life in the digital age

we went to the california state fair today. stayed the whole day and night until closing. our dawgs were barking! i noticed the ever-present mobile phone and how laptops are part of the very fabric of commerce and displays, from the hawking of souviners round to the insects exhibits, laptops are woven into the background of our environment. this was especially pronounced at the industrial arts exhibit. industrial arts are the artifacts from shop classes that were, or are -- i don't know -- however many of the participating schools were not high schools but junior colleges, part of every high school curriculum, i.e. woodshop, auto shop, metal shop, electrical shop et al. where the students get to display their wares. gone are the extra-sized bookcases and bed frames made in woodshop, or huge metal filing cabinets contructed in metal shop. now, students use CAD programs to create blue prints and schematics for houses and buildings and these are pinned to the walls of the exhibit areas. a lot of robotics too and publishing ventures. but no crafts at all that needed manual labor. the world has changed. is changing still.