Betamax promo takes us way back in time . . .

Check out Sony’s 1975 promo for Betamax.  More specifically, this is a seven-minute vintage promotional video for the Sony Trinitron/Betamax console   You probably know at least part of the Betamax story:  Betamax, a superior video product, was beat out by VHS.  I am sharing this video because it serves quite well as a…

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With Strings Attached

Not nearly enough, I think, has been posted on DI about things which I consider just as important as politics, economics, and social issues.  That's all well and good--DI offers a necessary forum for viewpoints which, while becoming more available in the public discourse, nevertheless need all the voices it…

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“Spin” – Award-winning video.

I found this eight-minute video on reddit.com tonight. It was "Penned, Shot, chopped, and Scored by Jamin Winans." I enjoyed it for it's clean execution and thoughtfulness. According to this site, Spin has been the "winner of 35 film festival awards worldwide." [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc[/youtube] While watching this video, I couldn't help…

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When I die, what happens online?

I’ve taken something of an accidental hiatus from the blog the past few months. “Real life” responsibilities left me rather distracted, and without a word, I “disappeared” from the face of the earth, as far as everyone at Dangerous Intersection knew anyway. Or, in my view, Dangerous Intersection perhaps “disappeared” from my radar. Either way, a community of people with whom I had communicated, traded knowledge and ideas suddenly vanished from the world entirely, and I from it. Because DI does not occupy the real world in any tangible sense for me, when I neglected it, it nigh did cease to exist. And likewise, I did not exist to the people who have known me only through it.

This concept got me thinking about the expanse of telecommunications we have in our hands, and what it may mean for real human relationships. Can we define faraway, supposed acquaintances who can vanish from our knowledge at any time (as I did) as “friends”? And, as this post’s title muses, what happens to my online network of psuedobuddies when I leave, or die?

I don’t mean to downplay the potential of online communication. People made due for centuries maintaining meaningful relationships with mere pen-pals, using a far less forgiving medium and time-frame. I think of the letters exchanged between the likes of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, for years upon years, across many miles, maintaining a friendship and respect nearly across the grave, as it turned out. Thus it can clearly …

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Stop Writing?

Below is a link to a blog called 101 Reasons to Stop Writing.  It is a blog about writing and actually does have a list of reasons to stop, which, when one considers the amount of verbiage being generated by the human race, might seem like an impossible challenge.  Those…

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