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Re: [AT-L] Electronics on the AT
> Muting the intensity of the Trail experience is not something I'm
> willing to do. And the electronics - even if the weight were in
> a reasonable range to carry on the AT (a 1 ounce computer?) - is a
> wall between me and the "real" world.
I can't help myself Jim :)
But what if...
(here it comes)
carrying these things intensifies someone's experience?
I know you allow for that possibility, but we collectively seem dubious of the
possibility. I can't help wondering why.
I'm not refering to those people who use a phone or pager as device to allow
them to get away. Not to say that this isn't a valid use, just that it isn't
about intensifying their trail experience. It appears to be about having *any*
trail experience though tethered to responsibilities that don't permit them to
not take such a device. Cool, but not what I'm attempting to discuss.
What interests me is where the line is drawn. No one mentions cameras--they
don't seem to raise anyone's hackles. While one would rarely see gobs of photo
equipment in the pack of someone walking more than a few miles, no one seems
to bristle at the notion of finding someone taking pictures at the top of a
bald. Why?
I'm sure that if an avid photographer was cleaning, reloading and, in all ways
photo-esque, creating a late night ruckus, it wouldn't be appreciated any more
than another disturbance, but it doesn't seem to create the "techno-freak"
level of hostility that has been noted from time to time.
Do hikers respect the desire to capture the moments of beauty on the trail?
Walkmans also seem to be immune.
The problem doesn't appear to be technology, but inviting the "other world"
onto the trail that is the root of the more extreme reaction phones and pagers
seem to elicit.
What do you think?
Daniel
PS This is not a call for a thousand stories of the idiot who annoyed you with
a (technology device of your choice). ;)
Daniel Berlinger Circumstance Technology
http://www.circumtech.com/ Virtuality Designer
Linkwright Data Poet Systems Anarchist Idiosyncrat
Interactivist Herder of Cats Zero Tolerance For Silence