We all know that I Love Lucy was originally used to sell cigarettes. And we know that soap operas sold soap to housewives.
There has always been a debate about television and whether it only exists to sell us crap through commercials. But like roads littered with billboards for lawyers and casinos, television is only moderately evil, delivering Downton Abbey sandwiched between promotional bumpers for ADM or the Ford Foundation or other mentions of corporate sponsorships.
I'm not aware of any spam in the days of the text-based web browser, but as soon as mouse clicking became the primary mode for moving through the internet, people found ways to make the journey pure agony. And in the pre-teen years of the web, everyone agreed that pop-up ads were a major pain in the ass, so we found ways to blow the shit out of them.
But with the move to mobile internet access, we've finally learned what the internet wants from us: everything. And we give it, gladly. The internet wants to collect our data to sell us ads and it finally found a way that we can't block.
We have no control over our mobile devices. There is no choice. If we want an app, we need to understand that it will track us: it will log our GPS location, our cell tower location, our phone use, contacts, keystrokes, and the temperature of our testicles while the device rests in our pants pockets.
So if you want to use a smart phone or ereader or tablet, you should understand that you will be tracked. And then don't care. Because caring would mean that you won't be able to have that app that is so essential to making your life whole because having it would make your forfeit a significant amount of your privacy. So against all common sense, you download the app.
So in finally figuring out the internet, it seems the internet has finally figured out us.
Me, I don't put any questionable apps on my phone. I put them on my tablet which knows very little about me and can share all the secrets it wants.
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Why Clifford Stoll is RIGHT about the internet
Clifford Stoll is a kook. And I'm sure he'd be the first to admit it. But he was right about the internet.
"No, he's wrong," you say, "He even admitted he was wrong in a comment on BoingBoing."
No, I think he was being kind. Like when someone really really stupid manages to accomplish some remedial task and we say, "Good. Good, for you." What he really tells us is here, the saddest part about how our lives have been influenced by the internet, "important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued."
You can laugh at his naivete, but you can't deny that the internet has devalued our interactions. And I'm assuming that you've ever "Like"d something or tweeted your feelings in 140 characters.
But technologically, Stoll was way, way off. Everything Stoll claimed computers couldn't be, computers have become. They are small; they are fast; they store more data and perform more complex and esoteric functions than he could have conceived.
In 1995, Stoll wrote that
And he was wrong on all 3 counts.
But that's only because technology gives the appearance of his wrongness: replacement never truly happened . Ask any librarian if online databases are easier to use than newspapers and you won't get a clear consensus. And teachers use technology to teach, but the teacher is still essential to the learning process. And government is tied to computers in ways we could never understand, but government progress still moves at the traditional bureaucratic glacial pace.
I think how Stoll could see what we can't is based on his perspective on the evolution of the internet. He is someone old enough to see it from outside. He could compare it to a different world and didn't like what he saw. But fewer of us know his world. We've been deep in the internet for almost 20 years. For many, the internet can't be removed from real life. But someone his age would have seen the doorways and windows to the internet from outside, whereas most of us have never stood in his place.
Stoll predicted wrongly because he underestimated people and how people actually wanted all that "unfiltered data." People became the filter. Wikipedia is one result.
I like to use the movie The Matrix to think about how we view the internet. Neo was born into the matrix and didn't know there was something outside of it. And when he learned, it changed him. But Cypher knew that the matrix wasn't real, and he didn't care. To him, the real world sucked.
And in our world, computers have replaced human interaction. Virtual people have replaced people.
And this is absolutely where Stoll predicted correctly. He concluded in his Newsweek article, "What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact." He could never have imagined that in the 10 years following those words that we have successfully replaced physical contact with emotional contact and that emotional contact would be derived from tweets and pokes and updates and texts.
Those people Stoll spoke to in 1995 are dead. If I had the time, I might argue that they died in 2001 when the people of the world decided they were too afraid to go outside. And I don't I'd be wrong. One day, some other weirdo will prove that 9/11 influenced the iPhone.
