This grid makes me itch!

OK, that does it.  Who do I talk to about getting off the grid?

 Oh wait.  No action needed.  Now that I’ve written the phrase, “getting off the grid,” someone will contact me!  Men in Black tapping on my windows with smart phones and flashy thingies in their hands ready to scan me, diagnose my disgruntlement, prescribe and deliver just the right thing to make me feel all better.
 
Most certainly I’ll be seeing ads alongside my Facebook newsfeed touting log cabins, the joys of solitude, composting, and raising worms for pleasure and profit. 

That’s right.  Before long now we won’t have to say much of anything to prompt the newest savvy search engines hovering in “the cloud” overhead to send down a lightning bolt of customized ads catering to our every divergent thought. 

Here’s the deepest darkest news:  If Verizon has its way, your TV’s about to become a two-way mirror.  

That’s right; soon what has been a joyously stress-free passive experience, an evening transfixed in front of the flat screen complete with bad posture and dribble spots on the fronts of our shirts, will be transformed into a self-conscious job interview with Big Brother:  As we gaze in, the plasma will peer back out at us.  Sizing us up.  Playing that game.  You remember the game that used to be innocent whereby you sit in the mall and make up lives and professions for the people you see.   

Technology exists now that enables our TVs to look back at us and say, for example, “butcher,” then send you an ad for an apron with that chart showing shoulders and rump roasts and loins.  You know the one.   

Oh yes.  Verizon, jointly with Comcast, Time-Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, has applied to patent technology that will enable TVs to see directly through into people's homes in order to sell them stuff.  It’s listed under “Dangerous Ideas” on Big Think. 

Get this:  Verizon wants to create a "detection zone" around your TV.  In that zone, sensors built into the TV would catch "ambient actions" taking place in the room and use that information to display relevant advertising on the screen.   

Oh.  My.  God.  If that isn’t the creepiest idea ever to slither its way into the baskets of the snake charmers.  It makes MarkZuckerberg look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. 

FYI – under the watchful eye of your service provider your unguarded behavior is defined in the patent application as “a wide range of activities, from eating to arguing to playing with a pet.”   

If that’s not a hacker’s field day!  You know you’re going to wind up in a video set to music on YouTube, struggling with your Schnauzer over that last bit of strudel. 

The area around the Plath TV encompasses an array cat toys in various stages of mutilation and dismemberment.  It might actually be interesting to see what the commercial response would be to such a crime scene.  Would they alert authorities, or send me my own CSI amateur mystery detective crime-solving kit? 

And what might happen if two people are observed to be “snuggling together” with the TV on?  Included in the patent application is an example of how the technology would work in such a situation:  Ads could appear on screen showing a romantic getaway, a commercial for flowers, [or] a commercial for a contraceptive.  They actually said that.  Like it’s a good idea.  Something people might be glad about.  

In the same vein, Google’s trying to discover our “unmet needs for information” via GPS chips and “other sensors” built into our mobile devices.  Google Now already offers unsolicited directions, weather forecasts, flight updates, and other information when it thinks you need them.   

Contextual data can provide clues about a person and his situation, allowing Google to guess what that person wants.  “We’ve often said the perfect search engine will provide you with exactly what you need to know at exactly the right moment…without your even having to ask for it,” says Jon Wiley, electronic stalker, er, User Experience Designer for Google.  

Ha ha ha!  Thanks Jon!   

Psst!  Rather than getmyself off the grid, I want to get the grid off me!

 

Heartbreak & Love on Facebook

Florence Detlor declined my friend request.  Yes, that’s her real name, Florence Detlor.  She seems like a lovely person but there it is.  I’m rebuffed and I don’t care. 

I did hear that she’s spending all her time responding to those on her wait list.  The wannabes, the hangers-on.   

Everyone who’s anyone wants to suck up to Florence. 

Surely you’ve heard of Florence Detlor:  At 101 she’s the oldest member of Facebook.  Had her picture taken with Mark Zuckerberg and everything; but I don’t care.   

So what if she’s the reigning Queen of FB?  I would still call her out for breaking my heart, but it appears that she didn’t turn me away.  Facebook did!  Facebook inserted itself into my affairs with a hollow apology and an abrupt declaration - Sorry, Florence has too many pending requests for her friendship.   

As I said, everybody and his dog.  

I guess Mr. Z is her social secretary now.  Just because she’s OLD.  Really!  I think he’s getting a little big for his britches.  Who’s he to say Florence has too many friends? 

