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         (%(%))  11-10-2018
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	A few years back I was taking part in a project working with older people and 
	digital technology. A large part of these drop-in workshops ended up helping 
	people with their iphones, ipads, facebook and gmail, to keep in touch with 
	their families, etc. Though that wasn't really the initial idea. The project had 
	intended to look into some of the concepts of computers and software through a 
	kind-of cultural lens.

	What became interesting in these workshops was the way in which a technical 
	dialogue opened up across generational divide that meant both groups (those of us 
	running the workshops, on the one hand, and the older folks we were working with) 
	had to go on a bit of a shared journey talking and working through all the nuance 
	of digitality. There was a moment where we opened up the terminal on one of the 
	machines and started looking at htop and all the process IDs, discussing this 
	stuff. An analogy was offered that this was something like busting open the hood of 
	a car and taking a look at some of the inner workings of the machine under the 
	shiny surface. Here we were able to get on the same page, and so many of the older 
	folks began to talk more about their own backgrounds in technical work; tinkering, 
	work with machinery, textiles, WWII munitions production, etc.

	I had never been too technical before the past few years, making something of a 
	conscious decision then to start attempting to learn as much as I could about many 
	of the tools and technical environments I was moving within (and here, digital was 
	the most obvious to begin with). Sometime after those workshops, I remember looking 
	through the garage back at my parents house at all the tools there. I found an old 
	hammer that I later found out wasn't just my parents but had belonged to my 
	grandfather. This thing was just... solid, one of the most perfectly robust pieces 
	of kit I'd ever come across. Hard to imagine what the life-cycle of that thing must 
	be, even in heavy use. It outlived my grandfather, no doubt it'll outlive me. 
	There's a humbling thought.

	I read the other day that Apple are going to start installing a kind-of 'kill 
	switch' on some of their new hardware to actually start bricking devices if it 
	detects being tinkered with by anyone other than a qualified/certified/payroll'd 
	Apple engineer. I can hardly begin to imagine what the equivalent 
	generational technical divide would look like in the expansion of such a 
	scenario; a world of proprietary, locked-down objects that sit out of reach or 
	grasp of their subjects, unable to even bust open the hood and start to get a 
	feel for the machinery inside.
	
	Tags: #technology #software #Apple #digitality