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Turkey – Mount Koressos, House of Mary

When you travel in groups compromises are always necessary. When the group disagrees you can sometimes divide up or sneak off on your own for a while. Other times you just have to deal with it. When you share hotels, cars, buses, trains, and meals with your companions, it’s generally not a good idea to fight all the time. I’ve been on trips where this happens and it truly kills everything.

Being in Turkey I had about five-hundred things I wanted to do, history being at the top of my list. So when we were headed to Ephesus I was fired up. We only had one day there. I could spend six days in Ephesus and not get bored. But then, other members of the group wanted to take most of that one morning and visit the supposed House of Mary which is near Ephesus. I hear this and I’m like, “Oh, uh, …” [checks watch] (I did indeed wear a watch then, which seems strange now.)

I was raised Irish / English / Sicilian Catholic, so you know it’s seriously in my blood. But I was also raised with a light touch of it. My own Grandmother would frequently talk with us about this or that doctrine, Pope, etc, that she disagreed with, alongside her own take on life. It’s a very liberating American take on religion. Nowadays, depending on the barometric pressure outside, I can either truly believe or am an atheist or whatever. A lot of it depends on my mood. So basically I would not consider myself very religious, but I really do try. In this Turkey travel group though were several ultra-hyper religious types. So they wanted to go see the House of Mary and were very set upon it.

Given how much of Ephesus was on my brain I could have protested. I let it go in the name of cohesion. This was the right choice. I figured it would be nice to see the mountains, maybe say a prayer, and generally just enjoy the ride. This was exactly what happened. I don’t regret it.

The full titled House of the Virgin Mary sits atop Mount Koressos which is a few miles from Ephesus. It’s a small house and religious shrine. By which I mean it’s a religious shrine that reminded me a lot of the shrines in Asia, specially Japan. As in, it’s a commercial tourist destination. There’s very little religion about it. In say Japan, sometimes you’ll be walking around temple grounds and there’ll be these people hocking Hello Kitty fascism toys from stalls. I always found this odd, to me a dead quiet church is my pinnacle of prayer. But in many cultures it’s not a big deal to meld commercial and religious ideas on the same site. This is the case with Mount Koressos.

It’s like going to the Mary exhibit at Disneyland. There are several cafes, a wishing wall, tourist buses everywhere, magic water, it’s quite the atmosphere. And this place has quite the crazy tale as well. My first thought was, “There’s no way Mary was there.” I mean, what do I know? But still, it didn’t seem quite likely to me. I get it, Popes have visited this place, but still. Feast your brains upon this tale of discovery:

– Anne Catherine Emmerich, German nun, mystic, and later saint, has a bunch of visions which she imparts to the brains of others.

– Clemens Brentano, author, writes books based upon her visions about Jesus, etc, etc.

– In 1852, Brentano provides a rough description from a vision of a house near Ephesus that John supposedly built for Mary where she lived out her days.

– In 1881, French priest, Indiana Jones copycat, and lunatic Julien Gouyet uses this book’s description to find and identify the house on top of Mount Koressos. Nobody believes him.

– But by 1891 at the urgings of Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey, folks get onboard with this idea and the house is made a shrine and taken under management. The first Pope shows up within a decade. Half-a-dozen other Popes have also visited.

So is one to believe this tale of visions, translated through a kook author, and a bunch of people wandering around the 19th century Ottoman countryside with a book in their hand? I’d have to say I don’t. I’m pretty sure that whatever Mary was that she died close to her birthplace and is buried out there. But whatever, it’s all good, people can pray anywhere. That’s the cool part about prayer.

And whatever the house is, it is indeed neat to visit. It’s very old and probably a good example of the style and architecture of ancient dwellings in this part of the planet.

 

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Side of the House of the Virgin Mary

 

When there, I kind of separated myself from the group and puttered around. When you go inside the house it’s a converted chapel, very small. I didn’t take a picture inside as it didn’t seem right. I prayed for a short bit and then was on my way. It was a nice moment, but not what I would call any kind of religious experience.

 

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Not my shot, taken from Wikipedia. Note the very ancient hallowed c-grade velvet rope, two Apostle endorsed codex plastic information placards, and Papal holy water blessed exit sign

 

Outside there is a wishing / prayer wall that folks can leave notes on. There are thousands of notes. There is also a water source that is said to heal or grant wishes or whatever. I did not drink the water

For me, the ground was the better experience. This was my chapel visit.  This was my Mount Koressos:

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I’ve got dozens of various shots of nothing but the woods from all across the world. Two of my favorites are on my desk, one from American and one from Japan. I’m always struck by the differences and similarities between them. Wherever you are, the woods are always similar enough that you can recognize ideas, feelings, trends that join you to that remote location. In the sense that the woods near your own home and country do much the same. It’s that spark of fellowship and belonging that most closely identifies us as part of one human race and planet. It’s only there for a moment, but it’s a good feeling. Nature, God, whatever, does that to you. Amen.

