TECH TALK: SMART PHONES, AND SOCIAL MEDIA

If you've read my blog posts for awhile, you know I have a love-hate relationship with internet technology and the tools we use for it. I will repeat what I often say; I am not critical of people who use Facebook, Instagram, etc.; you all get something from those platforms, and that's good.

A couple of op-eds caught my interest recently, so there is a reading assignment in this post.

1.  Steve Jobs Never Wanted us to Use Our iPhones Like This, by Cal Newport in the NY Times is about those pocket computers we all carry around. Mr. Newport discusses what he calls the "constant companion model" that the vast majority of us have in our relationship to our smart phones. He writes about the talk Steve Jobs gave in 2007 when he introduced the very first iPhone, what Jobs referred to as a better iPod that made phone calls. 

Mr. Jobs seemed to understand the iPhone as something that would help us with a small number of activities — listening to music, placing calls, generating directions. He didn’t seek to radically change the rhythm of users’ daily lives. He simply wanted to take experiences we already found important and make them better.

But the smart phone now is something completely different; it dictates in many ways the rhythms of our daily lives. It is no longer merely a tool we use for specific actions, but a machine that is constantly in our hands, constantly calling to us to look at it and touch it. In many ways, our lives are not ours, but are steered by the big tech companies who give us the "free" apps we so love. Instead of improving activities that we found important before this technology existed, this model changes what we pay attention to in the first place — often in ways designed to benefit the stock price of attention-economy conglomerates, not our satisfaction and well-being.

This is not about the privacy issues I so often write (complain) about; it is about the quality of our lives, and begs the question: are we doing the things we enjoy and really want to do, in the moment?

I am now trying an experiment. I left Facebook long ago, and never joined Instagram, but I have a habit of taking the device out of my pocket often to look up something that comes up in a discussion, or that I'm thinking about. And probably more often, when I'm just sitting around, I open the device and look at the headlines on various feeds. In other words, I waste a lot of time doing things that the device allows me to do, but are not necessarily what I really want to be spending my time doing. 

So, I am now trying to train myself to set certain times when I will open my laptop and go through email, look at items I want to research, peruse the news. To facilitate this, I've started carrying a small note pad (paper!) and pencil (an info entry device used with paper) so I can jot a note, keep a list, of things I want to do on the computer. 

I still have the pocket computer in my pocket, but my goal is to leave it there more of the time. 

I encourage all of you, dear readers, to read Cal Newport's piece in the Times.

2. He Reported on Facebook. Now He Approaches It With Caution, a Q&A with reporter Nick Confesorre, in the NY Times.  Mr. Confessore admits that, despite his best efforts, there is not a lot he can really do to protect his own privacy. Most of the ecosystem of mobile phones and apps, as well as the advertising technology that permeates the mobile and desktop web, is designed to extract a large amount of your personal information. The whole thing is effectively unregulated and almost impossible to escape without a fair amount of planning and technical expertise. 

He has not left Facebook, but uses it very cautiously after setting as many of the privacy settings as he can find. It's interesting to read his approach to using social media, and his comments about Facebook, Google and Twitter ("which is a hell of random angry people"). As for privacy, we are on our own, because the "commercial-surveillance-industrial-complex" is very poorly regulated in the United States. 

I've often wondered something about the mainstream social media that so many people use but don't trust, and that is, why continue using them? I don't mean everyone should quit cold-turkey. What I mean is, what would happen if opinion leaders and influencers announced that they were moving their social networking experience to platform XYZ that does not harvest consumer data and sell it, does not track users, does not track users' locations. These platforms exist. And the reality is that many of us who use them, especially as part of our career, could afford to even pay a reasonable subscription fee (think Netflix, Amazon Prime, and that daily latte at the coffee shop). This is not a pie-in-the-sky idea; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram will not live forever, they will be replaced. 

And so, more interesting things to read and think about, but not right this moment, on your smart phone, instead of doing something you really want to be doing! 

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THINGS DONALD TRUMP CAN DO TO PAY FOR HIS WALL

The U.S. Coast Guard recently sent information to furloughed employees that included tips on making extra income while out of work due to the Trump shut down. Some of the ideas were; babysitting, dog walking, garage sales and tutoring. 

In the spirit of helping people earn extra income during the Trump shut down, I am providing a list of ideas for Donald Trump to raise money for his Wall:

• Have a yard sale on the White House lawn (good luck selling all that gilded junk)
• Baby sit your grandchildren (if your kids trust you to be alone with them)
• Sell autographed copies of Melania's nude modeling photos (she really doesn’t care, do you?)
• Auction a copy of the peepee tape to the highest bidder (your buddy Vlad will burn a copy for you is you say “pretty please, with more sanctions lifted”)
• Use the fund you have set aside to pay off porn stars and models with whom you had affairs (a very significant amount of money)
• Put a dollar in a jar every time you tell a lie (it needs to be a very large jar)
• Require your spokes-people (i.e. Scary Huckleberry Sandbagger, Mercedes Schlappintheface, and Kellyanne Convoy) to put a dollar in a jar everytime  they tell a lie (this will need to be a veeeeery large jar)
• Walk the dogs of White House staff (you’ll have to bare-hand the poop-scooping as plastic bags are a no-no)
• Shave your head and use the money you would otherwise spend on truckloads of extra-hold hair spray (you might feel light-headed for a few days)
• You will also have extra cash on-hand from your blonde hair bleaching fund
• Have each of your red ties cut in half and made into two normal length ties (keep in mind that these ties will point at your ample gut, not your hidden junk)
• Build a time machine so you can go back in time and ask your daddy to pay for the Wall (you will need to figure out how he can get rent payments from it)
• Have Chinese workers glue new labels that don’t have the words Ivanka or Trump on them into the warehouses full of shoes left over from Ivanka’s business, and make a deal with Zappos (this is a perfect idea for a real heel who has no soul).

