Kevin Kelly lays out some “core” arguments against technology in a effort to understand them. It’s a start. And the subject should continue to be interesting.

Has he articulated them clearly so that others can engage? I’m not sure. Take argument number 3:

Contrary to Technology Itself. Technology proceeds so fast it is going to self-destruct. It is no longer regulated by nature, or humans, and cannot control itself. Self-replicating technologies such as robotics, nanotech, genetic engineering are self-accelerating at such a rate that they can veer off in unexpected, unmanageable directions at any moment. The Fermi Paradox suggests that none, or very few civilizations, escape the self-destroying capacity of technology.

A lot of this reads like science fiction or Shelleyesque rather than historical analysis or as factual. Do we have examples of this “veering off” issue? Do we have anything beyond inductive generalization? The button, for example, is a medieval invention, but such an example is not really considered “technology” in the above sense. Or shoe laces.

“Against technology” arguments, even wen they are fairly posited, suffer from definitional questions. What specific kinds of technology, for example, are considered dangerous or unnatural in the frame of Romanticism?

We have a major miner bee colony in our yard. Or, should I say yards, as they’ve spread. They’re cute little bees and don’t bother. They’re good aerators and come to their holes with lots of pollen, a welcome spring addition to the “green” garden.

We have plenty of bubble bees, too, bumbling about. Out kicking the ball, they fly in and check you out for sweetness, then buzz off where ever it is they go on their rounds. Some of them are fairly large, about the size of my thumb.

Lunch time and I’ve been reading a lot about newspapers and the demise issue. Here’s Doc Searls.

The bottom line here is that a lot of good people are working on solutions. These solutions are not the same old stuff in new wrappers. They’re original ideas, some of which the papers will have no control over.

He has a lot of interesting suggestions for future models. I would not actually mind paying for quality reporting as the issue of news coverage is critical to knowing what’s happening in “distant but important place” as it’s quality reporting that is at issue for readers and citizens.

I get much of my news from small micro papers published in northern CT. We still get the Hartford Courant, but this will soon end, as the content I read in that paper has been trimmed, its tone is oddly angled, and the paper has very little that can’t be done elsewhere. I’ll miss the paper, but it’s not serving my needs. And the NYT is too much paper for my reading habit. We don’t need “newspapers” but we need excellent journalism.

Journalism is more than The Globe or Courant. It’s also the technical areas we work in: computer science and literature news, reportage on numerous areas of interest. Newspapers, in a sense, are an extending technology–they extend the eye, the ear, and the body of those who want the engagement. We’re grappling with the physicality of information and place. Payment methods are one issue: there’s also the issue of readership.

Congratulations are in order for two Tunxis students.

Beau Anderson has been accepted into the University of Connecticut’s Masters in Public Administration Program.

In addition, Lonnie Ann has been accepted into Savannah College of Art and Design.

Congratulations to both of these fine humans.

So, who’s going to purchase these cars?

Tunxis Community College Presents
A Night of Comedy, Satire, and Theater

“The Book of Leviticus Show,” “Kitty the Waitress,” “Funeral Parlor”* by Christopher Durang. Directed by George Sebastian-Coleman

“The Hail Mary Pass” by Patrice Hamilton. Directed by Patrice Hamilton

Here are the audition dates:

Wed. 5:30-8:30pm February 18
Rooms 6-127 & 6-128

Sat. 10am-12 pm February 21
Rooms 210 & 215

Call Backs
Sat. 12:30-3:00 pm 2/21/09
Rooms 210 & 215

Email tunxiscollege at gmail.com for Audition Info Sheet and remember to bring a copy of your picture to audition!

Pick up copies of the plays at the Tunxis Library

Dress Rehearsal: April 30, 2009

Performance Dates: Friday Night, May 1, 2009 and Saturday Night, May 2, 2009

I’ve just received word that a good friend and colleague of mine, Art Adolfson, coordinator of our Math and Computer Science honors program is in the hospital after being hit on his bicycle by a car.

This is an excellent person. He will be on leave and should recover, which is good to hear.

Here’s an odd article in the paper this morning called Charter School’s Preschool at Risk. It’s an example of dropped balls and waste regarding licensing law and categories. For several reasons.

The issue has swept Jumoke into a legal battle that could have ramifications for all charter schools in the state. Although under state law charter schools are now subject to the licensing process for day-care programs, they usually did not seek a license because they assumed that, like public and private schools, they were exempt, Sharpe said.

Reasons are provided how the issue erupted:

State law says day-care programs run by a public school system or a private school acknowledged by the state Department of Education don’t need a license to operate.

That law would seem to allow day-care programs run by charter schools. But a different law defines charter schools as “public, nonsectarian school(s) … operated independently of any local or regional board of education” — thus making them a separate entity from public or private schools.

One answer is to require a license. The other is cut and paste the language of exemption from public schools to charter schools and to justify the shift without muddling the categories. But CT will take the more painful route of adding a licensing burden to charter schools, mucking up simplicity, and complicating attitudes against “regulation.”

In any event, why did the charter schools “assume”? And why did the state overlook the subject in the first place? Why are public schools exempt from licenses?

I caught this lamp in my coffee Friday morning. Don’t know how it got in there.

Jesse Abbot has just sent me a video of our good friend Rob Santos riffing at Gotham Comedy Club.

Go Rob. And congratulations.