CosmiKnot

The mobile phone can take photos.  We shape our tools and our tools shape us Really detailed instant photos.  We work out too and our tools shape up So posing for a selfie is a reflex mode.  We shape our truth and our truth shapes us Hugging a friend in an instant well drilled repose.  We shape our tools and our tools shape us. We live in a realm mapped by the snaps we take.  We shape our tools and the tools shape us But what if mobile phones had been really good at testing air pollution as a side product? We shape our tools and our tools shape us. Or were easily adapted to being phasers set to stun? We shape our tools and the tools shape us Or mind reading devises? Or instant Voice translators? Or peace negotiating ambassadors? Or lie detectors? Or instant truth deliverers? Or Ghost revealers? Or God messengers? Or parallel dimension portal openers? We shape our tools and our tools shape us. Instead we have lea...

You know I don't smoke anymore And I need something to fill the hole Take away my gnaw My gnawing doubts The ones that come on in bouts Put me back or there abouts There's that chap with the latest phone again I saw him on the platform this morning Back there in uncanny town Now he's on his way back home Same downcast look on his face Saying this phone isn't smart enough Won't give me enough love Oh now yeah it's true I'd tell you the same but you already knew What you wanted to know We're a couple of pals Asleep in the back The roof is down We're alright because We shape our tools And our tools shape us

I am outside lecture room EBG08 – this translates as East Building ground floor room 08 – I am there for a book launch. The invite says it’s between 3.30 and 5 so I think 4 is probably an okay time to arrive but it seems I have come in mid way through the guest speakers speech. Suddenly I feel like an aberrant student. Still I quickly squirrel myself away in a seat at the edge of the front row and keep a low profile. I don’t make a habit of going to lectures in other departments but something about the blurb on the polite invitation drew me in. It’s all about post humanism and escaping the strictures of Newtonian analysis (although here I am already embellishing their copy). The guest speaker is talking about how innovation comes about not through individuals but through groups of ideas happening at the same time and somehow coalescing over time to make a new system that makes the old system obsolete. He is clearly tickled, as am I, by the metaphor of the fax-machine that once ru...