Wednesday, November 02, 2011

1610 Insightettes

I have these little epiphanies from time to time, minor realizations, tiny inspirations. I like to call them insightettes.
Like the other day, I was filmed by someone at a public event. Actually, I was phoned. Because there was no film, and no photographing in the old sense. There was video and audio, so I could say I was videoed and audioed, but that's too cumbersome.
So since I was captured on a smartphone, I was phoned.
I wasn't under any illusions about my privacy as the phoning took place at a public event. Still, it brings up an interesting wrinkle in modern culture. If you're not comfortable with having something repeated endlessly on the web, don't do it.
The social electronic conscience. In the old days, you had that invisible angel guy sitting on your shoulder acting as your conscience. You still have him, it's just that now he's holding an iPhone.
On another note, I saw an odd thing on the road recently. A crusty old guy was driving an equally crusty old pick-up truck. And it had two, count 'em two, of those "Stop Thurston County from taking our property" bumper stickers on the tailgate. Then I saw what he was carrying in the back of his truck. A big pile of soil. And I thought, "Wow, looks like he's taking some of his property back."
Lastly, I was having a discussion with a friend about the failure of "open source" operating systems compared to Windows and Mac and such. And it occurred to me, the dream of open source is good but really... would you be comfortable going to a restaurant and ordering an open source burrito?
"Um, this tastes different than last week."
"Yeah, we had a new cook wander through and add something..."
"Did you phone him doing it? Because it tastes like soil from the back of a pickup..."
America, ya gotta love it.

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