He says: "I realised that the 'background hum' of
work emanating from my always-connected iPhone was
a better way of describing how I now work – and live.
It means I can send an important email while I'm
fetching milk from the shop – or read RSS feeds while
waiting for a train. And I can Twitter while waiting
for my kids to get tired of the climbing frame in the
park.
"There is no more 'balance' any more – as if there
ever was – because what I am working on and interested
in swaps from second to second as I use my iPhone. The
internet is now an all-pervasive background 'hum'
which never goes away unless I am out of battery or
out of wireless signal, which is very rare."
This is someone, and journalists in general are, people who don't actually make things. In the PG sense they are not makers, they are managers, and this quoted section shows it.
When programming you can't afford this constant hum, when doing math - real math, research-type math - you can't be emailing and surfing and twittering, etc. You have to be immersed in the problem and get into flow.
Beware of following the journalists. They may show what the public might be doing in 5 years, but the people who do the work, the people who create things for others to use, won't.
When programming you can't afford this constant hum, when doing math - real math, research-type math - you can't be emailing and surfing and twittering, etc. You have to be immersed in the problem and get into flow.
Beware of following the journalists. They may show what the public might be doing in 5 years, but the people who do the work, the people who create things for others to use, won't.