Lecture September 23

Technology.3 -- September 23, 2002

Overview:

1. (From Sept. 18 lecture)
back to diagram of inter-relationships involved in describing a technology - focus on the "technologists"/ inventors
- problems with this perspective

2. Two Case studies - the clock --> the watch

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1. Focus on the inventors/developers

Who are:

Richard Stallman
Douglas Englebart
Tim Berners-Lee
Linus Torvalds
Theodore Nelson
Vannevar Bush
A. M. Turing
Steve Jobs
Gordon Moore
Bill Gates

How many of them do you know? Why do you know some and not others? If we concentrate on the inventors and ignore the "users," the values of society, the natural environment, we don't take an appropriately larger social Science overview...

Another case study: the clock

Mechanical Clock: originated in 12 and 13 in Benedictine monasteries:
Function: to ensure that the daily rituals of monastery life -- 7 periods of devotion -- were followed systematically.

By 14 century - moved out of monastery - King Charles V ordered all citizens of Paris to regulate their lives by the bells of the Royal Palace clock, which struck every 60 minutes...

RESULT on workers: "regular production, regular hours and a standardized product" (L. Mumford)

Irony: invented by men to allow them to worship God; it became the technology for men worshipping accumulation of money...

Principle: --> unseen consequences of a technic...

The case study of the watch: do you wear an analog watch or a digital watch?

Analog watch:
- duplicates the amount of time in an hour in its interface
- a mechanical technic from the Industrial Age

Digital watch:
- shows a discrete bit of information
- an electronic technic from the Information Age

Observations cited by Shapiro ("Complexity in the Interface Age", Ubiquity online):

Students with digital watches had more trouble telling time: they donât have the sense of addition and subtraction of time units that you have with analog watch.
Principle: "even though technics can enhance knowledge÷there are aspects of computerization that subtract from peopleâs knowledge..."

What kind of watches are the most expensive?
Why?

Principle: watches are more highly prized
If they involve ãoldä technology (like my example of the gas stove)

Where is the watch going? -- "Wherify's Personal Location System has a global location system + pager + wristwatch (digital) together." Security or surveillance?

Principles:

- technics have two sides to them

- technics have a tendency to morph into some other technic yet the original rarely truly disappears (the needle, the pencil· what else?)

This page last revised 9/17/02