Apart from technology, mobile devices, wifi, broadband internet and HD video, everything Stoll said is true:
All true. But also untrue. The internet has changed us. We are all willing to do things online in 2012 that not one of you would have imagined you would do in 1992 (the first year I went online). Simply, you play computer games. You play games with people you've never seen or met. The movie WarGames was from 1983 and even 10 years later, computer games were still only for nerds. Now you find attractive people tapping away at games on their phones, beautiful people, people who should be fucking each other! What happened to us?
We have been changed by the internet. You laugh at Stoll, but you are not the same species. He is analog and you are digital.
So where is this leading? There is discussion today about whether the internet has anything new left to offer. As if innovation has stagnated behind the Apple-Amazon-Google-Facebook turf wars. These companies seem to want to keep their users locked into proprietary domains. From where will innovation come when these innovators won't share?
But maybe that's where the next generation of innovation will happen -- in breaking down those walls.
Yet for his goofs, Stoll gave me one of the wisest pieces of wisdom, ever. On one television program, he espoused having two computers, one for online and one that never touches an outside network. Because that was the only way to guarantee that your data would be safe. One day, you'll wish you'd listened to him.
"No, he's wrong," you say, "He even admitted he was wrong in a comment on BoingBoing."
No, I think he was being kind. Like when someone really really stupid manages to accomplish some remedial task and we say, "Good. Good, for you." What he really tells us is here, the saddest part about how our lives have been influenced by the internet, "important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued."
You can laugh at his naivete, but you can't deny that the internet has devalued our interactions. And I'm assuming that you've ever "Like"d something or tweeted your feelings in 140 characters.
But technologically, Stoll was way, way off. Everything Stoll claimed computers couldn't be, computers have become. They are small; they are fast; they store more data and perform more complex and esoteric functions than he could have conceived.
In 1995, Stoll wrote that
- no online database will replace your daily newspaper,
- no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and
- no computer network will change the way government works.
And he was wrong on all 3 counts.
But that's only because technology gives the appearance of his wrongness: replacement never truly happened . Ask any librarian if online databases are easier to use than newspapers and you won't get a clear consensus. And teachers use technology to teach, but the teacher is still essential to the learning process. And government is tied to computers in ways we could never understand, but government progress still moves at the traditional bureaucratic glacial pace.
I think how Stoll could see what we can't is based on his perspective on the evolution of the internet. He is someone old enough to see it from outside. He could compare it to a different world and didn't like what he saw. But fewer of us know his world. We've been deep in the internet for almost 20 years. For many, the internet can't be removed from real life. But someone his age would have seen the doorways and windows to the internet from outside, whereas most of us have never stood in his place.
Stoll predicted wrongly because he underestimated people and how people actually wanted all that "unfiltered data." People became the filter. Wikipedia is one result.
I like to use the movie The Matrix to think about how we view the internet. Neo was born into the matrix and didn't know there was something outside of it. And when he learned, it changed him. But Cypher knew that the matrix wasn't real, and he didn't care. To him, the real world sucked.
And in our world, computers have replaced human interaction. Virtual people have replaced people.
And this is absolutely where Stoll predicted correctly. He concluded in his Newsweek article, "What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact." He could never have imagined that in the 10 years following those words that we have successfully replaced physical contact with emotional contact and that emotional contact would be derived from tweets and pokes and updates and texts.
Those people Stoll spoke to in 1995 are dead. If I had the time, I might argue that they died in 2001 when the people of the world decided they were too afraid to go outside. And I don't I'd be wrong. One day, some other weirdo will prove that 9/11 influenced the iPhone.
Apart from technology, mobile devices, wifi, broadband internet and HD video, everything Stoll said is true:
- "Cybershopping" is dangerous. That hasn't changed. Probably never will.
- We continue to buy more and more "expensive toys"while convincing ourselves they will change our lives.
- And sifting through data on the Internet is still difficult just as it was 2 years before Google.
All true. But also untrue. The internet has changed us. We are all willing to do things online in 2012 that not one of you would have imagined you would do in 1992 (the first year I went online). Simply, you play computer games. You play games with people you've never seen or met. The movie WarGames was from 1983 and even 10 years later, computer games were still only for nerds. Now you find attractive people tapping away at games on their phones, beautiful people, people who should be fucking each other! What happened to us?
We have been changed by the internet. You laugh at Stoll, but you are not the same species. He is analog and you are digital.
