Strange, phantom, post-industrial moments in your life

Several times in the past couple of years I've found myself wanting to hit "ctrl-f" to find a particular passage in a book.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/28/070528fa_fact_wilkinson

It's a great article, and I can't link it. Not a surprise, if you read the article, which you should if you haven't already done so.
It's kinda what you're talking about.
Or maybe not - but that guy would know since he's...
I don't know, he should come over to ILX and see what happens. his crazy files would be more beautiful/crazy.

I think the phantom thing for me is dreaming in computer.
I'm sort of committed to try to live without the computer for two weeks. I tried 12 hours as a test - no go.

First - leave ILX. For a week.
Then unplug.
is it possible?

"The Gordon Bell, incidentally, who believes that one day houses will have no windows, so it won’t matter where they are—screens on the walls will display whatever we want to look at."

:(
but i know it's gonna happen, esp in cities, at this rate
(it does make me glad that my thesis is partly about screens though! y'know, "relevance")

i am of two minds re: "lifelogging" mostly b/c of the difference between information and knowledge - logging, archiving is not nec reflective even if it's accumulative. at the same time, it changes how history is done, has the possibility to extend recording to a wider range of people, creating a more democratic or equal overall 'archive.' hm, or does it? is the methodology still the same only with different tools? and those who don't have time, skills or access are still left out.
i mean, i don't freakin want to know what someone ate for breakfast every day in 2005 and have that information hold the same weight as more profound statistics that could actually shed light on broader social situations.

i'm all for more information but the real issue is how to organize it. so, y'know, one can actually use it. e.g., the health applications mentioned in the article are interesting, but the memory-extension applications are a worry - the way the brain works, esp how memory works, is a fairly nascent research area really - to prematurely make memory into archivable facts via computer intervention = all kinds of practical and philosophical red flags

i do often wish for 'search' and 'find' functions in everyday life though, esp like, an archive of people's faces and names that would pop up in my brain in certain social situations

That article looked so depressing I couldn't even start it.

(obviously the window quote is ridiculous - the primary point of a window isn't just to "look at whatever you want")

I've found myself trying to click on underlined portions of text in letters.

yeah, i know, re: windows - they are about more than just looking at stuff! i don't think a screen can replace the psychological importance of having access to the outside/escape even if you're on the 30th floor. i imagine massive high-rises without windows and screens beaming in artificial light and images of whatever - would our brains start to adapt and make us think that the screen is actually the outside world? one could argue that tv kind of does that in certain ways! but the screen-as-window in this case seems a bit more fundamental or something.
xpost

i don't even know what these 'letters' you speak of are

when i play zelda for too long i walk around the house looking for places to attach my hookshot. but that might not be phantom, post-industrial as much as it is nerdy.

I have mentally ctrl-Z my makeup before!

A friend of mine used the phrase "I gotta ctrl f that shit" when he couldn't find his keys.

And once, I had my cell phone in one hand and a glass of water in the other and I put my cell phone to my lips like I was going to drink it.

I was at a show once where the singer tried to take a sip from his microphone, instead of the water bottle in his other hand.

Re: Windows

When I was a grad student working as computer support for the math dept, I once had to help an 80 year-old prof (emeritus) cope while her broken wyse serial terminal that the loved dearly was replaced. I took her down to the grad computer lab and tried to explain the modern paradigm of the "mouse" and "clicking" and so on. She was pretty tolerant until she'd heard enough of my speaking of "clicking on windows", at which point she told me that she'd call the mouse a "mouse" and she'd hit the "clicker", but there was no way in hell she was gonna call the box on the screen a "window".

This is really a post-industrial "moment" in reverse.

I was just watching Empire Strikes Back on my laptop and tried to use the touchpad to scroll through the opening credits sequence.

the other day I tried to find complex analysis (as a concept) on my iPod

are u all high

I have mentally ctrl-Z my makeup before!

Yes I frequently try to Control-Z in real life. I'm always disappointed when I can't.

Other random weirdness: In the past I've tried to write grocery lists in HTML: <ul>
<li>bread</li>
<li>eggs</li>
etc. . .

This has nothing to do with technology but while watching the last Star Wars movie Anakin's light saber was knocked away in a fight. In my head I was screaming "Accio light saber! Accio light saber!"

ctrl+f keys when needing to leave house. PLEASE.

yeh, my hands twitched apple-Z after I dropped a cup the other week

i'm always searching in vain for a "mute" button

I hade Pine Sol (toxic floor cleaning product) in my hand and a bottle of water tucked under my arm and I unscrewed the cap of the Pine Sol and raised it to my lips...luckily, it's Pine Sol,and smells like the name, so my brain said "Do Not Want!".
The multitude of experiences that have to do with BOTTLED WATER!!! are such a reflection of how much things have changed.
Twenty years ago, as far as I can recall, not many people carried bottles of water around. I don't know how we managed. Did we just drink water from cups or something? Were we dehydrated? Were there more water fountains?
I'm not being facetious - I truly can't imagine going anywhere without a bottle of water! (I do refill from the sink. i don't buy a new one everyday.)
Is it sort of infantile to need to walk around with a bottle?
I am now going to search the internet for an informative article about the rise of the bottled water phenomenon.
Or perhaps there's a thread. Hmmmm....

ctrl + f "keys" 2x

i have more than once tried to phone my wallet or keys so i can hear it ringing and find where i left it

Yesterday evening, while I was looking at the clear sky and liking it, for a moment I wanted to click on it.

Last week on vacation, my boyfriend poured his coffee onto his pancakes.

which isn't post-industrial but was hilarious and several things on this thread made me think of it...

I'm not quite sure if this fits, but a few months ago I was in my car, listening to the local NPR radio station called The Current. The Current plays a wide range of current music, much of which my husband describes as "weird." A song started on the radio at the same time my cell phone started ringing... only I didn't realize the phone was ringing; I just thought, "wow, this music is awfully atonal..."

I did finally realize what was going on, but not in time to answer the call.

I explained myself to him, trying not to sound completely ridiculous. "And so, I calculated that, in 1983, this was the center of Silicon Valley, and I came down here to see it --"

"And you ended up at a Superfund site," he said.

What we see now is a surreal imitation of the suburban industrial parks and commercial spaces of yesteryear. They're built atop the past's mistakes, erasing them from our maps and eyes.

And yet, as the humans eat dosas and climb fake mountains and learn acupuncture and buy lap dances, beneath the asphalt and concrete, the microbes eat toxic waste sweetened with molasses, cleaning up our mistakes.

A revolution began here. And this is what's left over.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/13/07/not-even-silicon-valley-escapes-history/277824/

Fascinating in in its monotony yet equally disturbing.

That is disturbing