Yesterday I was on my Smartphone writing a blog post on my phone and I thought to myself, Man, we’ve come a long way from Geocities Page Builder.
Dude, I remember the existence of Netscape and Dial-Up internet. Now I have the EXTREME ULTIMATE whatever internet package from Rogers. Maximum speed, maximum bandwidth. Oh, and now, a smartphone and an iPad. What more can a girl addicted to the internet ask for?
I love reading and I tend to read a lot of non-fiction among fiction. I also have a fascination with cognitive science, the human mind and why things happen. So naturally when I stumbled on Henry Petroski’s The Evolution of Useful Things it was quite intriguing.
The book dove into the fascinating world of how normal household items became the way they are today. He talked about such things as forks, pins, paper clips and zippers which we don’t normally think much about. There’s even parts on pop cans and the wrapper for your McDonald hamburgers.
Yesterday @ErikSchenn, @vseanv and @DonVandenheuve1 approached me with the question:
“How much money would it take you to give up the internet forever?”
I answered almost instantly, I couldn’t do it, not for all the money in the world. The internet has become something so ingrained in my life that it feels more than just a mere comparison to a cigarette addiction.
It is pretty amazing to think that if you asked me the question 10 years ago, I might have considered it. With the rapid growing technology of the world around us, you just can’t escape the internet, unless you buy yourself a huge mansion in the forest and cut yourself off from the rest of the world. But then, how would I discover new music? Communicate with people? Sure there are phones, but (aside from the fact I’m in a forest), I actually have friends that won’t answer their phones/texts but will reply almost instantly to a Facebook message or Twitter direct message.
Giving up just the social networks is hard let alone the internet itself. I’ve become attached to my twitter and made some great friends. Some of whom hundreds of miles away but have supported me and helped me obtain opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise such as concert tickets and press passes. Sure with a billion dollars I could visit these people, but then how would I contact them? Even with all this money to travel the world, what would happen after I’ve been everywhere?
Continue reading ➞ Could You Give Up the Internet for $50 million?
This year for Christmas I have been lucky enough to get an iPad from someone dear to my heart. It was a very unexpected present; not something I have ever said I wanted but I love it so much. I’ve found so many wonderful uses for it, and am always discovering more.
This entire post is written using the WordPress iPad app that works with blogs hosted on WordPress.com as well as self-hosted blogs. Typing on it isn’t too bad,unless you need many different punctuation symbols. If this post had a ton of HTML it would be annoying.
Aside from blogging, I currently have over 70 apps and it has only been a day. The majority of them being games. One of my favorite productivity apps is Goodreader which I have used to import PDFs so that it is an easy way to access class notes. I also imported my library of over 500 digital piano sheet music and have been using it as a digital piano book. The iPad sits perfectly on the piano and flipping the pages on an ipad is easier than dealing with real paper pages. Not to mention it saves trees.
What really amazes me is the vast array of apps available. Most of the ones I have so far are free but even the paid ones are not expensive. What amazes me is the potential the iPad has. There are apps out there that emulate soundboards and mixers that cost $20 but allows people to experiment and make music without spending hundreds of dollars. There are drawing programs that are like photoshop. MMORPGs, movie players, Microsoft office. There really is an app for everything. This leaves me a little overwhelmed with deciding what to get. My ADD personality wants everything. What do you do with yours?
Tiana Feng 