Coldly Connected

Whoa, this book is pretty crazy. I was pleasantly surprised to find each slice of the overall book to be quite short, but packed with worthwhile thoughts and insights. Shaviro has taken a book that could easily be put together as any normal codex would and flipped it, maybe even mirroring hypertext or at least non-linear reading, as you can pretty much flip to any segment and are presented with a quick intro, body and conclusion. In fact, his writing style constantly reminds me of the act of blogging. Forming thoughts into mini-essays that can be quick to read but supply enough information (if you're good) to keep the reader engaged. Thumbs up to this style of writing for those of us with no attention span.

Reading through the early chapters of the book, Shaviro clears up the definition of hot and cold media in a way that McCluhan could not. Back to the whole hot Film vs. cold TV, it now is applicable to my daily encounters with both mediums, as the theatre setting requires you to lose yourself in the film and keep some sort of movie theatre etiquette, while at home the causal style of choosing your entertainment on TV creates a sense of informality where the user is free to interact on some level with the medium, but on a more conscious level.

Now Shaviro really sold me with his short passage on the internet being an even cooler medium than television, and his almost poetic description of this made my countless hours of browsing websites seem somewhat more significant, not that they actually were, but it brought to my attention the actual amount of work it takes to engage with the internet. I mean, its no sport, but the multiple actions one must take on to fully take advantage of the internet when laid out the way Shaviro has, makes it seem much more daunting to the technologically-deficient. However, I feel as though the internet is moving away from being such a freezing medium and is headed for the chilly zone that television currently occupies. New technologies that are being integrated into browsers only make it simpler to access your desired content, with histories being automatically brought up while typing in text entry space and tabbed browsing thanks to Mozilla, it is becoming a more simple and passive experience. Plus the future of television and the internet seems to be heading toward a marriage (they're engaged right now), which is going to melt the ice off of the WWW.