The Low-Tech Times

With the 2008 Summer Olympics about to get underway, there have been more Olympic stories featured lately in the mainstream media. I saw an interesting story on free broadcast television the other day. Unfortunately, I cannot find the story online or recall which network it was on.

The story was about the Cuban boxing team, which has been extremely successful. They lack the resources for hi-tech training equipment, but have succeeded in the past by using low-tech training methods. Low-tech training methods featured in the segment included:

• Hitting a tire with a sledge hammer. The narrator mentioned that the technique is excellent for developing the shoulder strength necessary for a good hook.
• Putting a stick across the top of two buckets and jumping back and forth over the stick.

This year, the Cubans are not expected to do as well as they did in some previous Olympics, in part because of defections. Nevertheless, the 2008 Games will be interesting to watch.

The story reminds me of a great scene in Rocky IV, where Rocky is training with low-tech methods while the Russian is using the latest hi-tech equipment. Get into the spirit with Rocky IV or better yet the Rocky Saga collection of all the Rocky movies. Click the links below to order these American Classics!

Google is a successful company employing a lot of smart people. They made over $4 billion in earnings off of $16 billion in revenue last year. They continue to enjoy a growing share of the search engine market.

Is Google so Smart that it Makes You Stupid?

Nicholas Carr at the Atlantic Online asks that question. As google does the work of the mind, he sees changes going on inside of his brain:

I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet.

Most would agree that using google to save time during research is a good thing, but perhaps it is taking something important away. I wrote a piece earlier in a similar vein touching on the fact that reliance on GPS navigation devices may lead to a loss of navigational skill.

Or Is Google Stupid?

Yesterday I wrote a piece touching on some problems with Google Maps. Compared to Google Search, Google Maps is a newer feature and it will likely continue to improve over time. Google Search remains the hallmark service offered by Google.

In addition to search, however, Google is also known as a leader in online advertising. The Low-Tech Times signed up for Google Adsense as a source of advertising revenue. Google Adsense scans the content of web pages and places relevant ads on the page. Sometimes it appears to work fairly well. Other times, the results are not ideal.

For example, I wrote a post on this anti-gadget blog slamming a robotic lawnmower and recommending low-tech grass cutting methods instead. Google Adsense placed ads directly below the post for:

• Robotic Lawnmowers and
• Gadgets for Men

Is that smart? Perhaps humans might be able to do a better job than Google’s algorithms.