Weird tech levels

January 14th, 2010
tech
Last night Julia and I watched Mongolian Ping Pong, a very slow moving but visually stunning movie set in rural mongolia. It was not at all the point of the movie, but the degree to which there were weird combinations of technology really interested me. Take transportation. The three main characters are boys about 8 years old. Two of them ride horses, the third rides a small motor scooter. Not clear why. Then there's a dance troupe that dances both to chinese violin and western piano accordion and to recorded music. There's some use of electricity (attempts at getting a television signal, electric razor, flashlight) but they are clearly off the grid. Most of their tech, though, is centuries old. It's weird how ingrained my sense is that technology has a specific order, a sense that is very strongly jarred by nomadic herder children on motor scooters.

Comment via: facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

LLMs roleplay characters

I. I’m going to talk about the persona selection model, which in my opinion is one of the most important concepts to understand if you want to understand large language models’ psychology.

via Thing of Things May 1, 2026

You should try contra dancing

a story of middle school Ben • a not-very-illuminating description of the mechanics • flow, joy, and community • the antidote to the rest of life • how to try contra

via benkuhn.net April 24, 2026

On AI writing in 2026

I use AI to write a little bit: I ask it for high level feedback on blog post drafts, make mechanical edits, and sometimes use it to brainstorm options for wording at a paragraph level. It’s unusual that I accept its wording or changes without modificatio…

via Home April 16, 2026

more     (via openring)