HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2004-03-18, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2004. PAGE 5.
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Ready for the brave new world
One of the great things about being in a
book club is being forced to read
books you'd normally fling across the
room.
I finished such a book recently, called The
Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. It's
science fiction.
I hate science fiction.
Well, not true — I don't hate science fiction, 1
hate the technological zeal which infects the
genre.
I'm not a Machine Guy. And science fiction
seems to abound in time machines, particle
accelerators and bizarre phenomena with
tongue-numbing names like Chrono-
Synclastic Infundibula.
The Diamond Age is set in a future in which
every household boasts an M.C., right in there
between the fridge and the washer-dryer. M.C.
stands for 'Matter Compactor'.
You need anything? A pair of pants? A new
mattress? A pizza all-dressed? Just dial it up on
the Matter Compactor and in about as long as
it takes a vending machine to spit out a diet
Coke, the object of your desire materializes
before your eyes.
When I got to the last page of The Diamond
Age I thought: "Huh. Imagine having the
imagination to imagine something as far-out as
a 'Matter Compactor —.
Then I picked up a copy of National
Geographic and discovered that Neal
Stephenson and I are a little behind the times.
Matter Compactors already exist.
The official name is 'digital fabricator' but
proponents just call them 'fabbers'.
Industrial fabbers are already old hat.
Forensic scientists and anthropologists use
them to make three-dimensional replicas of
human bones from digital models. Car
Ontario's Liberals are turning again to
promising "modernized" drinking
laws to divert attention from issues
that embarrass them, but they sound like they
have hoisted a few glasses themselves
Premier Dalton McGuinty says he favours
allowing diners to bring their own bottles of
wine to restaurants because it would be
cheaper for them and, grandly, more civilized
and a 'coming of age for Ontario.'
Consumer Services Minister Jim Watson
added that diners also would be allowed to
take home partly-drunk bottles to save still
more money and, not to be outdone, this would
help bring Ontario into the 21st century.
The Liberals want to distract voters from
concerns, such as Finance Minister Greg
Sorbara having been a director of a company
now being investigated by police, as well as
their inability to pay for some of their
promises because of a deficit.
This strategy has had some success and
many are licking their lips at the prospect of an -- ,
opportunity to drink cheaply, particularly
when it is portrayed as a new freedom.
It reminds of the last Liberal premier, David
Peterson, winning power partly by promising
to allow wines to be sold in corner grocery
stores and acquiring an image as a reformer,
although he never did it.
McGuinty's plan has a surface appeal
because diners could save through buying
wine at liquor store prices to avoid the
markups restaurants add, and take along a
favourite wine that a restaurant may not stock.
But it has downsides the premier did not
acknowledge. If restaurants do not supply
customers with their drink — and they might not
notice when one slips his own bottle on a table
— they will not know how much the patron
drinks and be able to exercise some control.
Restaurants need to worry because courts
have held them responsible for acts committed
by those who have been drinking on their
manufacturers in Detroit routinely fire up
fabbers to create small car parts from digitally-
rendered artists' sketches.
According to Neil Gershenfeld, we've only
just begun. Gershenfeld is the director of a
division called The Centre for Bits and Atoms
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He believes personal 'fabbers' are not only
possible, they're just around the corner.
He foresees the day when you and I will
each have an in-home gizmo that can whip us
up a cell phone, a clock radio — even a
computer. "It's like taking the tools of the
factory and putting them in your own home".
Gershenfeld compares them to your
computer printer. The way it will work, he
says, is you'll sit down and design something -
a footstool, say = on your desktop, then just
punch the "Print" (or "Fab") button - and
presto, out pops a brand new footstool.
How does that happen? Where does my
Fabber get the leatherette? The wooden legs?
The carpet tacks?
Damned if I know. All I do know is that Big
Thinkers and Technoboffins already act like
this is old news.
Ind4ed, Freeman Dyson, a world-renowned
professor of physics at Princeton and one of
the world's Biggest Thinkers, foresees the day
when we will be using fabbers to create new
life-forms, like 30-foot geraniums or weird
premises, but the public also stands to ,lose
some protection.
Some diners will drink more because it is
cheap and become offensive to others wanting
quiet conversations and family meals, or buy
fries and sit drinking all night, changing
upscale restaurants into drinking dens.
If diners are encouraged to take home their
half-empty bottles, even some who drank little,
inevitably will drop them in darkness or snow
and ice and leave glass scattered dangerously.
A few will drink the last drops and toss
bottles on the streets and anyone who disputes
this does not know human nature. Having
thousands more people, some inebriated,
carrying bottles opened or unopened on the
streets at night is not exactly conducive to
safety.
Ontario law also currently forbids carrying
open bottles in an attempt to prevent drinking
on streets, but anyone found doing so will be
able to claim he is returning from a restaurant
and police will be unable to disprove this, even
with lengthy, time-consuming investigations.
The Liberals paint restaurants as gougers
who sell wine at unnecessarily inflated prices
and fail to recognize they have substantial
costs ranging from buying or renting high-
traffic locations to employing staff to cook and
serve.
Restaurants recoup these outlays by
charging markups in what they sell, as do all
retail businesses from groceries selling bread
to clothing stores selling shirts, and no-one is
pets — say, a 200 pound chihuahua.
