angles, distance, information, and digital odometers >> by stephen wacker >> *spark-online7.0

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Angles, Distance, Information and Digital Odometers

by stephen wacker

We all have an angle--perhaps perspective is a better word--on the world we inhabit. And because individual perspective tends to be limited, even in information-rich environments, I find it helpful to try and look at things from different angles. Lately I've been thinking about how our use of the World Wide Web is primarily information-centric, and how easy it is to overlook the fact that the Web is the latest in a series of communications technologies that allow us to bridge significant physical distances.

The telephone was one of the first technologies to do this, although it's primarily used for person-to-person communications. In addition, the telephone is somewhat limited in that it can't effectively provide access to stored information. Radio and television are also leapfrog technologies (and television is significant in that it engages both sight and hearing), but these are really broadcast media, not communications technologies.

I first played digital leapfrog on the Web in 1994, when I visited a site that featured a number of high-quality photographs of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I've never been to the Vatican (although I'd seen pictures, like many people), but here I was soaring within inches of Michelangelo's masterpiece while sitting in my office cubicle in a Seattle suburb. Not only did the Web allow me to see the painting, it also allowed me to scrutinize Michelangelo's work more closely than I could if I were standing beneath it. The thousands of miles separating me from the painting's location were transcended by the digital underpinning of the Web, as was the fact that it exists on a surface--a ceiling--that's much more out of reach for its immediate observers than art that's displayed on walls or floors. From the Web I could study it from different angles and zoom in for detail, almost as if I were a fly buzzing about the room.

Unlike the telephone, a Web browser is essentially a data access tool. However, the combination of the Web's vast scale and the way it's used by individuals makes it appear to be something of a personal communications medium. One of the most amazing things about the Hypertext Transfer Protocol--the http: in every Web address--is the way it transfers information so quickly over significant distances. This ability to communicate data at or near the speed of light is what makes any digital technology appear to be instantaneous (agonizingly slow dial-up connections notwithstanding, of course), and to my way of thinking is what makes the Web so magical.

The Web is doing away with an issue that most of us probably haven't thought much about before--how stored information's potential is limited by its location. That is, information is like the proverbial tree in the uninhabited forest that falls without making a sound--or is it? Can information be meaningful if it exists without anyone being aware of it? Whether we like it or not, the increasingly ubiquitous nature of the Web seems to be slowly but inexorably rendering this question moot.

As the Web grows and flourishes, we gain access to an increasing amount of information. We say this is liberating, and in many ways it is, but we still need to verify and understand information properly before we can rely on it and use it effectively. Remember how Pierre Salinger so innocently believed the information he obtained from the Web about TWA Flight 800? Wouldn't it be amazing if all information on the Web was truly reliable?

Anyway, although this may sound hopelessly silly and nostalgic, I was somewhat disappointed when I purchased a new car and saw that it had a digital odometer. No more watching the numbers ascend towards the sky as the odometer's wheels slowly turned; now they were just liquid crystals that changed instantly. I realized that something more than physical distance had been leapfrogged--that even the way we measure physical distance has changed.

Digital technologies have "exploded" the passage of time and the existence of distance, and sometimes the effects of this explosion seem like a runaway chain reaction. Do the seemingly instantaneous workings of digital technologies affect our comprehension of nature's circular rhythms and cycles? Do we sense that time is speeding up because we can now do so many things quickly; things that once involved great distances and vast amounts of time? Could the Web perhaps be pointing us towards a better understanding of the space/time continuum put forth in the theory of relativity?

Regardless of how we answer these questions, digital technologies have profoundly affected us by providing new perspectives; that alone provides us with sufficient reason to appreciate them.

Stephen Wacker writes about technology, culture and society. His career as an information technology professional has focused primarily on communications and the Internet. Mr. Wacker also writes about contemporary popular music and is an accomplished songwriter and guitarist.