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Technology and the Human Interface
This article holds a surprising twist on the standard concept of too much technology for the human race; the twist will get you wondering.
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What if there were an enormous Christmas secret that was knowable, you could find it out, and it would be wonderful when you did, and you weren’t aware of it? That would be some secret wouldn’t it? You might not like somebody who knew something that would be good for you and chose not to share it, so that they kept it a secret, would you? Ever play a game of hide and go seek, and the other players all got together and left you hiding there? After a while you got suspicious and came “all-e-all-e ins that’s free.” and there wasn’t anybody there? Well this isn’t a secret like that, rather this is more like a fly that is on the wall of the Grand Canyon; you would need to know specifically which rock outcrop that fly was on, to the inch, in order to set your scope up to find it, wouldn’t you? This Christmas secret is going to be revealed to you, and so, in this brief writing that’s what we’re going to get into, the “how do I,” find this Christmas secret?

First we’ll talk about Christmas just a bit, because it is so important, before it happens, as it happens, and after it happens. Then we’ll talk about, in the next paragraphs, the Christmas secret and how you can find it before Christmas, during Christmas, and we hope, after Christmas, so let’s go?

Before Christmas happens things begin to change, in different cultures the world over, people begin to adjust to the idea that something really “neat,” really wonderful in terms of a holiday, is going to happen. Christmas is a world sized holiday, by the way, which, while celebrated differently, by style, takes place on the same day, December the 25^th. For some it’s just a recognition that the rest of the planet sees this day as significant; for most of those countries, however, it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ. It’s becoming, in America, and in many other countries, unpopular to state it so, which does not make much sense, given that all that Jesus ever did, no matter what else you may think, all He ever did was good for everybody! So in that He was so unlike so many other people, maybe that is why they have chosen to reject celebrating His birthday? But actually, my sense is that good people everywhere know that Jesus the Christ is real, was a real baby, actually lived here on earth, and really did do nothing but good the whole time He was here. If there’s a problem with Jesus the Christ, it’s probably not about Him at all, but about the people who say they know Him; but act like they don’t. People who are supposed to be loving and kind, but sometimes have a very odd way of showing it? Maybe if they weren’t like they are, people would be happier about celebrating their King’s birth? I don’t know, all I know for sure about Christmas is, it does change the world, each year before it gets here, the world gets ready for it, and if you are looking for Christmas, you might find it in that fact?

When Christmas day shines out, my heart rejoices, with so many other hearts, because it is the day in which Jesus the Christ, was born. Historically, maybe not, history is good to study, my preference is to believe that history is kept in the humans heart who knows love, and this day celebrates the birth of the Man who taught love, lived love; and is love. That to me is what Christmas is all about, but it really happens that morning because the night before we have a family tradition, which began when we were extremely poor, a year where we lost just about everything, and even our families health wasn’t good. That year both of us, the wife and I, were trying to think of something that we could do which would be good; we needed something good to take place, those were hard times. So I’d seen this clip of a movie called “A Christmas Carol.” several great actors who have since died, George C. Scott and Edward Woodward, to name a couple; were in it; it is an incredible movie, if you don’t have it, it’s worth the $5.00 it might cost to get it today. Anyway, in our state of down, somehow this movie seemed from the clip to be good, so my suggestion was, “hey, let’s watch it.” She agreed and so was begun the Christmas tradition of watching “A Christmas Carol,” by Charles Dickens. If I had a wish to be granted, like they do at the TED meeting each year, I wish every wealthy greedy world sized corporate pirate leader, who believed they had no need of Christmas, would get to watch this with us.

After Christmas things aren’t the same. Children who had hoped that Santa Clause, or, Saint Nicholas, Shengdan Laoren of Chinese name, JuiTomten of Sweden or others, can be found smiling. In fact this website: http://www.lone-star.net/mall/main-areas/santafaq.htm seems to be a pretty good one, for checking out Santa’s name, but back to the hoping, smiling, children; they are enjoying what Santa has left. Parents who have actually listened to their children and each other (these would be the 50 or so percent who aren’t getting divorced) are smiling inside, just a little, and that “just a little,” may be the about the only smile they get for a while. Things aren’t the same and that is certainly hard to dispute when such a large scale holiday takes place, Christmas doesn’t leave things the same, so if you are looking for a clue about the Christmas secret, that’s a huge one, things after Christmas change.

We’ve spent just a little time together about before, during and after Christmas itself, because nothing is like it, as a holiday, I don’t know one that world wide, has it’s power? New Year’s is celebrated world wide, but it doesn’t have the significance of Christmas and the secret which we are going to discuss, may be a fundamental aspect of why?

Now let’s go into the Christmas secret, because it can be found before Christmas, let me tell you how. You will need to find a quiet place, where you won’t be disturbed for about five minutes; this is going to be tough on you, so you will really have to want to know the secret, because you will need to find a quiet place for five minutes! Here you do nothing, shut off the cell phone and sit – still. Just sit still, for five whole minutes. While you are there ask your heart how many more hurts it can take before it breaks enough to realize that the hurt that you suffer must tell you something about your ability to take hurt? Ask your heart then, if your hurts are worse than the mother who watched her baby die yesterday; because it couldn’t get water. Water- not food, not medicine, WATER- now, ask your heart if you really understand what hurting is? If you will listen to your heart and be honest, you’ll realize that Dickens’s was right, and in the eyes of God “these may be of more importance than you ever will be;” and, we, you and I, and everyone, are letting it happen. It’ll be an interesting five minutes if you do it; and remain true to your heart, I guarantee it will affect how you look at suffering.