All right, I’ll admit it.  I don’t know Florence.  I’m not an acquaintance.  We didn’t go to school together.  After all, she graduated from Occidental College before my parents even met. 

But I’m not one of those who just goes about adding “friends” to pump my numbers.  I'm selective.  I have standards.   

You won’t find me “sharing” at random either.  Oh no.  I see a lot of cute puppies in my newsfeed that you’ll never see.   

OK, look.  That sounds selfish and it’s not what I meant.  I’m not keeping the puppies all to myself.  I just mean that I don’t knee-jerk share because the caption says, “Share if you love puppies.”   

As it turns out, I’m a little sick of puppies cluttering my newsfeed because some “friends” with weaker constitutions cannot stand up to the hysterical dares to share.  They seem to think if they don’t re-post every snapshot of every pooch with pleading eyes and a tilted noggin it might look like they don’t love puppies.  We can’t have that. 

And what about those posts that seem to shake their heads in dismay, expressing sadness at how few will re-post this American flag.  You don’t even care enough to click the button?!  You don’t support our troops or love your country?  I see.

How about this one - I love my kids more than life itself.  I will be there for them anytime, anywhere, no matter what.  Share if you love your kids and would do anything for them.

Oh man. 

That’s some sophisticated psychological bullying.  And it’s hard to resist.  Better to go ahead and “share” than to be thought an un-American bad parent by the 687 friends of the friends I’ve forgotten were on my friend list.  Right? 

Wrong! I’m just contrary enough to make this resolution:  If it says, “Share if...” I won’t share it.  You can’t make me.  

I confess it feels a little weird to be so defiant.  I’ve always been a good girl. 

But once, as an adult, I visited a church of the same persuasion I attended as a child back in Oklahoma.  The sermon, titled “Satan Wants You Dead,” reminded me of the myriad reasons I left that denomination to begin with – all the talk about what a bad person I am.   

In the lobby after the service, the minister and his wife greeted me and asked if I’d had a chance to sign their guest book.  “Yes, I did,” I replied, meaning I’d had the chance, but chosen not to.  I was glad I didn’t succumb to the pressure.  But now I understand how they must have felt when they checked the book later to find I declined their request.   

So I think I could deal if Florence herself chose not to add me to her long list of admirers.  I just wanted to be among those showing appreciation since she appears to be a life-long learner and a classy dame.  It’s OK.  I’m not hurt. 

But wait!  What’s this?!  Florence accepted my friend request?!  I was in line after all!  I’ll be her friend #1446!   

Thanks Mark, wherever you are.   

Share if you love Facebook.

Lemons & Cherries on Facebook

I read that in the not-too-distant future, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to form one giant, idiotic, super-sized, time-wasting, non-productive, mind-numbing, do-not-need-to-know website called YouTwitFace. 

I read it on Facebook.   

There’s no denying, so much of the stuff that shows up on Facebook is inane:  “‘Share’ if you love your kids more than anything.  It’s a shame how few people will take this simple step to show their love for their family.”   

So, you mean if I don’t ‘share,’ I don’t love my kids?  Uh oh.  On penalty of not proving my love for the requisite thing, God, country, or bar-b-qued beef, I decline to repost pretty much anything that tells me to repost it.  Just on principle.  Or obstinate defiance.  Quit telling me what to do.  Share this if you agree. 

Too many posts manage to shrink the trivial from microscopic to subatomic:  Sandy changed her profile pic! – Hello Kitty!  Or:  Sherry “likes” Target.  Or:  Boating - 1,948,515 people like this.  Be the first of your friends! 

So many people post pictures of their food!  Who knew that lunch with Dad would warrant the effort?  And so misguided!  The pic includes salads, sides, and entrees, but no likeness of the man who raised the photographer and most likely bought him the camera.   

Then there’s the unbearable cuteness of dancing doggies, piles of kittens, ducks rescued from drainage pipes, and deer touching noses with goats.  Oh my.  But full disclosure is in order:  I look forward to a video posted daily from Wimp.com.  This morning I frittered away 1 minute 29 seconds on “A pig and his oatmeal.”  So worth it. 

And I confess; I smile at the pics of people with their pets.  All that unabashed love and foolishness.  Count me in.  Grandbabies?  Oh yeah.  I grin and coo at the screen every day, time after time, with each new wobble or burp.   

Here’s how I see it:  I’m experiencing joy that would be out of my consciousness had little Markie Zuckerberg chosen to compose music instead of computer code.  A rationalization, you say?  So be it. 

