[The word tech shall mean all things primarily related to computers, IT, internet, gadgets, hardware and to a lesser extend, theoretical sciences and mathematics (effect of Slashdot). With all due respect, all other branches (mechanical etc.) would come under ‘engineering’ and not technology.]
I love technology. There, I said it. Those who know me personally might not believe this coming from me after my infinite ramblings on how much I hated my department (Electrical Engineering) and how I hate coding and related things. But the truth is that I am fond of technology.
The tech that interests me is not the hardcore coding and theoretical stuff but the cooler, softer shades of it which can be understood without getting neck deep into scripting. Things which are 'cool', 1337 and which make our online experience a delight. The feeling of being a (pseudo) geek as a result of these activities, is purely an additional perk. For me, it started with the interest in the specifications of the latest gadgets in the market and the configuration of the laptop/desktops of my batchmates. As soon as I got a computer, I ventured more and more into this territory. It would be something as simple as testing different versions of dc++ to more subversive and desperate measures to download movies through trespassing in the Bio-tech department through a broken window at 3 am in the nights and gaining access to their server to run torrents ( We downloaded around 20 GBs of movies in a fortnight!). Now, I am not claiming that I am the uber-geek and go-to-person for all things technical, but I can say that I have a fair bit of knowledge in this domain. Or I can fake so.
Rest (scripting, academic courses, assignments etc.) would be referred as
Using Matlab, Pspice, Fluent and gnuplot (Tani) also counts in Pop-tech if not used for any academic purpose.
The biggest set of Pop-tech lovers constitutes of people who worship Linux and would die willingly (and virgin) while expanding the cause of free-software movement (free, as in Free Speech! Mind it!). They have a favorite distro (Mandrake 10.X for me) and spend most of their waking hours on support forums discussing finer details of the entire GNU/Linux naming controversy. Since, it involves significant amount of Shell scripting, I won’t be talking about it.
I speak solely on the basis of my experience and I can say that there is a strong correlation between interest in Hi-tech and interest in Pop-tech. Interested people usually are as good in pipelining, hacking, RPGs, Photoshop as in VHDL (Anjul) or SQL (Ram). On the other end of the spectrum are the people who aren’t ‘into’ either Hi-tech or Pop-tech and these concepts occupy as much as grey cells for such people as the thought of shaving/bathing would occupy my previous batchmates’.
But we’re more interested in the exceptions. There are people who are god-like in Hi-Tech (Rajat, Pradeep) but otherwise are so technologically illiterate that they can’t tell RSS from VHP (Rajat, Pradeep). Some (Shalabh) abhor both Hi-Tech and Pop-Tech (my views only) and compare it with the sewage system of the cities: necessary, not desirable and better-if-I-don’t-know-it-exists. Sadly, even they need to flush sometimes.
I, and few of the junta referred in this post are the kind of people who finds Hi-tech and the entire academic halo around it repulsive if not REPULSIVE. In my view, this entire Pop-tech culture is subversive like LAN gaming but manages to be a step above the ugly underbelly-ness of LAN gaming. I believe proponents of Pop-tech do it to prove a point (hey! I know of an application to hide any program in the system tray. I shall use in when I get a job to chat and blog and my manager wouldn’t have a damn clue. I am not entirely worthless…). They are driven by a mixture of the feeling of self-righteousness (I didn’t sell out like you, you 9 pointer!), delusion of being a maverick, promised fame (I share 690 GBs on dc++), boredom (hmm… I wonder what would this command do), and to a certain degree, interest.
I consider myself a very user manual driven person. I am open to new technologies if I can find enough support and guides to walk me through them step-by-step. This is the reason that I give up when things get more complex or require hands on learning. Such as the time when I was learning Illustrator CS3 or PHP or Maya. Whereas, I am not averse to scripting if it is only a small part of the process and given that I have sufficient support/guides. I religiously follow Slashdot; like xkcd more than dilbert and have joined facebook primarily to try different apps. I have a newfound respect for PhD students because of this. I have strong opinion on iPhone’s SDK, Wii, Web 2.0 and drool over Microsoft Surface even though I haven’t yet figured a real need of it. I am always on the hunt for new widgets for the blogs (the absence of which on this page can be attributed to my laziness and my 3-4 failed attempts to overhaul the template of the blog. Thank God for the Restore Default Template option.) I hang around cnet, techtree more than bbc; prefer MIT’s ocw over books/wikipedia; know my would be Home-theatre system down to its last detail; celebrated Blu-ray’s victory by raising toast for Betamax and prefer Sci-Tech questions made by Anjul any day over MELA question made by Anjul.
