Magical

(There must be a word -- a pejorative word -- for the delay between when you want to write something in Blogger and when the damn screen actually paints. I used to think it was just the slow link here at work (my personal theory is that there is a robust cable just bristling and crackling with information, plugged nicely into the outside of this building's wall, and just inside the wall is a gnarled old man who reads each bit from a screen, laboriously taps it out on a keypunch, rolls across the room and feeds the keypunched card into a reader, and only then does it get sent to my computer.) but now I think that Blogger has a really slow front end, and little motivation -- remember, its free -- to make it faster.)

Ahem.

I think I'm more sensitive to this than I normally am because for the last hour or so I have been breathing helium. Specifically, I've been looking at the list of computer-related websites and blogs that is presented at Yahoo, here, working my way down the list and reading the ones that a) sound interesting and b) are understandable by me. In case you're curious, the ratio of the number that they present to the number that I look at to the number I actually understand works out to be about 10: 5: 2. Ah, well.

The one thing that I get out of all the sites that pass this filter is that things are seriously changing in the world of communication. I suppose that 'communication' is a very pale way of describing the mix of information management, portability, and computer-based tools (is there a better word? I mean, a non-buzzword word?). But to read these pages is to see not only the future but in many cases the actual present. Granted, Somewhere Else. Not at the company I work for, not at the place I work; and more certainly not at the semi-rural area where I live. ( Not that living in a rural area must necessarily imply technology that's at the Leave It To Beaver stage, as I've seen a number of articles showing people living thusly whilst still happily telecommuting, surfing the net, and watching ten zillion television channels. It just takes more money than I'm willing to invest. It would be fun to see just what it really would take to get up to that level, though. )

But somewhere, these things are happening, and they're happening now. Wonderful, magical things. Information flowing in amazing ways, from amazing mixtures of sources, just gushing out. Slowly, this gushing is becoming a torrent of possibilities that can and most likely will change our lives. Learning about this torrential flow is exhilarating. It fills me with excitement about the possibilities for improving not only life but all of the things that make life bearable, make it fun.

Of course, being magical, it helps to actually believe in magic. And I mostly do. So though I know that just because something worked for one person, one time doesn't mean it will work for me... and that there is certainly a difference between it working for someone who is a certified technogeek, heavily into acronym-rich concepts, and me, picking one out at Circuit City, still, the idea that its possible is captivating. And I admit it: I'm captivated, enticed, damn near seduced.

But there is a catch, and it lies between my ears. I don't know how to make this stuff work right here, right now. And the reason is that I don't know enough, and I can't remember enough, and I just can't do it enough.

I can't find enough to read that will keep me up to date, so that I know what's possible. When I find it, I can't find enough of it, so that I get past the breathless-wonder articles and down to the ones that admit that it can fail... even if they don't talk about exactly how. When I read enough, with enough detail, I remember only a vague general outline of what I read. And when I do remember in some detail, I can't see how to apply it where I live, where I work. And, when I do find it, do remember, do sense a way to apply it -- I can't change anything except in my own little orbit.

I can accept that. But I want more. Even subject to all the qualifiers above, I want more. Want to believe its possible. Want to figure out whats possible, here, and make it work. Here. Because when I do get it to work, when I can put the pieces together and remember them, understand them, see them fit together, I just know it's gonna be -- magical. Maybe not quite as magical as the articles I read now, but still: magical. I really want to believe that.

Helium? I hope not.
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