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Turkey – Marmaris harbor

The next three posts are going to be about my trip to Turkey and it’s history.  These will be a little personal for a variety of reasons.  This below shot is of my first day there, specifically Marmaris, which is where we landed.

Marmaris used to be a small fishing village but has essentially turned into the most tourist of tourist destinations.  It’s not a bad place, we had a good time, but it’s among the most aggressive I’ve seen in terms of fleecing the visitors.

For example, one of the best meals I’ve ever had was in Marmaris.  Turkish meats, prawns, the thing where they cook the fish inside a salt shell, Turkish beer, it was awesome.  Unfortunately the owner lied to our faces about his prices and tried to fleece us at the register.  We had to negotiate him down which was tiresome.  Overall, well worth the meal, just silly.

Marmaris has a pretty decent harbor and throughout history it’s been used by Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Turks, and so on for both trade and military purposes.  Today’s it’s all tourism though, specifically Russians.

I would imagine that after Turkish pilots shot down the Russian jet and Putin cancelled tourist visas that Marmaris’ economy suffered immensely.  With Putin and Erdogan’s dictator’s détente, I figure they’re looking forward to a profitable upcoming tourist season.

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Sunset over Marmaris harbor

 

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gadget makers to turn humanity into amorphous liquid sphere based creatures

Just how lazy does Silicon Valley and the corporate world think you are? Apparently, very much. Everything you currently do is too hard. Just think about the difficulties you confront every day:

a) You need to remember to set your own alarm clock

b) Pull your corporeal form out of bed on time even though you’d rather sleep in

c) Let your dogs outside so they expel waste on grass instead of your floor

d) Feed your dogs in order that they might live

e) Take a shower so that you might live

f) Start your car in order that it might move

g) Drive your car so that you can go someplace requiring your presence

Hell, that’s all just in the first 30 minutes of the day. What horror. But don’t worry, the freaks are out to assist you. Every single one of these actions will soon be performed by a gadget. Pretty soon, you won’t need to do anything. You can just sit back and let machines do all the hard stuff. Your self-worth will become wrapped up in how much of your daily life is monetized by somebody you’ll never meet. How fulfilling!

You know, I think one of the main arguments behind this technology is that it’s supposedly liberating. If you’re not worried about feeding your dogs or setting your own alarm clock, that’s time you could be painting sweet art or writing a novel. I kind of get that, but eventually such thinking reaches a point of no return. Once you take the most basic and menial of human tasks and turn them over to a machine because it’s convenient, people are basically just ceding their humanity. They’ve crossed over from liberating, to stupid, or even lazy.

Doing basic human level stuff is necessary to have a rich and fulfilling life. A lot of it is a colossal pain in the ass. Who on Earth loves to do laundry? But that’s called life. It keeps you honest. I get the idea that the imagined end state of Silicon Valley’s quest (other than to get all your money) is to place a live human inside a liquid sphere where all they do is feel pleasure while all their worldly tasks are handled by machines. To me, this is a version of waking death.

To that liquid sphere end, CES is the annual gadget, electronic freak show in Vegas. It’s the chance for the world’s technological elite to show off how insane they are. I’m beginning to think that if every year we hired a bunch of twisted alien mercenaries to carpet bomb the convention hall, that we’d all be better off as a human race.

Oh my, just take a gander at some of these supposedly “cool” new gadgets. This is the future. Today!

1) Cheaty Fishing Drone [Link Slide 1]

This thing streams video, fish finding, and soon even VR. It also lures fish with a blue light so it’s that much easier to catch a live creature for somebody’s own financial value or personal amusement. Catching a fish using this kind of technology is like constructing a hover drone that goes out, lassos a deer, and walks it over to a guy so he can shoot it with a shotgun at a range of six feet. Dude might as well be allowed to throw dynamite into the water like some brain dead moron from 1878. It’s the same thing.

cheaty drone.jpg

2) Kuri the Child Predator [Link Slide 2]

