Tag: Industrial Revolution

Unfinished business

Program lingers on linearly while project has its own bell-shaped form.

Beginning and ending.

Life is constituted of both programs and projects.

Child-rearing is not a project. Schooling them is (until they come back and take over the couch).

Warring is a project.  At least when we could get out and not sink deeper into the quagmire.

When I finished Assassin Gate, I felt a striking resemblance to what the US had encountered in Vietnam (not knowing who the enemy was – the Perfect Spy – as case in point).

People form interesting alliances in war.

For now, world attention has shifted else where e.g. Syria, Iran and Israel.

Should they be classified as programs or projects?

We would hope for the latter.

If we take a zoom-out view of  history, we will find that one man’s failure is another’s victory. Innovation came about in clusters, in Europe during the Industrial Revolution. Scientists competed to file patents and announced findings.

Medical and mechanical surprises ( Marie Curie and Marconi).

Which leads to our present dilemma: we are more aware of vaccine and virus, wireless and wire line technologies. Since those are money-making business, we  give them more street’s cred and credits over low ROI projects.

Our life style has evolved to the point where we express ourselves in terms of technology (I am low on bandwidth, I need to be reboot, I can’t copy you, I am unable to process what you have just said).

We keep tweaking and tuning. To stumble upon that optimal-efficiency point.

When we left our phone (hardware) at home, we feel “naked”.

Out of the blue, we got “Drop Box” (the equivalent of train-station locker).

So on and so forth. Keep id the problems, we got the solutions. As long as we can monetize it. If not, we drop it (Blue tooth).

It’s not too long ago that Facebook was an unknown “face”.

Then everyone knows Mark (as if he were our son-in-law). Not sure between him and Justin Bieber, who is more  popular.

I am sure of the difference: Mark , in the language of this blog, is a program, a work still in progress. Justin would be a project, whose stardom has hockey-stick beginning and definite ending. That’s how the world works. I know this. I have just finished listening to “I’ll Be There” and remember how we all loved Michael and the Jackson 5. Then I realise we all were babies in our families. What has happened? (Babies turned burden).

The flow of life floats away relationships. Then what yesterday’s program has become today’s project (papa turns patient).

First we use relationship language to address one another (uncle, brother). Then we use machine language (leaving me a message on my answering machine).

Finally, we call them “patient”, “pupil” “inmate”. Institutional language that dehumanizes people. Turning them from “program” to “project”. My friend, you will forever remain my life-long program. Unfinished business. Work in progress. Not just a Contact, or Data Point.

Moving on

I read about and followed with much interest the Penn State game this past weekend.

Where is Joe? First he was absent on the side line, where his rolled up pants were a fixture more than signature.

Then he went up on the booth. This past Saturday, he wasn’t there either, nor was his statue. Ohio won, but not as easy.

The Nittany Lions put up a fight “push them back, way back”. Still, a lot went unsaid there. Just moving on. Motion forward.

Aren’t we all!

Labor Day, Memorial Day. First rest a bit, then Rest in Peace.

Moving on.

Self-deception.

Who are we trying to fool, except ourselves?

I read about the original cell which stays on for billions of years. I am glad we could die (rather cancer war than casualty of war). As  far as biology is concerned, we were meant to be immortal, Greek or geek.

But then, with all the abuses and accidents, we have pretty much done it to ourselves (global sales of weapon, pornography and drugs together curtail population explosion).

So we give the workers a symbolic rest, Labor Day. But actually, we meant for factories to have their machines deep-spayed and well-oiled.

Farmers don’t rest on Labor Day. IT supports don’t rest either in colo centers.

Labor Day belongs to the Industrial Revolution, the 2nd wave, with coal as the main source of energy.

I read that in an interview before his death, an out-spoken Cardinal talked about the Vatican being behind two centuries.

He must be referring to the image of  Sheep May Safely Graze while parishioners “flocking” to the only village church.

I think it’s Marshall McLuhan who coins the phrase “global village”. Even then, he  meant the mass brought together by mass media (Tower of Babel analogy) in a one-to-many broadcast. Little did he know, we now have many-to-many conversation, originated and uploaded from the ground level. As of now, everyone got their 15-minute of fame on Facebook (Famebook?) and 140 characters on Twitter (modern-day AP) – as in United Breaks My Guitar.  Perhaps even we, at one time or another, think, maybe the world can use a few personal computers, as Watson used to think back in 1943.

