The mergence of technology and nature. A thought of what could become, and what should always remain sacred. Photo taken in Ocean Beach, CA.
A few days ago while walking and talking with my friend Nick I suddenly heard a loud swooooshhhh as something passed by. I looked up, and to my surprise, a hawk appeared in the sky.
We walked over to take a look as it was perched on the fence of the baseball field.
I looked at the hawk and was amazed at it’s ability to turn it’s head more than 180 degrees. It was a big bird and was constantly checking it’s surroundings.
As I watched the hawk look intensely at everything around it, I wondered…what does a hawk see? I thought of the common phrase…’hawk-eyed vision’.
What if we could have embedded technology in hawks to see what they see? What if we could video stream their vision to get a hawk’s view of the world? What if we used the actual hawk as a means of surveillance?
As these thoughts came to my mind, Nick and I continued to admire the hawk for several minutes. I discussed with him the possibility of embedding technology in the hawk to see what it sees. I was excited about the idea. I thought to myself…maybe this is where the future will go?
A few minutes passed, and we continued to look at the big bird perched above us. I decided that I wanted to capture a picture of the hawk with the technology I had in my hand…my iPhone.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, turned on the camera function, and was just about to snap a photo until suddenly the hawk disappeared.
The hawk had impeccable timing in regards to the conversation.
Maybe the hawk told me that birds should be birds, and that technology-hawk-birds is taking technology a little too far.
I can never be sure, but it was convincing.
Let birds be birds… but they have already taken control of cockroaches! – “Eek! Remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches are real”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57509894-1/eek-remote-controlled-cyborg-cockroaches-are-real/
We’ll see where it all goes…
they have all kinds of eyes in the sky, insect sized and up.
Like the picture of the bird, I think it’s a godwit. It’s interesting that
there are two shadows.
We have hawks here a lot because we let the guinea pigs run loose in the yard. But we also have an ally or I should say the guinea pigs have an ally. The crows! They chase the hawks away. But it’s a protection racket because we have to throw the crows food once in a while. But seems fair.
Much of what we develop in technology is simply an advanced and controlled mimicry of what nature already knows and does first. Maybe the bird thought it best to remind us of this as we sometimes forget!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! It would be difficult to argue against that claim. Although I appreciate much of what technology has achieved and provided for us, I can’t help but to think that nature is more complex and sacred than technology will ever be. Then again, you could argue that technology is a natural creation as it is derived from material from Earth and constructed by humans.