Virtual Postcards

Cambridge, UK. Home of Isaac newton and scores of other great thinkers.
This it the one place where one would, presumably, expect to find every
corner and alcove jam packed with bookish types madly scratching away at
their ideas.

Well, if they are doing this, they are doing it all in private.

I'm in a coffee shop for the afternoon, taking some personal time and
writing all this down, but I'm the only one here with a laptop. I'm
actually getting strange looks from people. It seems that I'm supposed to
be doing this back in my room, or in a cloister somewhere.

Which is, I realise, how the place was designed. I took some time this
morning to wander the gardens at the back of one of the colleges and they
are exceptionally peaceful and quiet. I just sat there, and relaxed, it
was very Zen. This is just the sort of place where someone could settle
down with a small note pad and solve one of the worlds great problems.

So I guess when people come out, they do it to be social, to participate,
not sit in a corner, like I am, and just spectate.

However, aside from the few times I've forcibly shipwrecked myself on a
tropical island where there is no mobile phone reception, I'm very much in
real time contact with the rest of the world. So I end up having this
strange virtual experience where I'm in many places at once.

So currently, although I'm sitting here periodically writing this down
and reading a book, I'm also managing parallel conversations with my
friends all over the world, all in different time zones.

The conversations always start out the same :

> What are you up to ?

< Well, I'm in the UK actually, Cambridge, Cafe

> Cool, what are you eating ?

And thus we enter into the world of the virtual experience. Years ago you
would just send someone a postcard with a photo of some breathtaking vista
and the usual 'wish you were here.' on the back. Now, aside from the fact
that it is less of a request and more of a way of showing off, ( we all
the know the card really says 'I'm here, and you're not!' ) nothing has
really changed. We're still writing and sending the postcards, but we're
doing them in realtime.

At one point the waitress saw the book I was reading and asked me,

"What's happening ?"

"Well," I replied "Our Young protagonist has just been declared king. But
You may also want to know that one of my friends is about to fly to a
funeral, another is having trouble deciding between the chicken or the
fish. The water is still warm in Sydney, but my friends email server is
broken. And I'm expected to be in Boston in two weeks"

So we are all here living life through our mobile devices. I suppose it
is just a matter of time before we have we can all send real-time video
to whomever we want. I can see it being the start of a whole new industry:

Travel Porn, Be There Now !. See live backpackers as they make their way
through Europe. Choose your destination, more than 50 cities online right
now! Laugh as you watch them order Tapas in broken spanglish ( "you
ordered the tripe and bulls testicles, Senior, no ?" ). Upgrade to the
'Five Star Experience' and see extreme closeups of your Mai Tais and personal
massage.

However, I digress.

Somewhere this afternoon there are to be boat races. The Lent Bumps.
Apparently the river is somewhat narrow and interesting things happen. So
I think I shall don a blazer and join the punters having a punt on the
punters.

After all, we are all just going to see who crashes.

P=mv