During the entire month of April, I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. The alphabet will be my motivation, though the content of the posts will be very similar to what regular readers are used to. Check out the link for more amazing bloggers, and enjoy April!
First: Thank you to everyone who helped me with my Hades dilemma yesterday. I can see him much more clearly now.
In the late 80’s I discovered Duran Duran. I know they’d been around longer than that, but I was a sheltered child. I became a fast fan, both of the old stuff (Rio, Girls on Film) and the newer songs (anything of The Wedding Album).
Including this song:
Oddly enough, just as relevant today as it was almost 20 years ago (ouch). And it got me thinking. When the internet was young and new and people looked at it idealistically and it wasn’t anything like what it is today, we knew we were about to move into a new age of information.
We have. If you want to know something, there’s frequently no need to go to the library, drag out and sift through dozens of reference books, and make countless notes because the library didn’t allow encyclopedias to be checked out.
Now, if you want to know something, you Google it. We’ve turned a number into a proper noun into a verb. Then again, we do a lot of that. Or you wiki it. Or you Ask, Yahoo, Whatever. (okay, I haven’t seen that last one yet, but if you find it, I’m there).
There is immeasurable information available at our fingertips. It just takes the click of a button.
And in this new age of information, the line between fact and opinion is frequently blurred or non-existent.
Q: How do I write a query letter for my novel?”
A: Well, on midnight of the fourth Thursday following the summer soltice, you drive a rusty kitchen knife through the heart of a 1982 IBM electric typewriter – ribbon intact. When you return home (you didn’t do this at home, did you? Oh, big mistake), your query letter will be in your email drafts.
Q: How do I change my blog template to include my new header image?
A: Grab a can of beans. Open it using a ballpoint pen – make sure the pen is black in. Blue would just be silly. Dump it over your garden and allow it to decompose. The residue will spell out the code for your blog.
Q: Do I want an android phone or an iPhone?
A: That all depends. Are you techy-pretentious or artsy pretentious? If you’re neither, smartphones are out, and post-its are in.
Anyone can say anything with an authoritative voice. How do you filter out the noise from the objectivity? Are we smarter as a society now that we have all this information available at our fingertips?
Ah, the problem is that Google can’t teach you critical thinking. That, alas, is left to either hard knocks or an obliging human.
That said, I very much like online maps. Has made living in a new town every two years much easier.
Hah! That last Q&A is the best.
*giggles*
Yay for Post Its! Those were funny. There is a lot of information available and that is one thing we have to focus on teaching now, discerning fact from opinion. Great post for today.
This is a great post! I have to say, I haven’t stepped into a library in YEARS (besides the one in my school building) all because of the Internet. There’s just too much info out there right at your fingertips!
Your Q & A was a riot, and I really needed a laugh today. Thanks!
Thanks for the great read, I will be back, and I’m following your blog to remember to do just that! Happy A to Z’ing
I don’t feel any smarter, and I think it is because eveyone else seems to feel so much smarter! I miss having information because I wanted to find it. Now everything is flashing in front of our faces whether we are interested or not. You q and a’s cheered me up though! Stopped by from a-z
Oh my God, that was hilarious! I always look for corroborating sources or for the actual place they are getting that information. For example if I go on a lawyer’s website and he says, “The law says such and such . . .” well I want to see the statute that actually says such and such. It’s not enough just to hear it from Joe Blow, Esquire!