Inexcusable Ignorance

I realised the other day, as I professed ignorance to the whereabouts of Edmonton, that there is seldom an excuse for ignorance these days, if you have any kind of Internet connection. A few moments with the web browser of my choice and not only would I know where it was but I could also learn about its history, town flower, principle attractions, grazing rights and almost anything else I could care to learn. Including a reasonable journey plan should I wish to see for myself. My ignorance was my own fault and the fact I did nothing to remedy this leaves me vaguely guilty.

My forebears would have swooned at the information available for the mere effort of searching. It’s not even as if you have to actually perform the search yourself- typing a few choice words in a box does not involve effort – it’s all done with computers these days you know.

I often feel, at work, that I’m mocked slightly for my keenness to get to the bottom of a problem, to find out what the cause is and squish it once and for all. I flex my google-fu at the slightest provocation in order to find out what exactly an annoying error message means; instead of telling the user to close the application and open it again.

There is just no excuse for being ignorant of things these days. Not that you have to remember everything – I outsource most of my memory to Google these days. I’m always reminded of the wonderful Feynman anecdote ‘map of the cat’ where he is incredulous that biology students bother to memorise the internal structure of a cat when it can be looked up in moments. I totally understand that sentiment, and generally feel it’s more important to get the gist of something rather than remember every little detail (unless you’re the surgeon performing an operation on my person, I suppose!). What I mean is, understanding is more important than being able to parrot back facts and figures. If you can’t tell me *why* something is true, I won’t be impressed when you say it is.

I will be forced to go find out where Edmonton is, it’s like a nagging toothache.

On a completely separate, but bitterly related, note, I give you How Email Works – a child’s view of the internets. Well, my inner child’s view, anyway.

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