Kuri (named after the famous Japanese anime character that eats flesh) is a robot that roams around a home with cameras allowing people to keep tabs on their children and dogs when they’re either out of the house or too lazy to do it in person. It’s also equipped with a creepy robot look that CNET think is “cool just for that”. Meaning it has just the right style to give children and pets nightmares for decades. Just look at the horror of this thing. In 2043, a grown man will be asked to identify who told him to burn down the shopping mall killing hundreds. The police sketch artist will converse with this man for eight hours, and at the conclusion will have drawn a picture of Kuri.

evil kuri.jpg

3) Devolvement Shower Assembly [Link Slide 13]

See above note (e). Everything, and I mean everything in your home must go on the Internets. Every basic action is worthy of an online twist, for whatever reason. This delightful piece of technology turns your shower on and off. That’s about it. It costs $1,160. One of the most basic of human actions is yielded to a machine, for some reason. We need to pass a government law that anybody purchasing technology that replaces a basic act (such as moving one’s hand to a shower handle) should be evaluated for devolvement to caveman status, thus requiring permanent internment in a cave to match their status.

evil shower.jpg

4) Robot Assistant [13 of 37 Link Slides]

I’ve ranted enough about the Amazon Echo on this degenerate forum, I’m kind of tired with it. I guess I’m just shocked at how many companies are fighting with razor blades to be that one guy who assists people with everything from their own calendar, check weather, Internets searches, whatever. Why does any of this require help? People need to do their own shit.

5) Adult Distraction Charger [Link Slide 26]

Uses the kinetic energy of a child stroller to charge a phone or other device like a distance tracker. Because nothing says a person loves spending time with their young child like using it as another opportunity to be constantly on the phone. Nothing says a human is an evolved higher form than by having a machine tell them how far they’ve walked, rather than looking at a map and figuring it out themselves.

evil charger.jpg

6) Human Corrector [Link Slide 25 of 37]

Our winner for this year’s trip to the crypt is the “Funky Bots Atomic Bands for klutzes”. This thing apparently wraps around limbs and then coaches the person into more “graceful movement”. You heard it right. A company apparently has the gall to state they know how each human on the planet is required to walk. That most basic of human tasks since 10,347 BC. How do you tend to walk? You’re wrong. This company is right. Never mind that each human being is inherently unique in both a mental and physical way. Nope, you’re just an algorithmic calculation away from being instructed and corrected on how you transition from your bed to shower, or car to front door. Hey, I get it, life is hard. But walking? This act needs correction, assistance, technology? Instead, let’s just buy people who buy this product one of those little motorized carts people ride in the grocery store. I’m sure the cart is cheaper than this wearable technology. I’ll even buy it myself using my own international gold reserves. My only caveat is each cart user I buy for must display two pennants from the back of the cart. They say “I am an amorphous creature!” and “I’ve given up!”

evil corrector.jpg

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ordinary average German citizen attains bestseller status

Can book royalties cross over to the next realm and enrich a person within Valhalla? If so, I’m not sure how this would play out. First off, I assume (I hope) that Hitler’s purpose in Valhalla is for archery practice. When he showed up on 01 May 1945 I figure the Jarls took one look at him and were like, “Ah, welcome friend, we’ve been expecting you for some time.” And Hitler smiles all sheepishly, hoping these weird next life dudes don’t really know who he is. But then four drunk thugs step up and grab him and he realizes he’s done. At this point he starts to whine like a little chipmunk, “Nein. Nein!”. They take him to the range and strap him to a post. Every day drunk thugs practice their bow skills on Hitler. He’s doomed for an eternity to die, be reborn, and die again each day. So if book royalty checks do show up, they’d probably just take the money and buy more mead with it. Hitler never sees a mark.

For those who were unaware, the copyright held by Bavaria on Mein Kampf expired last year. So folks could publish the book again. There was serious discussion about passing a law or twisting it to prohibit further publication of the book. Thankfully this didn’t happen and the book’s on the street again. To me, history should be in people’s faces. So I’m glad they let it publish again. Let Hitler’s book sit in open view. Folks should read it (somewhat) and learn. History can’t benefit humanity when we sweep it under the rug. There are important lessons to be learned. In the case of Mein Kampf, one of the most clear is that men generally tend to mean what they say repeatedly.

Regular readers of this degenerate blog know I sure do hate the mass destruction wielded upon people by the haters for even the most minor of perceived slights. But trends become trends over time. When Sultan Erdogan said over a decade ago, “Democracy is like a train, you get off once you have reached your destination,” it would appear he meant every bit of it. There is nothing Hitler put out post 1933 that he didn’t originally write down in Mein Kampf. His distain of and future overthrow of parliamentary democracy, his intent to lay waste to Russia and the Slavs, his hatred of the Jews, it’s all in there.

