Powerpoint epistemology
ryan / Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:13:00 GMT
I love the new corporate bullshit meme of no longer referring to the internet as “the internet”, but rather “the cloud.” I first noticed it in Walt Mossberg’s interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (guess which one used it) and I’ve seen it all over the place since.
This of course comes from the tradition of representing the internet (or a network in general) as a literal cloud in powerpoint and networking diagrams. It’s a sort of lazy stock-art gesture towards “a bunch of magic stuff happens here.”
What is simultaneously funny and pathetic about this, of course, is that the mentality of corporate IT is such that they begin to perceive reality as a representation of their crappy diagrams rather than the other way round.
Reality is only an ancillary concern. Apparently, it’s what’s on the damn slide that matters.
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“The Cloud” I remember first showing up as a term for where we’ll all keep our music in “the future” where the major labels are “over it.”
That was a long time ago, and it has only recently started to percolate into general usage. I like the term. When things are in the cloud, you don’t have to back them up or even really think about them when you are away from your main computer.
However, I feel differently about taking care of data in the cloud when it is my responsibility – DBAs are better at backing up than the average Windows user. So I’m gonna vote cloud yes.
Is there something in particular wrong with “the internet?”
As you may know, the Internet is for porn. Clouds are innocent and can’t be used for such immoral purposes.
More seriously, I am guessing that calling it a cloud is doublespeak and allows the speaker to alleviate the listener of the fear of the Internet, such as viruses, spam, gambling, hackers, etc.