When I was a classroom teacher 100 years ago, (1990), I traveled to the (then) Soviet Union with a couple of other teachers and 25 high school students.  What a great experience.  I’ll tell you about it sometime.   

One of the best things about the trip was our courier, Tatyana, a teacher from Grodno.  She spent three weeks shepherding us through that conglomerate of contradictions.  She knew everything, translated everything.  Because of her, everything was possible.  

You form a bond after 21 days of total dependence. 

After that trip, Tatyana and I wrote back and forth the hard way.  I just couldn’t bring myself to use Microsoft Word when she didn’t even have a computer!  Ten years or more of beautiful, enlightening, tedious, handwritten letters.  Then alas, we fell out of touch. 

But lo and behold, thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev and Mark Z., Tatyana found me last week – you guessed it – on Facebook.  Say what you will about hoodies and IPO’s, you’ve gotta admit that’s pretty cool. 

A young woman whose family moved back to Cairo before she graduated from the high school where I was principal friended me on Facebook.  (Isn’t it great that “friend” became a verb?)  Through her postings, I had the privilege of witnessing the Egyptian revolution from her personal, life-altering point of view.   

She’s now a university student there majoring in political science and journalism.  Most recently, she posted pictures showing her interview of former President Jimmy Carter.  That’s my girl!   

Another alum posted video of himself rehearsing with John Legend for an upcoming episode of “Duets.”  You’re not going to get that on Gmail.   

So instead of slamming Facebook in its entirety, I embrace it like a weekend in Las Vegas.  It’s the nickel slot machine of my online gambling experience.  Mostly my deposits earn mismatched cryptograms and lemons.  They tax my time, threaten my dignity, and even chip at my self-respect.  If my husband walks into the room, I must have my justifications ready for time ill spent.   

But just often enough, it comes up with a few cherries and the jingle of a payout.  So I keep going back. 

Wall Street and the Hoodie; or, How to Shake Up a Stuffed Shirt by Being Yourself

So a room full of Romneys are miffed that Mark Zuckerberg wore his hoodie to a meeting.

He didn't honor them and their uniforms by suiting up. 

Wall Street mogols are heavy into the harrumph.  They're startled.  They're upset.  They're clicking their tongues and shaking their heads. 

Don't kids today know what it takes to succeed in the business world?  When will they learn to dress for success?

Cyber-Loafing Monday Blues

So I was hanging out on Cyber-Loafing Monday, you know, just loafing.  In cyberspace.  It’s not like the old days when we loafed on weekends in the back yard, in our swimsuits with the sprinklers on.   

Now, we do our idling of time surreptitiously, under the cloak of a business suit and a laptop, in the cloud.  If you have your computer facing the right direction, you can fool a lot of people into believing you’re working on what - the “Jones report”?  Right.  But not to worry.  They’re probably loafing too. 

Evidently enough folks arrived at work last Monday, got their coffee, logged on, and went directly to wasting time, that researchers detected a surge in web surfing, a disturbance in the force, as it were.  (I wonder if they said, “Surf’s up!”)   

This weakness in our work ethic is attributed to sleep deprivation brought on by the spring-ahead impact of Daylight Savings Time.  But before we get too down on ourselves, let’s think about this.  First of all, who are these “researchers”?  Who documents all those clicks of mice?  Mark Zuckerberg?  I wouldn’t put it past him.  And let me just say, that those who are doing this kind of tracking of slackers are no better than those whom they impugn!  Me hopes I doth not protest too much. 

Honestly, which spy nerds in what dark room are charged with noting that each year, the Monday after implementation of Daylight Savings Time, we exert more effort surfing the web than engaging in the work we’re paid for?  One could argue that that monitoring itself constitutes cyber-loafing in its purest form.  

These phenomenon geeks go on to tell us what we already know but won’t confess - that the bulk of our furtive frivolity is frittered away on entertainment sites!  Translated:  We’re catching up on celebrity gossip!  

Only to prove my point, and for the credibility of this writing, I took a few moments this morning to explore the trend, for my readers’ sake.  Here you have it: TMZ reports that Jermaine Jones is off “Idol” for concealing his criminal record; Charlize Theron has adopted a baby boy; Oliver Stone, Chuck Norris, and Snoop Dog are all supporting Republican candidates; and a poll reveals that Americans think the top three most overpaid in their fields are Kim Kardashian, LeBron James, and Snooki.  And their fields would be reality TV, professional basketball, and vacuous immaturity. 

OMG.  That is a waste of time. 

Anyway, it’s great to have Cyber Loafing Monday formally anointed.  Now we can mark our calendars and do it again next year!  It may not be baseball, but it’s a pastime. 

