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A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

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Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#171

Post by mattgreenrocks »

mwfunk wrote: post #167
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #63

I'm not sure why people worry about social acceptability so much. Mainstream opinion is basically that of sheep. I'm old enough to remember when the Internet use had a significant social stigma. Now teenage girls gorge themselves on it in public. The same people who'd be so quick to judge now keep their mouths shut. What changed? Oh, right: absolutely nothing.

When was there ever a widespread social stigma associated with Internet use? This is not something that ever existed, so it's probably not a good analogy.

The Internet was seen as this nerdy, niche thing for a long time. Thus, by extension, you'd be more inclined to admit you stayed up late 'watching TV.'

This was the late nineties.

But correctness of analogy doesn't change the thesis: mainstream opinion is whatever people are force-fed through bottom-of-the-barrel social norms.

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#172

Post by aestra »

tokenadult wrote: post #2

The story reports that the Walkman changed people's opinions about wearing headphones. (The kind of listening earpieces, even paired in a framework, used with the Walkman I usually think of as "earphones," but I see that the contemporary news story called them headphones, back in the day.) What I most remember about the Walkman is that it liberated public places from boomboxes, unaffectionately known as "ghetto blast…

>What I most remember about the Walkman is that it liberated public places from boomboxes, unaffectionately known as "ghetto blasters," which I used to hear all too often when I was out in public as a student and as a recent university graduate.

Smartphones are the new jamboxes. (that's what I always call them) Haven't you ever been walking around in public with someone blaring music out their smartphone speakers? Happens all the time. It's the jambox trend all over again, except smartphone speakers are terrible quality so it's 100% more annoying. Someone was sitting in a crowded (yet oddly quiet) train station doing it.

>I think maybe the future of Google Glass will depend in part on whether wearing Google Glass is seen as eliminating a disgusting previous habit (like looking down at one's lap to text while driving)

How could looking forward while texting and driving by any less distracting? I've already posted this elsewhere by "hands free" texting is just as distracting. We need to chill the fuck out and realize that text can wait. See my other comment here for sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7151678

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#173

Post by pwf »

A relevant quote from 'Snow Crash':

Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#174

Post by aestra »

codingdave wrote: post #149

I think the analogy with headphones is accurate, but the article missed something important" Headphones in public are absolutely considered obnoxious. Old folk like me do think they look silly, and we do think it says something negative about people who cannot live without pervasive music in their lives. The attitudes from 33 Years ago have not changed. But the youth just don't notice (or don't care) that us older fo…

I'm in my 30s and I completely agree with you!

Fahrenheit 451 was a dystopian novel not only because of the book burning but because of the people's use of technology to divorce themselves from the outside world and especially their relationships.

Ray Bradbury said in 1960

"In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."

http://digboston.com/boston-news-opinions/2012/06/rip-ray-br...

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#175

Post by maxerickson »

aestra wrote: post #163
maxerickson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the taboo will fade. I just hope the tech fades with it. Not away, but into the background. I'd rather have a pen that can draw a diagram on my workpiece tucked in my pocket than I would some geegaw strapped to my head all the time.

Remember how dumb people used to look walking around with bluetooth headsets? Especially weird when they were holding a conversations and looked like they were talking to themselves? Has the taboo really faded with that?

Well, for the sake of arguing about it I would say that the earpiece taboo has become equal to the talking in public taboo.

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#176

Post by aestra »

kenrikm wrote: post #20

I can see the point don't know if Glass will make it however it used to be EXTREMELY weird to see people with bluetooth headsets and even more odd if people were talking on them in public places "Are you talking to me?" now it's so normal for the most part I don't even notice them.

Really? I haven't seen someone wear a bluetooth headset in public in years.

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#178

Post by jff »

tzs wrote: post #48
doktrin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I disagree that people will become comfortable with Google Glass - the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording). A core assumption of this argument is that people won't eventually become accustomed to the idea of being recorded consistently, often without their knowledge or consent. I can't see why that would be the case. Vide…

> Video surveillance is nigh-ubiquitous in London, and this appears to be both accepted and tolerated. Closer to home (US), I was probably recorded on camera 10-12 times today alone - anywhere from office buildings, retail stores, gas stations, etc. Are any of those London cameras, or the dozen cameras you suspect record you in the US, in public restrooms?

BREAKING NEWS, HN USER TZS CAUGHT URINATING IN PUBLIC RESTROOM URINAL, SHOCKING FILM OF HIS CLOTHED BACK!

Are you expecting Glass wearers to suddenly start leaning over urinal partitions to film you pissing? Or poking their heads over stalls? Both of these are pretty goddamn unacceptable where I'm from, Glass or not. If someone is so weird that they want video evidence of themselves going to the bathroom, and they happen to capture me standing at a urinal, who gives a fuck?

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#179

Post by syntaxfree »

sthomas1618 wrote: post #16
aresant wrote: post #6

I disagree that people will become comfortable with Google Glass - the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording). To which the analogy vs. headphones is not relevant. I anticipate, however, that Google (or somebody) will find a way to make this product largely invisible to anybody but the wearer in the near term future. Through m…

I think that is a fair criticism of Google Glass. But I'm worried about my privacy in regards to governments, not fellow citizens. In fact, I think wearable computing like Google Glass could be a game changer in keeping governments accountable. It could be really convenient in recording what you believe to be police misconduct here in the States (instead of blatantly fumbling for your mobile). Or, provided it is affo…

Somehow I think the government in South Sudan would just rip these off people's faces.

Re: A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky

#180

Post by snowwrestler »

Avshalom wrote: post #144
gfodor wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people who knew the iPhone and iPad were going to be huge also think Glass is doomed for the consumer market. Sometimes the way you look matters. See: the Segway. It's a threshold. Did headphones really make you look as dorky as the Segway does to your contemporaries? Doubtful. Does Glass? I think it comes close.

Segways did not fail because they made you look dorky. They failed because they were an extremely expensive toy that didn't solve anyone's problems and were bulky enough that they made new problems when people tried to use them.

I would say exactly the same things about Google Glass.
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