A chimpanzee and two trainees could run her!
It’s that time of the year again!
Time to try to figure out what to buy everyone for Christmas – er, I mean, “The Holidays.”
Naturally, techie toys are highly valued gifts.
But ya know, I have a better idea: Don’t buy anything!
Instead, give the gift that’s becoming increasingly rare in this day and age: yourself. Preferably with a bow on your head.
This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confused everyone (and especially himself) with a speech at Georgetown.
You see, now Facebook is all about free speech. He says we need to let politicians lie on Facebook without censoring or controlling their speech in any way.
Unless you’ve been dead recently, you’re no doubt aware that Big Tech essentially declared itself the Arbiter of Truth & Justice in a stunning effort to put Orwell’s 1984 to shame.
Unfortunately, this led to a few problems – including legal ones…
Oh dear God, make it stop.
There was a time when American Big Tech was the end-all and be-all.
It seems those days are rapidly going the way of the dodo.
For sure, there will be many companies that survive – and even flourish.
But it’s becoming painfully obvious that certain political, social, and cultural influences are starting to crush innovation, cripple sales, and piss off a whole lot of ordinary folks…
Back in my day, video games were simple.
You typed in some cheat codes, kicked butt, and you were done.
My favorite, of course, was Wolfenstein 3D. I remember playing Wolfenstein as a wee young man. There was just something about wiping out Digital Nazis that was sooo satisfying.
Then again, perhaps I should have gotten out more…
Anyway, nowadays, things are different.
You’re not allowed to cheat. Everything is an “open world”. And people get so addicted to video games that they ACTUALLY DIE while playing them for days on end!
So, what exactly went wrong?
Oh dear god, make it stop…
It’s time once again for The Great YouTube Algorithm Tweaking!
This time, that means even more nonsense, even fewer recommended videos that you actually want to watch, and just general chaos.
Of course, what most people are concerned about is the “curating” of content. Naturally, it’s a bit more complicated than that…
Here we go again! From Alex Jones to Diamond & Silk to Telesur, suddenly social media is penalizing certain voices rather dramatically.
The majority of the people I talk to think that the whole thing’s ridiculous, and I tend to agree.
Most people are even afraid to say anything, or if they do, they excuse themselves by also declaring that they don’t necessarily agree with everything the censored person is saying.
But that’s totally messed up!
You either have free speech, or you don’t. Whether or not we agree is irrelevant.
Well, it’s that time again.
Some recent news items – and people’s reactions to them – have once again compelled me to foam at the mouth about Big Brother.
Every time one of these “revelations” like the Facebook data breach occurs, everyone gets all fired up…
And then many people usually do exactly the wrong thing in response!
Sure, the privacy thing is a problem. It’s prolly going to get worse before it gets better.
But here’s the thing: YOU help to decide how and when that happens.
In recent years, we’ve seen a huge upsurge in “political correctness” and certain “social movements”.
From James Damore being fired for speaking his mind in a very “leftist” corporate culture, to Amazon’s Alexa declaring that she is a feminist, to DNA testing services telling everyone they’re African to “combat racism”…
It seems that amidst all this political/social mayhem, our tech has essentially been weaponized.
We may still have separation of church and state, but it seems that the political and social views of tech corporations are being pushed onto people via their products.
I don’t think that’s a wise course of action…
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are the wave of the future, right?
So why is all the latest news about their value in US dollars? Isn’t that kind of backwards?
Obviously, these new digital currencies have a ways to go…
It doesn’t help that the systems in place are less than stellar, and we’re still seeing hacking resulting in people losing money.
But what about the future of blockchain technologies as a whole? Those are pretty awesome, right?
Well, yes and no. If you cut out the hype, you’ll have a much better idea about where all of this stuff is heading.
People ask me, “Scottie, what’s the deal with technology?”
And I say, I say to them: “Technology is gonna be big this year. It’s already big, but it’s gonna get bigger. So big! Technology is gonna be so big, you won’t fit into your house anymore. And it’s coming soon. It’s already here, but it’s coming more soon. BIG, so big.”
You may now attempt to discern if I’m making fun of Trump because I don’t like him, or because I DO like him. Naturally, it may surprise you to know that my answer is neither black nor white.
And that’s exactly the state of technology right now…