Just some thoughts I’ve had since our class on thursday. It seems like at first glance, a lot of these things that are taking place on the internet and otherwise are huge leaps from what happened before. But I feel like on closer inspection, many things which at first seem to be wildly different, are just familiar things projected into a very slightly different domain. It reminds me of the nature of ‘discovery’, often what are touted as new discoveries are just incremental improvements.
It may seem weird to us right now that people are purchasing virtual land for real dollars, but it must have seemed equally weird when people started buying futures on the stock market, liability insurance against things which will never happen. However those things are natural outgrowths of speculative stock trading, and fixed liability situations.
It’s also important to remember that just because something is touted as the way of the future, does not mean everything changes overnight. The new and old often co-exist for long periods of time, and who is to say which will win out in the end (whoops if you bought a laserdisc!).
I was reminded of this while I was reading this Reporter (I know… I know…) article which I happened to be reading in the back row of my class.
In reference to installing wireless access points in classrooms:
Masi said that some professors have requested wireless access be not available in classrooms, for fear that it would lead to a modern equivalent of students reading a newspaper in the back row.