Author Archives: urzsmith

In the world of Kimon, a fictional world created by Simak in his story Immigrant, the inhabitants of the planet were highly evolved, telepathic individuals.  In a sense, the population was enlightened.  By communicating telepathically, they connected with each other … Continue reading →

Our technological capacities are staggering.  We have the potential to collect, analyze, and communicate the intricacies of our ecological systems to everyone, everywhere, instantaneously.  Farm technology and advances in agricultural science allow producers to understand their land on every ecological, … Continue reading →

When I drive, as we all do, we pass farms.  We see fields of wheat or pasture, grazing cattle, or rows of soybean and corn.  Even more, we see something that is hard to describe in words.  That something is … Continue reading →

(Irrelevant to class, but for some reason, I feel compelled to share, which is very unlike me) I am listening.  I am listening to you.  You are me, and I am you, and I know I should listen.  What are … Continue reading →

“It was clear that we were not in control,” Morningstar and Farmer concluded.  Their Habitat was a wild-land.  It was lawless.  It was completely free.  In other words, it was, on some level, the last frontier. For us, the Internet … Continue reading →

Most commencement speeches will bombard its graduates with empty phases like “you are the future.”  Virginia Tech tells you to “invent the future.”  We hear them, we read them, and it passes as a “banal platitude”, to borrow David Foster … Continue reading →

It hit me yesterday afternoon.  McCloud asked a very simple question about whether time had to be linear- “But is that necessary?”  And he provided the answer, so obvious that I missed it, so in my face that I failed … Continue reading →

I think that everyone responds to comics in much of the same way- we enjoy them.  Kids (well, the ones I grew up with) were particularly fond of them.  Adults, on the other hand, have “grown out” of them, or … Continue reading →

If I understand McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” correctly, then I understand that an external object (defining object loosely), whatever it may be, carries an inherent message that we too often ignore (consciously or not), but are affected by.  … Continue reading →

To start this blog, I thought I’d address the blog’s title.  The phase “think outside the box” is meant to encourage the tasks of redefining boundaries, disrupting paradigms, and spurring unhindered new thinking.  What strikes me as ironic is that … Continue reading →