Since the practice of naming new habits and linking them to days of the week is open for the entrepreneur, I have some suggestions for the remaining weekdays that may resonate with the desperately deskbound:  How about “Angry Birds Tuesday”?  Come on!  You know who you are! 

“Solitaire Wednesday”?  “Talk like a Thug Thursday.”  (Am I trying too hard?)  OK – “Fandango Friday”!  It’s prep for “Cinema Saturday.”  

And thanks to the World Wide Web, whenever we’re in search of a reason to celebrate we need go no further than the special days-of-the-month calendar available online.  This much-needed resource offers an array of parties-in-the-making seeking dedicated party planners and causes awaiting their champions.  

For example we just missed a salute to hiking gear: March 14^th - International Fanny Pack Day.   

My sentimental side speculates that a sweet and tolerant husband somewhere memorialized March 31^st as "National She's Funny That Way" Day.  

Making the most of these newfound tools, I’m trying to envision a way to celebrate Elvis’s birthday, January 8^th, in conjunction with April 11th - "International Louie Louie Day."  On second thought, it’s probably best not to envision such a thing. 

Respecting the value of global relations, April 26^th commemorates “Hug an Australian Day.”  Appropriate to our traditional income tax deadline we find that April 15^th also marks “Take a Wild Guess Day.”  And, in the realm of public service announcements: April 24th – “National Hairball Awareness Day,” a venerated occasion in the Plath household.  

At last.  I’ve got it!  Here it is:  The pushback from Cyber-Loafing Monday:  “Get a Geek into the Sunlight Sunday.” 

Mark your calendar.  It’s got legs.

Big Brother Married Nurse Ratchet

Uh, oh.  Mark Zuckerberg is at it again!   

First we caught him sneaking his face-recognition software into Facebook without letting us know.  Now he’s following us around the web, even when we’re not logged in to Facebook. 

Oh my goodness, Mark, Mark, Mark!  You megalomaniac, you! 

Of course we lost control of our Older Male Sibling long ago.  Back when we put our Social Security numbers on job applications we surrendered ourselves to being watched and dogged by what has become a voracious, titanic mogul in the sky. 

Until recently, I didn’t feel watched or dogged.  In fact, I had a hard time imagining that any one person up there in the cloud could be bothered with the mundane routines of my comings and goings.  Ho hum.  

But of course it’s not my comings and goings that interest the industrious Zuckerberg clan.  Their interest lies in my willingness to spend my money on their stuff.  

Case in point:  My experience with Spanx.  It’s underwear, OK?  Specialized body slimming underwear – the latest thing in the 100 Years War of the Waistline.  If you want to know more about Spanx, you’ll just have to look it up.  But do so at your own risk. 

I confess I went onto the Spanx website and shopped around.  I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t buy their pitch.  OK, I kind of do accept their squeeze-it smooth-it pretend-it’s-not-there premise, but their stuff is ‘way too expensive for me.  Still, I noodled around with the detached interest of a shopper who hopes to find a comparable product at a reasonable price at Kohl’s. 

Let’s say that was Monday.  WEDNESDAY, I got a catalog, from Spanx, with my name on it, in the US mail!   

Did Mark Zuckerberg just send me a Spanx catalog?  Now that’s weird. 

And he’s meeting with all kinds of powerful people – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, Budget Chairman Paul Ryan - the President!  What’s that all about?! 

I’m starting to feel a kinship with all those conspiracy theorists who believe “they” are reading our mail and tapping our phones.  Pass the aluminum foil. 

You know, my crazy Aunt June thought her sister-in-law (my crazy Aunt Daisy) was reading her mail, opening her electric bills, and examining her cable viewing habits.  Turns out, she was!  Caught her red-handed steaming envelopes!  Not so crazy after all.

Now Zuckerberg unveils some of the most drastic changes ever made to Facebook's service.  The fear among users relates to what some say portends a worrisome privacy situation on the social network, led by Mr. Z’s new feature, “Timeline,” and changes to “Open Graph.”  Zuckerberg said he believes these “improvements” will help users share every single facet of their lives on the social network.

Timeline provides users with a way to view "the story of your life," including a collection of all the “stories” users have shared on Facebook over the years, as well as the pictures they've posted, and the applications they've used.  Oh yes, it’s all in Mr. Z’s sky-vault.

