From a post on The Guardian:

Imagine, though, what the tech landscape might look like if soft hues and girly aesthetics were championed, rather than ridiculed? That's exactly what three young artists _{Gabriella Hilleman, 27, Violet Forest 26, and May Waver, 23} decided to do a few years ago, when, mostly on a lark, they convened the first International Cybertwee Conference and Roundtable.

...Ultimately, Hilleman, Waver and Forest hope that Cybertwee can be not only simply an aesthetic movement, but that it can restore skills and participation in tech to girly girls who might normally be alienated from the space.

Visit the Cybertwee site.

One point in the article mentions pink being used to show things as fake and/ or sexual. I wish there had been more about that issue as it seems to be the bigger problem with having feminity or girlishness in technology/ the digital world. Pink has become fluffy or slutty. When did you last see something pink that wasn't supposed to be seen as one or the other? Pink has become a stereotype. 

I like the ultimate goal behind cybertwee, getting more people involved in technology. It is such a new area, still evolving. It needs input from a variety of people with different experiences and points of view.

It is a sad thing that we seldom use our phone books any more. At least, not for their intended purpose. With the Internet as a quick source for local information (like business addresses and phone numbers) the phone book has become a large recyclable object. Sometimes an effective doorstop, child booster seat or an especially thick phone book can be added to the wood burning in the fireplace (if you have one).

It's ironic that once the Internet was booming the phone books started dropping out of the sky. We were getting five different phone books each year at one point. The main one still being from the phone company itself. Then four others from various other sources, all companies who sold their service to local business and then promised great results. Well, who needs that many phone books in one place (one small house in my case). I did recycle all of them - without ever having used them at all.

This brings me to this past week when I was travelling to Sudbury, Ontario with my nephew and his Grandmother (my Mom). We were there for him to tour his university. Zack will be living on site and taking psychology this Fall. Anyway, I've been to Sudbury before. There were a couple of places I wanted to see again, like MIC (a Canadian themed restaurant). We stayed three days so I wanted to find more to do and see. Thus the phone book. I looked up all the standard things I look for (secondhand bookstores and coffee shops). Zack looked at the games stores and my Mom looked at garden centres. We each found a few places to explore. So the phone book was put to it's intended use.

I think it is only in such a case that the phone book is still useful. Yes, we could have found the same information online and we each did have the hardware to do it. I just dislike pulling out the computer when I'm travelling. I like being less digitally inclined and having a small digital sabbatical.

Did you know that businesses can opt out of the Yellow Pages phone directory now? I wonder why they would do that. I can understand not placing a large ad but to at least have the small text ad, to at least be mentioned, still seems like a worthwhile idea. Not everyone is as plugged into the Internet that they rely on it fully and completely. If you have a business which helps people in times of crisis (like a personal trauma or the power going out), you really should have a yellow pages listing.

So goes the legendary phone book. When did you last use it in some way? Whether you found a creative use for it, actually looked up a business or just added it to the recycling - I hope you did not do it without a little thought for the old phone book.

I'm interested in history, the people the places and the things they used. Have you ever found an old tool or gadget and wondered what it did and how it was used? It seems the more technology we gain, the more we lose of ourselves and our past knowledge and ingenuity.

Have you ever dialled a rotary phone? Do you remember carefully placing the needle on the record player? Would you be able to sit at a typewriter and write a letter, using carbon copy paper? Do you still have cassette tapes, even after you lost track of your tape player?

Do you remember using a pay phone in a phone booth rather than a mobile phone? Spending money on film for your camera and then spending more to get your film developed at the store? Do you remember floppy disks? Do you remember paying extra for a letter to be delivered the next day when there wasn't another option? I doubt you can even find a wind-up wrist watch now. Wrist watches of any kind are falling into being obsolete as the mobile phone has that function too.

Analog anything is not so easily found. I wanted a clock radio for a Christmas gift and couldn't find one, not a well made one. The only clock radios I found were cheap-made, so cheaply made I wouldn't ever have bought one. People aren't listening to the radio as often these days.

Technology leaves so many things behind as it grows and changes. It's expensive. But, the computer is just a modern technology still, there are older technologies and crafts which have been replaced or lost before computers came into popularity. Even something which used to seem so essential as writing in the cursive script. It's not even taught in school now. My nieces can only print. They can read my cursive writing, but don't know how to create it themselves.

You can still find a blacksmith, stonemason or a bookbinder. But, you would have to look a lot harder to find a carriage builder or a lighthouse keeper. Some of those old trades have changed a lot and aren't much in use except for someone who wants something created just like it was 100 years ago.

You won't find people telling time with sundials or hourglasses now. You won't find telegraph machines busy with use either. Next up are the old calculators. Not because they aren't being used, but they aren't being used on their own, as one machine not connected or a part of something else.

Two things in the modern versus obsolete technology I don't agree with are books and landline phones. I don't own (or want) a mobile phone. I like the landline. I can leave it at home and check messages when I want to. I'm not paying a huge bill for a phone I don't really want to answer. I'm not availalble for people to phone me, unless I want to be available. In the case of books... you just can't take an eReader to bed with you the same way you can take a book to bed with you.

It's a bit sad, seeing those old friends left behind as technology changes. I like to see how people are finding new uses for some of the old things, not as a joke, but as a real use, keeping them practical. I like the term repurposing.

Links to Find and Read by the Fireside

• Low-tech Magazine: Obsolete technology
• Obsolete Technology Website
• New and Lost Crafts
• Lost Crafts
• 10 obsolete technologies to kill in 2010 | Macworld
• Obsolete Technology: 40 Big Losers | PCWorld
• 23 Creative Ways To Use Obsolete Technologies | Cracked.com

Designing for the Slowing Web

Jonathan Bailey of the Blog Herald wrote about Surfing the Slow Web, a summary of his recent experience trying to connect to the Internet as an evacuee from Hurricane Gustav. While most web designers are pushing the limits of heavy handed design towards high bandwidth, the world still doesn't work that fast or wide.

I've been reading about the lo-fi web (media files created for low end technology). They are able to open faster and they work for people who haven't bought a new computer system/ media reader in the past six months or less.

My own computer is a few years old, though not so old I expect it to stop running. I find my computer runs slow when it comes to sites using Flash or videos. I tend to skip them or shut them down rather than waiting for them to load. Usually, there isn't anything I really needed to see as most of the Flash are ads. This means all that extra time we pay to our ISP (Internet service providers) is at least partially for viewing ads. I think it's pretty poor that part of my bill for the Internet is so I can pay for the time I view ads I'd be quite happy not seeing.

So far I haven't had old software issues. But this is because I changed to Ubuntu Linux instead of sticking with MS Windows. My previous computer was a terrific IBM which ran on MS Windows ME until it just couldn't work with most of the software I was using. I never had trouble with Windows ME. Ubuntu has been good too but I've had to learn how to use an new OS (operating system) of course.

Anyway, I think the slowing web will become a bigger issue and cause a wide gap to crop up between people who have money to burn on the latest software and hardware and those who don't. Also, if there were a disaster or some other event which caused a lot of the computers that keep the Internet running to go down, what would happen to the communication online? So many people rely on the Internet to keep in touch and know what's going on in the world and their local community.