I'm no Luddite

I might be on the other side of fifty but I’m no Luddite. 

Technology amazes me. 

The first time I got my hands on a Microbee computer I was astounded by Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago, and the capacity to draw rudimentary shapes on the screen.

My students soon had a unit of work that required them to access the few computers we had,  and create something that passed for an image - mostly using letters and symbols.  One of the final year students’ present to the school around that time was a computer for my classroom. The boss wasn’t happy – he wanted a new clock for the school entrance.

The fax was a revolution. The fact- pardon the pun- that I could stand in the post office in north coast Macksville and send documents to my daughter in a similar location in Amsterdam, and that she had them almost instantly, was just mindblowing.

Over the last few months I have been organising a memorial dinner for a very close friend who passed away unexpectedly in early June.  She was a woman who loved life: gregarious, loyal, kind, generous, neat, wild adventurous, and a great swimmer and arm wrestler.  When I decided to go ahead with the event  I seconded another mutual friend into action. We live over 800km apart, and I live that far from the venue. From my computer I could:

• Skype, email, SMS and Facebook message with my co-organiser;  
• liaise with the venue;
• contact old friends and colleagues in far flung places;
• approve the layout and decoration of the venue, the seating arrangements, the signage, the menu, the wine; 
•  send photographs for the slide show that accompanied the event, and preview it when it arrived in the mail on a  thumb drive;
• pay for the event. 

Pity I could not teleport myself to the spot for the actual celebrations and had to do it the old fashioned way.

We sent her off in fine form with great stories and laughs about a life well lived.

Over  the past week  while I’ve been away from home  I’ve:

• read  the newspaper on my phone;
• satisfied  my daily sudoku habit through another phone app;
• read my email;
• checked in on Facebook; and 
• used my instant reference library on a number of occasions. 

After a conversation in the pub, and a quick Google, I was able to settle a debate about what the original crops were on the Ord River scheme. I’ve learnt that it supports the largest sandalwood plantation outside India and that the early plantations of rice and cotton failed as a result of pests, disease, low yields and falling prices, and I’m surprised at the attempt to renew the rice industry in Stage two despite the fact that the bird problem (they eat the new rice shoots) remains essentially unsolved except through the installation of mechanised gunshots to supposedly frighten them off. 

And I’ve discovered the alternate meanings of Agape.

On the road with my hands free I could phone  a friend to remind me about the term for some symbols I had seen on the side of a memorial in the cemetery behind Clovelly Beach (the answer is Oghams) and the word to describe hatred of men (misandry).

When I was at school I had a teacher who used to tell stories about how when she was a girl she and her brother would listen to the radio: She would be the announcer; he would be the static.

We’ve come a long way.

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Art Work of the Week

Santa's Snowy Bells. Hand knit and crochet tea cosy

Created at home, photographed, downloaded, viewable in my Etsay shop, and on line in my Blog...ain't technology grand!

You can see this and others at the Rose Cottage Markets Saturday November 17.