On Becoming a Geek Without Even Trying...
For some reason, there is a space in my brain that knows how to replace the tiny battery in my digital car key. I know why it's better to adjust the RGB levels and work the hue/saturation before you Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. I understand a shred about Firewire versus USB 2.0., single-processor versus dual-core, tri-band versus quad-band, RSS versus Movable Type, nonstick versus hard-anodized, Reidel versus Simon Pearce, Cab versus Zin, ginjo versus daiginjo, CDMA and memory sticks and SO-DIMM and VGA and compact flash and microdrives and click wheels and RAM and XML and H.264 and IEEE 802.11g and about a thousand more I can't recall at the moment because my brain compresses and whiplashes, which of course makes me wonder one thing: Am I running out of memory?
Is there some sort of threshold? As I gain a working knowledge of 2.1 versus 5.1 surround-sound home-theater systems and pick up a tiny shred of basics about ohm impedance, sound stage and speaker "floor," am I pushing out dazzling insights into the human drama? Fond memories of my childhood? The taste of roast duck with fresh thyme in a red wine-pomegranate reduction?
Verily, as I race through the mad wonderland of modern tech like Mary Kate Olsen through a bottle of tequila, am I limiting my ability to learn, once in my life, the fine art of dendrology? Orchid taxonomies? Whale song? Do I still have sufficient intellectual capacity to learn conversational French or to grill superlative croque monsieurs or build my own fine oak furniture? Is it too late? Am I frying all my wiring? Or maybe, just maybe, helping it all function better?
Funny thing is, I'm merely a novice, an amateur at all this, a dedicated nontechie, and yet, even so, were you a guest visiting this decade from, say, 1906, would you not be utterly and completely stunned by my general aptitude? Would I not sound a bit like an utter genius, reeling off plasma TV aspect ratios and streaming media download speeds and flash-memory drive capacities? Of course I would.
For more, go here.
Is there some sort of threshold? As I gain a working knowledge of 2.1 versus 5.1 surround-sound home-theater systems and pick up a tiny shred of basics about ohm impedance, sound stage and speaker "floor," am I pushing out dazzling insights into the human drama? Fond memories of my childhood? The taste of roast duck with fresh thyme in a red wine-pomegranate reduction?
Verily, as I race through the mad wonderland of modern tech like Mary Kate Olsen through a bottle of tequila, am I limiting my ability to learn, once in my life, the fine art of dendrology? Orchid taxonomies? Whale song? Do I still have sufficient intellectual capacity to learn conversational French or to grill superlative croque monsieurs or build my own fine oak furniture? Is it too late? Am I frying all my wiring? Or maybe, just maybe, helping it all function better?
Funny thing is, I'm merely a novice, an amateur at all this, a dedicated nontechie, and yet, even so, were you a guest visiting this decade from, say, 1906, would you not be utterly and completely stunned by my general aptitude? Would I not sound a bit like an utter genius, reeling off plasma TV aspect ratios and streaming media download speeds and flash-memory drive capacities? Of course I would.
For more, go here.
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