For example, take these very specific passages:

“…the nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated…”

“If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas…”

Not much subtlety there. Hmm, I wonder what he hand in mind? It’s important to remember that at the time Germany was (and still is) a pinnacle of modern culture and technology. Germans were not dumb people. So in my mind a few things happened here:

1) They didn’t read his book

2) They read his book and didn’t think he was serious

3) They figured he wrote the book in 1926, and it’s 1933, so he’s hopefully a changed man

4) They didn’t care one way or the other, they wanted a winner to restore Germany from the gutter

All of these views were mistakes. And thus, we eventually get Hitler’s, “You, gentlemen, are no longer needed…”. And the journey was on from that point. It took twelve years to resolve the forces of that conflict. The roots of it began well before Hitler published his book, and in many ways he was just a catalyst. But also in many ways he was an extremely unique and powerful man. One wonders what would have happened to Germany and Europe had history’s fate not cursed the landscape with somebody so evil, so perverted, and yet so talented in the ways of organization and persuasive leadership.

* Because tis the inauguration season, and I hate all humanity, I’ll just throw out the caveat that nothing I’ve written above is meant to apply to Trump. That’s an entirely different situation. History has many of the same notes, but it’s a different sheet of music. Maybe I’ll write more about this later, but suffice to say, America has a far more mature and robust constitutional system than post World War One Germany, a country that had only experimented with democracy for about a decade before Hitler tore it down.

There’s a lot of the purging of history lately. A lot of smart people didn’t want Mein Kampf republished. Folks want to take former slave owners statues off the American street. I’m sure eventually somebody’s going to get around to fully censoring entire books from the school system because they offend four or five folks down by the Sizzler.

But to me, I applaud that Mein Kampf is out there. I’m glad it’s a bestseller. I want all humanity to read, learn, and remember history’s lessons. I want a former slave owner governor’s statue to sit right there. So that when a young kid asks his Dad who that statue guy is, the Dad can be like, “Well, he used to be the governor, he did some neat things, but he also owned slaves and didn’t free them so he was an asshole.” And then the son and Dad have a further good discussion about history.

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absurdity of the week – auto texts

It’s just short of midnight, ready for bed, dogs are settling in and my phone gets a text. So naturally at this time of night, the brain goes into partial overdrive. What could this be:

– Friend or family member is in trouble

– One of my coworkers is letting me know they won’t be in next morning due to car accident, sick, sick child, blimp attack, sick pet, dirigible attack

– The government is texting me to inform of its surrender to a previously unknown belligerent alien race; report to Main Street by 8 am for indoctrination

– A prince in Nigeria has been kidnapped by eleven beautiful women and needs my help

– The text is from my dog, I turn around and he’s snickering on the rug, but I search him and can’t find a phone

– The text is from me, from the future, warning me to stock up on massive amounts of cheese; which I ignore; and thus do not possess the required amount of cheese next year to pay the Moroccan bazaar dealer for the amulet; thus failing in my attempt to save Short Round, who is thus impaled on a bed of spikes within the shrinking death chamber

Ah, no, not any of this. Instead, it’s a free text message from my cellphone provider. They want to inform me that my monthly payment has processed. Apparently, that’s emergency information at this time of night. Seriously.

You know, these texts are generated by robots. You would think they’d program the auto text not to arrive except during normal working hours. Apparently this simple idea is beneath the conceptual understanding of one of the planet’s most financially rich corporations. I shake my head at this stuff. How stupid are these people?

I want to develop intricate computer hacker skills. Then, I’ll hack the cellphone network and direct it to auto text the entire executive staff only between 1 am and 3 am. Each of these brilliant auto texts will be one of my above scenarios. I will continue said harassment until these executives resign, develop insomnia, and/or go insane. I figure I should be able to implement this diabolical plan within the next three days or so. Stay tuned into this pointless blog for the eventual results. I cannot fail!

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a comparison in game shows; and the global stage

Once upon a time there was this weirdo game show that dumb kids like me could watch called Legends of the Hidden Temple. Perhaps some of you remember this from your glory days of childhood football, candy, school lockers, and bad 90’s pop bands. This was during the highlight days of Nickelodeon, 1993-1995. A simpler entertainment era before the crushing reality of the Internets would consume all our lives.

