GR mod of Half-Life 2

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I'm digital therefore I'm analog?

---Original Message-----
From: Bandwraith at aol.com
Sent: Jul 6, 2005 7:40 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: GR mod of Half-Life 2

"All right, I'm being a little nit-picking here, and I'll
admit I should get a fucking life.  However:

Why do you equate digital electronics with idealism
and anlog with militarism, imperialism, etc.?   We'll
never know what could have been accomplished with
analog electronics -- Bill Gates et al. saw to that -- not
to mention all the other technologies which fell victim
to rampant profit-making, such as non-obsolescent cars,
enviro-friendly energy technologies, etc.  It doesn't
make one a Luddite to bemoan the capitalist strangle-
hold on technological development.  For all we know,
analog technology could have created a way to model
the effects of global warming so effective that even  Bush
and Co. would have had to take notice.  And the US 
military seems pretty smitten with digital and its "smart-
bomb"excesses.  So lighten up on poor old analog."

__________________________________

Ha, ha. The distinction between the two seems
somewhat arbitrary, like that between knowing
and being. The two are complementary. You can't
know without being, yet knowing always involves
a representation- something less than the whole
pure analog state of being. A fall from grace? Some
would say so.

The guidance system of the V2- the double integra-
tion of acceleration as manifested by the G-force-
to arrive at distance travelled- is about as
purely analog as it gets. The system is  exquisitely
sensitive to feedback, deeply conservative, until that
final interdiction, pre-programed into its being to
suit the arbitrary whims of its creators.

So the two are always present- more or less- in the 
understanding and control of any system. In that sense, 
the Negropontes are like two sides of the same coin- 
Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum- at some level beyond 
the reach of must of us.

Bandwraith