The motivation for this post came while one day, going through the archives of xkcd ( I am done with ALL the strips. Several times.) I came to know about Ruby. A little bit of searching made me stumble upon this cool software package to –hold your breadth- design your own RPGs. And the icing on the cake being it involves Ruby Game Scripting System (RGSS). I spend hours figuring it out in with the (pipe)dreams of making my own super cool, full of inside jokes, RPG- Tulob Gore (Don't ask). But all this excitement turned out to be short lived as I found the RGSS a bit cumbersome for me (I hate coding, remember?)and so had to abandon the plans of making a RPG with Lord c0nufsed pitted against the darkest and the foulest creatures which ever roamed the (RPG Maker VX’s) universe.
Alas, It would have involved strong language, violence and tons of hardcore brief nudity too.
On the positive side, I successfully use Tray-it to hide applications and to blog/chat in the office.
17 comments:
"But the truth is that I am fond of technology."
Congrats for coming out of the closet.
LOL@the entire post. Seems like it was written me all the way :D
xkcd kicks ass, check out phdcomics.com sometime...
I think everyone's into pop-tech, whether they like it or not is a different issue - its like the toilet, like or hate it you can't live without it.
On a side note, my BTP involves something startingly similar to the Stanford reconstruction tool, will show you sometime.
PS: I saw "The Lives of Others"... awesome movie.
PPS: Hi-tech is not repulsive, or REPULSIVE.
You seem to have decided against the fundamental underpinnings of technology - mathematics and physics - the so called academic halo. Given that, you do realize that you are never going to be a creator of any fundamental game-changing technology.
Sorry, you are setting yourself up for being nothing more than a coding monkey. Your ultra-coolness is hot air.
@ theil,
I have seen phdcomics but I find xkcd more geeky/funny.
Pop-tech might not be important to everyone but ya, it sure is enjoyable.
Cool! Would love to see that. Bhanu and Priyank also did something vaguely on the lines of Stanford reconstruction tool.
PS: Now watch Sleuth. 1972 wali.
PPS: Whatever you say, doc.
@ anon,
I am sorry if you thought that I am against mathematics and physics. I just didn't think they in the same vein as rest of the technologies in my post. As far as "...never going to be a creator of any fundamental game-..." bit is concerned, I think I can live with that.
I'm still laughing. (also at Dork)
Very informy!
Let me rephrase.
Very, very informy!
I wonder which IIM is gonna get lucky to get so Hi-Poptech dude.
Dude, this was a great great post after a long time! Before going further, let me admit that you are spot on regarding my attitude towards tech, hi or lo. I too like xkcd more than Dilbert but that's because I like the self-deprecatory loser in xkcd. And I too have drooled over MS Surface but I have absolutely no interest in getting into its nitty-gritty and I want the final never-fail version when I use it and not some beta or gamma I'm supposed to report faults about. I love sharing movies and bless technology and those who develop it to enable me to do so, but I view myself like a missionary that way - I need soldiers and railroad workers etc to get me to Africa's heathen lands but my purpose is an elevated one.
I am slightly surprised you are that much into tech. You were always decent at pop-tech and now that I think about it, I can recollect your enthusiasm for it, but I never thought of you the same way I think of, say, Bhavya.
Finally, absolutely brilliant categorization of pop and hi. It reminds me of Phaedrus's knife :). You're correct in your observations on Rajat, Pradeep etc. There's so much of wordplay and new wrapping for concepts that everyone knows anyway that gets famous and becomes management theory and your classification actually gives a name to a very important and little-analyzed phenomenon.
PS: I skipped a couple of lines when the RPG, RGSS etc got too much :).
Rajat is still crying hoarse about being called technologically illiterate, inept etc. Boy, how do you do this? :D
Agree with Shalabh. Brilliant characterization. I dislike hate pop tech and (pop-techies too!), but I always thought that there was a correlation between pop tech and hi-tech. Now that my doubts have been removed, I guess I can still hope of being a hi-techie some day!
@ TLC,
It is like the information you share with me, albeit in a different domain.
@ Anarchy,
Believe me you shall be the first to know
@ RF,
I am happy that this can pass as some management funda. Now only if I figure somehow to make money out of it...
Your entire non-tech persona would've failed had you read those lines. :)
@ Phoenix,
Give him a gulab-jamun and he will stop whining. It works everytime.
@ Sumeet,
You dislike pop-techies and want to be a hi-techie some day?
Please, don't hate yourself. We all accept you as you are. Don't we moti?
high-brow-elitist-snobbish-neo-nazi-virgin-sad Hi-tech... haha that's awesome! seems to fit on me in someways.
I think anyone who has clicked a photo via mobile and sent it on MMS is into pop-tech. Yes, I think it starts that low and goes all the way to using ActionScript 2.0 in all new Adobe Flash CS3.
Still one of the better things to come back and read on the 'net.
@ doc,
Is that the new number for Satan?
Post a Comment