05.15.02

* As has always been the case, Xionic Labs is my playground. It is a place for me to play with various webcentric technologies. Sometimes this is apparent (as with minor modifications such as color schemes), but other times it is not. I have used this space to play (meagerly) with databases, artificial intelligence ( a perl/php based knowledge-base/decision tree) as well as many projects for school. from basic html and and css to php integration and mysql, this site has been mostly for my own amusement. As long as it is useful to me in this manner, it will stay up. When the day comes when I no longer come here to play, it will come down. Hopefully around the edges of the site some visitors have found meaningful content. If so, then great! I have recieved some excellent feedback in the past from people who have benefited from one page or another and it is for them that those particular pages stay. OK, that’s enough for that minor rant.
* The big question here really is about the paradigm of computer usability. Not only should we be questioning what computers are used for, but why are they used at all. Do they serve to improve the quality of life? Can they be used to lower the quality of life? Like any tool, the computer must be utilized appropriately. in order to utilize a tool, you must understand its function. In the case of computers, this understanding of functionality has been greatly twisted so that it now resembles a “Magic Beige Box” that can do just about anything! It has been inflated to the status of being the answer to just about any problem. And when those expectations fall short, well then it must have been a problem with the software, or we needed faster hardware. What about the initial conception of what the MBB (remember: Magic Beige Box) was capable of. Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the primary reasons we need (or don’t need) computers. The function of a computer boils down to three things: First, a computer can used to store data. Second, a computer can be used to retrieve data, and third, a computer can be used to manipulate data. That’s it really. Nothing more, nothing less. How we choose to utilize this tool determines its effect on our daily lives.
::more on this later::