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ZEROS + ONES DIGITAL WOMEN 4|» THE NEWTECHNOCULTURE
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moments of unknown, disconnected lives, ”invisible voices
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conducted through the tips of her fingers."
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Poised as an interface between man and the world, she is
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also wired to a network of digital machines: typists connected to
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QWERTY alphabets, bodies shaped by the motion of the keys,
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one hundred words a minute, viral speed, Thousands oi opera
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tors, relays, calls, exchanges humming in Virtual conjunction,
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learning the same phrases, flipping the same switches,
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repeating the same responses, pushing plugs into the
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answering iacks, maybe two hundred, three hundred times an
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hours She has "a fingertip mastery of the ringing. listening, dial,
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and other keys on her key shelf; of the row or rows of cords for
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making connections; of the location and meaning of all parts of
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the honey combed formation of jacks and trunks for recording,
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for switching, for toll circuits, for tandem, for information-" It
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becomes second nature it grows on her, "Having done this stufl
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a few hundred thousand times, you become quite good at it. In
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fact you're plugging, and connecting, and disconnecting ten,
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twenty, forty cords at a time." After a while these processes
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become "quite satisfying in a way, rather like weaving on an
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upright loom,"
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102
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