Good luck, Donald; now get out there and do something useful. 

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PRIVACY NOTICES, INCLUDING COOKIES, FOR MY WEBSITES

(January 4, 2019)

The European Union has rules requiring that web sites, such as my several blogs and other sites I control, notify visitors in the EU if the site they are visiting on the web (like you are at this moment) places cookies. These rules, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May, 2018.

My blog sites hosted by Google (blogspot.com) place cookies and collect data (see below) used by Google. I look at the visitor stats collected by Google out of curiosity to see where visitors are from. I can see where the visitor's internet service provider is, and some other information; I don't dig much below the surface of these data.

I have a few blog sites hosted on blogspot, which is part of Google. these blogs are:

• Read my Opinion (because you're entitled to it) - https://readmyopinion.blogspot.com/
• Derelicts on the Columbia River - a Paddling Adventure - https://columbia-derelicts.blogspot.com/
• Swimming with the Fishes, a travel blog - https://swimming-with-the-fishes.blogspot.com/
• The Museum of Sand in Portland, Oregon - https://museum-of-sand.blogspot.com/

Google has provided the following notification that appears when visitors in the European Union open one of my sites: 

"This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user-agent are shared with Google along with performance and security metrics to ensure quality of service, generate usage statistics, and to detect and address abuse."

I also have a website titled "The Some Times" - http://the-some-times.online/index.html  hosted by iPage, part of Endurance International Group. iPage also collects data and places cookies. The privacy policies of iPage are at this link. 

Years ago, before blogspot offered visitor stats to me, I signed up for a service, Statcounter. Statcounter gathers information about visitors to some of my blog sites and displays it in ways that let me see where visitors are from, when they visited, how long the stayed, and other information. From their FAQ's, Statcounter states: 

Statcounter is an anonymous web tracking service. We don't attempt to identify an individual person . Our focus is on what visitors to your website do, not who that visitor is. 


Bottom Line: I do not collect or store any data from you. The services I use, such as blogspot, iPage and Statcounter collect data and place cookies when you visit my sites. The GDPR is about the storage of personal data, and the services I use are in compliance, as per their support websites, with GDPR. 

As many of you know, I am trying to reduce collection of my own data by online services, so it is somewhat contradictory that I use services that collect data from me as well as you if you visit my websites. All I can do is be as careful as possible, comply with the law, and advise you to do whatever you feel you want to do to protect your data, such as blocking cookies and setting privacy items where they are provided. Being online comes with many benefits as well as risks and invasions. And yet, here we are. 

And thank you for visiting my web sites!

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NO, THE TRUMP SHUTDOWN IS NOT A GAME OF CHICKEN!

The government shutdown, initiated by Donald Trump two weeks ago, is not, as many pundits, politicians, talking heads and even journalists are saying, a "game of chicken." The game of chicken :

Chicken is a game in which two players drive cars at each other. The first to swerve away and slow down loses and is humiliated as the "chicken"; if neither player swerves, the result is a potentially fatal head-on collision. The principle of the game is to create pressure until one person backs down.
The phrase game of chicken is also used as a metaphor for a situation where two parties engage in a showdown where they have nothing to gain, and only pride stops them from backing down. (Wikipedia accessed 01/04/2019 3:58PM PST)

In other words, the two parties agree to play the game, and it is a stupid game that can result in terrific damage to one or both parties. Donald Trump initiated the government shut down; the Congressional Democrats did not agree to it.

There is way too much false equivalence going on in the press around the shutdown situation. "Will the Democrats concede?" is a common statement/question we hear often in the broadcast news. "Who will win this game of chicken" is an expression gaining popularity in the press. I hate to use the expression, but...Fake News! What should the Democrats concede? And only one person/party is recklessly driving.

There is no equivalency between the Trump/Republican position and the Democratic position about the shutdown: Trump/Republicans want $5.6 billion for the Trump Wall, or Steel Slats, or The Whatever, or the government will stay shut down. The Democrats want government opened immediately, and they want time to negotiate a comprehensive, bipartisan bill about border security and immigration policy reform. One position - Trump/Republican - is politics and ego; the other position - Democrats - is good government.

In the meantime, Trump has made hostages of 800,000 federal employees, and the well-being of countless American citizens affected by the shutdown, to try to force the Democrats to give him what he wants. Today he threatened that the shutdown could continue "for months, maybe years" unless he gets his way. What a petulant bully! Does Melania know that Donald is NOT being best? (She really doesn't care. Do you?)

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