Round-up

[avevale_intelligencer]

Hyphenated to avoid confusion with the nasty poison I used, to my shame, to sell to innocent people at Mole Valley Farmers...

So, on Tuesday we went to visit the DC and take her out to dinner, it being her ninetieth birthday. We actually managed to make the journey in daylight this time, and arrived at about half past seven (I achieved this by leaving behind the Countess's body pillow and medications). The DC came out with us readily enough (we'd told her beforehand what we were planning), sat down in the restaurant I had picked--which turned out to be a rather rowdy pub with pretensions--and ordered the same as Jan, which is what she usually does. And when it arrived, she looked at it and said "I don't want that; I've had my supper."

So Jan and I sat and ate our reasonably nice pub food, while the DC sat stony-faced and glared at her congealing meal. The waitress was kind enough to make up a doggy bag for her, but Jan was understandably upset. Add to this the fact that the flowers I had ordered to be sent to her (unlike everyone else's, which were in vases) had been dumped willy nilly in a bucket under the kitchen table, and things were not looking good. We said "all right, we'll take you out to breakfast tomorrow morning."

Come tomorrow morning. We get up, go over and say "we're taking you out for breakfast."

"I've had my porridge; I don't want any."

We went to breakfast a deux, visited cousin Maureen and came home, having spent a great deal of money we could ill afford to give a birthday treat to an old lady who was quite plainly determined not to have it. And it occurred to me that Jan's relationship with the DC is (mutatis mutandis) exactly like my relationship with nuWho in many ways.

Today we had an electrician round to sort out some things that have been waiting to be done for over ten years. Of course he found problems which added half again to the quoted price, including some cowboy work by EverCRAPest (never, ever use them for anything). But we now have one less trailing wire across the floor for Jan to trip over, and a light in the porch for when we're coming home at night, and a socket in the garden so we don't have to run wires all the way through the house to use electrical stuff outside. Which is all to the good, I guess.

And an inexpressibly fatuous article in the Radio Times prompted me to write to Feedback. Honestly, what sane rational adult could possibly espouse the nonsensical notion that it's no longer necessary to know anything because you can always look it up on your mobile? I suppose the same kind of complacent, decerebrate troglodyte who thinks as long as you can answer exam questions on Shakespeare there's no point in bothering to read or see the plays; that it doesn't matter if you can't work out how much money you've got in your hand because the checkout operator will always give you the right change; that the only thing a child needs to know is how to press a button. I was a little more polite in my email to Feedback. Don't suppose they'll print it.

So, that's my week so far. How's yours?

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Trying desperately to use those rose-tinted specs here, not even arriving till half seven means not eating till eight if you're lucky, and personally I'd have been so starving by then I'd have probably eaten before you arrived, too. (Though not a full meal). Similarly going out for breakfast - if you find somewhere that will serve a decent breakfast at breakfast time (say around 6?) rather than half-way through the morning, do let me know.
But.... no, even the rose-tinted specs don't cover that, not unless the tint's so heavy as to be blinding.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, if she'd said when we arrived that she couldn't eat anything we'd have been disappointed, but we'd have understood. But she doesn't get up till nine usually, and we were there then, only to find she'd got up at eight...

It could have been a lot worse. We're all supposed to be preparing to be contrary and irritating when we get old, aren't we, and wear purple and eat peaches and so on. She's not as bad as she could be. Just bad enough to break Jan's heart every time.

[howeird]

About your Radio Times feedback: When I was a high school student in the days of the slide rule, there was no way I had the maths skills to be any kind of scientist or engineer. So I majored in Radio/TV production and journalism and worked for 10 years in low-paying, long-hours journalism and photography jobs.

And then Texas Instruments built a scientific calculator which sold for $18 (as opposed to Hewlett-Packard's $500 one).

I went back to school nights, and with this new tool was able to ace the required Math For Electronics class and, long story short, I am now a senior engineer with an impressive resume including Motorola, Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.

And I have not been given the wrong change in a restaurant or shop for 30 years or so.