So where is this leading? There is discussion today about whether the internet has anything new left to offer. As if innovation has stagnated behind the Apple-Amazon-Google-Facebook turf wars. These companies seem to want to keep their users locked into proprietary domains. From where will innovation come when these innovators won't share?
But maybe that's where the next generation of innovation will happen -- in breaking down those walls.
Yet for his goofs, Stoll gave me one of the wisest pieces of wisdom, ever. On one television program, he espoused having two computers, one for online and one that never touches an outside network. Because that was the only way to guarantee that your data would be safe. One day, you'll wish you'd listened to him.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
I don't exist.
In the digital world, nothing has shape. nothing has permanence. Nothing has value. Money changes hands, surely. But money always changes hands.
How many digital files do you own? With how many have you interacted recently? How many songs or photos sit on some drive somewhere collecting the digital equivalent of cobwebs, their electrons trying to maintain order, to maintain bonds and fighting against inevitable dispersal. Would you notice if some were lost?
In every generation prior whatever the most recent two are, people collected objects. Some were photos. They held those photos as precious. They were memory; they were family; they were part of their lives.
Some of those objects were books.
But now we have files. And I don't know anyone who prints out photos, anymore. I haven't for 6 years. Without some form of computer, the last six years of my life don't even exist.
Yes, all my files are on a computer or online, somewhere. But without permission, a password, most of them remain hidden. I try to store some of my stuff under "effinglibrarian" accounts, but I have lots of accounts under various usernames. If I were to bump my head and develop amnesia or die, would anyone ever learn who I was? I don't have scrapbooks with photos of my trips to ... see? I can't even rememeber without finding the folders with the files.
Without account names and passwords, there is nothing to find. I will disappear.
Physical objects are a burden. Books are a burden. And we only have towns and cities because of our burdens. In the old days, people walked until they got tired, then when enough people got tired in the same place, someone put up a shop or a shrine. And that's why we have cities. Without your burdens, you just wander as nomads. The internet is turning us into nomads.
A printed book never judges you back. It's static; it can't. But an ebook can, and will. An ebook will tell you whether you read too slowly or too quickly. An ebook might make you reread something until it's convinced you got it. An ebook will compare you to others who have read it. If you need to look up a word, the dictionary will tell you that only 4% of other readers needed to look that up: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Every footprint you leave online is something said for or against your nature. Every statement, update or comment you make can become corrupted under the unforgiving all-seeing eye of internet trolls and anonymous ridicule.
The internet is changing me. And I don't know who I am becoming. Because I don't have physical objects, I don't have a past. Because I have so many online identities, I don't have a present. And because I don't have anyone to care for my files after I'm gone, I don't have a future. I am nothing.
How many digital files do you own? With how many have you interacted recently? How many songs or photos sit on some drive somewhere collecting the digital equivalent of cobwebs, their electrons trying to maintain order, to maintain bonds and fighting against inevitable dispersal. Would you notice if some were lost?
In every generation prior whatever the most recent two are, people collected objects. Some were photos. They held those photos as precious. They were memory; they were family; they were part of their lives.
Some of those objects were books.
But now we have files. And I don't know anyone who prints out photos, anymore. I haven't for 6 years. Without some form of computer, the last six years of my life don't even exist.
Yes, all my files are on a computer or online, somewhere. But without permission, a password, most of them remain hidden. I try to store some of my stuff under "effinglibrarian" accounts, but I have lots of accounts under various usernames. If I were to bump my head and develop amnesia or die, would anyone ever learn who I was? I don't have scrapbooks with photos of my trips to ... see? I can't even rememeber without finding the folders with the files.
Without account names and passwords, there is nothing to find. I will disappear.
Physical objects are a burden. Books are a burden. And we only have towns and cities because of our burdens. In the old days, people walked until they got tired, then when enough people got tired in the same place, someone put up a shop or a shrine. And that's why we have cities. Without your burdens, you just wander as nomads. The internet is turning us into nomads.
