It used to be the case that there were four things I would make sure I had everytime I left somewhere: my wallet, my keys, my cigarettes, and a lighter. Over the past few years that list has grown somewhat to include a cell phone, an iPod, and one of those portable flash disk thingies.

I have no outright objection to technology. Opposing scientific advancements on principle seems narrow-minded and stupid. What matters, as we all know, is how technology is used. That we tend to use it to fashion new methods for killing each other seems our fault, not that of the machines. Here I can almost see the logic in that NRA slogan: Guns don't kill people; ignorant gun-nuts kills people.

One problem with progress is how easily conveniences become necessities. I learned this all on Monday, when it seems that all these devices that I've come to depend on went on strike. My iPod crashed for about the fiftieth time, the battery on my cell phone went dead, and all of the information on my myspace profile had been erased in a power outage in LA.

None of these events were the disasters they could have been. I've spent so much time on the phone with the good people of India (i.e. Apple's customer support) that I knew the tricks to restoring the iPod software. I managed to retrieve the information on my page because I luckily had the foresight to save my page's source code, and after an hour and a half of wriggling with Peter, the lone employee of East Towne Mall's Verizon Wireless center, I got a new phone. I had to get a second line to get one, but now I have that digital camera that I've been wanting. (1.3 megapixels--hooray for grainy images!)

The way all of this came at once was unnerving. Before this, I had been going through this zen-like phase of wanting to get rid of all of all my stuff. All my CDs have now been digitized and, as my friend tells me, every book imaginable is available online somewhere. Now that I see how fragile digital information can be--having lost some music, a bunch of unsolicited information about myself, and all of the phone numbers I had stored on my phone--I cling to the permanence of the printed page.

My thoughts today are again with Ned Ludd, who encouraged workers to protest the mechanizing nature of the industrial revolution by destroying the textile mills where they worked. My thoughts are also with Kurt Vonnegut, the great Luddite of our day, who is keeping me from writing more at this time. Class is in twenty minutes.

An Epiblog

A funny footnote to my last blog. I accidentally washed my brand new phone, so it doesn't work and it's not returnable, but it's sparkling clean. So now I'm more out of touch than usual. Leave me your phone number if you call me. Send me a message if you want my phone number.

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