technology and presence

Look at this photo from one of the Obama inauguration balls. It's extraordinary!! It makes me ask "Why experience the moment when you can be looking at a rendering of the moment on a tiny screen while taking a crappy photo". And of course the photos taken will never be as good as the ones in the papers or online.

I know it's an "I was there" moment and a personal photo - however crappy - will be a momento...but it just makes me wonder whether technology impedes us from experiencing our experiences. I say this to myself too as I'm an iPhone, twittering, facebooking, 2 Macs wielding technophile.

Is it helping us...is it helping me....be more present and earthed? It's undoubtedly not a simple yes/no question but I thought it was a question worth asking.

can we get over the bus ads now please?

love this - by Steve Lawson via Mark Berry.

Gene Robinson invited to pray for Obama

Today's Guardian reports that Obama has invited Gene Robinson to offer a prayer at the inauguration next week.
This is an interesting move - particularly as he has also invited Rick Warren, known to be a traditionalist on the issue of gay rights, to give an address.

West Wing 8th Series begins January 20th

Embedded Video

I got seriously excited about this a moment ago when I read it on Marbury's blog. But no it's not really a new series of the West Wing - some bright spark has done a great job of recreating the WW title sequence using Obama's newly appointed staff. And as someone pointed out to me - apparently Matt Santos was modelled on Obama when the character was created.

A case of fantasy becoming reality? Let's hope so.

New MacBook Pro - Likes and Dislikes

So I've had the new MacBook Pro for about a week now (thanks to the insurance company for that one). Here are my likes and dislikes so far:

+
1. Love the new design - it's beautiful
2. The large glass trackpad (the whole of which functions as one large button) is ace
3. The keyboard buttons areset at just the right tension - a pleasure to type on
4. the display - super bright and clear
5. the new multi-touch gestures

_
1. disappointing battery life compared to my old MacBook
2. multi-touch only works in safari which is not my web-browser of choice. It's making me think about switching browser but there is so much more functionality in Flock

So on balance it's really, really good but there are a couple of improvements I would like to see them make.