A printed book never judges you back. It's static; it can't. But an ebook can, and will. An ebook will tell you whether you read too slowly or too quickly. An ebook might make you reread something until it's convinced you got it. An ebook will compare you to others who have read it. If you need to look up a word, the dictionary will tell you that only 4% of other readers needed to look that up: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Every footprint you leave online is something said for or against your nature. Every statement, update or comment you make can become corrupted under the unforgiving all-seeing eye of internet trolls and anonymous ridicule.
The internet is changing me. And I don't know who I am becoming. Because I don't have physical objects, I don't have a past. Because I have so many online identities, I don't have a present. And because I don't have anyone to care for my files after I'm gone, I don't have a future. I am nothing.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
The Identity Dilemma.
I'm at the point where the digital status of my real self is gaining on the digital status of my fake self.
Yet my fake self is still way ahead in popularity.
The problem that comes from this is that I often have professional questions to ask where I could use some feedback. If I use my fake identity to ask it on Twitter (this identity), more people will see the question and someone might answer. But I probably won't get the answer I need because this identity is fake. And people don't seem to want to waste brain power answering to a fake person.
But if I ask on my real account, hardly anyone replies and the question languishes like some lost message in a bottle, waiting to be freed. But the question will be taken seriously, eventually.
So I never know what to do. I can't ask the same question in both accounts because someone might actually notice and then my pseudonymity will be lost.
All I can ask is that if you see a question from a librarian asking for your opinion on some professional library stuff, it could be me. SO ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION.
Yet my fake self is still way ahead in popularity.
The problem that comes from this is that I often have professional questions to ask where I could use some feedback. If I use my fake identity to ask it on Twitter (this identity), more people will see the question and someone might answer. But I probably won't get the answer I need because this identity is fake. And people don't seem to want to waste brain power answering to a fake person.
But if I ask on my real account, hardly anyone replies and the question languishes like some lost message in a bottle, waiting to be freed. But the question will be taken seriously, eventually.
So I never know what to do. I can't ask the same question in both accounts because someone might actually notice and then my pseudonymity will be lost.
All I can ask is that if you see a question from a librarian asking for your opinion on some professional library stuff, it could be me. SO ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Amoeba. A-you-ba. A-we-ba.
We are single-celled organisms in the internet's complex ocean of life. I guess. I haven't really thought about it much, but it seems accurate. But what I have thought about is this:
True story. I had an email from a library patron that say this, verbatim:
"Please give me step by step instructions for downloading ebooks, but keep it simple."
So when I read it, I punched myself in the face. And then I read it again. Because I don't understand any way to give step by step instructions for downloading ebooks, YET still keep it simple.
There are about anywhere between 9 and 62 individual steps for downloading an ebook and the 9-step instructions are only for people who already understand concepts such as "download" and "ebook." So for someone who demands step-by-step instructions, we're looking as something closer to 30 steps, which forfeit any relationship to the word "simple."
We're human beings. We're supposed to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder. We've left this planet and landed on a completely different astral body. And came back. We're supposed to have amazing brains to do this stuff, but still, we're alarmingly primitive.
We may be able to grasp complex ideas, but a survey of the internet can't prove that. We group together because we like the same song or television show or ice cream flavor. Personally, I follow people on twitter who use the hashtag, #banana.
We praise memes. The simpler, the better. Honey Badger, what? I was in Target and saw a Honey Badger t-shirt. So I had to track down the origin of that meme. And it was stupid. Most memes are stupid. Insert an image of a naked French guy into any photo or maybe Paula Deen or a furry animal and the stampede begins. Suddenly everyone has to do it. Why? I guess some memes are funny, although I don't get the joke. I don't understand any of the Ryan Gossling mass-awareness. I know why the cake is a lie, but I don't care. And don't try to explain why that cat can has cheezburger.
So what does the internet say about us when we flock to these posts and repeat and repurpose these ideas over and over into the millions?
This all didn't bother me until Lana Del Rey got a modelling gig. If you don't know, Lana Del Ray has a couple of songs, maybe three, but only one is worth listening to. Video Games. It's a cute song about a girl who pretties herself up only to have some dude completely ignore her while he plays games. Or that's what I hear when I listen to it.
I think it's because I got the feeling that she had been reduced to a meme. That someone, and I don't know who, it could be the woman herself, had made the conscious decision to parcel out bits of image to see who would find some attraction with what part. And then when that part became the focus, then we would be sold that product.
