By Kai Staats
MacNewsWorld
07/28/04 8:27 AM PT

It was Saturday. No one was in the office. None of my customers would expect a call, even if they were working. While there seemed to be no reason for it, the nearly overwhelming desire persisted. I realized then, in that moment, I was suffering from lack of connectivity.

This is the first of many discussions built upon my observation of my own behavior and that of those around me as my generation and the next move into a very near future of hyperinterconnection.

My immediate writing will be concerned with how we as human animals offset our natural instinct, intuition and independence with a reliance on technology, if not to make a decision for us, then to enable connection to another human or group of humans.

To contrast this, and to look at both sides of the equation, I will also explore, in subsequent columns, the incredible possibilities of interconnection. This interconnection even now enables, for instance, multiple generations spread across vast distance to remain in contact; or the common citizen to capture via digital photo and cell-phone uplink a public uprising, protest and associated military response; or for companies to provide 24/7 tech support to customers 10,000 miles away.

Freedom and Flexibility
My latest lesson in the connection between humans and technology came during the first week of July, when I completed a 4,380-mile road trip from Loveland, Colorado, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I rock climbed and camped in the Pines. The next day I arrived in Phoenix two hours before the start of a 48-hour film challenge that I co-directed with my brother. The following week found me in the San Francisco Bay Area to attend the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) and countless meetings from morning until night.

I headed home with a travel companion. We ventured to Portola State Park, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Lehman Caves in New Mexico, a quick walk on the shore of a dry lake bed (a few hours south of Salt Lake City), where the hot grey/green clay oozed between and over barefoot toes. Finally an evening and night in Arches National Park, Utah, before crossing the Rockies on I-70 the following and final day.

This two-week venture, like more than a dozen before it and many more to come, was a business trip. This means 8 to 12 hours a day with e-mail, phone calls, meetings and remote management of my company. During these extended journeys, it is imperative that I remain connected to my team and my customers in order to keep things running smoothly. The climbing, camping, even the 48-hour film challenge keep me running smoothly, or I would break down far faster than would my company without sales or my Subaru without oil.

My nontraditional means of travel is an attempt at balance, compensation for long days and lack of regular weekends. More importantly, it is a reminder of who I am. But with this thought in my mind, I noticed something on this particular trip that caught me off guard, something I am not pleased to have discovered.

Despite the expressed freedom that I personally enjoy, for the flexibility and mobility that millions of people now have with cellular phones, high-speed internet connections and virtual private networks (VPNs) into their home offices, even with major improvements made to video conferencing — something doesn’t feel right to me.

Lack of Connectivity
As I crossed the wonderful distance between Reno and Wells, Nevada, a truckstop town at the intersection of I-80 and Highway 93, the northern entrance to a splendid high-desert valley bordered by snow fields on 10,000-foot peaks, I looked down to the cupholder between the two front seats that held my cell phone (used only during road trips). I felt the overwhelming urge to check voice mail, to call someone — anyone.

The anxiety that drove this sensation was similar to that which people must experience when exiting an airplane, restaurant, or movie theater: the impulse to immediately check voice messages. Perhaps this is the same, underlying reason people put their cell on standby — as opposed to just turning the thing off — even though they are not able to answer.

It was Saturday. No one was in the office. None of my customers would expect a call, even if they were working. While there seemed to be no reason for it, the nearly overwhelming desire persisted. I realized then, in that moment, I was suffering from lack of connectivity.

My copilot grabbed her cell to call her family and check in, and that was when I found my own cell in my hands, the power on, my fingers ritualistically navigating through the phone book to my parents back in Phoenix — to check in.

Humans and Technology
As we maintained a cruise-controlled velocity of about 87 miles per hour in a place vast and wonderfully devoid of humans, I could not help but consider the time required, just two or three generations ago, to cross this same space. And I contemplated the solitude that one would have experienced in the days, the weeks that were required in comparison to our speedy traverse in mere hours. Without CB, cell phone, pager, satellite phone, and certainly without AAA-assured roadside assistance, these individuals on foot, horseback or wagon were far more isolated and, therefore, made truly independent decisions.

In years past, I have soloed in Denali National Park, Alaska, for two weeks among the rock marmot and grizzly; in the Saguaro Desert of the Superstitions for days on end, and more recently ventured to Mexico and the Caribbean without even hearing a phone ring let alone using one for weeks.

I had been without communication with family or coworkers for less than 24 hours but was feeling that low-level anxiety, the kind that starts in the abdomen and creeps into the chest and upper arms. When I became aware of the experience, when I realized what was driving me to call, I was shocked to discover — I had been reprogrammed. And I was my own hacker.

© Kai Staats 2004

By Kai Staats
MacNewsWorld
07/21/04 10:46 AM PT

Before I open a book, I always turn to the back page to read about the author. I find it helpful to know about him or her, for in my mind I desire to picture this person when the words were first applied to keyboard, screen or print. It helps build a foundation for what I am about to read, even if idealized or oversimplified.

