Audience Makes All the Difference

Making the comparison between human beings and computers, is for the most part fairly simple. Apart from a few extreme examples, humans and computers are two fundamentally different entities. Yet, the written communication both us and our computer counterparts use is fundamentally similar. Audience makes all the difference. When a writer writes they are guiding their message to a general or specific audience, and a general or specific purpose. This is the same with programmers, programming for a specific function or a general solution, and a specific or general user in mind. A programmer's writing has syntax, grammar, style, and errors, as with writing. Both require editing and re-editing, checking for problems both syntactically and logically. The only real difference is the audience. A computer for instance requires a very specific set of words on the programmer's behalf to make it function properly. A writer's audience also has specific words that are required to convey a message properly. At the heart of the idea is communication. What the written word requires to communicate effectively to the audience, is essentially the same as what the computer code requires to convey the message to the computer. Programmers and writers think quite alike. There are good programmers and good writers, and the opposite of good writers and programmers. In the world of programming and of writing the best operators are those who can manipulate the audience to their purpose in the most elegant way possible.

I know everything, I know nothing

As a citizen of the "information age" I am obligated to revere the internet as a god-like magical object. Google, Facebook, Yahoo, E-mail, Banking, Plane Tickets, Route Planning, Chatting, Video Games, Friends, nearly anything my analog heart can desire is at my fingertips. What does it mean to know everything? Is it the ability to recall any information at any time? If that is the case then the internet allows us all to know everything. But, fortunately it doesn't mean that. Knowing everything means the ability to apply knowledge, not just recite it. You can describe the color green all you want, but until you see it you don't know shit about green. Of course colors are a polarizing example but you get the idea. This makes me wonder, how the access to everything, has changed our minds and ideas. Obviously I am a subjective viewer as I am on the internet right now. Wonderment, Lust for knowledge, Seeking understanding, Privacy, Solitude, all of these things have been affected by the internet. Our brains are mass aggregates of facts and trivia. You may know Charlie Sheen's lawyer's name, but can you pass the bar exam? It's not that our understanding has changed but the amount of information we know. That's why schools still exist. You can learn everything there is to know about particle physics, but can you function as a particle physicist. Certainly some people could, but many others could not. Some would argue that schools are just there to give you a diploma, proof that you have the skills that you claim to have. But I argue, you can just print your diploma off of the internet. I'm just kidding of course. Schools still serve a purpose as understanding institutions, although they are starting to be pulled less and less from that direction. With changes to our thinking style, that sounds weird to type. But it's true, we think differently from our parents, or our older siblings, or younger siblings. Most of us on the internet are multi-tasking constantly, often to the detriment of some or all of the tasks. If the way we think is changing then surely the way we learn is changing. The way our brains gather and collect information, what we think about, who we think about, how we define things as important. Everything about us is changing. I sort of went off topic but that is ok, so yeah.