i'M sick of the iPhone and it's not even available yet!

One of my net-chums, Dantallion, recently pontificated on the fact that people are waiting outside in 90 degree plus weather for DAYS in advance for the release of the iPhone (click on his name to read his profound ponderings on this subject).

Now don't get me wrong, it is a nifty little gadget. You can do a lot with it-- listen to music, check your email, surf the web, etc. etc. Heck I wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two a blade attachment were made available for you to be able to mow your lawn with it as well (those of you who have lawns).

But what gets me, at the core of it all, is... IT'S A CELL PHONE!! Why do we need cell phones that can also play music, surf the internet, check email, vote for their favorite singer on American Idol and send text messages (among a myriad of other options)?

Have we reached a point of self-absorbtion where the thought of playing with a high tech toy is preferable to actually reaching out and getting to know other people?

And the service provider for the iPhone is AT&T whose slogan at one point was "Reach out and touch someone." Kind of ironic that they're providing a service that allows people to make themselves far more accessible to total strangers around the world than to the people they come in contact with on a daily basis. The phone is a social tool that is supposed to promote social interaction, but with all these added features that keep getting added to cell phones, these phones are becoming devices that increasingly and alarmingly promote rather anti-social behavior.

The iPhone and other phones like it are social masturbation toys-- plain and simple. And while masturbation may be fun and feel really good sometimes it's not substitute for the real thing. So what are we doing to ourselves in the process? In the grand scheme of things, is it really worth it to close ourselves off from the rest of the world to become totally engrossed in a high priced portable toy?

And Steve Jobs, don't move, I'll go get you a tissue!

Are we becoming TOO connected?

Previously upon reading the article linked to below, I was pondering-- "are we perhaps becoming too connected?" Does the possibility of being able to "connect" while in your car appeal to you? Or has the sublime reached the point of ridiculousness?

Isn't there anywhere whence we can escape this madness? I like being connected as much as the next bloke or sheila-- but sometimes I like to get away from it all.

I'm truly looking forward to my trip up to the Adirondacks this summer-- to a campground surrounded by mountains with such a high iron content that it's near impossible to get a cell phone signal... A place where truly you CAN escape the pull of technology, that is if you really want to (and you don't have to try THAT hard to do so) and really want, where "logging on" truly DOES mean tossing another log on the campfire, and the only real access to the outside world is a phone booth near the main gate where you enter and exit the campground. It's a place where the soundtrack is provided by the assorted wildlife who inhabit that particular stretch of wilderness not by an iPod, Zune, or any other digital music devices... And the lights aren't those of a city or metropolitan area-- they're the lights of the night sky. The full moon can act as a spotlight for midnight canoeing and there are more stars visible than you could ever imagine seeing in the city or the 'burbs.

Aren't there times or places where you'd really prefer not to be so easily reached? Or has our technological proclivicty reached such a fever pitch that much like an infant with a pacifier, we "need" to be connected as much as possible? Is this constant "need" for connection a help or a hindrance? A panacea or a problem?

At any rate here's the article: Wi-Fi Is Hitting the Road in Cars From Avis, but Technical and Legal Bumps Lie Ahead

Discuss amongst yourselves...

Yours Truly, 2095

Today I was listening to ELO's Time album. Being a concept album, all of the songs on this album have a sci-fi feel to them. Having been written and recorded in the early eighties, it's kind of surprising how some of the concepts and ideas on this album have, in some way shape or form come to fruition.

Yours Truly, 2095 is about a man who falls in love with a robot. I'm not saying there are people falling in love with robots, but are we really that far off? We have robo-pups, a few years ago we had the furbies (they're still out there, I believe, although not as popular as they once were) which were essentially A.I. pets. With A.I. pets are A.I. "companions" that far off?

Or a looser interpretation-- we use cell phones, laptops, mp3 players-- all of which both bring us closer together and tear us further apart. We're essentially wed to technology, on one hand it allows us to communicate with people hundreds and thousands of miles away-- making the world a much smaller place, but on the other hand these technologies encourage self-absorption and solitude. We have better "connections" but it allows us to shut out those with whom we share our lives-- those in the here and now.

The song at one point even touches upon jealousies, a robot being jealous of an IBM for example-- sometimes our friends and family, those who are "there" who are the tangible, not the cyber, end up feeling left out when those of us who enter this digital space, this blogosphere, an exit on the Information Superhighway forsake our tangible connections for those which are a bit less corporeal.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, maybe technology is just moving faster than we can keep up with it... This new access to information, to new people is happening so fast we just haven't had a chance to process is properly or correctly and thus maybe society, as a whole, is getting so caught up in the advance of technology that we're just getting "lost" along the way.