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Knol

Scandinavian countries that fully exploited the technology. It was a rather interesting confluence of geography, culture, economics, as well as technical and manufacturing capabilities that came to create the focal point for deployment of cellular technology. More people on a per capita basis have cellular phones in Scandinavia than anywhere else in the world.

Cellular telephony is very interesting in that it represents the joining of two significant technologies (cheap, personal mobile telephony and secure core computers) related to complex human interaction. We remember hearing Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, recount in a humorous lunchtime presentation at the 1998 CardTech/SecurTech conference in Washington D.C. how he watched his children and their friends adopt as their own, as the young have a tendency to do, the new, ubiquitous communication technology. Based on his observations of their use of cellular phones, he concluded that such phones provide excellent mechanisms for establishing the size, extent, and current activities of the herd.

Also, from Scandinavia, the firm Ericsson was the first major company to introduce a headset powered by Bluetooth, a means for small devices to communicate seamlessly over short distances. When we first saw this device around 1999, we realized that computers were getting very personal indeed. To that date, cellular phones, digital assistants and other personal electronic devices had been manipulated by hand. Suddenly, they found a host much closer to the human person. In a sense, they were just one step closer to becoming somehow, a part of human nature. As an extension of the brain, or perhaps more accurately, a new part of the brain, isn’t it to be expected that they be permeated by the spirituality that pervades humanity itself?

Onward through the Fog

A Chinese proverb suggests that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” As with all metaphorical references, fully appreciating this maxim requires context. Consider a child, exhausted from an active day of play but setting out for an evening stroll at the behest of her parents. Viewed within this context, the proverb might engender a feeling of futility and dread on the part of the child, “I’m tired! I don’t want to go for a walk! When are we going to get back home?” However, to a young solder, beginning physical therapy in order to learn to use a prosthetic device after losing a leg in battle, the proverb might engender apprehension toward the impending struggle with perhaps a bit of eager anticipation of regaining a degree of mobility that suggests a return in some small way to a world of normalcy. For Forest Gump, from the movie of the same name, it might pass as an unnoticed afterthought as he sets out to run, just because he felt like running: to the end of the lane, across town, across Greenbow County, across the Great State of Alabama and on to the ocean. Thus we recognize allusion to both the journey and to the traveler. Based on this opening chapter, we’re ready to begin our trip. We know something of the destination but the path to get there is still shrouded in the fog. A map, or at least some guideposts, might help us keep to the trail, arcane though it may be. By establishing context for the journey, when we look up and realize “we’re not in Kansas anymore!” we might still know that we’re on the yellow brick road that leads to the Emerald City.

Our fellow travelers appear to us as well-read and formally educated. Given that one doesn’t necessarily imply the other, in fact either alone will probably suffice to assure a good understanding of the material we’ll present. Much of the journey that we’re embarking on relates to language; its foundation and its use. This leads us to try to use words rather carefully. In many instances, this has required us to stretch our own vocabularies a bit and as a consequence we might enlist an expansion on the part of our readers. Language is an enabling facility for the

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