Monday, July 07, 2014

SHOCKER - no electronics at the Faraday Cafe!

“There was life before the Internet,” said artist Julien Thomas, adding Smart phones mean people can cede memory to their devices. There’s no need to remember phone numbers, geography or definitions. We have given up that responsibility to remember things that are important.”

The Faraday Café in Vancouver is temporarily home to a place where folks can go to leave all their digital baggage behind, for the price of a cup of coffee. No tweets, hashtags or pokes. For Mr. Thomas and his like-minded artist clients, disconnection is vital to restoring creativity.

The e-fugitive spends the coffee break in a fine wire-mesh enclosure that can screen out air-borne electronic contaminants. The safe haven is named for Michael Faraday, the father of electronics applications and inventor of the mesh cage. The enclosure keeps external static and non-static electric fields out by directing electricity through the wire net, and is used in laboratories. Thus the cage provides an escape. If ever a situation reflected the progress trap, this is it.

But what would Faraday think, having the most sophisticated electronic applications blocked by one of his simpler inventions?

Source: Globe and Mail
By Daniel B. O'Leary, 7 July, 2014