What is SciFaiku?
SciFaiku takes its form from contemporary American haiku. A usual poem is 3 lines and contains about 17 syllables. The topic is science fiction. It strives for a directness of expression and beauty in its simplicity. Here is a representative example:
Asteroids collide
without a sound...
We maneuver between fragments.
SciFaiku draws its inspiration from haiku. As with haiku, a poet strives to
convey a sense of immediacy -- to capture a moment, to make readers feel like
they are part of a scene. This immediacy might be obtained, for instance, by
incorporating words that strike directly at the senses: sounds, smells,
visions... In striving for directness of expression, SciFaiku avoids abstract
concepts and metaphors and describes rather than philosophizes. Leave the
implications to the listener's imagination:
Digging up an ancient city
Finding the print
of a tennis shoe
Sun rising over gas giant
Silent rocket passes
to terraform space beyond
Breaking the rules, I clone my wife
perhaps this time I'll keep her love
Crystal city
gentle tinkling of crystal crowds
Weightless
I struggle with my tie
Midway between stars
Abandoned here for my crimes
dark
so alone
Thin air
twilight
mildew remains the one sign
that humans came to a lifeless planet
Telepath
shudders as I pass
Metamorphosis
she scrapes off a dead scale
Exploring abandoned saucer
careful
not to disturb the eggs
Naked
he sees she isn't human
Asteroids collide
without a sound
We maneuver between fragments
We all got suspicious
when we turned out the lights
and Max was still glowing
Millennia pass
and I just watch
from my jar
Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 by Tom Brinck, brinck@umich.edu
HAPPINESS Shouldn't we demand that happiness be complete? Is that not what happiness means? To be totally enraptured till your lungs burst with joy To be untarnished by any speck of sadness and forget completely how to recognize the face of misery But how bright can happiness be without the shadow of despair? What is a world without the other senses that make up the world? So is there no true happiness? Or is happiness only authentic after each test of faith, in every wake from pain? Thus happiness is never complete! It is a constant combing for trinkets through the wastelands, finding and keeping, and learning to bear all the other nonsense that comes attached --copyright, Yong Shu Hoong (24 April 1995)
So after rereading that sermon and reflecting on what else I have to say about the computer communication revolution, I shall charge ahead. And I promise no more computer sermons till perhaps next year or later. The reason the topic comes to mind is because of my intense involvement right now in computer networking. Since the time of the last computer sermon, I have jumped on to the World Wide Web, created a "home-page" for myself and a home-page for our congregation that anyone in the world can come and visit electronically. I will be demonstrating them for you after the service.
But let me not rush ahead of myself. I realize many of you are not "up to speed" on the fast pace of change in the world of computer communications. Let me see if I can explain what the World Wide Web is to the most computer-phobic person present.
The World Wide Web, most simply put, is a standard way for computers to communicate with each other. What is required for most of us is a communications device called a modem which plugs into our computer and a standard telephone jack. The computer then needs to run special communications software which allows the computer user to call a computer network access provider and temporarily link the user's computer directly onto the information superhighway. One need not fear being immediately run over on the information super highway when merging onto it. Even though billions of bits of information are flying back and forth, you receive only the information addressed to you the same way millions of calls might be carried by the same telephone cable across the ocean but you only hear the person you called. Once connected, one can then access different World Wide Web sites which have addresses that sound something like, "http://www.netline.net/". Think of it as a fancy telephone number.
The software that allows access to World Wide Web sites is called a browser. It has a space on the screen to allow you enter an address, like the one previously mentioned, which the browser will attempt to find. These browsers are quite clever and are able to retrieve and display text, sounds and graphics from the Web address you specify. What has revolutionized this form of computer networking is a particular browser feature called a link. It's a shortcut that allows you to select, with just one click of a button, some highlighted text or graphics currently being displayed on your screen and load a second screen of information. That information may reside in the same web site or may be half-way across the world on another web site. All the addressing details are hidden and the user is seamlessly taken from web page to web page. The effect is remarkably pleasing and enjoyable as one follows one's curiosity traipsing around the Internet around the world.
The World Wide Web technology is the breakthrough the industry has been waiting for with bated breath. Finally, businesses have a viable marketing tool to sell their wares. A business can not only set up their own web site and invite people to come visit it, but may also sponsor other web pages such as online magazines with links to their web site. Thus if one is reading an online magazine and the picture of a product displayed catches your eye, with one click you can go to the advertiser's Web page for more information, and perhaps even place an order in seconds.
