To my great, great relief I’m glad to say that I am back online and able to access the internet from home once more. A very friendly technician just came and fixed the broken cable, and it feels like I’m back in touch with the wider world. It’s quite strange to reflect upon how dependent on the web we have become, though: guys like me now use it for almost everything, from watching TV to keeping in touch with my parents. Without it I felt completely lost, even though I was only offline for a relatively short time.

Appropriately enough, while I was waiting for the technician this morning I thought I’d watch 2001, A Space Odyssey, just for a bit of classical Hollywood escapism. Believe it or not I don’t think I’ve really sat down to watch Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic before, or at least haven’t in over twenty years. What I found myself watching this morning was a jaw-dropping masterpiece: a slow, reflexive thesis on the ever-increasing role technology plays in contemporary society. Certainly, it shows it’s age, and you can tell the film premiered well before Star Wars hit cinema screens in 1977; but it seemed to me that that leant it a certain profundity. 2001, A Space Odyssey was created well before the advent of the internet or AI, but seems to foreshadow a world in which computers are becoming ever more dominant, lifelike, and essential to our daily lives. That gave the film a hint of ominousness which really resonated with me. It was enough to reflect to myself that all the characters really needed to do to shut Hal off was unplug their router. More to the point, though, much of the cinematography was truly spectacular, such as the use of camera framing to convey the sense that the characters were weightless. Frankly, a lot of it made my jaw drop in awe, and I couldn’t help lamenting to myself that they really don’t make films like this any more.