Essay by JEFF RIAN jeff rian is an american writer and musician living in paris he has been a purple contributor since 1992 and an editor at the magazine since 1995 How is it humanly possible to keep up with technology? Starting with rock hammers, 500,000 years ago, tools extended the hands, feet, eyes, and senses of the only creature on Earth to use language, to have an opposable thumb that grabs and grips, and a mind that can scrutinize, study, and process alternative media. Anthropologists have found chipped flint arrowheads by the thousands — chipped for the fun of it. Tool use created this group-chipping habit. Once nomads became settlers, tool use divided along domestic lines as new patterns of life, in commerce and trade, redefined human culture — the transmission of information via non-genetic means. Tools and technology — the practical application of knowledge — took over culture…