I must say, it was nice not to use a computer very much when I was home for the holidays. Apart from a terribly slow connection (at least compared with what I have become accustomed to), I just enjoyed not using one.
Some of my colleagues assure me they would freak out if they were without internet access for more than a day or two. This means no camping trips, no long walks in Mexico, no more other things that take you away from a power socket. Poor buggers.
There have been the odd few posts that I can recall about people being emotionally honest with their internet readers, and perhaps not so honest to their offline friends. This concept was brought home pretty strongly by a guy called Justin, who filmed himself in a very dark light, very confused about how this method of communcation had (seemingly) alienated him from all his offline friends, because they felt they were unable to trust him to keep the things they shared offline.
I was briefly interested in and reading about trust in virtual teams, and how being online and working online affects the notion of trust. Indeed some virtually run teams seem to perform better, since they are able to avoid all that 'water cooler' crap that inevitably invades office environments, and pollutes the notion of trust by mixing it with power.
It would seem there is a new type of (dis)trust emerging in all this free (love) communication. How does what I write here affect the people I write about? If a reader has never met the subject, and probably never will, does that mean i've broken the subject's trust? Does "don't tell anyone" include the internet? What if the subject doesn't know? Or never reads my blog?
And! I've started reading The Selfish Gene. I didn't realise it was first published in 1976, and republished in 1989. It's good already and i'm only 10 pages in. Nice bus ride fodder. And! I learnt this morning that a male praying mantis often endures enhanced sexual performance even after having his head bitten off by his girlfriend.
So there you go.
Some of my colleagues assure me they would freak out if they were without internet access for more than a day or two. This means no camping trips, no long walks in Mexico, no more other things that take you away from a power socket. Poor buggers.
There have been the odd few posts that I can recall about people being emotionally honest with their internet readers, and perhaps not so honest to their offline friends. This concept was brought home pretty strongly by a guy called Justin, who filmed himself in a very dark light, very confused about how this method of communcation had (seemingly) alienated him from all his offline friends, because they felt they were unable to trust him to keep the things they shared offline.
I was briefly interested in and reading about trust in virtual teams, and how being online and working online affects the notion of trust. Indeed some virtually run teams seem to perform better, since they are able to avoid all that 'water cooler' crap that inevitably invades office environments, and pollutes the notion of trust by mixing it with power.
It would seem there is a new type of (dis)trust emerging in all this free (love) communication. How does what I write here affect the people I write about? If a reader has never met the subject, and probably never will, does that mean i've broken the subject's trust? Does "don't tell anyone" include the internet? What if the subject doesn't know? Or never reads my blog?
And! I've started reading The Selfish Gene. I didn't realise it was first published in 1976, and republished in 1989. It's good already and i'm only 10 pages in. Nice bus ride fodder. And! I learnt this morning that a male praying mantis often endures enhanced sexual performance even after having his head bitten off by his girlfriend.
So there you go.