The pen can write poetry or a death sentence.

Interesting piece at Short Stack about the new book eTrust: Forming Relationships in the Online World.

I like this argument that obsolete technology can be just as “dangerous” as the new vanguard.

“After the widespread adoption of online communication in the 1990’s, it did not take long before the dangers of sexually explicit material and personal indiscretion became the ideological bogeymen of the Internet. Such polar extremes are not especially useful because they tend to conflate information technologies with their social uses. The telephone can be used to reach a loved one, or to call in a bomb threat. The pen can write poetry or a death sentence.”

Short Stack - (washingtonpost.com)

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A Twitter friend, @cthon1c, just Tweeted this. Twit this. Twote? A boy named Andrew Sullivan broke my foot in third grade. But it wasn’t this Andrew Sullivan. I remember thinking, “One day, when I’m an adult, I’m going to tell people that ANDREW SULLIVAN broke my foot!” Well, so, here you go. Honestly, I think he didn’t really break it. I just blamed him. Because I liked him. D’uh.

For The Washington Post Magazine article that led to this book, I asked Ann Coulter what she thought was becoming obsolete. Her response?

Maureen Dowd.

I didn’t include people in the book, so this wasn’t discussed. I don’t think people really become obsolete. But, for the article, in the interest of fairness, I asked Maureen Dowd how she felt about Coulter’s statement. She had no comment. And now Andrew Sullivan’s is entering this exciting battle!

Okay, I got one. How is this: Obsolete? Lou Dobbs! Get it? Get it?

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100 Things Your Kids Will Never Know About

Over at Wired, one of the GeekDad’s has compiled a nice list called “100 Things Your Kids Will Never Know About.” Here are some highlights:

-Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the Internet.
-Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
-Neat handwriting.
-Swimming pools with diving boards.
-Looking out the window during a long drive.
-Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
-Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
-Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
-Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
-Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
-Starbuck being a man.
-Betamax tapes.

The list has gotten a lot of comments and Diggs, which I find heartening, considering that the whole thing reads a little like the contents page of Obsolete. I’d venture to say, however, that my effort is more devoted to the cause: unlike this free-to-read list, my musings come in the form of a book that will likely have to be paid for with money—and cash and books, of course, are both discussed therein. According to Wired’s Chris Anderson’s new book, Free, the notion of paying
for any kind of product at all might be obsolete all together. Anderson has been accused ofplagiarising Wikipedia in his book. Do you really want to support the theories of a plagiariser? If you don’t, then I’d suggest going straight to Amazon in order to spend old fashioned PayPal money on a pre-ordered edition…

I should mention that Obsolete started as a Washington Post Magazine article that can still be read online, free-of-charge.