The long-predicted move to an information age is now charging ahead at a furious pace. Anyone who picks up a newspaper will notice the encroachment of computer articles and jargon. The print media themselves are fast becoming obsolete. I've recently met a fellow who works for a major publishing house which is exploring publishing scientific journals electronically. I've even seen an electronic publishing house selling a book, which appears in hardback for twenty-five dollars, selling for five dollars in electronic format. The trees of the world should be very happy about the potential for the reduction in use of paper products. My goal in the future is to publish any books I write this way because I will not have to find a publisher - all I will need to do is place the word-processor-generated script (footnotes and all) in what is known as "hypertext markup language" and stick it on my Web home-page. I will have no typesetting costs, no printing or binding costs, no distribution costs beyond the cost of my home-page. In fact, if anyone has a desire to publish something electronically - let me know!
The net effect of this ease of sharing information is right now revolutionizing many aspects of our society. Libraries are quickly becoming an obsolete medium of information storage. If you want a government document today, you seek it out electronically. Educational institutions are moving toward use of electronic sources of information in the classroom. I remember doing research for a sixth grade social studies class on the country of Mexico by going to the school library and opening the encyclopedia. Many of today's children already connect to their local network access provider, log-on, and use a search tool to traverse the web looking for information. At this point I'd like to step back from the details and explore what this all means to the spiritual well-being of the human race. Is all this instant information access really good for us?
One immediate observation I can make about the effects of computerizing our culture is that it speeds things up. From as simple a task as sending a letter to a policeman checking a license plate to see if a car is stolen to seeking the telephone number or address of a long-lost relation, computers speed up the work. On one hand this increases one's productivity. The UUA committee on Technology and Communications has been able to quickly and effectively do our work through electronic communications. And all our communications are recorded and easily retrieved - no need for confusion about what was said and who agreed to do what. I think there has been a lot of satisfaction by committee members about how we have been able to conduct our business continentally online.
But the acceleration has its negative side. When I send someone an e-mail message, I expect a response within 24 to 48 hours, if only to acknowledge they received the message. Often people get irate if they don't get a quick response, which can be a problem when one handles lots of messages. The end result can be a feeling of rushing all the time.
Computer networking is allowing many people to begin to work at home because more and more of the information they use to make decisions is available electronically. But one of the challenges of working at home, as any self- employed person will know, is stopping. The computer networks are always up even at three o'clock in the morning. It is a standing joke that real computer programmers never sleep. Around the globe, there is always a financial market which is active. Futures are being traded. The globalization of business is making it a 24-hour-a-day concern. Without the separation of a commute to and back from work, one's job can take over one's life.
Of course, there is much that is good about working at home. Being able to control one's work environment and hours can be very liberating. No longer does having to pick up one's child from school have to cause a major disruption in one's work schedule. Concern has been expressed that working at home can be quite isolating. There still can be a great deal of communication with people electronically but often much less face-to-face contact around the coffee pot or the water cooler. One of the reasons I created my home page was to allow those I correspond with electronically to be able to see my picture, read my biography, and generally get to know who they are communicating with.
This limitation can also be seen as a big advantage. One generally doesn't get to choose one's co-workers and often these relationships can be difficult. I certainly remember a few unpleasant co-workers from my days as a manufacturing test engineer. By working at home, one has more freedom to choose one's work associates. This will be a fascinating area to watch in the coming years.
Another concern I hear expressed is the separation of individuals into a new class structure, the computer literate and illiterate. Computer skills are now required to find employment most places, especially the high-paying jobs. Learning to type has become as important as learning to read, write and add. Since schools rarely have the resources to put a computer on each child's desk, let alone keep it up to date technologically, it is the privileged children who have them in the home that can get ahead of their poorer classmates.
I submit, though, that this is much like the conditions when the printing press was invented. All of a sudden a new technology changed the world, even laying the foundations for the Protestant Reformation. It was the invention of the printed book that paved the way, I believe, for the growth of the middle class and establishment of democratic principles which invest the power of government in the hands of the masses.
The computer revolution is transforming the middle class into information managers. And those who are not becoming computer literate are falling out of the middle class. This is especially true in the manufacturing sector.
Clearly this is a very painful upheaval as the 50- or 60-year-old workers must return to school to learn new survival skills without the quickness and adaptability of the younger worker with whom they must now compete as their expertise becomes obsolete. I'm sure the literacy requirements of the book revolution made big changes in the economy that dislocated workers. It is a fact of rapid technological change that those who are unable or unwilling to adapt become vulnerable. This is as true for the bacteria confronted with a new toxin as for human beings. It is a fact of life.
Fortunately, catching up with the computer revolution is getting easier each year, not harder. Advances in user interface and software design are making programs more and more friendly. In terms of getting on the information superhighway, the computer equipment required is minimal and inexpensive. For what most people pay for a television and cable, one can put together the needed computer hardware (obsolete, of course, but still servicable) to get online. Another comparison can be drawn between how much someone is willing to spend on a new car, an indispensable item certainly in Charlotte County, and the several thousand dollars required to put together an excellent computer workstation. To be sure, there are those who can't afford even this, but I'd say a large majority can do it. And for those that can't, public libraries need to be adding the capacity, as some are now doing.
