Luddite or not?

My first ever guest post for Lance was on Are you a luddite. I certainly am to some extent a luddite, but there are some things where it not clear if they are luddite-ish or not.

1. I prefer reading books to blogs. This came up when I reviewed both Lipton and Lipton-Regan blog-books, and I am now reading some of Terry Tao's Blog book.  l look forward to reading Scott's Blog book. At first I thought that preferring books was luddite-ish. But some high tech people and some young people who I've asked AGREE with me. Why is this?

•  When reading a blog (or doing anything on line) its so easy to get distracted, e.g. OH, I WONDER IF WHITEY FORD IS STILL ALIVE SO I"LL PUT HIM ON MY LIST OF LIVING FAMOUS PEOPLE OVER 80 (he is, he's 85, and has the same birthday (though not year) as Martin Gardner), OH, I wonder if the word Buypartisan (that is NOT misspelled) is on my list-of-cool-new-words that I keep, OH I wonder how many people have registered for Theory Day. OH, Lipton just posted about Definitions not being needed and used that quote from The Treasure of Sierra Madre (see here) that was satirized in the movie UHF, I wonder if that clip is on You-Tube (It is here). OH, I can write a blog about Math in Weird-Al songs, for example Polka Patterns.
• If I read a blog with a proof in it I tend to say  I'll read that later.
•  I work better with pen and paper on hand. This may change if the way to mark up pdf and other documents gets better.

1. (I do not why it restarted at number 1. I don't care to fix it- is that Luddite or not wanting to waste time on something unimportant?)
2. Of course, the blog reading issue  is MY fault for being distracted.
3. I don't pay my bills on line. There have been many data breaches and that gets darling and I nervous. Is this Luddite? Not sure--- is banking off-line any safer? I ask non-rhetorically.
4. In a small class I use the blackboard. Some of my systems faculty have gone from board to slides and then back to board.  For a big class I have to use slides, though that may be an argument for small classes.

BILL: When I goto that conference I am going to bring some math to read during the talks I don't understand.

DARLING: Isn't that rude?

BILL: Many people in the audience will have their laptops out, reading email, managing their facebook page, etc.

DARLING: But the speaker can at least imagine they are taking notes

BILL: Unlikely. In the next talk the speaker will become the laptop person.

The fact that I don't look at a laptop during a talk is probably a plus- and not a Luddite thing.

1. We still don't have Netflix. We watch less TV this way? Worse TV this way? Not clear how this one goes.
2. I used to write things out before typing them in, now I type them in directly. I wonder if that's good or bad.
3. I used to have notebooks of random math stuff in them. Now I can't get myself to write things out by hand. That's probably bad.
4. If someone asks me a question I am too quick to goto the web rather than try to answer it myself. This is mixed--- I don't waste time on problems I can't solve, but I also don't have the joy of solving them. I think of myself as not being a good problems-solver, but this could be a self-fulfilling prophecy that the web makes easier to indulge in.
5. This is a DUH-comment- I hate technology that does not work. One of the worst episodes of Star Trek was The Ultimate Computer which showed that a good human is better than a MALFUNCTIONING computer. Well DUH. I had a rant about electronic refereeing - and not a single comment accused me of being a Luddite. In short- I hate technology that doesn't work. Duh.

So- your thoughts? Some Luddite things may not be Luddite, but just better. And technology will change yet again, making us all Luddites.