difference between "tool" and "process".

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You are on point. But before I discuss this, first and foremost: Again, I respect Mr. Yeo, and agree totally with his sentiments.

Let me briefly say this: I did not attempt to steer this discussion prior to this because this is an open forum. What I said was said, and I stand by it.
I think we can finally agree on this point; Communication is a tool: methods of communication are processes which yield their results.
I do not fault or criticize discussion concerning this issue, especially in this venue.

I did attempt to prompt further discussion on this topic, that I am guilty of.

And yes, the post I referenced was long, necessarily so, IMHO.

For those that did not bother or were too lazy to read in its entirety the posting that I referenced, I will elaborate a bit, and also speak to it.

From What Happened to the Internet? A consequential reflection by Douglas Yeo

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There was a time - not so long ago - when those with knowledge were respected for having gained that knowledge and their sharing their knowledge was a gift that was gratefully received by those with less knowledge. This has been the case with teachers and students throughout time and each of us functions in both roles - teacher and student - for most of our lives. Everyone knows more about something than someone else. But each of us always has more to learn.

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MsMittens:

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I do remember a time when there was respect online, that it was earned through knowledge (and you had to dig deep and long for it); and there was great joy at being able to pass that on to others in their endeavours to dig deep and long. Perhaps I'm feeling cynical these days.

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Not cynical, just feeling and reacting to the effects. It is now time that the online world came-to-grips with reality, and we accordingly. Respect must and can only be earned, something that appears in this modern day to be forgotten and discarded. This has to change.

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One of mankind's greatest needs is to be needed, to be wanted, to be heard, to be significant.

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A, nay, the driving force of the Internet today, along side of monetary gain.

Too much of the evolution of the Internet has been left to acquisition of monetary gain and proliferation of common sentiment, ( is this former V.P. Gore’s true legacy? )
Integrity, knowledge, and honor have been left by the way side.

My intention of bringing attention to the posting sited was to bring to this forum the insightfulness of an extraordinary individual.

I came to realize a long time ago that although people view the world in vastly different ways, I believe that the world would be a much greater place if everyone could view it from the perspective of an artist’s and teacher’s perspective. That is my goal, to help make this come true ( thus my sig )

Edit:
BTW, Semper Fi !!

IKnowNot,

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I think we can finally agree on this point; Communication is a tool: methods of communication are processes which yield their results.

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I strongly disagree with that, as I feel that you have it the wrong way round ( a 180)

As I see it, the hierarchy is thus:

Environments (Universes)
Objectives
Processes
Procedures
Tools

So, I ask myself the question "what is the Internet?".............. I would say that it is an "environment"............ of itself it is not capable of right or wrong, good or evil, or of any human attributes. It is "just there", rather like planet Earth.............

Now, people use the Internet for a variety of reasons............ these I would call "objectives"

The way in which they do this, I would describe as "processes", which are detailed by, or sub-divided into "procedures"

At the bottom of the food chain we have the mindless "tools" which just do whatever you make them.

That leads me to my final premise (for this post:D):

"Tools neither evoke nor provoke responses" ............... "actions", "processes". "events" do that".

Communication can take many forms, that is, use many tools...........example:

1. I phone you and invite you to come out for a beer.
2. I project an 84mm mortar round at your position.

Semper Fi :)

To add to what AngelicKnight quoted, a large number of political documents and correspondence are stored virtually. The idea of a paper trail is being lost among the speed and ease of an e-mail. The effects are quite similar to that of the Internet material disappearing, but even the information that is not accessible on the Internet is affected merely by the virtualization of, well, almost everything. Events leading up to larger events will be lost. The days of "so-and-so sent a letter to so-and-so which led to such-a-conflict" are being lost.

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Originally Posted by Simplicity

To add to what AngelicKnight quoted, a large number of political documents and correspondence are stored virtually. The idea of a paper trail is being lost among the speed and ease of an e-mail. The effects are quite similar to that of the Internet material disappearing, but even the information that is not accessible on the Internet is affected merely by the virtualization of, well, almost everything. Events leading up to larger events will be lost. The days of "so-and-so sent a letter to so-and-so which led to such-a-conflict" are being lost.

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Not really, considering the time before the "computerization" of the world. You still have your memory, correct? The need for a 'paper trail' is only important in legal matters, IMO. For time out of mind, traditions, histories, and legends have been passed as oral traditions and stories, including build-ups to enormous events. What has changed is the political polarization of EVERY event, and the subsequent uproar about them. Personally, I still take account of every important part of my life (and that includes 'news' events), and recount them all on occasion. If we allow our lives to be 'bookmarked' and eventually forgotten because we slip into this disposable society mindset, we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

O

Well,

The internet is a child of this disposable society. It is temporary and ephemeral, unless individuals choose otherwise.

But there is nothing new there?.............. books are lost and go out of publication........magazines, newspapers, films, radio and TV shows likewise.

Telegrams, telexes, facsimiles, letters, postcards, ............... all have their sell by dates?

What matters is do you care? and if so, what are you going to do about it?

Where are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? the Faros of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes?............... all were wonders of the Ancient World, yet are utterly lost.

The great American philosopher George Santayana made what I would call a very telling observation, when he said that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat the past.

The internet is nothing special, and nothing worth preserving per se. Like all communications environments it will evolve with technology and social forces. The question really has to be about the material content?

The only danger that I see is that some things might get lost because nobody bothers to preserve them in a more permanent way.

However, given that humanity seems hell bent on denuding and destroying its environment, who gives a rodent's rectum about the internet?

EDIT: Here is one that I did save a few classics out of:

http://www.satirewire.com/index.shtml

For example:

http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/australia.shtml

That is almost 6 years old :D

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Originally Posted by nihil

Well,

The internet is a child of this disposable society. It is temporary and ephemeral, unless individuals choose otherwise.

But there is nothing new there?.............. books are lost and go out of publication........magazines, newspapers, films, radio and TV shows likewise.

Telegrams, telexes, facsimiles, letters, postcards, ............... all have their sell by dates?

What matters is do you care? and if so, what are you going to do about it?

Where are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? the Faros of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes?............... all were wonders of the Ancient World, yet are utterly lost.

However, given that humanity seems hell bent on denuding and destroying its environment, who gives a rodent's rectum about the internet?

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I am of the "get the hell off of my lawn" variety of people. Where we have been is a precursur (sp?) to where we are now. It is unfortunate that the younger members don't appreciate a wide view of human history, but would rather confine themselves to a more 'modern' history in regards to architecture, politics, and worldview.

Colossus of Rhodes, FTW.

O ;)

I would have to agree with nihil on it being a process. Communication focuses on how people produce and process messages, and how their message options and decisions affect others' thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.Communication Tools are IM,email.etc.

I am sure this conversation was being held when Guttenburg tried to destroy the power of the clergy by allowing everyone to have a printed copy of the bible. I expect the internet to have less of an effect than the printing press as it is just the logical extension of radio and television.