Facebook's updated Open Graph enables users, thanks to Timeline and a new addition, Ticker, to see what a “friend” is doing in real time, for example if he’s watching a movie on Netflix or listening to a song on Spotify (whatever that is!).  Then the viewer can engage in that same activity from within the social network.  Imaginary friends have become virtual friends.  

If that’s not enough to make you twitch, over the other shoulder comes OnStar following us around town even if we cancel their GPS service or never activate it in the first place.   

Not only does OnStar store data on your vehicle diagnostics like oil changes, tire pressure, the gas type you use; information about crashes such as whether you’re wearing a seat belt or whether an airbag deployed; and the car’s GPS/location information – including the speed of the vehicle, when the vehicle moves, and the precise location of the vehicle moment-to-moment.  All the more ominous when we’re reminded that GM offers a “free” trial of OnStar with each new vehicle it sells.  

I haven’t had that kind of monitoring since I was a teenager trying to elude my dad. 

Of course, OnStar reserves the right to sell aggregate data to third parties likely to be advertising, insurance, and analytics companies eager to gather as much information about us as they can for their own prying, greed-based reasons. 

And you thought you were alone. 

Big Brother is a Pimple-Faced Geek

We’ve come a long way from Black Bear #32.

Remember him from the grainy video of a campsite after dark in Yosemite National Park? Focused and following his nose, oblivious to the fact that he’s sporting a giant numbered ear tag; he’s breaking the back window of a camper’s Corolla and climbing in to steal his Twinkies.

Surveillance technology was #32’s downfall. That hapless beast, already identified, had his fate sealed - a swift relocation to the nether regions of the park. No more s’mores for you!

The first time-stamped video we reviewed at my school after the district installed security equipment showed a student in the 300 wing looking intently into the camera, his nose growing larger as he moved closer and closer. Slowly he reached up to stick a Post-It note on the lens, supposing this would prevent us from knowing who turned over all the trash cans in that wing.

You might expect we’ve become more tuned-in to the ubiquitous eyes upon us, but consider the laptop thief you may have seen on the news this week. He didn’t realize he’d stolen a device with an internal camera and software called “Hidden” that documented his actions and tracked his movements.

With the software’s help, the laptop’s rightful owner chronicled the thief’s daily routines, mundane and pathetic as they were, not in fuzzy “is that the guy?” ATM video, but in unmistakable full color clarity.

When the police couldn’t prioritize the crime, the incensed victim ran a series of captioned still shots on his blog, taken by the very laptop stolen from him, showing the thief in various compromising situations: Curled into the fetal position on his couch, with the title – “Guy sleeping on the couch next to my MacBook;” With a fixed gaze sitting just right of center frame – “Guy staring deliriously into my MacBook;” and best of all, the perpetrator shirtless and in bed – “I don’t want to know what this guy’s doing in bed with my MacBook.”

Just like single-minded Black Bear #32, and a clueless high school sophomore, the reality show led to the thief’s apprehension and arrest.

Stop light cameras keep us under the eye of Big Ticket Brother if we practice the California rolling stop instead of the full and complete stop “The Law” requires. Tollbooth cameras and now even carpool lane cameras rat us out if we try to save a few bucks or a few minutes just this once.

And now, perhaps the most sinister new development of all, Facebook has completed a "silent roll out" of their new facial recognition software. Here’s how it works: You attend your niece’s Christening and appear in photos posted on the proud parent’s wall. Your sister “tags” you by clicking on your face and entering your name, which is listed in the picture’s caption. Lovely, wholesome family fare. No harm in that.

But now, Facebook stores a digital record of your face in its giant databank in the sky. And, whenever your likeness appears again, on anyone’s page in any setting at any time, Facebook recognizes it and says to the poster of your photo, “Look, it’s YOU! Want to tag YOU in this photo?”

Let’s say you go down to Fisherman’s Wharf to scout out some dinner. A tourist lines up his wife and child in front of the crab pots and snaps a picture of them and YOU in the background. No biggy, he doesn’t know you anyway. His family back in Amarillo will only wish you hadn’t cluttered the scene.

But what if you’re playing hooky from work? Or bending your elbow with buddies at the bar instead of attending your mother-in-law’s Sunday dinner? White lies exposed, and shenanigans fair game, we can no longer be certain everything stays in Vegas.

There’s no reclaiming lost privacy. We slid past the bottom of the slope sometime shortly after the manager at 7-11 put up the fish-eyed mirror to watch over the corn nuts on his snack aisle.

Sure, we can opt out of Facebook’s facial recognition “service,” now that they’ve told us they opted us in.

But don’t kid yourself, Mark Zuckerberg, and God knows who else, is watching.