If so, this isn't new. Did you ever see the movie The Idolmaker? It's the same thing. It's probably on YouTube. It's also like old 1970's TV catchphrases like DY-NO-MITE. Or Aaay. But that was the seventies when we were all high all the time. So it just makes me depressed that we are supposedly so enlightened by all this information; yet, we continue to seek out simple messages.
Maybe it's because the more complex the world becomes, the more we want things to be uncomplicated. Kiss my grits.
True story. I had an email from a library patron that say this, verbatim:
"Please give me step by step instructions for downloading ebooks, but keep it simple."
So when I read it, I punched myself in the face. And then I read it again. Because I don't understand any way to give step by step instructions for downloading ebooks, YET still keep it simple.
There are about anywhere between 9 and 62 individual steps for downloading an ebook and the 9-step instructions are only for people who already understand concepts such as "download" and "ebook." So for someone who demands step-by-step instructions, we're looking as something closer to 30 steps, which forfeit any relationship to the word "simple."
We're human beings. We're supposed to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder. We've left this planet and landed on a completely different astral body. And came back. We're supposed to have amazing brains to do this stuff, but still, we're alarmingly primitive.
We may be able to grasp complex ideas, but a survey of the internet can't prove that. We group together because we like the same song or television show or ice cream flavor. Personally, I follow people on twitter who use the hashtag, #banana.
We praise memes. The simpler, the better. Honey Badger, what? I was in Target and saw a Honey Badger t-shirt. So I had to track down the origin of that meme. And it was stupid. Most memes are stupid. Insert an image of a naked French guy into any photo or maybe Paula Deen or a furry animal and the stampede begins. Suddenly everyone has to do it. Why? I guess some memes are funny, although I don't get the joke. I don't understand any of the Ryan Gossling mass-awareness. I know why the cake is a lie, but I don't care. And don't try to explain why that cat can has cheezburger.
So what does the internet say about us when we flock to these posts and repeat and repurpose these ideas over and over into the millions?
This all didn't bother me until Lana Del Rey got a modelling gig. If you don't know, Lana Del Ray has a couple of songs, maybe three, but only one is worth listening to. Video Games. It's a cute song about a girl who pretties herself up only to have some dude completely ignore her while he plays games. Or that's what I hear when I listen to it.
I think it's because I got the feeling that she had been reduced to a meme. That someone, and I don't know who, it could be the woman herself, had made the conscious decision to parcel out bits of image to see who would find some attraction with what part. And then when that part became the focus, then we would be sold that product.
If so, this isn't new. Did you ever see the movie The Idolmaker? It's the same thing. It's probably on YouTube. It's also like old 1970's TV catchphrases like DY-NO-MITE. Or Aaay. But that was the seventies when we were all high all the time. So it just makes me depressed that we are supposedly so enlightened by all this information; yet, we continue to seek out simple messages.
Maybe it's because the more complex the world becomes, the more we want things to be uncomplicated. Kiss my grits.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Internet is not a right.
Don't be stupid enough to say that the internet is a human right. Sure, the internet allows us access to information we could never reach before, but it's not a human right to have access to ALL or even ANY of that information.
How would you even define the internet if you wanted to refer to it as mainly the information carried and not the hardware and software necessary to transfer it?
The internet changes from moment to moment. How can you expect to have a right to something that's here one minute and gone the next? The internet evolves and flows continually, daily. It's like saying you have a right to the oceans. You might have some rights in the oceans, but only the rights that your boat offers. And only the rights that territories grant. And only the rights that you can defend. Because you're out in the ocean. With sharks.
You also can't dump toxic waste in the oceans. And you can't remove all the food from the oceans. And you can't remove all the water from the oceans.
Well, you can. But you shouldn't.
If you shield any part of your Facebook profile from strangers then you agree. If the internet were a right, than Facebook would be a right, and access to every user on Facebook would be a right. But the right to access Facebook accounts is not a right because Facebook is just another service accessible through the internet.
