Geek

I am an avid listener of Sirius/XM’s POTUS (Politics of the United States) on channel 124. Listening to POTUS keeps me engaged with the affairs of the country during my daily commute and while there are times when I have had absolutely too much political news and I search for something else, most of the time I end up listening to POTUS. In the morning I listen to “The Morning Briefing”, I catch a few moments of “The Press Pool” at lunch time and on the drive home I listen to “Stand Up with Pete Dominick”. Interesting stuff.

One of the features of the program, The Blogcast with Pamela Kirkland, Pamela mentioned the “Million Mustache March” that took place in DC on Sunday. Please note that Sunday was the first of April. The “Million Mustache March” was a protest demanding tax breaks for the fuzzy faced, equality for all with facial hair. After the mention of the story, Morning Briefing host Tim Farley mentioned that it’s been a long, long time since we’ve had a president with a mustache. So I tweeted this¹:

Imagine my surprise when later in the program (around 0720 ET), Tim came out of a break mentioning the first tweet they had received of the day. And it was my tweet. He mentioned me by first and last name, kind of sarcastically mentioned that with all the problems in politics, this is what I was tweeting about (I was keeping within the spirit of the “Million Mustache March” but apparently couldn’t convey that in 140 characters or less) and then mentioned that I have a rather large, “handlebar like mustache” on my face, with something the size of a small country under my nose.

Honestly, I take that as a compliment. I love my large mustache and I have no plans on taming it or trimming it down. I’m just letting it grow and go where it wants to go.

The mention of it on Sirius/XM kind of gave me the jolt I needed to wake up for the day. So I thanked them with another tweet and went on with my commute.

Thanks, Sirius/XM POTUS 124! You made the small country under my nose ride along with the grin on my face.

¹ When I tweet during my commute, I am usually stopped at a stop sign or pulled over on the side of the road. Even in the small country under my nose, one has to act responsibly.

There’s a lot of negativity in my Facebook news feed (from others) today. Some people seem to be having a bad day, others are dealing with misconstrued gossip and yet others are having smack said about their family members.

What an abuse of technology.

Though I tend to tweet more than I FB (and I don’t G+ at all anymore), I still read Facebook on a regular basis, even if it’s just to catch up on birthdays and wish people good tidings on their day of celebration. Sometimes I write witty things here and there, other times I might post a few pictures of randomness. There are quite a few things about Facebook that make me insane, hence the reason that I’m not as invested in the platform as I used to be.

One of the things that absolutely amazes me about some folks on Facebook is how seriously they take things on there. Folks can post something absolutely random that sounds like it could be true and they take it as 100% accuracy and don’t bother to research to see if it’s really true or not. For example, I could go onto the Utica page and post something like “Olive Garden is coming to New Hartford! It’s moving into the old AT&T building on Commercial Drive” and probably within two days I’d read something about Olive Garden moving into the old AT&T building via Twitter or the Topix boards.

Ridiculous.

Why would Olive Garden move into the old AT&T building, especially since said building was vacated after an irate customer went in and shot some customer service reps because he was pissed about his account? And why would Olive Garden need a big tower in their parking lot anyways? And why would Olive Garden even move to Utica, New York, where good, traditional Italian restaurants are plentiful and the folks here don’t want an Italian restaurant that amounts to boil-in-a-bag.

I’m digressing.

My point is, like anything and everything on the Internet, you need to check and cross check the facts of anything you read, including the stuff on Facebook. It’s kind of like relying on one news source for your news; compare what you hear from Fox News with what you hear from MSNBC with you read in your local newspaper and there’s a better chance you’re going to get a better picture of what’s going on with whatever they’re all talking about. If you see something on Facebook about a family member or a friend that seems startling, do something crazy like pick up the phone and speak with that person to see if the facts are true or not. And for pity’s sake, don’t bring people you don’t know into the equation and start speculating or being rude or obnoxious just because Facebook has decided to show updates from people you don’t know on something that you might have an interest in.

The progression of technology seems to be fueling a regressing in common sense these days when we need more common sense than ever to keep track of it all. People need to remember how to think.

I’m trying out a new theme on the blog just to spruce things up a bit. I guess I’m doing a little spring housecleaning.

Ok, so I wrote two blog entries yesterday. In the entry titled “Resolution“, I mentioned that I was still not interested in the new iPad that was announced yesterday. Then, after the announcement of the new iPad that’s called ‘the new iPad’, I admitted that I wanted one.

Now I have mentioned that this blog, amongst other things, functions as an insight to the way I am in real life. While it is a controlled atmosphere of sorts, I still am pretty open with the way I function in the real world with my writings on this blog. What you see is what you get. And this flip flopping back and forth regarding the new iPad makes Mitt Romney look like he’s got his mind made up about everything.

How embarrassing.

This morning as I was driving into work, I went into daydream mode and hashed out what’s been floating around in my head for the past 24 hours or so and I came to the determination that in reality, the new iPad (which is called ‘the new iPad’), while very nice, makes me more ornery than anything. You see, there is nothing wrong with my first generation iPad. Nothing at all. When taken out of it’s case it’s still looks all shiny and new. I don’t have the need for a camera on my iPad and in the one instance that I saw a person using an iPad2 to take a photo I pointed at them and made a snorting noise that was meant to resemble mockery. The only reason that I would need the new iPad (which is cleverly called ‘the new iPad’) would be to run the new iPhoto app, because Apple released that yesterday and to run the new iPhoto app, you need a front-facing camera because apparently someone wants to watch you use the new iPhoto app.

I kind of find that weird.

I often talk about using older computers and gadgets and the like until you can’t squeeze any further porn productivity out of them. We shouldn’t fill landfills with electronics that still work when we’re not going to be around to deal with these landfills to begin with. That’s just silly. And quite frankly, it’s time for me to starting walking the walk instead of just talking the talk.