I am honored to be invited to write for MacNewsWorld. As one who is daily entrenched in Linux and high performance computing, it may be expected that I would write about the battle between Linux and Windows, PowerPC and Intel. But I do that for a living. I need a break, a creative outlet for those thoughts that otherwise remain trapped between brain, fingers and keyboard.

In this column, I plan to explore the subjects of human interconnectedness and isolation, interdependence and independence in a rapidly evolving age of technology and telecommunications. In so doing, I will derive as much as I am able from my own experience in order to share first-hand what I have observed within myself, my immediate associates and the world within my sight and touch.

I will also call upon conversations with customers, articles and books I have read, and the creative liberty of extrapolation for events and places that either I have not explored in person or to create those that have not yet come to exist.

Building the Foundation
Before I open a book, I always turn to the back page to read about the author. I find it helpful to know about him or her, for in my mind I desire to picture this person when the words were first applied to keyboard, screen or print. It helps build a foundation for what I am about to read, even if idealized or oversimplified.

Therefore, I offer to you a bit about me: I am the co-founder and CEO of Terra Soft Solutions, developer of Yellow Dog Linux for PowerPC. I am an avid rock climber, I prefer sleeping in a tent rather than a bed and I have traveled to many countries around the world. I would claim to live alone in my 1912 sugar mill home in Loveland, Colorado, were it not for the animals that live with me within the walls (literally): birds, mice, spiders and bees.

I purchased the oldest (by choice), ugliest (not much of a choice), fixer-upper (a third generation, seemingly incurable disease) house in this historic neighborhood. My mother cried when my parents first visited my home, asking if I could get my money back. Knowing it was too late, she promptly called in a 30 cubic yard dumpster, which we filled twice while gutting all 900 square feet of home. One more dumpsterload and I might as well have hung curtains in the dumpster instead. Six years later, I continue to prepare my food over plywood, for my countertop is not yet complete. I have more projects started than complete.

A Mixed Bag
Seemingly caught between two worlds, I am often perplexed by technology unfolding at a breathless pace whereby humans are able to conduct that which was written about in science fiction just one generation ago; and my own craving for a time since past when one could drink from mountain streams without concern for giardia or the outwashing of acid rain.

I use a 15-inch Apple PowerBook with immediate access to a dozen servers, routers and fibre optic backbone scalable to 100 MB with the click of a mouse, a gigabit with a phone call. I have employees in three states and Canada, one of whom I have never met nor even seen his photo. I don’t need to. We are connected daily via e-mail, electronic calendars, CVS, chat and phone.

At home I do not own a television, computer or game console. I have a 1914 piano, many books, and, as one who enjoys quality sound, a decent home theater system connected to my 1978 Commodore 64 monitor for watching DVDs. I have a peach, a plum, a mulberry and two apple trees. This year I am growing corn, beans, carrots and “a” strawberry (despite my best efforts, this plant seems to produce no more than a single fruit per year).

Ever Evolving
I am simultaneously thrilled by the possibilities of a space ladder to hoist payloads to orbiting cities without massive pollution — and frightened by the very real desire for some parents to embed GPS beacons in their children’s arms to make certain they are neither lost nor stolen.

If I recall correctly, just a few years ago, half of the human population had never used a telephone, let alone the Internet. But I am in awe of the rate at which intercomputer connectivity is increasing, not only in speed but in the number of persons online. It seems the gap between the connected and the disconnected will soon narrow.

This transformation will occur as a function of desire for interconnectivity and, oddly enough, independence. Therefore, I am fascinated with the potential for shifts in power when once-isolated peoples have access to the entire connected world, and of equal importance, the entire world has access to them. But what will happen when individuals fail to recall what it means to be alone and their desire for independence grows to become interdependence?

When microchips give way to nanobots which are replaced by organic arrays nearly indistinguishable from our own cells — passed from one generation to the next, evolving by design — then our own connected future may lie not in the light of fiber optics, but in the spectrum of a new kind of ESP (what I will call “Engineered Sensory Perception”), a means of interpersonal communication that makes a gigabyte per second look like two children with a garden hose, funnels held to mouth and ear.

Interdependence and Independence
My writing will be a one-way communication in most respects, from me to you. Given this constraint, I will do my best to write as a catalyst, offering material for discussion. While I do write with an agenda (or I would find no compelling reason to write), I will do so based upon the premise that “This is what I have experienced …” in hope that it stimulates thought, consideration, awareness, action, reaction, even debate among you and your associates.

I will remain attached only to the hope that I may cause the occasional “Hmmm,” or “Ah-hah!”

Given this introduction, please return to this column next week for the first of what I hope to be many thought-provoking ventures into the experience of being human in a world rapidly evolving to extend humanity’s reach through innovation in technology.

© Kai Staats 2004