Retro shopping

Remember 'shopping'? Not for food or clothes, things which one really wants to select by sight. I mean, shopping for the perfectly-packaged, homogenous items Jeff Bezos targetted as being ideal internet-commerce stock. DVDs, books, CDs (who even buys CDs now?).

I used to really enjoy that kind of shopping. I remember as a teenager (yes, I was a geek), I used to take tremendous pleasure in standing in the basement of WH Smith on the Finchley Road, comparing different Dr Who videos (what? I told you I was a geek). I'd look at the titles, the photographs, the descriptions, see which Doctor it was and which companions. I could spend half an hour comparing the different videos available, before deciding on one to take home and watch as a reward for finishing my Latin homework (I *said* I was a geek already.)

I rarely do it now though. Books, DVDs - why not just order them online? Saves schlepping to a bookshop in town, or dealing with the depressingly warehouse-like massive local Borders. One click, it's done, they arrive in a couple of days.

Except... by the time those couple of days have gone past I've often forgotten why I wanted them. Or the moment has passed, that perfect moment when I really wanted to sit down *right then* and read that book or watch that movie. I have to try to recreate my enthusiasm, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And if it doesn't I'm left with a movie whose perfect moment was last Tuesday, waiting to see if that moment turns up again.

So today I went to 'Retrobloke', or to give it its full title 'Retrobloke.com', a shop down the road from me and yes the '.com' is on the storefront. It's a little shop, full of sci-fi and horror DVDs and videogames in the front, and vinyl in the back. The stock is good, eclectic and interesting. Looking at the shelves reminded me of things I'd always wanted to see and never got around to - unlike Amazon, no one was trying to push new releases on me.

It was a slow Friday afternoon. I stood for a long time flicking through the DVDs until I picked a couple of discs with three episodes each of original series Star Trek on them - total £6, very reasonable. I was the only person there. No one was hurrying me, or making tannoy announcements or trying to entice me with the piped-over smell of coffee. I'm looking forward to watching them over the weekend, because I've chosen the time slot to fit them into along with my purchase - you can do that if you walk out of the shop with them in your hand.

As I made my purchase I asked the friendly shopkeeper whether he did most of his business online nowadays.
"No," he said, "it's strange but we find a lot of people still want to come in."
But if you're looking for a 'retro' experience, I'm not sure that's so surprising.

Ada Lovelace Day

I've already written an article for today about Ada Lovelace Day and how important it is (and also how heinous The Big Bang Theory sitcom is - a message I really feel passionately about getting out to the public).

But I realise that what I wrote doesn't really meet the brief of writing about a woman in technology whom I admire, although I name a few there. While researching and thinking about that article I did a lot of research and turned up women working in fields I'd always unconsciously thought of as total male bastions. It occurred to me that part of the problem is the technology isn't really a personality-driven industry. Apple stock may rise and fall with Steve Jobs' health, and Sid Meier certainly wants us to know about his games, but I found I couldn't name the creators of some of my favourite games or gadgets. I just knew them by the product brand. There really aren't so many 'tech idols' or 'celebrity programmers'.

Added to that, technology is by its nature a collaborative field. In conversation recently, I found myself describing computers as the cathedrals of our times: everyone can have moments of wonder about them, because no single person could ever create a device that does what these astonishing boxes do. What we do together outweighs what we can ever do alone. So yeah, I don't know the names of all the people who had the precise insights that led to the thin-screen monitor I'm looking at right now. Or the development of the USB I use to plug my iPod into my MacBook. Or any of those thousands of tiny innovations.

But in that spirit, I want to single out a couple of names of women who invented systems that have invisibly revolutionised our lives. I wish I had the specialised skill to give a very detailed explanation of what they did, but I am instead relying on information gleaned from the internet, another collective human enterprise.

Erna Schneider Hoover invented a computerised telephone exchange system whose basic principles are still in use today. Her invention  means that our lives aren't constantly filled with dropped calls and false busy-signals whenever we try to use a telephone line. Which, since you're reading this on the internet, is right now. Oh, and she also has a BA in Medieval History and a PhD in Philosophy. And dude, if you think a modern woman can't have it all... she has four grandchildren and her first patent application was made while she was on maternity leave.

And for a more recent heroine of innovation, Shafi Goldwasser has twice won the Godel Prize for theoretical computer science. She is a pioneer in the field of online security working at MIT and her work on digital signatures is part of what allows modern banking systems to function. And with a name like that, she is of course also my homegirl.

It's been amazing to do the research for this project. I really didn't know how many women there were doing wonderful work in technology. Roll on next year's Ada Lovelace Day!

you've gotta think about the future

I've had two articles in newspapers in the past few days, one looking backward and bemoaning what we're about to lose, and one excitedly looking forward to the future of books. I do think it's possible  to hold both those positions at once. You don't have to give up on technology in order to believe that the past has valuable things to teach us. And you don't have to stop enjoying old-fashioned pleasures in order to find time for the more high-tech ones.

I guess this would also be a good time to say that, from May, I am available for hire for both high and low-tech writing projects, as well as ones that meet somewhere in the middle. If you're looking for a writer who understands both ends of the spectrum, you can email me at myfirstname.mysurname@gmail.com

***

I seem to be doing something of a reverse Omer this year, counting down seven weeks to Passover rather
than counting forward to Shavuot. So, as it's now just under six weeks to Passover, here's a thought. What is chametz? It is that which rises up without our having to do anything to make it. We just leave it alone, and it accumulates. Personally, I sometimes feel this way about the detritus in my home. So while I'm doing Pesach cleaning, perhaps this is a good time to collect a bagful of things that have somehow arrived in my house without my quite meaning it, and take it to a charity shop. Or, if you want to get something back in return, check out bookmooch. Hurrah for places where high and low-tech book experiences meet.

Who would have thought?

Fascinating set of tests from Harvard which measure implicit (subconscious) preferences - whether you subconsciously prefer white people over black, for example, or straight people over gay.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/measureyourattitudes.html

Apparently, I have a strong preference for Judaism over all other religions. This despite the fact that my writing is supposedly dangerous to it. Each man kills the thing he loves, you see.