The payoff of getting online is access to vast amounts of information. As a minister who is always looking for new and fresh material to spice up sermons, the Internet is fantastic resource. I hope you enjoy the things I found for opening and closing words and the spoken meditation. Not only are there hundreds of thousands of information providers, but also free searching tools to locate the resources one desires. If network users are interested in Unitarian Universalism, they can search and find hundreds of information providers: congregations, affiliate organizations, the UUA, discussion lists, news groups and individuals such as myself who discuss Unitarian Universalism in their home pages. Not only is there a great deal of information, but behind the information are real people who often are happy to be contacted. I exchanged email to get permission for use of the spoken meditation this morning from the author in the Philippines. It is easy to find people with compatible interests and skills and form networks around them. These webs of communication can be both powerful and empowering. The large amount of electronic U.U. information has helped people to find us and find their way to congregations. My hope about having our congregation's home page available is to attract like-minded people to us. What is nice about this is they can get to know who we are in great detail before even coming through the door.
This connecting and networking can go on among all kinds of people. Not only people with good and noble causes but also the more hostile ones. Much of the development of the militia movement was made possible through computer networking. I've visited a White Supremacist home page to see what it was like. They get the same benefit from increased ability to communicate as do our U.U. organizations. And the fundamentalist Christians, for some reason, have made excellent use of the Internet to spread their gospel. They are far ahead of us.
This free access to wide-ranging information is disproving for me that information will make us free. In reality it only buries us. It is the discrimination and wisdom used to grasp it that makes it valuable. Reading the distortions and misinformation disseminated by the White Supremacists electronically reinforces my awareness that we filter everything we read through our preconceptions. Access to vast amounts of information is not enough because we cannot possibly grasp or ponder it all. We must select, and we select what we read by our prejudice. For most people, access to wide amounts of information only reinforces their preconceptions. And even then, one has to question the reliability of some of the information available. In this way, electronic networking is no different from any other communications medium, only faster and wider.
These are the immediate dilemmas of computer networking. But what about the larger issues? Are these computers doing our religious life any good? Having been intimately involved with computers for the last twenty years, I have reflected on this often. I have a love-hate relationship with them. In one way I love them because they are the ultimate playmate, always willing to engage you any time of the night or day. They never have a headache. Some of my strongest emotions of elation and despair have been in front of a video screen as a bug is caught or a new program runs or a disk crashes. There is little to compare with the empty feeling of losing millions of bytes of information by making a stupid mistake. I frequently lose sleep while the colored screen seduces me with its charms. Yet it has also provided me with a very enjoyable way to make a living. It beats collecting garbage or working in a coal mine any day. My computer has allowed me to make new friends all across the continent and to keep up with old ones I might not have otherwise.
For one's religious growth, I would say that the computer has been useful to me mostly as an impartial mirror. Only what I put into it is what comes back out. The computer is my canvas and what appears on it is my creation. I've become very attuned to this over the last three years as I've corresponded with many people electronically. Most electronic mailing programs allow you to receive a message and then respond directly by automatically including the received message in the response so one can respond to the message paragraph by paragraph - even line by line. I do this routinely to remind the sender to what I'm responding. Sometimes when someone quotes my words and sends them back I get a glimpse of a part of myself I don't see clearly. Or I recognize patterns I'd like to change. Or, less frequently, I'm impressed with the clarity of my thought.
When one stops judging, criticizing, and raging at the computer for doing what we tell it to do, one can just look and see what is there. In that moment, computer communication can be used to expand one's awareness, which will, I believe, aid one's religious life.
And it can also be used to express one's deviancy, as child molesters use it to seek out innocent boys and girls to abuse.
So is it good or bad? Yes to both. I'm not omniscient enough to see the future clearly. I don't believe the future has yet been determined. That is the joy and privilege of being alive. People like me are actively creating the future right now. Yes, it will be used to oppress us, and yes, it can be used to liberate us like any other technology has been used. If evolution be the signature of God, revealing that God loves ever more complex systems living or inanimate, then God must be having a grand old time with the evolution of computer technology.
My commitment is to bend the technology (as best as I can) toward the good. My great hope is that the World Wide Web is a physical manifestation of the interdependent web of all existence which can cultivate in all people an appreciation of the greatness of who we are and what we can be. The global vision of world community is being realized right now using computer networking. I say it is our job as Unitarian Universalists to seize the technology and use it toward the noble cause of world community before the elements of racism and hate capture it for evil purpose. That is my hope, my vision, and my purpose as I stay up late at night answering my electronic mail, in my small way building an ephemeral electronic web which will unite us in understanding, greater wisdom, tolerance and peace.
"I sought my soul - but my soul I could not see; I sought my God - but my God eluded me; I sought my brother - and I found all three." - source unknown Go in Peace. Make Peace. Be at Peace.