At 09:37 +0100 9/6/08, Cameron Adams wrote:
Gordon,
Metaphors in technology go way back. One very important one is William Harvey describing the heart as a pump. This was not only the first sense of what the heart was actually doing, but could only be done through metaphor (ok, its backwards, tech metaphor for non-tech) . Then an interesting one is that the radio project was almost scrapped by Marconi because it was a lousy wireless telegraph (no one to one communication). Then someone came up with the broadcast metaphor (from agriculture). In terms of computer tech, how about the information superhighway. This leads to more effort being done to make modems (the cars) faster and the lines (roads) smoother and more efficient. This is at the expense (to some degree) of other possibilities such as information packaging and network structure.
Not directly connected to metaphor perhaps, but some of the above ideas are discussed in Brian Winston's book. "Media, Technology and Society: A History - From the Printing Press to the Superhighway" Brian Winston, Routledge (1998). ISBN 041514230X Also, from the original posting:-
PowerPoint using "slides"
This suggested to me that a visit "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" by Edward Tufte would be worthwhile. Regards, Gordo -- "Think Feynman"///////// http://pobox.com/~gordo/ gordon.joly@pobox.com///