California

Insights on the 20's from Ted

St. Andrews

 

St. Andrews sits on the coast of the North Sea is Scotland.

Photographers on Tumblr

Last week I came upon an article about young people abandoning Facebook for Tumblr. Curious about Tumblr, I created a Tumblr that I call Snapped.  The first posts I saw were photographs, which led me to a web of creativity and interest.

The work I find on Tumblr is fascinating and approachable. There are young photographers and others who are very experienced.  There appears to be a good number of film enthusiasts, as well as lomographers.

Lensblr-network seems to be the hub for photographers on Tumblr.

It's awesome that so many people share their art. The result, for me, is more enthusiasm to keep a camera close by.

“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.”
― Eudora Welty
 

Desert Clouds

Yesterday I took off looking for clouds to photograph.  I drove 125 miles to Palm Springs. 

 

Legal Music for Personal Video Projects

Creative video projects are better with music.  As an artist, I'm conscious of responsibly using other artists' work, thus, I've looked into how to obtain music I can use for my projects, which are all non-commercial and used privately or for the enjoyment of my friends. 

I've used FreePlay Music for some projects.  I like the classical offerings, but a lot of their enormous library sounds dated, to my tastes.  Recently I discovered the Vimeo Music Store.  Some tracks are free for personal use, but the better tracks, in my opinion cost $1.99 to download and use for a single non-commercial project.

Dana Point February 17, 2013

San Clemente Sunset to Dusk

Reflecting on technology with Krista Tippett and Sherry Turkle

Krista Tippett hosts the show “On Being” on American Public Media. Ms. Trippett’s conversation this week is with MIT Professor SherryTurkle. I never met Professor Turkle during my time at MIT, but I knew of her and became a fan as I learned of her work. 

This conversation is called, “Alive Enough? Reflecting on Our Technology with Sherry Turkle.”   The talk examines how our interaction with technology shapes who we are and our relationships. I listened to an mp3 of this program while driving to Los Angeles yesterday morning. A number of points stood out, including Professor Turkle’s work with sociable robots that can substitute for nannies in caring for infants, or provide companionship to the elderly.  Other parts of the talk spoke about e-mail and the sense of urgency that comes with responding, an act which is more often reactive.  Professor Turkle commented that our mistake is thinking that e-mail is correspondence, when that is not necessarily, so the rules of politeness that accompany correspondence do not carry over to e-mail.

Professor Turkle’s concern for privacy, as expressed in the following exchange, caught my attention and is occupying my thought:

Ms. Tippett: We are at the beginning of a kind of revolution, something that is changing us in ways that are unfolding in real time. I mean, we often feel like it's just hard to keep up,and it is hard to keep up. I wonder if we in the 21st century are better equipped to be at a moment like this where we can actually — where we also somehow have the capacity and the intelligence — we have this capacity, whether we use it or not — to stop and say, "All right, let's make this work for human beings." I mean, that's what you're proposing.

Ms. Turkle: That's what I'm proposing, and I get very discouraged whenever I see any signs — and I've got to say I see many signs — that we don't seem to have a taste for stopping and asking, well, how can we make this work for us? So I'll give you an example of, you know, kind of my most recent moment of when I get nervous. Mark Zuckerberg makes a statement that "privacy is no longer relevant as an element in social discourse." He says that. It gets widely reported, not commented on, as though this is like a serious pronouncement. I mean, it's very serious when Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO ofFacebook, says that.

Ms. Tippett: An announcement that one doesn't have to question, I guess.

Ms. Turkle: Right. Doesn't question. You know, I tweet very little [laugh], but this caused me to tweet. I said very simply, you know, maybe privacy isn't convenient for the social network, but maybe we should be asking — and I did get in under 140 characters — you know, what is intimacy without privacy, what is democracy without privacy?

Ms. Tippett: Right.

Ms. Turkle: Democracy and privacy are very linked together in the modern world. So I get concerned when we don't seem to be stepping up to it.

My thoughts are on Zuckerberg’s statement, as quoted by Professor Turkle, "privacy is no longer relevant as an element in social discourse.” Simply put, this means that intimacy is no longer relevant. Or, it means that intimacy is now a public, rather than private.  My concern is that relationship intimacy, even at a basic level of special shared experiences, will now be public, and no longer a shared special experience.  The “Vegas Code” advertisements, including this one, make the point that not every experience is public. Intimacy shows that relationships are valuable and enduring.

Yesterday was technology packed, which added to the weightiness of listening to this program.  I drove to  Los Angeles visit my uncle and aunt - who are retired. On Thursday, I got a panicked call from my cousin, their son, when my uncle and aunt's computer, which he was using at the time, was taken over by a virus.  I drove up yesterday to take care of the problem.  Getting the computer up and running took over three hours.  However, the point is that a malfunctioning computer causes anxiety. They certainly felt it because they had no idea of how to clean the computer of the virus. Also, they wanted to understand what I was doing to repair their computer, because they thought that maybe they could become self-sufficient in taking care of problems in the future.  Yet, explaining restore points, safe starts, quarantine, and the like, isn't straightforward.  In other words, my time with them was solitary and not easily shared.  

There are many points here that speak to how technology changes relationships.  We communicate more, but with less intimacy.  I think that there are consequences to losing an understanding of intimacy.

I drove home from Los Angeles and picked up two of my cameras. I had just enough time to get to the beach as the sun set behind a blanket of clouds.  Lots of people were on the beach taking photos because the low tide allowed access.  That was good.

Low tide at Dana Point

Dusk at Dana Point Marine Life Preserve

 



I returned home from an eight trip yesterday. Going to the beach felt just right.