The show featured six teams of two kids (one boy, one girl) who competed in some type of fake Mayan temple. They had to conduct physical feats, answer riddles, and generally do hard stuff. The show apparently had tough tryouts. Hosted by game show robot Kirk Fogg, it also had a second quasi host in a large stone talking head, former Simpsons basement dweller, five time convicted sex offender, Indiana Jones veteran, and jai-li extraordinaire Olmec. Olmec talked to the kiddies and gave them a background on the history of the artifact they had to find in the actual hidden temple challenge at the end of the show.

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Olmec tells Kirk that his glowing red eyes are actually a brain tumor.

I enjoyed this show because it was different, entertaining, had history, and was extremely competitive. In only 22 minutes of air time they had to cull the flock with 10 of 12 children summarily dismissed from play. In the first two minutes of the show four kids are eliminated in the moat challenge. In all their lives these kids might be on national television only once, and they’re gone in only two minutes. The knowledge test was next, that milled an additional four young ones. After a quick third round they got down to the final two who competed in the temple. I’m not sure if I’m remembering this right, but I seem to recall that the temple itself was hard, a substantial portion of participants lost. Turns out I’m right, the Huffington Post says only 32 of 120 teams (26%) actually won the whole thing.

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Would they ever make a kid’s game show again that required the use of helmets and mouthguards?

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Kirk explaining to these two, that since they made it this far, it indicates their likelihood of becoming future billionaires has increased by 723%.

It was a neat show, but it couldn’t have made much money because they cancelled it after only three seasons. Nobody would never make such a show again. After more than two decades, the following factors are disqualifying in our modern newfangled era:

– The show would be deemed racist for its cartoon depiction of various Amerindian cultures.

– When about 1/3 of American children are chronically obese, I’m not sure they could roll out a game show that required this level of childhood physical brutality.

– Nobody knows anything about history anymore, so those knowledge questions are out. I figure at least 78% of American children today think we fought the Redcoats in the Civil War.

– They would never get away with that level of competition, cutting 10 kids in 22 minutes. Today they would only drop 2 kids and both of them would still get trophies or some other kind of big consolation prize.

In other words, several key skills which I consider essential to a reasonably functioning society are lost from a modern kid game show. Specifically:

1) Physical fitness

2) A decent knowledge of history

3) The ability to comprehend that life is a vicious mill fest of suck, and while knowing that, still press on and do great things

Nickelodeon currently broadcasts only one game show. It’s called Paradise Run, and is made by the same production company that did Hidden Temple. I give you this description from Wikipedia:

At the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Hawaii, three teams of two children race around the Hilton Waikola Village competing in three different challenges that are given to them by Daniella Monet through the tablets that are provided for them. The teams are sorted by Team Makani, which is Hawaiian for “wind”, Team Nalu, which is Hawaiian for “wave”, and Team Ahi, which is Hawaiian for “fire”. The first team to complete all three challenges wins a four-day, three-night trip at the hotel while the runner-ups receive consolation prizes. During the completion of the challenges, they must take a selfie on a tablet and send it to Daniella. Once all three challenges are completed, they must solve a riddle. The riddle’s answer is a suite where Daniella and the parents of the teams are waiting, and the team must race there.

I’ve not seen this show, so I suppose it could be awesome. But I doubt it. Note these key points that make me want to vomit in my mouth:

a) Naked corporate sponsorship in a game show made for children

b) Only six children compete, instead of twelve, thus reducing the elimination factor by 50%

c) They use fucking tablets, which they use to take selfies, …, for fuck’s sake

d) The losers receive prizes

e) The game’s end state is nothing more than a hotel room prize directly related to said sponsorship

f) The limp wristed title

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Note the difference in contestant attire between this and Hidden Temple.  Specifically the lack of helmets, mouthguards, gloves, elbow pads, knee pads, and anything else requiring the children to do more than tap a tablet.

[claps hands in an empty room]

Where am I going with this, I mean other than to rant about game shows? Well, two places. In case you haven’t noticed, the world is a shit show right now. Two things in particular yesterday and today, the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, and Syria.

You’ve got Kerry out there giving a speech on Israel. And you’ve got a Syria cease fire done today where Turkey, Iran, Russia, the Rebels, and Syria basically did a deal without America in the room.

You know, I kind of agree with a lot of what Obama and Kerry preach. Some of Kerry’s comments on Israel’s potential darkening religious nuthouse path are spot on. And you can make a valid and reasonable argument that Obama’s path of non-intervention in Syria was the best course among all the terrible options. But you know what doesn’t help, the messengers. Obama and Kerry have to be about the worst people to deliver this tact in American foreign policy.

