A Short Letter Home

The world of tomorrow

Yesterday morning, I read an interesting blog post on Antigravitas about a concept which Jack called "neuva-vu": "The sudden knowledge that you are somewhere doing something you have never done before, but that you will continue to do until it becomes an everyday experience and you stop noticing." As a child of the twentieth century, I could relate to the concept, though as a cheapskate, my moments of neuva-vu tend to happen much later than the common herd. Anyway, I enjoyed the post and tucked the concept back in the recesses of my brain. Then, in a strange coincidence, we ended up having a neuva-vu moment that very evening.

This is how it came about. Yau Neih's mother and sister are in town, visiting us for Christmas. The other day, as I was reading the Seattle Times online, I saw an article about Yau Neih's childhood (and my adulthood) hero, J. P. Patches. The article said that there was going to be a Christmas special featuring J. P. airing on The Seattle Channel. Yau Neih and her sister were quite disappointed as they were not in Seattle and the show wasn't scheduled to play on The Yunnan Channel. Well, the article listed a URL for The Seattle Channel, so I loaded it into the browser and discovered that the show was available for viewing online. I mentioned this to the ladies and the result is that we decided to hook the laptop up to the TV set and watch the program, even though we might lose the internet connection in mid program.

So last night we took the plunge and watched our first program delivered online rather than being broadcast or played off of tape or disc. A true neuva-vu moment. Of course, I don't know about other folks, but my neuva-vu moments don't always turn out to be golden. While we were able to watch the entire program, we could only watch the in small increments. The computer would download about 30-50 seconds of video, play it, and then pause while it downloaded the next chunk. It was a trifle annoying limitation, but we adapted. (Actually, the breaks added a few unintentional laughs, like the time someone onscreen said, "Wait a minute," and the video stopped.) Conversation was limited to the download breaks and we managed to follow the show despite the delays.

Afterwards, I was considering this neuva-vu event and realized that it proved the old adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." This was the first time I have watched a whole program streamed online, but it was hardly the first time I enjoyed a television program that was handicapped by technological shortcomings. I've watched TV with bad reception. I've watched color programs on a black and white set. I've watched airline movies without sound. I've even set the alarm to wake me up so I could watch a movie airing at 3 a.m. (I'm really dating myself with all these revelations.) So catching a show in 45 second chunks is just a new way to watch the tube under less than optimal conditions. Still, I have to agree with Jack, it is "a bit of a thrill". It's good to be living in the future.

posted by John @ 7:29 AM