(Hey, if it ever bit you, you could throw a
saddle on it and ride for help.)
Dyson says the possibilities are endless.
"You could imagine growing furniture," he
says, "if you could persuade a tree to grow in
the right shape."
Sounds insane, does it not? But think for a
moment. Think of the world as it was not long
ago. People got ,around (if they got around at
all) with horses. There was no such thing as an
airplane in the sky, a motor boat on the water
or a tractor in the field. There was no
television. There was no radio. Vast areas of
the country didn't have electric light.
Things we take for granted - instant replay,
shrink-wrap plastic, nylon stockings -would
have been as alien as a spaceship from
Betelgeuse.
When was this — The Dark Ages?
Elizabethan times? No, this was less than a
century ago — an eyeblink in time. There are
people living today who can remember that
world.
And we needn't go back that far. A mere 20
years ago I would have been pecking out these
thoughts on a manual Olivetti typewriter on
two-part Canary typing paper. And if someone
had interrupted me to chat about the internet,
e-mail, websites, blogging or laptops, I would
have assumed I was talking to the chief purser
from a space ship just in from Betelgeuse.
So I'm not laughing at the idea of Matter
Compactors and 'fabbers'. I'm keeping an
open mind so that I can be ready for the Brave
New World on our doorstep.
And I'm taking positive, concrete steps to
make sure I'm ready.
First thing tomorrow, I figure out how to
program the VCR.
suggesting they should be forbidden their
markups.
The rate of failures among restaurants also is
much higher than for any other type of
business — walk along a busy street and look
how often they close and reopen with new
names and new owners.
This suggests they are not making huge
profits, and would need to recover what they
lose through diners bringing their own bottles,
by substantial corkage or other charges just to
survive, leaving diners no better off
financially.
McGuinty says there are other jurisdictions
that allow diners to bring their own bottles
without problems, but a lot more don't, for
good reasons.
McGuinty did not mention any of these
things, but it is more appealing to promise new
freedoms,
Letter
THE EDITOR,
I am writing this letter to encourage the
community to get involved in the Block Parent
program. •
A couple of weeks ago my child was stopped
by a stranger who proceeded to ask him personal
questions. This made my child feel uncomfort-
able and he ran away and told me. The police
were involved but nothing came of it.
We have no idea what this man intended, but
that's not the point. The point is this happened
in OUR community. We need to talk to our
kids about these things and make sure they
know what to do and then we need to do
something ourselves.
As a Block Parent you are doing something.
You are saying "I will be there to help if help
is needed". So please call Sheila Hallahan at
523-9668 and get involved in the Block Parent
program.
Name withheld.
Reality at its better
At first I thought I was just living
vicariously through them. That is until
I recognized that while I may envy the
paycheque, I have neither the stomach nor the
personality to do what they have to do to get it.
No, I'm not talking about something wild or
sinister. It's actually much worse. I'm hooked
on The Apprentice (I'm shocked too) a new
reality series.
Survivor one through 1,000, Fear Factor,
Average Joe, Blind Date, My Big, Fat,
Obnoxious Fiancé. Reality shows are
everywhere on the television and, with the
exception of the final episode of the original
Survivor, which I was forced to watch because
a houseguest couldn't miss it, I have
successfully avoided them. That one instance
affirmed my contention that producers of the
vast wasteland had completely given up on
integrity.
Or for that matter the intelligence and
decency of their audience, a group, whom it
has apparently been determined, likes nothing
better than to watch people at their worst, and
witness their humiliation and embarrassment.
The Apprentice is a little different in that it
takes place in a world we already assume to be
cutthroat. Contestants compete for the
opportunity to run one of Donald Trump's
companies. As teams they work on projects
ordained by The Donald and each week one
person is fired.
Promo commercials stirred in me a mix of
bemusement and irritation. I couldn't imagine
any reason why I would want to watch
arrogant aliens from the corporate world
taking on pretentious challenges. And Donald
Trump's over-sized ego quite frankly makes
me a little nauseous.
However, long before Seinfeld, ThJrsday
night was must-see TV at our home. From the
time my oldest was a little guy we made an
event of Thursday night television with potato
chips and chatting. The channel never moved
beCause from 8 p.m. to I I p.m it satisfied first
a need for family viewing, then later for some
quality drama.
Thus when The Apprentice followed the
favourite network fare I found myself in a
conundrum. Old habits die hard it seems
because despite my aversion I just couldn't
bring myself to turn the channel.
Within moments I was fascinated; by show's
end, hooked. And every week since I've been
trying to figure out why. While all of the
people were chosen in part because they have
achieved a level of success, it bothers me that
the majority are quite pleasing to look at. It's
equally bothersome that the ones who are less
so were the first to be fired.
But, it's fun to watch these people. As
mentioned they were successful before the
show and sometimes you just have to wonder
how. Just like us regular folk would when
given a task such as discovering an artist and
selling his work, a contestant can look like a
doofus, be clearly out of his or her depth,
making insipid suggestions, contributing
nothing but wrong moves. Yet, as long as his
team doesn't lose he will return next week and
amazingly be the star this time around.
Then too the moments of brilliance are as
interesting to see as the machinations and
conflicts are entertaining.
But while other reality shows are personal,
this, as they say, is business, which I guess is
better. It apparently makes it a little more
palatable to me anyway.
Drinking in the 21st century