So while I agree with you that there is no substitute for actually seeing (or better yet, being in) a production of "Troilus and Cressida", I also value the tools which level the playing field. And this includes the fact that I can watch any Shakespeare play I want on my mobile via YouTube.

:-)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between levelling the playing field so that people who lack some particular skill can still play, and abolishing the game so that nobody ever has to try in case they fail. It's a tendency against which we must guard, if we want to keep what intelligence we've managed to evolve. Being able to look up any particular fact you want is all very fine and large, as long as (a) there's a connection, (b) you know what you're looking for, and (c) you can understand it once you get it...but how will people make the unexpected connections that lead to innovation if they're never taught to hold facts in their heads?

At best this can only lead to humanity splitting into an élite of those who still accumulate knowledge because they want to, and an underclass of those who've been taught that they don't need to know anything as long as they can use a phone. At worst, everyone will joyfully abandon knowledge, and then some disaster will destroy the data-net and nobody will know anything, ever again. There's no upside to this; it's the primrose path to hell.

[howeird]

Looking something up on the mobile is not "joyfully abandoning knowledge". Just the opposite, it is joyfully seeking knowledge. It's the modern equivalent of going to the library. Libraries have recognized this, at least here in the States, by providing free Internet access and a section of personal computers.

As for keeping things in your head being somehow more noble, that's very romantic. But intelligence hasn't evolved because people remember things, it evolved because people have built tools to remember things. And tools to distribute that knowledge. We've evolved from having a single long-memoried storyteller to carving the stories on walls to printing them in books to putting them online and giving access to them by anyone with a mobile.

[eintx.livejournal.com]

Yes. And now it's impossible to have a conversation, because every time a question turns up someone says "Wait, I'll just look this up" and starts fiddling around with their mobile instead of giving the question a thought or two.
(And I'm not even mentioning those whose mobiles go "plopp" or "beep" every twenty minutes anyway to tell them something of immense importance. :) This is a different subject.)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable, and I've found myself doing that. For me it's useful to cover the gaps in my knowledge...but if I couldn't answer any question without doing that I'd be effectively useless.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I can't link to the article, but "joyfully abandoning knowledge" is exactly the message it was promulgating. The writer actually stated "You do not need to know anything any more." He went on to say "Along with there being no need to know comes a massive need to be able to manipulate information when you find it." How this was supposed to be achieved without imparting information he did not go into, possibly because he'd wasted enough space.

The negative consequences of this attitude continue to occur to me. If all knowledge is kept outside human brains, who keeps it? Who controls the flow? Who can choke it off at any given moment and leave everyone floundering? Meet the new rulers of the world. Knowledge in your brain is yours forever. Knowledge is freedom.

And "noble" and "romantic" are your words, not mine, and I see the spin you're trying to put on what I'm saying, but I'm being completely practical and democratic. Intelligence evolved precisely because people remembered things. You cannot learn without remembering. We had intelligence long before we could write. It's arguable that it's never evolved since then. It may even have begun to atrophy.

Use it or lose it. That's all.

[howeird]

Yes, "noble" and "romantic" were my words. I was not trying to put words into your mouth, I was expressing my belief.

I totally agree that one cannot learn without remembering. Where we differ is in how we think learning occurs. Except for music, most of my learning came from reading. The more I read, the more I learned. I doubt if I can remember 1% of what I have read during the past 50 years, and that 1% includes a lot of "useless" information. I love this information age, because in seconds I can find online almost anything I have forgotten, and lots of things I never knew. Much of it useful.

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry about the waste of time and money and the emotional hurt from the visit to the DC. Perhaps a card and a box of chocs through the post next time ...

And I'm glad the electricity's been sorted out.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hope your cold is better.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I was behind a young lad in the queue at Tesco one day. The checkout operator told him how much he had to pay. He fished in his pocket, pulled out all his change, and stood there looking at her with it cupped in his hand till she took pity on him and picked out the coins she needed. She could have taken the lot and he would have been none the wiser. Possibly he could have looked up "Coinage of the British Isles" on his phone in a heartbeat, but why bother when there was someone else to do the thinking for him?

That is what comes of "you do not need to know anything any more." That is our future, unless we stop it.