Generational clash?

Hi Mom, Dad! What's Up? 

Greeja De Silva

The moment Elvis Presley went on stage gyrating his pelvis, belting his then-new number 'Hound Dog', the elders went white. To them, his suggestive moves were the mark of the beginning of the end, Armageddon. Nearly seventy years on, we are, however, still very much rocking.

Ironically, almost all toddlers make Superman out of their fathers. This admiration slowly dwindles as puberty hits when opinions about the perspective of life clash. They grow apart with the passing years only for the toddler, now a middle-aged father of an adult child himself, to realise the 'Superman-Ubermench' capabilities of his old man. 

All these are nothing new but generational gaps. The generation next looks at their predecessors as obsolete and the elders at their offspring as decadent and self-destructive. Even Socrates must have thought the same of the youngsters of his times that he thought his death by hemlock would awaken them. 

Of course, we can now point all these clashes to the relatively incomplete development of the frontal lobes on one side and the genuine desire to impart life lessons to the kids on the other. The kids are overwhelmed with unabated exposure to the outside world and the unfettered ability to verbalise their thoughts.

Technology is a double-edged sword. Cursed for causing divisiveness between generations, it has also found its uses to unite them. Like the Elvis moment, the elders viewed unrestricted access to information as dangerous. Detractors to this assert that the 'Superman' wisdom will prevail. It is envisaged that the cyber-savvy generation will realise that great powers come with big responsibilities. Hopefully, a steady state will prevail.  

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Sex sells

The Erotic Engine: How Pornography Has Powered Mass Communication from Gutenberg to Google (2011)
Author: Patchen Barss


Pornography has always been frowned upon as the destroyer of civilised societies. It has been put in the same decadent basket of other vices of man including cheating and gambling.

On the contrary, the idea of voyeurism goes back as far as our cavemen ancestors. They had been so fascinated with human anatomy, like excited schoolboys and toilet graffiti, that they decided to draw what they saw during the day on the wall of their dwellings. The early human civilisations were quite liberal with sexuality and nudity. Ancient sculptures of couples in various stages of undress and in acts of copulation are general knowledge. The Indian book of Kamasutra is the living proof of this. Even as late as the European Renaissance, the human body was immortalised in paintings.

Science and technology propelled the human race forward to meet various challenges. It helps Man to explore newer frontiers. Before the industrial revolution and the introduction of Gutenberg’s printing press, books and illustrations were handwritten and drawn. It was expensive, and it catered for the rich, who was also coincidentally literate. The general populace could not read; hence, it did not matter what was written. The Books at that time were filled with erotica, but the learned were thought to be able to handle it.

© Roy Singh

The democratisation of printing opened this bag of worms to all. The middle class, who had their own moral standards, were ill-prepared to handle these. The Church which was the de-facto moral guardian of the masses intervened. The naked body became immoral, and its depiction against the law. Nevertheless, the interest never wanes but goes on underground. It created a new branch of a discipline called pornography to the masses but fine art to the high heeled.

The next wave of information dissemination came in the form of photography (pictures) and moving pictures (movies). Again the human body became the fascination of the makers and consumers alike. Peep shows, watching fuzzy pornographic plates became a cheap thrill. When a succession of photographs became cine, for the first time, people had the option of starring at a human body without raising the eyebrow of the other.

It was a godsend. To hide out in a dark theatre in anonymity watching ‘dirty picture’ in near lifelike visuals and audio.

Erotica continued tickling minds. The demand for it continued. It propelled advances in cinematographic techniques and optics to meet requests. Slowly explicit pictures made it to the mainstream. In the 80s, it became a norm for a Hollywood flick to have the mandatory flashing of breasts to hit it big in the box office.

Betamax - a relic of the past ©Yahoo

The video was the next thing to hit the market. Porn consumers were particularly enthralled. In the comfort of their homes with the company of a stag (or maybe mixed) party, in anonymity, they could watch all the smut they want to their heart’s content. The video was the in-thing in the 80s, creating trade wars and advances in the storage of visual data.

