Consider this scenario: you go to a movie with friends and are chatting about it afterwards. Someone wonders if the director of the movie, Spike Lee, ever did a crime film. In the past you would have played 20 questions: "Wasn't there one about a bank robbery?" "Dog Day Afternoon?" "No, that was Sidney Lumet. Wasn't it with Clive Owen?" And eventually you would wind up at "Inside Man." Today it's a different story. Unless someone is a movie aficionado who knows the answer outright, no one even tries to guess. Someone pulls out a phone, taps for a few seconds, and up pops every film Spike has ever made. Perhaps not as much fun, not as social, but certainly more efficient.
It's a situation repeated endlessly in every arena . Food? Geography? Music? Regardless of the topic all you need is to Google it. As long as you have an internet connection, whether you're in a restaurant, a theater or just walking down the street, you can find out the result of your query: as the lawyers say, asked and answered. Access to that kind of knowledge is both a powerful tool and modern marvel that is easy to take for granted.
For that reason, your phone is almost the most important thing to take with you when you travel. To be sure, it's your connection to share your trip with others and to keep up with the what's going on back home. These days the built-in cameras are first rate, making picture taking easy and producing great results. But if you like to wander and explore as we do, what really makes your phone valuable is its mapping ability and as a portal to access information as you crisscross locales, whether domestic or foreign.
That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to do some research before you go to make sure you are hitting the points worth seeing. It's just that we've fallen into the trap of not having to remember. After all, why bother to store away bits and pieces of knowledge when the totality of relevant data is available at a moment's notice when we want it? On a recent trip to Istanbul we used that connection endlessly, answering the countless questions that popped up as we went from place to place.
Sitting in a restaurant, we wondered about the bottles of local brew that so many of the patrons were drinking. In just a few seconds we pulled up that Raki was an anise flavored liquor. As we walked through a museum, we were curious if the court painter we were admiring had Italian training. Indeed, Aivazovsky studied in Naples and Rome. Spotting a blip of land as we come around the bend, we wondered what it was called. Turned out to be the Princes' Islands, a place where there are no cars and only horses. And on and on it went.
But I noticed a curious thing. Almost always the first reference that popped up was from Wikipedia. This internet encyclopedia is a go-to source, very often the first stop for basic unbiased knowledge about almost anything. However, when I clicked those links, they never went through. I tried repeatedly, always having to backtrack and go somewhere else not as concise or direct. I assumed it was some kind of technical connection thing, until I dug a little deeper.
Seems that Wikipedia is banned in Turkey. Back in 2017, due to an article on the site on state-sponsored terrorism wherein the country was described as a sponsor of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, Turkish authorities blocked online access. For sure there are ways around the block, as well as other sites that supply similar information. But it was my first experience with someone telling me what I was allowed to look at and what I wasn't, and banned me from my chosen source.
It's easy to see this where this can lead, and it's not a good place. With so much discussion underway about disinformation and fake news and trolling, some advocate restricting access. But what gets restricted? And who decides? So if anyone ever asks for me to advocate or back or contribute to keeping information free available – all information regardless of whether I agree with it or not – having had a very small taste of the alternative, I know on which side of the question I stand.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks information should be openly available. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
It's a situation repeated endlessly in every arena . Food? Geography? Music? Regardless of the topic all you need is to Google it. As long as you have an internet connection, whether you're in a restaurant, a theater or just walking down the street, you can find out the result of your query: as the lawyers say, asked and answered. Access to that kind of knowledge is both a powerful tool and modern marvel that is easy to take for granted.
For that reason, your phone is almost the most important thing to take with you when you travel. To be sure, it's your connection to share your trip with others and to keep up with the what's going on back home. These days the built-in cameras are first rate, making picture taking easy and producing great results. But if you like to wander and explore as we do, what really makes your phone valuable is its mapping ability and as a portal to access information as you crisscross locales, whether domestic or foreign.
That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to do some research before you go to make sure you are hitting the points worth seeing. It's just that we've fallen into the trap of not having to remember. After all, why bother to store away bits and pieces of knowledge when the totality of relevant data is available at a moment's notice when we want it? On a recent trip to Istanbul we used that connection endlessly, answering the countless questions that popped up as we went from place to place.
Sitting in a restaurant, we wondered about the bottles of local brew that so many of the patrons were drinking. In just a few seconds we pulled up that Raki was an anise flavored liquor. As we walked through a museum, we were curious if the court painter we were admiring had Italian training. Indeed, Aivazovsky studied in Naples and Rome. Spotting a blip of land as we come around the bend, we wondered what it was called. Turned out to be the Princes' Islands, a place where there are no cars and only horses. And on and on it went.
But I noticed a curious thing. Almost always the first reference that popped up was from Wikipedia. This internet encyclopedia is a go-to source, very often the first stop for basic unbiased knowledge about almost anything. However, when I clicked those links, they never went through. I tried repeatedly, always having to backtrack and go somewhere else not as concise or direct. I assumed it was some kind of technical connection thing, until I dug a little deeper.
Seems that Wikipedia is banned in Turkey. Back in 2017, due to an article on the site on state-sponsored terrorism wherein the country was described as a sponsor of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, Turkish authorities blocked online access. For sure there are ways around the block, as well as other sites that supply similar information. But it was my first experience with someone telling me what I was allowed to look at and what I wasn't, and banned me from my chosen source.
It's easy to see this where this can lead, and it's not a good place. With so much discussion underway about disinformation and fake news and trolling, some advocate restricting access. But what gets restricted? And who decides? So if anyone ever asks for me to advocate or back or contribute to keeping information free available – all information regardless of whether I agree with it or not – having had a very small taste of the alternative, I know on which side of the question I stand.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks information should be openly available. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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