To chase that rabbit, or,,,,,

had some strange shit pop up on my feeds and yeah, I started to follow them,,,,  Until I realized what the algorithm was doing,,,

Are we manipulated?   When AREN’T we? is the more pertinent question in my minds eye.   

I know when I am NOT being manipulated (though the spying never ceases,,,)  My times where I am not being manipulated are the times when I am on the water or at a campsite (solo,, in group, we tend to share stuff and there is  LIKELY some manipulation going on there as well.    Not from the fellow campers, but the machines we share info on.)

Unplugging and STAYING unplugged are two different things and the one is not feasible in this modern world.   The lady in the linked article found out just how difficult modern life can be if you full on unplug.

Not impossible, but very very difficult.   Hard to spend or make money difficult.  

Even my Da, who has little online prescence, is finding that he needs to ‘plug in’ more and more to get little things done.   Like paying a bill from a company that has decided to go all paperless.   They don’t want to send a bill to his res, and getting them to accept a paper check is getting difficult.    They have been, but I see a day coming,,,,,

Yes, it’s cheaper, less overhead, sort of work,,, let the computers handle the details until there is a glitch that requires hooman intervention (like removing physical hardware from a residence due to non-payment,,,,)  I am even seeing things like HF charging $2/month for paperbilling…   (that came to a screeching halt after I pointed out that I had turned that off THREE TIMES and yet, they kept sending me bills, and there was much apologies on thier end,,,,)  

And the A$$hats wonder why people in fly-over land are so ‘resistant’ to going all digital currency?      We already see how it can be controlled and manipulated; even those of us that are 95% paperless in most transactions.    I still like holding on to cash for those days when things aren’t all working, which does happen time and again.  Power outages, net failures, what have you.   Its not like the net is PERFECT and can’t fail, and it is VERY dependent on a power structure that is iffy on good days.   Even just one server farm getting taken down can cause massive failures around the world, as we have recently seen.    Or like a Christmas day bombing in Nashville that took out AT&T’s infrastructure across a vast swath of CONUS.    I personally had to address a powered gate system that was operated by cellular service, that was supported by ATT at that time.    TOTAL FAILURE and people were trapped within the compound, unable to operate the gate and didn’t know there was a manual bypass system to the gate.  (and the property owner was incommunicado for the very same reason, so couldn’t tell them about it.)

20 years.    30+ if you were more the nerdy type and played on BBS’s and such.    But really, it was the advent of the smart phone that pushed us over the edge to techno slavery.  

What? You claim you are not a slave to your phone, or computer, or tablet?   Its a tool you use to accomplish your life, right?   

read that linked article again.   There are billions of bits of info, flying about the web ABOUT YOU, YOUR DOINGS, YOUR SHOPPING SPREES, YOUR SEARCH STRINGS, YOUR CONNECTED FRIENDS,,,,,,   And its ALL for sale,,,,   and you agreed to that when you click that EULA that NO ONE ever reads,,,,   Someone is making BANK on selling details about YOU, and the only benefit you get is further addiction to a ‘tool that you use to accomplish your life’.

and I am just as guilty.    Dumping the phone would do serious damage to my current world: from banking, to just communication with Da.  

8 million plus IP’s assigned to GiGGles alone.   There are likely not many you access that aren’t on that list.   I can’t even say if the IP that you click to get here isn’t owned by GiGGles,,,, I don’t believe it is, but I can’t say for certain.

I love the modern world, access to information 24/7/365,,, research ANYTHING on a whim and chase rabbits down holes that seem endless,,,   The world I knew as a child, where reading was the only way I could find anything, and access was limited to when I could make it to the library (which once I started being able to ride to town on my bike, was more often).   The school library was way to limited,,, the local library was as well, but I could order books from the main branch if needed.  Then I found about the stacks of the main branch and hooo-boy, did I do a deep dive into things then. 

but now its at my fingertips,,,,

only most people never utilize that tool in such a manner; usually playing some silly game on their fave social media site while awaiting friends to make comments or start conversations.

Even now, I will sometimes turn the phone into a hotspot and leave it outside  while I tap away or dive down rabbit-holes on the lappy.   That way I don’t get distracted by text messages while I am focused on something.   Being connected is way too easy these days, and not neccesarily in a good way.    One of the first chapters in Jim Kwiks book “Limitless” is about disconnecting to refocus your brain.   We all need time away from our Slave Master….

those times for me are as listed above: on water, alone in a campsite, and one other,,, when I plug the phone in for the night IN THE OTHER ROOM AWAY FROM ME!!!     I had a techy link to the phone at one point and that is no longer: a ‘smart watch’ that was mostly a health monitor.   It finally died on me and I decided I really didn’t need to be selling that much information about myself: they get plenty in other ways.   I know I am not healthy like I was in my 20’s: I know my resting pulse is not the 45bpm like it was while I was in the Marines, I know my heart has seen better days so my BP seems a touch higher than I like, but still not concerning.   And my sleep,,,, Well, it has always been hit or miss,,, catch as catch-can sort of thing.    (and why I could fall asleep in Kuwait on top of ammo, and sleep like a baby.   For 30 minutes at a time.)  Yah, they don’t need to know my sleep cycles or that when bossman and I have a tiff, my BP tips into the red,,,fuggem.

There are days where I ‘ALMOST’ wish we could go back to the days of microfiche machines and the Encyclopedia Brittanicas,,,  (then I remember the cardfiles and,,,,)   The kids today have NO CLUE how good they have it,,,,

Keep on livin’

laughing to raise the dead,

and loading like KamelToes’s stormtroopers are on the move.