Kerry comes off on the podium like that pretentious uncle who always complains too much and nobody listens to. Obama’s professorial pauses are enough to elicit yawns from even the most jaded of international diplomats. These two guys would have hated Legends of the Hidden Temple. Paradise Run seems right up their alley.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a thank god they’re leaving so Trump can fix things message. Trump wouldn’t watch Legends of the Hidden Temple because it would require him to sit still for 22 minutes and not run his mouth. Trump is not the answer to this, and in any case, he’s such an outlier to the general American leadership psyche.

So I guess where I’m going is this is a lament. Obama and Kerry I think are more along the lines of the leaders that American culture is inclined to produce in the future. A bunch of ultimately weak people unfit to deal with the dangers of this planet. If you believe in a planet that should walk a path of growing freedom and democracy, that should be enough to trouble you, because nobody but America can guide that path.

Would they ever make something like Legends of the Hidden Temple ever again? I think not. Will America ever return to the global stage as a strong leader again? I hope so. But I fearfully wonder, what if not?

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Don’t dial America, it won’t answer, it’s too busy watching the delights of Paradise Run.

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Amazon is a witness to your life and death

Well, this didn’t take long.  This Amazon Echo contraption has only been ordering pizza, shoes, demolition cord, Uber rides, autogyro rides, and aged cheese for just a few months.  Now it’s already being asked to solve a murder.  No pressure little cylinder dude.

Apple at least got to wait a few years before being blamed by the Feds for allowing terrorists to potentially raid a nursery by refusing to give up iPhone data.  Amazon didn’t get any such grace period.  Nor will any other technology company / invention I suspect.

The background here is pretty simple.  Amazon has data, government wants data in the hopes it can help solve crimes, Amazon (citing privacy) refuses to give up data.  How can the Echo do this you ask?  Why just let the BBC tell you, the Echo:

The “always on” machine makes recordings of audio it hears from a fraction of a second before it detects a wake word – either Alexa or Amazon – until it judges the command to be over.

This audio is then transmitted to Amazon’s computer servers, which interpret the request and tell it how to respond.

Although no recordings are meant to be made at other times, the device often becomes activated when it misinterprets speech as being its wake command.

So basically what we have here is it’s become clearer that yes indeed, the Echo is in fact a live listening device that folks (for whatever reason) have installed in their own home.  So when the following things occur, the Echo is listening and potentially recording:

1) You get murdered in your own home

2) Your dogs hijack your internet while you’re at work to purchase more kibble behind your back

3) You say or do intimate things with your significant other

4) You and your kids get in a fight

5) You comment to another human how tasty a meal is

6) You express all your hopes and wildest dreams to another human, your dogs, or an inanimate object such as a painting, piece of artwork, or stuffed animal

7) Aliens kidnap you, repurpose your home’s guest bedroom, and make you write regularly for a shitty blog

8) You say off the record (on the Amazon record) belligerent comments about your boss, the one who employs you and pays your bills

9) You say off the record (on the Amazon record) belligerent comments about your family, the ones who love you and cherish your existence

10) You say (offhand) to your significant other that you’d punch Jeff Bezos in the face and neck, if you met him randomly on the street

In order to conduct its basic functions, why does the Echo even need to store anything on Amazon’s servers (Amazon Web Services)?  That the cops could later get a warrant for?  Even if the Echo needs to talk to Amazon’s servers to best interpret your audio request, why do they store the data for the long term?

Because by storing everything you say on their servers they can run programs to mass analyze what you and everybody else said.  They’ll then use the algorithm output to find better ways to sell you stuff.  It’s not about privacy.  If it was about privacy, Amazon would morally never collect and store things you say in your own home on its private servers.  They want your money.

I’m not saying Amazon should go ahead and hand it over to the Feds, don’t get me wrong.  The government is among the most egregious and worst violators of your privacy there is.  Your local sheriff probably has the power to look up your favorite beer if he so chose.

But I do have a problem with Amazon (or any other company) waving the privacy flag in defense, when in reality the six biggest violators of privacy on the planet are Google, Apple, the NSA, Facebook, the KGB, and Amazon.  Not necessarily in that order.

Know your risk.  I use Google’s products almost every day.  But I understand they’re data hounds.  So I hedge my risks as best as I can.  I knowingly accept some of the badness.  For example, did you know if you’re logged into Gmail that every other piece of browsing activity you’re doing is logged on Google’s servers?  So if you’re checking e-mail (on any browser type) and then tab over to search for directions to Hitler’s death house, Google will know and log it.  It is for this reason that I will check my Gmail, then actually log out and close the browser, before I do any other web related activity.  There are also cookie and history deletion methods I regularly execute with Google.

