Handwriting on the Cyberspace Wall

It worries me that consumers are complaining about the newest iPad.  Reports are that it heats up, becoming too warm to handle after prolonged use. 

That’s right.  Too warm to handle.  My fragile constitution cannot withstand the warmth.  Help me!  Help me!  It’s so warm!  I can hardly fling another bird. 

That’s what we’re coming to!  What would John Wayne think?  Or Amelia Earhart? 

It puts me in mind of “Wall-E,” the futuristic 2008 Academy Award winner for Best Animated feature.  Finding earth’s environment toxic from the overflowing refuse of hyper-consumerism, humans have abandoned the planet.  Once evacuated, they live out their years aboard the star liner Axiom, circling, waiting for their home to become habitable again.   

They’ve been in outer space so long, with every need attended to, that they never stand upright, never leave their recliners.  Meals and drinks and light and darkness, entertainment, all provided without exertion or effort.  

They’re obese, of course, but in a cute way.  They all have such amiable dispositions after all.  Nothing ever becomes too warm, so what’s to get upset about?   

As the story unfolds, we see an x-ray of the captain of the ship and discover that his bones, like those of all the recumbent residents of the Axiom, have become disjointed and float like so many pretzels suspended in jell-o.  All this the result of generations of life reliant on the screen. 

Recoiling from the warmth of the new iPad, we’re taking another step toward this dystopian utopia, you and I.  It’s all good and all bad all at the same time.  It pampers us.  It gives us everything we ask for and takes away everything we need, step by imperceptible step. 

Oh yes, the iPad is too warm.  How will we ever Draw Something?  

Our chubbiness is not so cute as it is in the movies; but we press on, exerting less, demanding more.  Next logical increment – elevate our preoccupation!  That’s right; make it respectable:  Video games aren’t just games any more.  We'll call them art!  And right on cue, according to CBS News/Sunday Morning, the newest exhibit at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum is "The Art of Video Games." 

The Smithsonian!  Case closed.  No argument.  Video games are art. 

“I’m engaged in a cultural expression, Honey.” 

Forget about the decline of humankind, I can tell you it won’t play well with my husband.  He already exhibits a persistent skepticism about how I spend my afternoons.  “Retirement, schmretirement!” he’s been known to mutter, shaking his head, carrying dishes to the sink in demonstration of how he does everything around here. 

For that reason I quit Bejeweled cold turkey.  He came down the hall and found me too many times, mesmerized, mindlessly matching purple gems .  My credibility sagged.  I had to reestablish trust.  But now I have the Smithsonian on my side. 

Our national archive extolls video games’ images as reminiscent of Japanese woodcuts and compares them to the work of M.C. Escher.  Why I’m deepening my appreciation of fine art by staring at it on the screen, moving my mouse over it, cursing at it, throwing up my hands in triumph!   

And it's not just how video games look that makes them works of art, says the venerable museum; it's also how they engage the imagination and stimulate players to think about what moves to make.  

Yeah!  That’s it!  Imagination!  Moves!  I hardly even notice that my joints are stiffening and my back is curved.

"[Video games] can help us find connections with deeper questions we may have inside ourselves," says game developer Chris Melissinos, who curated the show.  Huh?  Deeper questions?  I must be playing the wrong game.   

"We're able to create worlds and environments that just don't exist in the real world.  We're able to open our imagination, and it's boundless, it's limitless.”  Melissinos again.  I think he’s feeling pretty important.  Curator and Champion Rationalizer. 

Pandering to our passive personalities it’s certain they’ll develop an iPad potholder.  They’ll create an award for the most Asteroids smashed, or Grand Autos stolen.  Partying with Mario will be tantamount to an inaugural ball at the White House. 

We’ll lean in closer.  And when it hurts our eyes, they’ll make that OK too.  No need for distance vision any more anyway.  Crow’s feet will be the craze.  

Mark my words.  And pack for a long trip.

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.