Do Silicon Valley Nerds Desire Organic Lifestyles? Computers only engage 2 out of our 5 senses.

After seeing an ad on Craigslist out of Silicon Valley by someone looking for a beekeeping club, it got me wondering -what is the dark side to this techno suburbia. There certainly must be some reservations about such a rapid growth in technology. People must be burned out talking about technology all day. Without a good balance in life, people can get weird and lose touch with their human selves.

Did you know there was a time when most humans only knew farming? They were getting burned out from farm chores. My grandma has repeatedly said that she would rather wrestle a machine at factory than a cow on the farm. So, in a way, our ancestors really wanted to separate themselves further from animal care. The technological advances were not thrust upon us, the majority of people welcomed and embraced new tech upgrades.

But after witnessing so much advancement, many people don’t understand where we came from. After all, the Silicon Valley used to be prime farmland before the landscape changed everything. Is technological advancement really heading in the right direction. To find that answer, we need to take a step or two back and play in the Beta modes.

I don’t mean like playing older versions of Minecraft either. That will teach you about where The game began. These days you have to immerse yourself in a museum and see on display what the early tools looked like. Read about the early pioneers to understand what they did to survive.

We need a balance in understanding the natural part of our lives. What does it take to grow a tomato? Do farm animals really smell as bad as people say they do? You can truly benefit by experiencing the sight, smell, and sounds of different kids of farms. No matter what you watch on YouTube, it can’t train your olfactory senses or even your sense of touch. In some cases, you can’t taste the farm life either. YouTube only appeals to 2 out of the 5 senses.

The YouTube experience still cannot teach you as completely as you might desire for it to. Imagination will falter from the lack of sensory experiences. You really have to travel to other places to help engage your full 5 senses to maximize your learning experience. Words, videos, and pics can’t replace touch.

I believe the wearable tech may help us engage with the environment a little more and still allow us to stay connected to the Internet. The days of sitting at a desk computer look like they are coming to an end. Smelling the same thing every day in a stuffy room can’t be very healthy. It truly is best to stay mobile. One of the best ways to to stay mobile is interacting more with the land and learning about farming techniques. That is something that Silicon Valley residents may be learning the hard way.

My Reaction to Winamp Shutting Down.

Lots of good memories using Winamp

I see there is an announcement they are shutting down. I always thought they were the best free software to use in the early 2000s. I probably used it for 5 years and downloaded every new update. It was great shuffling all my hundreds of illegally downloaded songs with that feature.

It seemed towards 2005 or so, that they added too many features with one crazy update. With every update the program got bloated and more bloated. It got to the point where it slowed my computer too much at times and I started abandoning the newer updates and looking elsewhere or preferring the older versions.

The early versions of Winamp from the late 90s were a great start for this software though. I certainly preferred the simple design with basic play options. I don’t understand why they felt such a need to add so many bloated features. They were very experimental, I guess you could say.

The end of Winamp really signals the end of the Wild West attitude of the Internet. You can’t just go onto Napster, download whatever song you want for free and play it on Winamp anymore. It was a nice break from playing CDs, that’s for sure.

I applauded being able to save songs onto my computer. It sucked having to load those clumsy disks into the machine and wait for it to be ready. CDs were cumbersome and cost too much. They also only were way too limited in carrying good songs. They only carried like 12 songs each or so. Shuffle was a joke for a CD.

When you have 100s of songs loaded up on Winamp, then you really never know what song could possibly play next. It might be one you haven’t heard for days from such a large volume of songs. Of course, if you downloaded from Napster, you probably ended up with a lot of partial songs that ended too soon. Luckily, Morpheus and Kazaa, plus the Bit a Torrents started improving their file sharing capabilities.

I forget Winamps slogan. It was something about a Llama that listens maybe. They certainly helped pave the way for digital music though. They made CDs look vintage.