I’ll never do this Echo thing for any reason.  I don’t need Amazon in my living room.  If for whatever bizarre factor you need an Echo in your already overly complicated life, okay, I guess.  Just be sure you know the intricate details of how that thing works and how you manage your data.  For as it stands, it seems the basic default settings of this snoop cylinder are insane.  Amazon is a witness to your life and death.

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One day, I’m going to come back home from work, and there’ll be an Echo on my dining table.  I didn’t buy it, nobody broke into my house, it’ll just be there.  I will then club it with a bat, grab my dogs and some canned goods, and run for the hills.

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we help you spice up your office Christmas atmosphere

Hopefully by the time anybody reads this nonsense post their office Christmas experiences will be long over and the weekend has begun.  Which is fine, you can table this for next year.  I’m sure you’ll remember it.  The brilliance on display within this blog is considered timeless.  My dogs swear by it.  Why would they lie?  It’s not like they’re entirely dependent upon me for food or anything.

At the new gig, I’ve discovered it’s pretty standard for folks to pass around Christmas cards along with a little piece of chocolate or whatever.  This kind of caught me off guard.  I’ve never seen this occur at any other job I’ve held.  At first I was a bit off put as I’m quite the introvert, but over time I’ve come to somewhat get behind this idea.  It’s a nice touch of positive energy in an otherwise ground down current planetary status.

I didn’t participate this year as I hadn’t planned on anything.  Plus I don’t really have much of a family to put on the card.  My dogs won’t sit still for eight seconds.  So a camera shot would not work unless I partially sedated them.

I also think my brain is still stuck in the beat down mindset of my last job, which was a mess of a place that I hated.  And I wondered, what kind of cynical card I could hand out to all them, my former coworkers.

Well, I’m glad you asked!  You can use these next year, if you hate your work as much as I did.  Just to spice things up.  Oh my.  This is the part where a post goes off the usual rails.  I mean, again.  [claps hands in empty room]

 

Audience: The Perky Talker

Gift: A small vial of pure dust.

Card Picture:

grave

My Handwritten Caption: “Great news!  Just 12 days left that you have to survive to make it through another year where you’ve foregone your future bleached skeleton status.”

 

Audience: The In Your Face Trump Supporter

Gift: A Miniature Jester’s Hat

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “You’ve been had.   You’re not going to get anything you want for Christmas.  The swamp will not be drained.  You’re not getting a wall.  Your own children no longer believe in Santa.  Congrats.  :(”

 

Audience: The In Your Face Hilary Supporter

Gift: A One Dollar Bill

Card Picture:

hillary-laughing.jpg

My Handwritten Caption: “You’ve been had.  Your Christmas is ruined.  But she’ll still spend hers within the torturous confines of her $27.3M mansion.  Please find enclosed this $1 bill which you can light a cigarette with.  To experience what she does when she does the same with a $1K bill and a $10K cigar.  Joy.  :(”

 

Audience: The Tyrannical Boss

Gift: An Authentic Nazi Broche You Procured from a Fifth Rate Bulgarian Arms Dealer

Card Picture:

time-100-influential-photos-heinrich-hoffmann-hitler-nazi-party-rally-22.jpg

My Handwritten Caption: “Since 1941, the term ‘Nazi Party USA’ has been available for use via copyright.  I think you have what it takes to return it to its days of former glory.  Just be sure to post your efforts via Facebook.  I’ll friend you explicitly for that purpose.”

 

Audience: The Clueless Boss’s Boss

Gift: A Handwritten Hardbound Copy of the Office’s Own Basic Policy

Card Picture:

clue_cards_dark_background.jpg

My Handwritten Caption: “I’d ask you to pick a card, any card, but honestly, it doesn’t matter which one.  Just pick any of them, the result is the same.”

 

Audience: The Kind Middle Aged Mother

Gift: A Chocolate

Card Picture:

flower1

My Handwritten Caption: “Merry Christmas to you and your family!”

 

Audience: The Beaten Coworker

Gift: A Resume Writing Guide

Card Picture:

ball-and-chain.jpg

My Handwritten Caption: “Don’t worry, Brother, it can only get worse from here.”

 

Audience: The CEO

Gift: A Baseball Bat

Card Picture:

nike-sweatshops.jpg

My Handwritten Caption: “Have you considered a profitable future venture within the Bangladeshi garment trade?”

