[ale] Sigh. Another Old White Guy hates and fears computers

[Charles Shapiro]

What ticks me off about this is the general cluelessness.  It bugs me when
people assume that because digital creativity, elegance, and beauty look a
little different they are somehow less valid.  Unix is now over 40 years
old, and many of us still use the original tools created by Brian
Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, Alfred Aho, and countless others. Those tools
are still working on the very latest and spiffiest smartphones. If Mr.
Cohen can't be bothered to dig into the stuff he uses every day, that's a
failing on his part.

I'm not necessarily a techno-utopian, but YouTube now means that even some
kid working with his friends in his divorced dad's basement can make a hit
TV show. Heck, sites like vine.co and imgur.com mean that it might need to
be only a few seconds long. Twitter means that even a shut-in Palestinian
woman might-could have access to millions of readers. The time when you
need to pass some editor's or TV executive's whim in order to reach an
audience is past. Roger Cohen might think that's bad, but I'm excited about
it.

-- CHS


On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 9:23 AM, James Taylor <
James.Taylor at eastcobbgroup.com> wrote:

> After having spent over 30 years working with them, I think I qualify as
> an old white guy that hates and fears computers....
> -jt
>
>
>
> James Taylor
> 678-697-9420
> james.taylor at eastcobbgroup.com
>
>
>
> >>> Charles Shapiro <hooterpincher at gmail.com> 2/23/2016 9:19 AM >>>
> Op-ed in this morning's NYT. (
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/opinion/smartphone-era-politics.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Froger-cohen
> ).
>
> *  Computers are just fancy TV sets.
> *  The internet is corroding my privileged position as a Prize Pundit
> *   I can't learn anything new 'cause I'm Sad and Old
> *   You kids get off my lawn.
>
> I sincerely hope that as my generation retires and dies off, the next one
> will become more sensible about this stuff.  Just maybe, they could change
> their world for the better.
>
> -- CHS
>
>
>
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