Institutions and individuals, both are behind the times. I caught myself a few months ago in a moment of prejudice. I heard a ringtone rap music. Not from urban blacks. But with Central Vietnamese accent. The combination shocked me, then it delighted me the second time around. But my knee-jerked reaction was “you must be kidding?” One would expect to hear Northern Vietnamese accent  in songs, not Central, and when it comes to rap music, it’s the American quintessential, not Vietnamese. If this long Depression does us any good, it’s a wake-up call. It humbles us . Yes, it’s the “end of men” as titled in an upcoming book, but by the time the “end of women” comes about, it’s the beginning of the machine age.

The point is, early adopters will keep on adopting (space tourism, echo tourism, edu- tourism, medi-tourism )

And the richest among them, will keep moving beyond Beverly Hills and Betty Ford clinics to “the Island” to do some serious make-over (spare body parts replacement and rejuvenation). Versailles-style ($17,000 leather boots).

Go ahead and protest. Show some guts and show some skin. By the time we do, they no longer find some use for fur coats to cover their once wrinkled bodies. They already got new ones put in. Talking about moving on. Just make sure we don’t become the Pharaohs of the 21st century, embalming ourselves to no avail.  Where is Joe Pa? Ohio won again. Shuck!

Pass the torch

At 95, the founder of Peace Corps left us to figure out world affairs by ourselves.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/sns-ap-us-obit-shriver,0,2461815.story

I used to shine my dad’s shoes, while he slicked his hair back. From where I sat, he appeared a towering figure.

Men from that generation ( like Burt Lancaster’s “From Here to Eternity”) stood erect,  principled and was willing to pay hefty price

(the costs of WWII got the US a deficit of 110%).

With GI bill, they went back to school, and from there, a two-front race (with Japan on the economic front, and Russia the cold front). We saw a shift to industrialization (and suburbanization and standardization, so sterile that the Flower Generation revolted by putting stickers on their Beetle’s bumper to “brand” themselves). With cheap fuel, we got drive-in movies, and McDonald’s drive-through.

Sinatra and Elvis the Pelvis first pushed the envelope, then the Baby Boomer gen questioned everything. Skepticism ruled the day.

(I still remembered one classmate’s comment that “they kept us in school to keep the unemployment rate down”).

Their legacy remains with us today (coffee-house, open source, social network etc..).

They would rather go overseas to teach ( Peace Corps) and to build (Habitat for Humanity), than to bomb.

“Ask not…”.

Have you seen “Special Olympics” just for disabled children?

The husband sent young American volunteers overseas, while his wife cheering “Special Olympians” at home

(son-in-law kept promising that “I’ll be back”). Bono who sang “I still haven’t found, what I am looking for” had a close-tied memory of them.

“Nobody does it better”. I often got a knock on the door just to see two guys in short sleeves and black tie (the Mormons). At least, they dedicated themselves to learn a foreign language (good enough to get appointed to ambassadorship in China). At the end of life (in this case, 95-year-run), what would be our legacy?

No longer with hair, boomers (born in between 46-64) are retiring en mass, but still with elastic age (male) and cosmetic surgery (female).

Hefner just got engaged again, while Demi Moore hooked up with man demi-age.

The Greatest Generation preceded Boomers’ and their strong stance gave rise to a Hegelian anti-thesis ( “the Kids are all right” or Elton John on the magazine cover again, this time with husband-and- baby to redefine the nuclear family). So, the Industrial revolution (itself anti-thesis to the agrarian past) is now winding down to pass the torch to the digital natives. Each generation must define their space, whether it is a cow barn or a cubicle, or caught in a smokestack or smokescreen. And when they are on the move, it’s in their own term and time-table. Many chose Peace Corps. Others simply back-pack on this Lonely Planet, a self-imposed draft. Louis L’Amour was right,

the problem with mankind is that he cannot stay in one place.

Today, people still want to study abroad, but not in Oxford or Cambridge. They are turning East, just as Harvey Cox predicted 40+ years ago (remember the George Harrison learning the sitar, which we will hear again in Norwegian Wood, the film).

It’s get too crowded, hence innovation by necessity. There aren’t that much room at the top, hence flat organization.

As a famous line from the sixties “what it is ain’t exactly clear”. But something is definitely happenin!.

The torch will get passed on. Time does the very best of us in. Stay hungry, stay connected.