This textbook, circa 1987, is a great example of how technology becomes embedded in our culture. Do we even think of the writing we do on the computer as word processing any more? No, it's simply writing, and a book like this would never make it to press today (only 18 years later). The technology hides itself from us, and so goes all the inherent ideological biases accompanying it.
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random sidenotes:
>>We'll be seeing you around, HST.
>>Poker News--Placed 4th @ Whitehall VFW NL Texas Hold'em tourney last week.
>>Here's a pic of my jazz group, the South Street Band, at the departmental holiday party last December.
A couple of Fridays ago, Honda brought its cute little humanoid robot ASIMO to OSU for a rather flashy presentation of its skill set: walking, talking, dancing, kicking balls, and walking up stairs. The auditorium in the Drake Union was packed, and there were a lot of elementary school students in attendance. The whole time, I was thinking "article." A rhetorical analysis of the presentation, which was basically a sermon on the imaginative power of technology, would be one direction... The media design of the presentation, which included an elaborate light show, projections, music, and short film clips, would be another... I was also fascinated by the rhetorical choices that dictated ASIMO's industrial design--a caricature of humanity, ASIMO approaches the form but never quite crosses the line to become TOO much like us (Freud talks about this...the notion of the "uncanny"). All in all, an incredible event, both for the spectacle itself and what went into creating that spectacle.
