So many airplanes on the ramp ready and waiting for this virus to be a thing of the past.
May 2020
Tip Toe.
I’ve been doing a lot of walking during these pandemic times. It looked like a gorgeous day today but it was very cold for this time of year. I don’t think it got above 40ºF today. We are under a freeze warning for tonight.
I’ve been admiring these tulips across the street for past couple of days. They bring a smile to my face. I’m thankful our neighbor has taken the time to cultivate them.
I hope the tulips survive the freeze. I hope I do as well.
Friendly.
People here in the 21st century like to make fun of the screeching noises our modems made in the late 20th century. My husband and I were the outliers when we made our home in a our small apartment in 1996; we had two phone lines, enabling us to both be online at the same time. We finished our time with America Online in that apartment; by the time we had moved to our first house in 1997 we had moved to a local Internet Service Provider and again we had two phones lines to accommodate our two 56K baud modems.
Good times.
I vividly remember the Internet of the late 20th century. Heck, I vividly remember going online before the “Information Superhighway” was touted as a thing; I was dialing into local Bulletin Board Services and text based online services with my Commodore 64 in 1986. It was not much later that I was working for then the second largest computer company in the world where everyone had a computer on their desk. All of our computers were connected and if we knew the right path to get to another company, we could send email from our desk to a friend’s desk at another company hundreds of miles away.
Edward Snowden wrote about this in his book, “Permanent Record”: the Internet (and its precursors) was a much friendlier place back in the day. In the circles where I traveled, and I traveled in many online circles back then, our focus was on communication and information exchange. It would be literally decades before people aspired to be “influencers”. Honestly, getting online, navigating the systems, and actually staying connected was difficult for the average joe and because of this, there wasn’t a lot of flooding of misinformation, deception, and propaganda. Sure, we had bulletin boards where we talked about conspiracy theories and I kept up with the few folks I knew associated with ACT-UP, but it seemed to be very rare where there was so much spin and deception running rampantly across our screens.
I can’t get through one screen of Facebook without rolling my eyes at the stupidity of some of the people I have on my “friends” list. The list is growing shorter by the day.
I firmly believe our society was not prepared for the freedom offered with all information being instantly available. I don’t know that humans are truly equipped to handle this much information, especially when so many bad actors are easily getting onto the “Information Superhighway” to purposely disrupt, deceive, and destroy.
The Internet was suppose to bring us together, not rip us apart. But that’s exactly what it’s doing and unfortunately this destruction is making too many people rich, so it will never stop.
The idiocy of the Internet will outlive American society. I am convinced of that.
I miss the days when one had to be tech savvy to use a computer and get online. Now we can bark into our refrigerator to tweet.
Is that really a good thing?
Plandemic.
I am so confused. I thought the pandemic was planned so we’d all be with our families when NASA got the maths wrong and the asteroid slammed into the planet, reigniting fossil fuels into living dinosaurs, which would then cause Shell Oil to appear on all calculators held upside down before women went boobless.
FTL.
Another indie sci-fi short from Dust. This one is called “FTL”, and my husband and I both enjoyed it very much.
The Replacement.
Inspired by watching “Upload” on Amazon Prime (no spoilers please, we are on episode three), I’ve been searching YouTube for some indy sci-fi shorts. One I found particularly interesting is “The Replacement”, starring Mike McNamara from here in Chicago.
One of the things I love about these near-future series and film shorts is the way folks are imaging (and subsequently society) will progress in the next decade or so. It’s interesting to contrast with CBS’s “Century City” back in 2004, where everyone was using fancy PDAs.
Speaking of which, I noticed on “Upload” that Oprah Winfrey was president in the late 2020s. In that CBS series “Century City”, Oprah was also president in that timeline, in 2030.
Subscriptions.
Apple really wants you to subscribe to things. Want to read a magazine in a new, technologically savvy way? Subscribe to Apple News+. Want to enjoy the full, rich musical experience of owning an Apple HomePod? You have to use Apple Music to do that. Hearing great things about that show starring Chris Evans? Shell out to Apple TV+, please.
Of course, Apple is not the only company doing this. There are way too many TV and movie subscription services out there; if you want to back up the photos of your cherished memories taken with your mobile device, you’ll need to pay one of the cloud services (iCloud, Google Drive, whatever) money on a monthly basis. When we live in a country no longer focused on manufacturing things. We must subscribe to the idea of a service based economy. Because after all, the American economy is more important than anything else. Its value even surpasses that of human life.
I’m digressing.
The kicker of these subscription storage and consumption services is lock-in, and no one is really better at lock-in than Apple. The thing is, it’s not really practical to live in one ecosystem anymore. How long before we get to a point where I can’t call my family back East unless they’re using an iPhone? What if she didn’t have an iDevice? We’d have to move to another service. Another subscription please, thank you.
This week I’ve been reevaluating all of our digital subscriptions and ways we access the connected world. I’ve finally admitted that Apple’s HomeKit (for home automation) is a mess. And if I were to admit to buyer’s remorse over an Apple product, it would be the Apple HomePod. While I know Apple is focused on security with HomeKit, I’m not a fan of the walled garden built around HomePod. We are a Spotify family (another monthly subscription). I also pay for an Apple Music subscription so I have full functionality of the HomePods. Except Siri goes brain dead WAY too often on the HomePods, so I have an Amazon Echo Dot with Alexa sitting in the same room as the HomePod. So when Siri doesn’t know the temperature outside or has forgotten what room she is in, I can ask Alexa the same thing and she’ll respond in a saner fashion 95% of the time.
I’m slowly unsubscribing (again) from the idea that one technology company can provide everything we need for any enjoyable computing experience.
In the meanwhile, I have a HomePod listed for sale on Swappa.
Paradigm Shifts.
Before the quarantine we used to enjoy eating brunch at one of the many places we have nearby here in Chicago. The Windy City is a pretty brunch-centric place and many of the restaurants offered a wonderful spin on the experience. It was an experience I would look forward to.
After six(?) weeks of quarantine and all sit-down restaurants being closed, I’m finding I enjoy weekend brunch at home more than the dining out experience. Now, I’m quite lucky because I’m married to a man who definitely knows his way around the kitchen, so perhaps my perception is a bit biased.
This got me to thinking; after the COVID-19 pandemic is part of history and no longer part of the present, what lessons will we learn from this experience? I’d like to think we’d be a little more caring as a society. Perhaps we won’t be as eager to be on the run trying to do the latest and greatest thing all the time. Will we have learned to ramp back the pacing just a bit?
Judging by the number of people storming capital buildings to demand businesses open up so they can get a haircut or a manicure, I don’t think the U.S. will change all that much in the greater scheme of things. Other parts of the world may adapt, may slow down, may appreciate what they have right at home, but too many people in the U.S. seem to thrive at a frenetic pace, hence the frenzy of folks protesting safety precautions.
I’m going to concentrate on slowing down a little bit and most importantly, finding ways to better connect with the Universe again. If these grand thoughts are a result of skipping an overpriced brunch at an eatery, so be it.
Any start is a great start.
Precautionary.
If I can fly an airplane at 150 knots wearing a mask of sorts to keep me and my instructor safe, you can certainly wear a bandanna or mask while walking around the Walmart.
For the love of god, too many people are not being smart.
