Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
Apologies to the group Chicago and another mea culpa to readers under 40 who have no idea what the amusing reference is.
I was thinking about technology today, because I was thinking about TV, because my co-author on Media Programming (Wadsworth, 2006) and I were discussing the next revision. But my thoughts were about portable media and handheld video and cell phones and such.
It occurred to me that everyone who has a cell phone (is that not everyone now?) knows exactly what time it is. Or if you are surfing the Internet, you also know what time it is. All computer browsers and cell phones are now synced to the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. Or so it seems.
To test this theory, I launched my computer's clock and the website http://www.time.gov/ while staring at my cell phone and all were reading the exact same time, to the second. So we now live in an age when no one can say, gee, sorry I'm late, my watch is running slow, or, gee, sorry I'm early, my watch is running fast.
Who needs a watch, anyway? This cell phone gives me the dead-on correct time. Close enough to program the time on my TiVo, which, whoops, calibrates itself off the Internet now.
I have told people that the downside of having two clocks is never knowing which one is correct. But now we know. It's the one on your computer screen, or the one on your cell phone.
Apologies to the group Chicago and another mea culpa to readers under 40 who have no idea what the amusing reference is.
I was thinking about technology today, because I was thinking about TV, because my co-author on Media Programming (Wadsworth, 2006) and I were discussing the next revision. But my thoughts were about portable media and handheld video and cell phones and such.
It occurred to me that everyone who has a cell phone (is that not everyone now?) knows exactly what time it is. Or if you are surfing the Internet, you also know what time it is. All computer browsers and cell phones are now synced to the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. Or so it seems.
To test this theory, I launched my computer's clock and the website http://www.time.gov/ while staring at my cell phone and all were reading the exact same time, to the second. So we now live in an age when no one can say, gee, sorry I'm late, my watch is running slow, or, gee, sorry I'm early, my watch is running fast.
Who needs a watch, anyway? This cell phone gives me the dead-on correct time. Close enough to program the time on my TiVo, which, whoops, calibrates itself off the Internet now.
I have told people that the downside of having two clocks is never knowing which one is correct. But now we know. It's the one on your computer screen, or the one on your cell phone.
