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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Well, I discovered that bigshot psychologist Mazlow is completely screwed up, or at least grossly outdated. He is that guy who came up with that list of needs you and I studied in our misspent youths in freshman psychology 101. He identified the necessities, air, food, shelter and so on, and how we work on these needs and keep going down the list until we get to the final need, self-actualization. Well, clearly he missed something very important, an information pipe. Friday my internet connection went down. Down dooby doo down down,, down dooby doo down down… <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>That rock star guy never did explain why he thought it necessary to insert two consecutive commas between the third and the fourth downs. But he does it consistently throughout, and I can’t even find out his name or listen to a Youtube of the song.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Suddenly I discovered it is really worse than having about thirty IQ points whacked off, owwwww damn. And it cuts them off the top, rather than the bottom. I would let the bottom 30 go, but these top thirty IQ points are the smart ones. No internet, no email, no phone. (…no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury…) I realized I can do without lights and cars, because I still have candles and a bicycle and besides my computer screen emits light, but I cannot do without email or ESPECIALLY the internet! I was to help Natasha and Max with a conference this past weekend, knew the address but I didn’t know where the place was, and couldn’t find out, so I had my neighbor google on H+ venue and she printed out the directions, but somehow it was the directions to Max and Natasha’s hotel. Doh! So I somehow managed to find the place using spoken word directions, oy vey! If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Lincoln would be lost.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mazlow was nuts! Without internet I can’t even google to find out if I am spelling his name right, might be Maslow! Or Maslo! Now I need to drive over to McDonalds and get on their wifi hotspot just to collect and send my email once a day! Never mind doing all the info-grazing that I do on a daily basis, similar to what I have been doing for the past about 15 years, all of that is suddenly switched off. I feel so primitive, so unevolved, like some simian knuckle dragger, swinging from a vine and making comments such as “graaaarrrrrgh” while devouring bananas and grubs. I feel like Hal when Dave Bowman was popping out his memory modules. I suddenly feel dumber than a bag of hammers, without form and void, more ignorant than some primordial slimy eukaryotic lifeform in a precambrian amino-acid rich tide pool, seeking other primitive single-celled organisms to devour, wriggling and oozing about in all its refulgent wretchedness, but having long since retired its paper dictionary, utterly unable to look up the definition of such interesting terms as “refulgent.” But uses it anyway. Without the internet, I am cut off from all linguistic resources, lacking all tools for more colorful and picturesque speech. I feel just…lost… like some kind of… not-found… guy… who like…doesn’t know… where he…like…is. Or nothing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So now we need to redo Maz(s)low’s list. Air. Water. Food. I honestly don’t know what comes next, it’s either internet or shelter, probably depending on the local climate and weather conditions at the moment, but it internet is higher than sex. A Malibu mansion without internet is to me less comfortable than a sturdy cardboard box with high speed fiber optic, especially if it is not too snowy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I have half a mind to call him up and tell him the way it is: Mazlow! You are all wet, man! Fortunately for him, I can’t look up his number because my internet is down, and so is my phone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>And that self-actualization bit, forget that! What is the opposite of self-actualization? Self-theoreticalizaton? Someone-else actualization? Believe me, I would rather have either or both of those conditions before I would give up even a few mbps of download bandwidth. Self-actualization indeed. With no internet, an otherwise sane person writes posts like this one, with utterly NOTHING better to do. Back in the 70s, when young lovers had nothing better to do, they would sit around the house, get high and watch the tube. Until they decided to cut loose. They don’t do that anymore.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Isn’t is astonishing that a mere 20 yrs ago, we didn’t really even have the internet. What the heck did we do? Go around not knowing stuff?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Those of you who I met this past weekend in SF at the Transhumanist schmooze, if you are sending me personal notes, be patient please. I have not been able to answer much, but I will eventually catch up. I got on my neighbor’s phone, called my ISP, demanded that they go to whatever backward and benighted land where they find cable technicians, scramble an F-18, put that guy on it and get him to my house forthwith, and let not another minute pass where they leave me off of my information pipe, otherwise I will go and brutally find an alternate ISP! And I MEAN BUSINESS, AT&T!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>They are coming tomorrow, 1300. Then I’ll be back. In all my refined and evolved refulgent wretchedness.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike <o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>