{"id":6427,"date":"2016-11-19T20:19:41","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T01:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=6427"},"modified":"2016-11-19T20:19:41","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T01:19:41","slug":"silent-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=6427","title":{"rendered":"Silent Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a quiet Saturday night at home. The first really cold night of the year. We have a fire going, Debbie and I are surfing online and reading books. The Wonder Dogs (Owen and Spenser) are sprawled out, happy just to be in the same room with us. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

And we’re chatting electronically with friends and family all across the country. We have within reach 2 phones, a tablet, 2 laptops, and a desktop. Depending on the chat medium and the recipients some or all of the devices call for attention with various chirps, whistles, and vibrations [2]<\/a>. <\/p>\n

We can tell by the number of chirps, whistles, and vibrations who the message is for and generally what conversation it’s a continuation of. A different pattern of noises has us looking at each other and saying, “who’s that?”<\/p>\n

In some ways it’s an annoyance, this constant electronic bleating. I wish these gadgets would be more like my GPS running watch who sits silently on the counter not making a sound. It just blinks its LED display hopefully, wanting to go out for a run but doesn’t presume to intrude otherwise.<\/p>\n

But on the other hand it’s nice to be connected with loved ones near and far, and to sit and chat around the electronic hearth.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

1.<\/a> As they are almost every evening. Even so they’re just so happy that we’re all here together. It’s the Best Night Ever! There’s a lesson there.<\/p>\n

2.<\/a> I remember years ago writing a proposal for a system that included haptic sensors to alert the operators when something happened. It was such a cool and novel idea at the time, “cutting edge.” And now it’s just the background of an ordinary Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a quiet Saturday night at home. The first really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curmudgeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}