Archivos diarios: 17 de junio de 2003

David Fernández describe las distintas fases de su aproximación a una tecnología nueva:

1ª Fase: Terror. «¡Dios, esto es complicadisimo! ¡Soy incapaz de hacer nada con esto! ¡Además no me funciona nada! Paso, lo dejo, que le den …»

2ª Fase: Me acerco «ma non tropo» (unos dias después). «…Igual si cambio esto… uhmmm, parece que falla «correctamente», algo ha cambiado… un error distinto…»

3ª Fase: ¡Funciona! (Euforia desatada) «Tengo una idea… y si modifico… y si pongo aquí… uhmmm leí mal la documentación esto era así y… (silencio mortal, dedo índice flota sobre la tecla enter)… ¡FUNCIONAAAAA! ¡PUUUULOOOOOO!»

4ª Fase: Trivial (y se lo cuento a mis amigos) «¡Pero si es una tecnología trivial! ¡Y además muy facilita y comoda! ¿Tu no haces el cafe con ella ? Seguro que esos adaptadores y esos proxys que abstraen el modelo de cafetera e independizan su localización, desacoplandola del agua del grifo, mejoran mucho tu vida… «

Lo confieso, reacciono casi exactamente igual. La única diferencia en que en algún momento de la fase 1 y 2 me pregunto «¿Encontraré por internet algún tutorial de diez minutos sobre esta cosa?».

Demasiado divertido, y en realidad demasiado serio para dejarlo pasar. Noticias desde el futuro de las bitácoras, cuando llevar una sea más arriesgado que hoy: Don’t Blog (vía eCuaderno):

Microsoft gains 87% share of Enterprise Blogging Market. What happens if Microsoft provides fear, uncertainty, and doubt long enough to damage competitors? What if it sells well enough to swallow up entire blogging budgets? What if it executes so poorly that users never buy-in and management writes off the whole blogging thing? Not like this has happened before.

En realidad, algunas de las noticias que pone podrían parecer exageradas. Sin embargo, que me dicen de esta otra, aparentemente real: Why Europe still doesn’t get the Internet:

The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or «blogs»), must offer a «right of reply» to those who have been criticized by a person or organization.

With clinical precision, the council’s bureaucracy had decided exactly what would be required. Some excerpts from its proposal:

? «The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours.»

? Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. «It may be considered sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it» from the spot of the original mention.

? «So long as the contested information is available online, the reply should be attached to it, for example through a clearly visible link.»

? Long replies are fine. «There should be flexibility regarding the length of the reply, since there are (fewer) capacity limits for content than (there are) in off-line media.»

¿Afectará a la forma en que creamos sitios web en Europa imponiendo una autocensura que impedirá el desarrollo democrático? ¿O seguiremos como hasta ahora?

Según cuenta este artículo, el pequeño reino de Bután ha sido la última nación de la Tierra en permitir la televisión. Poco después, ha tenido que enfrentarse a las primeras olas de crímenes del país y a cambios sociales devastadores. ¿Casualidad?

The marijuana that flourishes like a weed in every Bhutanese hedgerow was only ever used to feed pigs before the advent of TV, but police have arrested hundreds for smoking it in recent years. Six employees of the Bank of Bhutan have been sentenced for siphoning off 2.4m ngultrums (£40,000). Six weeks before we arrived, 18 people were jailed after a gang of drunken boys broke into houses to steal foreign currency and a 21-inch television set. During the holy Bishwa Karma Puja celebrations, a man was stabbed in the stomach in a fight over alcohol. A middle-class Thimphu boy is serving a sentence after putting on a bandanna and shooting up the ceiling of a local bar with his dad’s new gun. Police can barely control the fights at the new hip-hop night on Saturdays.

While the government delays, an independent group of Bhutanese academics has carried out its own impact study and found that cable television has caused «dramatic changes» to society, being responsible for increasing crime, corruption, an uncontrolled desire for western products, and changing attitudes to love and relationships. Dorji Penjore, one of the researchers involved in the study, says: «Even my children are changing. They are fighting in the playground, imitating techniques they see on World Wrestling Federation. Some have already been injured, as they do not understand that what they see is not real. When I was growing up, WWF meant World Wide Fund for Nature.»

El artículo termina comentando:

Everyone is as yet too polite to say it, but, like all of us, the Dragon King underestimated the power of TV, perceiving it as a benign and controllable force, allowing it free rein, believing that his kingdom’s culture was strong enough to resist its messages. But television is a portal, and in Bhutan it is systematically replacing one culture with another, skewing the notion of Gross National Happiness, persuading a nation of novice Buddhist consumers to become preoccupied with themselves, rather than searching for their self.

¿Hemos infravalorado el impacto de la televisión? ¿Estamos tan acostumbrada a ella en occidente que no notamos cómo ha alterado nuestras vidas? ¿Exageran los periodistas?

(vía the null device)