The Christmas secret however, is also to be found, by you, right there in the midst of the great times of great joy; you see, we need those, oh we desperately need them, here is why. When you are down, and those times will happen, even when you compare the depth of your down to the greater suffering of someone else; you need to be able to think about good Christmases and good times- its a way of keeping your balance with reality. The Christmas secret, begins in the persons heart, and so, for some, sadly, it’s gonna remain a secret, their heart, is, unfortunately, only a muscle that pumps blood; and that, is, one of the saddest realities of this world. The Christmas secret might have something to do with, changing that; if it is possible to change that heart with little feeling, to one that feels, the Christmas secret might bring it about.

After Christmas if your heart cannot change, the Christmas secret will help you in ways that you might not believe were possible, but all the time were. A very close personal friend who let other things get between us; realized, not too long ago, that “we don’t talk like we used to.” While I almost said, “
no duh,” I stopped my mouth, stayed quiet (like in the car), and listened, because what they said next was something that if your searching for the Christmas secret, will help you, they said, “so every once in a while, let’s just call each other, think we can do that?” You know I really do think we can, and somewhere I hear Charles Dickens agreeing with others “they’re getting close to finding the Christmas secret aren’t they?” What do you think the others say back to them about us?

In the brick and mortar world of business you get to meet
folks and see their body language, facial expressions,
how they dress, how they handle themselves, how they present
themselves in a group or personal environ. Those are
great keys to behavior and trust and sales. Those physical
keys are lacking on the web where physical is mixed with
virtual making the outcome less certain through email
than a smile across the table. Thus in the world of
virtual there are some things which a person ought to
get out in the open early in the process of making business
deals, one of these is, who you are dealing with.

Who you are dealing with, is more than a title, titles
are, in the virtual world, easy to come by, and tend to
be functionally defined. A Vice-President of marketing
may be one of hundreds spread out all over the globe; with
no power, finances or clout to carry out contracts or
negotiations. This differs drastically from the brick
and mortar world where Vice-President’s of banks and
other transacting businesses are empowered and have the
ability to affect financing. First aspect of establishing
the “who” process then, might be looked at as, don’t pay
attention to the title, instead, test out the title of the
person, can they do, that their title suggests? How
is that to be determined? Can they enact contracts? Make
payments, and transact business? This is easy to determine
from many different sources, almost without fail, if a
person can transact contracts they have the credit line and
use of card to ensure such; so it is easy to verify that
they do. What if they don’t have such? Then it becomes a
bit trickier, but still can be determined, if you are looking
at a large business transaction and you want to be sure
as to who you are dealing with, why would it offend them to
ask to see a copy of the articles of incorporation for their
business? Almost every business has such, and I can guaranty
you that a person who is genuine about who and what they
are won’t have a problem reflecting such to you.

If we can’t depend upon the title to key us as to the
vitality of the person we are dealing with, what can we
use? In some sense the vernacular, the method employed in
their communication can tell you a great deal about a
person. What sort of language do they employ? Do they
seem to be in command of good faculties in terms of projects
and completions? Are they timely- when they tell you
they are going to be getting back with you, do they? Do
you sense in the dynamics of their web presence, which
is their web site, a trustworthy feeling? Do they
give the impression of having the same sets of values
toward the transaction or communication that you do?

There are deeper and more lasting items of a person
that you cannot always access in a virtual way. Where
a person comes from, their upbringing, their education,
their belief system, their way to taking care of things,
these are all items that we like to gather in person which
in a virtual way may not be as easy to obtain, and in
the speed of the virtual transaction, they may not be
necessary. We should also interject a note of caution
here as to the degree of the transaction being considered.
A minor purchase requires little consideration, whereas,
when one is contemplating a major transaction, larger
in scope, having the ability to gather more realistic
data can be important, if not, essential.

Is it possible to separate who a person is from their
gender? We live in an age where gender is diminished as
to it’s importance, other than, to indicate only that their
exists a difference between male and female- yet, in an
age where the lines which marked the distinction of gender
are becoming increasingly blurred, in the virtual world,
the distinction must be understood. Non gender specific
names are important to bring on the question “pardon me
for asking but are you male or female?” You may get a
response about any number of things, from, the item
requested, to, “none of your business.” At this point
in the transaction, you have to decide, is this a person
that you are comfortable dealing with? Also bear in
mind that because gender confusion is present in the
virtual world, men can be presumed to be female, and
vice-versa; so ti is best where it is possible to try and
determine which gender you are dealing with; especially
if you are handling a gender sensitive issue. It is not
easy to add this to the conversational line, and
frequently forms on the web which are filled out will
include the question as to male or female, when moving
into that process, it makes sense to make sure that
is filled out on your inquiry form, and it makes the
further conversations easier when it comes to this
very important item.

We’ve looked at the defining characteristics of a person
online from the standpoint of what they do, whether they
are effective in getting back to you, if they appear to
have the ability to complete the transaction, and letting
the nature of the transaction being contemplated determine
the depth of background type information that we would
gather. We’ve also brought to light the difficulty of
gender in the virtual world and that it is important if
it can be determined but that finding out the gender of
a person is not an easy thing to do- the old saying is
that one should employ the “Porcupine principal” in this
endeavor. That is to say, “how to Porcupines make love?”
Very carefully. In all virtual transactions the nice
elements of the physical are missing for the logic and
sense of the dealing must be heightened accordingly. The
speed and ease of use for communications of email and
blogs and chat sessions must be considered in light of
the topics within this realm of who we are dealing with.
If you have specific questions regarding this please make
use of the comments section following this article.

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