Many resources that can be found on the internet are not free. But if the internet is a basic human right, then these resources must be free. What about access to monitor nuclear power stations? Or water treatment facilities? Oh, wait, you say you don't mean that everything *on* the internet is a right? Then what the hell do you mean? You mean access to the internet? Again, the whole internet, or just the good parts? What if you can only access a State-sponsored internet? Would that be okay? And if not, why not? Since no one person has access to every part of the internet, then it can't possibly be a right.
Basic human rights should never infringe on the rights of others. A basic human right to the internet would force us all to be equals on the internet. But we're not equals. Some of us are creators and some are consumers; some are providers and some are participants. You have as much right to play World of Warcraft as you have to walk uninvited through the front door of my home and eat dinner at my table, which is no right at all.
The internet is just technology. When you compare the technology of the internet to things such as the printing press, you reveal to the world that you don't know what the internet is. The thinker of that piece of wisdom says "The invention of the printing press revealed new rights, new concerns nobody cared about until the printing press appeared. It's difficult trying to list these new rights without reference to the technology that enabled them."
And what are these new rights the internet creates? The right have my avatar fuck your avatar? The internet is the medium and we are the message. Whatever rights we have in the place where our feet touch the soil are the only rights we should expect online. Demanding a right to something that requires the functions of artificial satellites in orbit around our planet is simply arrogant.
One would think that it's more important to say that freedom from hunger is a human right. But we all know that isn't true. Because food isn't free.
The internet allows us to gather and use information more quickly. And we know that information is power. And since when is power a basic human right?
You have no basic human right to any of the things you find on the internet. Except maybe a right to assemble peaceably. Your rights to free speech are strictly moderated at most places on the internet. Your freedom from violence and abuse is constantly under attack.
What are basic human rights? I have the right to participate in government. But no one would every argue that I should have access to serve in every political office in the country without restrictions. I have the right to live in the country of my choice. Unless I don't follow the rules and piss off the country of my choice, then I don't. I have the right to live free from violence. And we all laugh at that.
And despite what you may think, there is no basic human right to be educated; that's actually a responsibility that most of us neglect.
The internet is like the real world in that you can have all the rights you can afford to pay for with money or with violence.
Or, ... you know what? I changed my mind. Make it a right. Everyone can have all the internet they can fill their bellies with, and all the internet that fills their lungs, and all the internet that provides warmth and shelter and love and freedom. Yes, and all the porn your hungry eyes can swallow. Because clearly, you have your priorities in order.
How would you even define the internet if you wanted to refer to it as mainly the information carried and not the hardware and software necessary to transfer it?
The internet changes from moment to moment. How can you expect to have a right to something that's here one minute and gone the next? The internet evolves and flows continually, daily. It's like saying you have a right to the oceans. You might have some rights in the oceans, but only the rights that your boat offers. And only the rights that territories grant. And only the rights that you can defend. Because you're out in the ocean. With sharks.
You also can't dump toxic waste in the oceans. And you can't remove all the food from the oceans. And you can't remove all the water from the oceans.
Well, you can. But you shouldn't.
If you shield any part of your Facebook profile from strangers then you agree. If the internet were a right, than Facebook would be a right, and access to every user on Facebook would be a right. But the right to access Facebook accounts is not a right because Facebook is just another service accessible through the internet.
Many resources that can be found on the internet are not free. But if the internet is a basic human right, then these resources must be free. What about access to monitor nuclear power stations? Or water treatment facilities? Oh, wait, you say you don't mean that everything *on* the internet is a right? Then what the hell do you mean? You mean access to the internet? Again, the whole internet, or just the good parts? What if you can only access a State-sponsored internet? Would that be okay? And if not, why not? Since no one person has access to every part of the internet, then it can't possibly be a right.
Basic human rights should never infringe on the rights of others. A basic human right to the internet would force us all to be equals on the internet. But we're not equals. Some of us are creators and some are consumers; some are providers and some are participants. You have as much right to play World of Warcraft as you have to walk uninvited through the front door of my home and eat dinner at my table, which is no right at all.
The internet is just technology. When you compare the technology of the internet to things such as the printing press, you reveal to the world that you don't know what the internet is. The thinker of that piece of wisdom says "The invention of the printing press revealed new rights, new concerns nobody cared about until the printing press appeared. It's difficult trying to list these new rights without reference to the technology that enabled them."
