04 Mar

Three articles from Wired

There were three articles on Wired News that made me think about square dancing:

  • Community: People are still looking for community; that’s part of the appeal of the Macintosh. From an article about the new San Francisco Apple Store, Wired News: The Waiting Is the Funnest Part:

    Before the opening, customers in line fielded questions from puzzled shoppers and tourists. Why are all these people lining up for a store, many wanted to know?

    “It’s the community, the joy of hanging out,” said Steve Cocks, a 42-year-old who drove up from Southern California and camped out all night. “It’s the fun of being together. We had a great time last night. We got five pizzas for everyone in line (about 40 people at the time). People bought doughnuts and coffee. We watched movies. We talked. We talked Mac.”

    Too bad there wasn’t a square dance caller in the crowd.

  • Virtual Reality: But will people be finding their community without face-to-face contact? From Wired News: Living Life in Virtual Reality:

    Do people like Lisa and Ryan Lackey point the way to a future where preferred forms of contact are less flesh-and-blood and more virtual? The writer Pico Iyer, interviewed in the film, worries that the future will include people separated from the physical world by a wall of computers.

  • Brain Stimulation: And finally, more support for mental workouts, from an article on memory experts (Wired News: The Masters of Memory Lane):

    No matter how challenging your job is, it isn’t demanding enough. Brains thrive on constant challenge, so presenting them with the same activities that they already excel at doesn’t keep the gray matter in top shape. You can, however, substitute the waltz for tango lessons — just ensure that you have a good balance of fresh thinking and activities built into your life.

    And I’m sure that if they’d been aware of it, they’d put in square dancing instead of tango or waltz.

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