Friday, February 19, 2010

The Power of Abstraction

20100219 typecast pt1
20100219 typecast pt2
Typed on an Olympia SM-9
Olympia SM-9

4 comments:

James Watterson said...

So true! That is one thing that makes analog media always win, it just lasts longer and we know it. None of us really know how long our hard drives will last. Plus in the throw away society that we live in, I wouldn't be surprised if they start making hard drives cheaper as well. They just don' make things like they used too anymore.

The thing about Toyota, I though it was the rubber floor mats that they put in the cars that was making the accelerator stick? I could be wrong though.

mpclemens said...

The Toyota thing was originally blamed on the floor mats, until there was a crash involving a car with the mats still in the trunk. Oops.

I've heard it attributed to condensation, to excessive friction, to the computer chip. Since the car is entirely capable of moving the accelerator without your help (c.f. cruise control) I would not be surprised to discover a software glitch, possible brought about by an unexpected design issue -- a sensor reading something "impossible" or the like.

James Watterson said...

Yea yesterday on the radio show Opie & Anthony that I listen to everyday they had the audio from one of the 911 calls.

I guess this guy called 911 as he and someone else were doing 120MPH and then the road ended. (In a Lexus) I can't believe that! Wouldn't you think to put the car in neutral? I would probably have thought to put the car in neutral and turned the key before ever thinking about calling 911??? Wouldn't you? But sadly there were 4 fatalities.

rino breebaart said...

Nice piece. I wonder about those future archeologists and antiquarians - digging out the guts of an old Macintosh, and thinking Hm, curious magnetic drive technology. Why did they bother? We so optical now. Insert tricorder joke.

But with a typewriter, the intent and the function is so clear, obvious, and mechanically transparent, there could be no second-guessing: this is a printing machine, a way of composing text. Look, it still works.