Cyborexia Notes

20010523

Some Questions to Consider

Is there any real evidence that we are more superficial today because of technology?

How distant are primative survival methods and advanced technology?

Educational Models

Evaluation Criteria

• information transfer?
• from whom?
• under what context?

The Models

• the mentor protege model
  • limited domain
  • single viewpoint
• the classroom-test model
• limited diversity of viewpoint
• quantization of correctness (i.e. grading poems)
• the library model
• requires discipline
• mix of viewpoint dependant on the librarian
• the television magazine model
  • limited diversity of viewpoint
  • the story telling model (fiction books, movies, theater, sitcoms)
  • limited accuracy
• the internet model
  • requires varying discipline
  • reliable information mixed with unreliable
  • educational material mixed with marketing material

Technique Evaluation

Dimensions to a techniques that allow qualitative and quantitative assessment of the effects on society

• degree of contribution to a complete end product
• usages of the end product
• effort involved in widespread tooling
• effort involved in widespread automation
• complexity of use

Dimensions to a machine that allow qualitative and quantitative assessment of the effects on society

• displacement of workers
• distribution labor
• distribution expertise
• maintenance labor
• maintenance expertise
• technique it serves

Types of Estrangement

• from self
• from others
• from nature
• from God

Early 20th Century View of Elements of a Machine

• wheel
• lever
• wedge
• pulley
• inclined plane
• screw
• spring

These categories were never very presice or exhaustive.

• An inclined plane is a wedge between the plane and gravity.
• A pully contains a wheel.
• A screw must also be a spring if it is to retain position.
• Plastic deformation is assumed an undisireable attribute of a machine element.
• A gear cannot be considered equivalent to the combination of a wheel and a lever, as was then thought.

Classifying machine elements in 1998 would be nearly impossible.

• optics
• solid state electronics
• software
• hydrolics
• specialization of material properties
• accoustics
• electro-chemistry
• electro-mechanics
• electro-optics
• virtual mechanisms
• abstractions

During the discovery process of developing a technique the technician cannot easily avoid confronting the massive number of permutations that potentially yeild a market advantage. The winning design is often the one that is built on top of foundation that was not designed to support the load, and was choosen weighing heavily on the minimization of time and cost. The resultant technique may allow the economically valued process to be more efficient at a macroscopic level, but the underlying process is not efficient at all. Instead a hodgepodge of technical elements were assembled to fill a niche before it is filled in some other way or dissintegrates unexpectedly.

The proliferation of technology is fear based. It is like the driver who thinks that the person that he just passed might be an undercover highway trooper, so he speeds up to avoid capture. The proliferation of technology is covetousness. It is like the child who wants to replace her bycicle with a model that has more sprockets because they exist, yet the extra capacity reduces the exersice achieved and, if it increases the recreational component at all, increases the recreational component for social reasons.

Scope

• Human Needs
• Nurishment
• Shelter
• Interaction with Others
• Human Desires
• Forceful Control
• Building
• Vacationing
• Reaching
• Language
• Touch
• Eye Contact
• Messaging
• Content
• Medium
• Limitation
• Capacity
• Potentials
• Abuse
• Use
• Modelling and Projection

© Copyright 2001, Douglas Decicco, 3230 NE 9th Terrace, Pompano Beach, FL - This writing may be duplicated and distributed freely provided the following three restrictions are adhered to during the duplication and distribution of said writing, regardless of the number of recursive duplications or distributions made:
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