Computer games gave a shot in the arm towards this end. With interactive capabilities, the end user-provider barrier slowly starts to become interactive. Again and again, porn financed improvements in technology. VHS and Betamax graduated to LaserDisc and to DVD for that elusive high definition. UHF transmissions and cable TV were riding on pornography for profitability.

With time, silicon chips became a mode of the information revolution. Computer games gave users the freedom of creating their own avatars. It metamorphosed to their choice of a partner not only in the war games but something more intimate, like cybersex. From dirty talks using keyboards, it moved to joysticks and now the tip of the finger.

Next giant step in broadcasting must surely be the internet. Again, in its infancy, porn-related stuff was its best seller. It had an essential role in pushing the process of going on-line a breeze. For a seamless, uninterrupted flow of erotica, good bandwidth was needed. Poof, came protocol to this end. 


What is the meaning of all these if money cannot be collected properly? The model of consuming first and pay later is notoriously unreliable in the porn industry. As it is a shady business, its patrons, naturally act dishonestly. Hence, there needs to be a safe encrypted secure way of collecting money before consumption. This sole intention must have improved our current way of internet shopping and credit card transactions. The need for anonymity helped online privacy and data protection.

 Comfortably Numbed - VR © Slate.

To keep up with piracy of dirty pictures, the porn industry developed its own way of tracing the source of copying and protection of its 'intellectual property'. This was later found useful in tracking down paedophiles and serial rapists.

It appears like there is no limit in satisfying the demand for porn. Its consumers demand more even when newer avenues are made available. It seems that sensations acquired through virtual reality are insufficient. In the near future, the industry hopes to venture into the field of haptic stimulations. This technology tries to transfer temperature, texture, motion and pressure stimuli to its end-users to satisfy their ever-expanding sexual gratifications.

A deep link exists between pornography, the tools and techniques of human communication. Sexual depiction is a powerful source of creativity and a driving force in innovation. Many modern search engines, online retailers, video/photo sharing sites and media moguls owe their success to pornographic websites.   

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It is all a ploy!

Centennial light 113 years old still lighting in Livermore fire station

Our whole childhood in RRF was filled up with the memory of a single refrigerator - National Jet cycle. Even the fluorescent tube light then seem to last forever. I do not even remember the tube starter needing to be changed. So what happen? Every thing seem to have a shorter life span as time goes on.
Just heard about a light bulb which was bought in 1903 and is working after all these years barring a few instances when it went off due to wiring faults, power failure and whilst the time the place it was placed, i.e. a fire station, moved premises.
It is a  hand-blown common 60W bulb made from carbon filament in the 1890s, donated to a fire brigade when light technology was in its infancy. It was a sort of community service for the voluntary firemen to get ready to rush to their job. The bulb kept on burning over the years, seeing many transformations in mankind. It saw the Wright brothers fly for the first time, two World Wars and survived two transfer of premises! The company which manufactured these type of long lasting bulbs, Shelby Electric Company, later went bust.
In the 1920's, at a time of economic awakening after the devastating effects of World War 1, a bulb cartel mooted a movement referred to 'Planned Obsolescence'. They grappled the idea that 'a product that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business'. Hence, there was a conspiracy to shorten lifespans of products. This, with the lure of Edward Bernace's use of psychological marketing, generated sales and boosted the economy. Pretty soon, carbon filaments were replaced with tungsten and bulb's life span reduced from a lifetime or more to 2500 hours to 1000 hours.
Interestingly, the light of the technologically advanced webcam which was set up to watch the Centennial Bulb when it became a national heritage, had to be replaced a couple of times. It continues performing its duty, albeit at a lesser glow akin to a 4W nightlight.

http://www.catalanfilmsdb.cat/en/productions/documentary-television/the-light-bulb-conspiracy-ndash-the-untold-story-of-planned-obsolescence/2749/

http://www.centennialbulb.org/

He thought he ruled the skies!

Above us only sky?