And what are these new rights the internet creates? The right have my avatar fuck your avatar? The internet is the medium and we are the message. Whatever rights we have in the place where our feet touch the soil are the only rights we should expect online. Demanding a right to something that requires the functions of artificial satellites in orbit around our planet is simply arrogant.
One would think that it's more important to say that freedom from hunger is a human right. But we all know that isn't true. Because food isn't free.
The internet allows us to gather and use information more quickly. And we know that information is power. And since when is power a basic human right?
You have no basic human right to any of the things you find on the internet. Except maybe a right to assemble peaceably. Your rights to free speech are strictly moderated at most places on the internet. Your freedom from violence and abuse is constantly under attack.
What are basic human rights? I have the right to participate in government. But no one would every argue that I should have access to serve in every political office in the country without restrictions. I have the right to live in the country of my choice. Unless I don't follow the rules and piss off the country of my choice, then I don't. I have the right to live free from violence. And we all laugh at that.
And despite what you may think, there is no basic human right to be educated; that's actually a responsibility that most of us neglect.
The internet is like the real world in that you can have all the rights you can afford to pay for with money or with violence.
Or, ... you know what? I changed my mind. Make it a right. Everyone can have all the internet they can fill their bellies with, and all the internet that fills their lungs, and all the internet that provides warmth and shelter and love and freedom. Yes, and all the porn your hungry eyes can swallow. Because clearly, you have your priorities in order.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Internet, explained in language you can understand
Remember that PSA for HIV where they told you to wear a condom or make your partner wear a condom because when you sleep with someone, you are also sleeping with every other person he or she has ever slept with?
If you understand the necessity for wearing a rubber then you should be able to understand much of what I do at the library.
So let me apply your condom understanding to the Internet.
When you use the Internet, it's like you are sticking your penis into every orifice on the planet all at once. Or shoving every penis-shaped object in the world into every hole in your body. Whichever image best helps you to understand. So imagine that. Think of all the holes or pockets or indentations you can imagine: another person, a fish's mouth, a knot in an old tree, a rifle barrel, your car's tailpipe, whatever it is, you're jamming your prick into it. Of think of every monkey's paw or beer bottle or cucumber or every other object being crammed into you at once.
That is what happens to your computer when you look at stuff on the Internet. It is literally crawling over naked bodies in the most crowded, filthiest orgy in the world. And all the lights are out so you can't see a thing.
And this is by no means an exaggeration. This is the truth. This is really happening to your computer, but you can't see it.
"But my computer is not that kind of computer," you protest. No. Your computer is a whore. Just like every other computer. You might want to argue that your computer got raped when you went on the Internet, but you'd lose. The very nature of how your computer communicates with other computers means it was looking for it. A million dirty hands are all over it before your computer can even think to shout, Stop!
Now that you know what's going on, think about what you're really saying when you call me over in the library to tell me that your computer is "acting funny." Imagine what your doctor might say if you complained about your body feeling funny a few days after you rolled around naked with a few thousand of your friends of various species. "Yeah, it's possible my jaw hurts because I may have given a blowjob to a walrus," you'd have to admit just before your doctor sterilized the examination table with a whole lot of fire.
Sure, we have a firewall and antivirus software running to protect the computer, but doesn't mean you won't put your hand in something funky.
So when the computer starts doing something weird, don't expect me to know what it is. It's the Internet. Just be thankful you can't see everything that's going on out there in it. Did you ever see that movie, The Ring? Where there's a video that's so horrible that if you watch it, 7 days later you die? And did you ever see TRON? Where cyberspace is all neon lit cities and hot chicks in skin-tight body suits? Take a guess which movie is closest to what the Internet is like. Hint: it's not the one about computers.
So when I don't know what's wrong with your computer after I've just looked at it for all of 3 seconds, try to not be such an asshole about it. Think about all that stuff that just happened to your computer. All that terrifying and gross stuff. And try not to throw up on my shoes.
If you understand the necessity for wearing a rubber then you should be able to understand much of what I do at the library.
So let me apply your condom understanding to the Internet.