So now the ornery in me is turning into it’s own resolution. Write this down or take notes if you give a damn.

1. I have a 2008 MacBook Pro that is going to continue to be my laptop until it costs more to support it than buy a new one or I can’t use it anymore because it’s just not compatible with what I need to do on a laptop.
2. I am keeping my current iPhone 4 at least until I am eligible for an upgrade, which isn’t until February 2013. And I might keep the iPhone 4 around longer just to prove that I can.
3. I am going to use my current iPad in all it’s delicious glory until it’s impossible to get anything accomplished on it.

And to take this stubbornness one step further, for the vacation that we are about to embark on at 1600 EST today, I am taking ONLY my iPhone and my iPad and I am going to blog and share pictures using these outdated devices to prove to the world that it can be done no matter what Apple says. I love my Apple products and I absolutely believe that they have the best hardware out there, but I’m not going to upgrade just because they have decreed it to be so.

And that, gentle readers, is me not flip flopping on the issue anymore.

Note to my dear husband: feel free to print this blog entry out and shove it in my face the next time I mention buying something new just for the sake of buying a new Apple gadget. Gifts, however, are always welcomed.

– Proudly Posted using BlogPress from my first generation iPad

So a couple of weeks ago I remarked about my sleeping habits and how I was going to try something a little different with my sleep patterns. Historical evidence shows that in the past some folks would have “two sleeps” every night with a waking interval in between and my body has been showing signs of wanting to do the same thing so I decided to try that approach.

In the past 10 days I have had three nights where I woke up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Instead of having some sort of silent fit, whirling around in my bed to find a new comfortable position and then flipping my pillow around to find the cool side, I would sit up in bed and see if both eyes were functioning. If both eyes were open and functioning, I would get up and walk a lap around the bedroom and then the rest of the house. Ok, I’d pee too, but only in the bathroom. I’d then calm my mind by telling myself that my forefathers could have been doing this very exercise of walking around in the middle of the night and they did it with wood teeth and everything (why I think this I have no idea since it’s a completely unrelated point). I’d then do another walk around the downstairs and then head back up to bed, where I’d put my headphones back on and give the sleeping thing another whirl. I’d end up sleeping right through to the alarm.

I feel better than I did before I started this approach. I haven’t had to spend one moment trying to find a private napping spot in my cubicle during the afternoons at work (don’t tell my boss).

Now this little experiment is completely unscientific and there could be a million and three other contributing factors as to why this is working better for me but I’m not one to complain, as long as I feel well rested and productive during the day.

Yesterday I ended up taking a small nap during my lunch hour and it was enjoyable. I think this was a recharge of Monday more than a need for actual sleep, however, as the nap was more meditative than actual deep sleep. But I think I’m onto something and that can only be a good thing.

Now last night I tried a new soundtrack for the headphones that I wear when I sleep and it helped me have some very vivid and lucid dreams. I love it when I can steer the scenes going on in my head during my dreams. It’s a skill I pretty much mastered when I was a kid and I consider myself quite lucky to still have the ability to do this on a regular basis. Perhaps that’s why I am in such a good mood today.

So to ready myself for Google’s new privacy terms of service and search methods, I deleted my Gmail account last night. If you’re still sending email to my old imachias-at-gmail.com account it won’t go anywhere anymore. I also deleted my Google+ account because no one seemed to be saying anything over there anyways, so I didn’t want any data left hanging around where I would ultimately forget about it.

I’m obviously not paranoid about online privacy since I write in a personal blog and share good chunks of my life right there through words and photos. But there is something that creeps me out about the fact that starting today, if I were to search for some random phrase on Google, it’ll present me with a list of search results that contains what Google thinks I’ll want to see, based on the content of my email, calendar, Google+, previous searches, YouTube views, etc. I find that creepy. I don’t want predictive search results and I don’t want someone randomly labeling me as eccentric until they have met me in person and realized it for themselves first hand. I am not comfortable with a scenario where I search for a news article, for example, and am presented with results from MSNBC, based on what I’ve said about politics in the past, whereas the same person is presented with results from Fox News based on their leanings. That’s taking the autonomy away from the individual. It should be up to me to decide whether I want to look at MSNBC or Fox News as the source of the information I am seeking, without being encouraged by my search engine based on what I’ve done in the past. I feel creeped out and I feel pigeon-holed, and if there is one thing that really gets on my nerves, it’s being pigeon-holed.

“Well, you’ve always wanted to look at MSNBC News before.”

Well what if I am trying to expand my horizons by trying to seek out all points of view?

I am working on ridding myself of my Google account completely. The only thing that remains is Google Reader account, and I use that because it keeps my RSS feeds in sync between multiple devices. I wish there was a generic way of doing that, but I haven’t found a solution to that yet.

My search engine of choice has become duckduckgo.com and I highly recommend it. No tracking, no suggestions, no telling my Facebook friends, no hollering at the empty caverns of Google+ telling my former circles what I am looking for. I type in a search phrase and it gives me results. Once upon a time that could easily be accomplished by AltaVista and it was a beautiful thing. Today it’s DuckDuckGo and I am sticking to this for as long as I can.

I think part of my privacy concerns is fueled by the fact that all this data is designed to improve advertising metrics so that ads are targeted specifically to me based on my life history on the web. I hate ads on the internet. I hate sites that squeeze a bunch of mediocre content between flashing, bare-chested advertising panels in an effort to generate revenue. The more ads, the more mediocre the content, because the site owner is just throwing crap at the web trying to generate as much traffic as possible to their site. I find this approach offensive to my sensibilities.

And now I’ll probably get twice as many ads in my email because I’ve written about them.