"Why is it that people get all emotional when a plane goes down in its line of duty?" complained a friend after viewing umpteen posts of the downing of a plane involving 166 and  hardly anything on the massive floods that submerged almost the whole of the east coast of the peninsular, affecting close to 200,000 people of all strata and tears that would fall after the aftermath.
Is it because traditionally flying involved people who are important performing jobs which would literally alter the course of mankind? Perhaps, it does not hold water anymore, since, now everyone can fly! The glitz of flying as being the domain of the rich and famous was relevant in mid 20th century.
Is that the reason so much of resources is spent on its search and rescue missions?
I tend to think that perhaps, man's ability to fly is one giant step in their civilisation. Being a biped, walking on land, ability to fly off the ground with no physical contact with Mother Gaia is a feather in his cap (pun unintended) and giant step in advancement. He, through generations, was fascinated with  the wing spanning feathered animals. He had tried disastrously to mimic them in many laughable and ridiculously failed manoeuvres.
Not being the one to succumb to the pressures of the forces of Nature, he constantly assesses and revises the shortfalls in his inventions to attain perfection.
So, when his dear invention meets failure, he naturally feels defeated and wants to get to the bottom of the matter!
P/S: Looking at the turn events of aviation mishaps of late, it appear that the passengers are actually travelling at the mercy of element of chance. Nobody actually seem to know exactly what is happening on air and where actually is the air craft. When all hell break, these deficiencies surface. 

Social studies behind the elevator!

We always tend to gauge modernity via our ability to go from point A to point B on a horizontal plain in record time. We were considered to have propelled into a new era when the steam and combustion engines came to fore. With nuclear energy we took another giant step for mankind. Speed was of essence.
We forget that our vertical mobility is also a sign of modernity or at least left an impact with it.
Before elevators were invented, buildings were not tall. Elevators helped us to develop 'vertically'. Anyway, what is modernity without skyscrapers?
With increased concentration of people in a small square metre, the concept of familiarity and need to acknowledge each other slowly dwindled. Slowly, people began not acknowledging each other and started the business of MYOB. People may be literally dead in the pigeon hole before his neighbour realises that he actually had he had an neighbour from the stench emanated from the decaying corpse!
The early elevators were slow and were big rooms for passengers to rest and have a drink, manned by elevator boys. He manned his own space.
Placement of social class also turned with the advent of electric elevators. Initially, the poor classes and mistresses were placed in the higher floors. It was a time when a bourgeoisie ascends to the higher floor for his private business, it was assumed that he had a mistress placed in the higher or was having an illicit union with a mistress from the working class! The higher floors also placed ladies of ill-repute.
When vertical achievability became easy with modern electrical generators and hydraulics, slowly the penthouses and the affluent found their way up. Naturally property prices soared as you when further up the ground, away from the filth of the city, so to say.
Elevators also help to investigate the peculiar behaviours of people, also a confessional space when it goes into trouble (e.g. like trapped in a lift). It is also a fertile ground for studies in psychology. When a person enters an empty lift, he would invariably stand near the controls. The next person who enters would place himself diagonally opposite to the first. The next two would take either corners and the next one in the centre. Almost like clockwork, all of them would look up in unison waiting for the ascent into space. There is a kind of suspicion amongst all these people even though they may be on top of each other, location wise, each day, every day would go without giving a care to the person who stays, live or work in the same building. That, in essence, is the dynamics of modern living. Each man is a man for himself..

3,2,1...off to ICU!

The last few days have been relatively peaceful. The rudimentary contraption that I now hold, called mobile phone serves its purpose quite well. It is mobile, it is always on the go.

Life is peaceful as the urge to gaze at the screen if there was anything new in the cyberspace or social media did not arise as it is not a very smartphone. It is from the pre-3G dinosaur era.

My life is more serene without the frequent buzzing or vibrations as if a rattlesnake was curling around the inside of my pants.

My friends, however, were under the impression that I had somehow recoiled into my own cocoon becoming an antisocial as all the Whatsapp messages directed to me had gone unanswered.
I, however, miss indulging in my own magical world filled with podcasts from NPR and the like.

Is it a boon or bane? Just like many things (and people) in our lives, we have to learn with it or around it. Priorities in life should be of paramount importance!

My usually smart mobile phone is now in critical condition in ICU. The monitors are still bleeping, indicating remnants of life still clinging on. How long? Can it be resuscitated, or is it going to be a flatliner (a.k.a. asystole) and be transferred to the mortuary? Time will tell...