When you use the Internet, it's like you are sticking your penis into every orifice on the planet all at once. Or shoving every penis-shaped object in the world into every hole in your body. Whichever image best helps you to understand. So imagine that. Think of all the holes or pockets or indentations you can imagine: another person, a fish's mouth, a knot in an old tree, a rifle barrel, your car's tailpipe, whatever it is, you're jamming your prick into it. Of think of every monkey's paw or beer bottle or cucumber or every other object being crammed into you at once.
That is what happens to your computer when you look at stuff on the Internet. It is literally crawling over naked bodies in the most crowded, filthiest orgy in the world. And all the lights are out so you can't see a thing.
And this is by no means an exaggeration. This is the truth. This is really happening to your computer, but you can't see it.
"But my computer is not that kind of computer," you protest. No. Your computer is a whore. Just like every other computer. You might want to argue that your computer got raped when you went on the Internet, but you'd lose. The very nature of how your computer communicates with other computers means it was looking for it. A million dirty hands are all over it before your computer can even think to shout, Stop!
Now that you know what's going on, think about what you're really saying when you call me over in the library to tell me that your computer is "acting funny." Imagine what your doctor might say if you complained about your body feeling funny a few days after you rolled around naked with a few thousand of your friends of various species. "Yeah, it's possible my jaw hurts because I may have given a blowjob to a walrus," you'd have to admit just before your doctor sterilized the examination table with a whole lot of fire.
Sure, we have a firewall and antivirus software running to protect the computer, but doesn't mean you won't put your hand in something funky.
So when the computer starts doing something weird, don't expect me to know what it is. It's the Internet. Just be thankful you can't see everything that's going on out there in it. Did you ever see that movie, The Ring? Where there's a video that's so horrible that if you watch it, 7 days later you die? And did you ever see TRON? Where cyberspace is all neon lit cities and hot chicks in skin-tight body suits? Take a guess which movie is closest to what the Internet is like. Hint: it's not the one about computers.
So when I don't know what's wrong with your computer after I've just looked at it for all of 3 seconds, try to not be such an asshole about it. Think about all that stuff that just happened to your computer. All that terrifying and gross stuff. And try not to throw up on my shoes.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The news is F'd-up.
So I'm reading this article on prostitution, you know, since I have that app, the "prostitution news feed," that's from Time magazine. And it's about a small town in California where some local residents have joined together to discourage prostitutes from plying their trade around the residents' homes in the neighborhoods. At at the end of the first paragraph, I see this:
"Vallejo lately has become a magnet for the sex trade for one simple reason: the city is flat broke. If Vallejo is any indication, things could get pretty crazy in other cash-strapped cities across the country. (TIME's Twitter 140: See the world's most influential tweeters.)"WTF? What does Twitter have to do with prostitution? Wait. Let me rephrase that. What does microblogging have to do with prostitution? Who decides which links are appropriate for embedding within a news story? I read a little further and see:
"'I leave my house at 7 in the morning and sometimes see girls working on the streets that early,' says Kathy Beistel, block captain of the Kentucky Street Watch Owls. 'There's no peak time — it's all peak time.' (See photos of the history of sex on TV.)"And then there are two more links after paragraphs that are just as inappropriately tied to the story. Is this desperation? I can't imagine that the person who has this job at Time can't find articles that are more closely related to the subject of this prostitution story. Really? Sex on TV is just like real prostitution? With dirty hookers doing it in alleyways? And their disgusting Johns? So now I have to check to see if Time does this with everything, and yes, it does. An article about the movie Sucker Punch links to "photos of movies' best loved costumes" directly after" mentioning that one character wears a "Japanese schoolgirl outfit as retailored by Victoria's Secret." At least that's a close link. But what do people think when they see these vaguely similar or completely unrelated links? Do people click on these? I'm reading about prostitution in a small town, but half way through the article I suddenly lose focus and decide to read "if sex addiction is a real disease or just an excuse" (this is an actual link found in the prostitution article)? Does the typical Time reader have an attention span that short that the editors don't think someone can finish an entire article without wanting to click away to something else??? That would be like a TV show made of snippets of other TV shows as if to give the viewer the impression that he was changing channels, so as to trick him to keep tuned to this one show. Wow. Is that genius, or what? Maybe Time is on to something.
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