 

Audience: Jesus (mailed to his castle in Hawaii)

Gift: Beer

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “They say you suffered as we did, but then, you never experienced a cubicle.  But then again, they didn’t have beer back then either, so I guess we’re even.”

 

Merry Christmas, friends!

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algorithms are never going to drive your car

The wave of the future is you sitting in your car reading a book or drinking a beer on the way home from work. Man, that’d be sweet. Trillions will be spent trying to make this happen. But I still don’t believe it’ll ever happen in large scale.

Once upon a time I dabbled in computer science. It’s been so long since I did that, that in writing the word ‘algorithm’ in this post’s title I had to re-spell it like ten times. But I remember enough to know just how flawed computers are. It’s why everything eventually breaks, at least once. Or has to be restarted every now and again.

I mean, airplanes don’t tend to crash anymore, but remember those are always human input at the end stage. It’s interesting that in all these autonomous car dreams (experimentally on the road today) that nobody seems to be seriously considering autonomous airliners. I’d bet a substantial amount of my freestanding international gold reserves that your average person would be a hundred times more comfortable getting in a robot car over a robot plane. Even though the fatality rate on the roads is astronomically higher than the skies.

The challenge with the robot car is not the computer hardware, or the sensors, or even trying to rewrite thousands of federal, state, local, and insurance road laws. It’s the algorithms. These algorithms will guide the way the car drives, navigates, how it responds to failures, how it handles emergencies, dangerous situations, and so on. If the algorithms don’t work, or are flawed, at least some badness will always occur. And in my mind, since algorithms are always written by humans, the flaws are never going away. And you can’t restart your car while you’re driving 65 mph down the road. Though I suppose the car could pull you over and then restart, if the algorithm handles the error resolution correctly.

But also, it comes down to what humans are willing to entrust to an algorithm. For example, I heard this used in a play on that morals exercise, if you’re in a car at 45 mph and you go left you run over one person, if you go right you run over three people. What do you do? But in more relevant terms for our discussion here, at 45 mph if you go left you run over one person, if you go right your car hits a jersey wall. Your significant other is in the passenger seat.

Or, with different circumstances, what if you go left it’d be two people you’d hit. If you go right you still hit the wall, but it’s just you in the car. How does the situation change if you’ve got kids in the back? Do you go left or right? Both these options suck, but it’s a decision that determines the fate of other fellow humans, or you and your car partner.

Yet in the self-driving car world, the algorithm makes this decision for you. You have no say. Then the programmers have to turn around and pre-program (somehow) for the car to handle a limitless number of other eventualities. Would you let your car decide any of these situations for you, for your family? I wouldn’t. An algorithm doesn’t get to make those kinds of choices for me. Only I do.

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people will just walk on by

I’m becoming convinced that the local grocery store parking lot is haunted.  It’s some type of weird nexus of the universe where dark forces collide while folks go to and from their shopping.  Inside their bags, avocados turn black, cereal becomes stale, ice melts, and all meals cooked with the bag’s ingredients result in unfavorable family responses.

I’m wondering if one day I’ll roll out happy with my bag of food goodies and I’ll see a random car on fire.  I mean totally engulfed in 20 foot high flames.  Just because.  And there’ll be this guy sitting on the nearby bench.

It’d be 94 degrees out but this dude’s wearing a full black three piece suit complete with hat.  He’s got pale vampire skin, red eyes, and a frowny face pin on his lapel.  I see the burning car, and he just wryly pulls on his cigarette, looks me dead in the eye, and is like, “Hi.”  So I gotta run back inside and hide under the bread aisle.

As I’m strolling out of this place yesterday a woman has just immediately finished throwing her bags in the back seat of her car from her cart.  She has a driver, so she gets in the back of the car, and with one hand shoves her cart so it’s careening down the sidewalk roughly towards the cart stall.  Then she closes her door.

But the cart stall is like 50 feet away.  So naturally she didn’t stand a chance of it getting there.  Why she couldn’t walk those 50 feet to do it properly is beyond me.  As I cross the street behind her car the cart then proceeds to make a nice arc motion and circle in front of her car and into the street.  It comes to a halt in the street and is thus now blocking traffic.

Please see this expert diagram which illustrates the situation:

cart

By this point I’m across the street but keep walking because I assume she’s going to get out of the car and get her cart out of the road.  Nope.  She waves at her driver to drive off.  And so goes her car, speeding away.  And the cart is just sitting there.

So I throw up my arms in exasperation at this lady, I think I yelled “are you kidding me” though I doubt she heard, I  wave to the other car, and I push the cart out of traffic.  And it is in these moments that I’m convinced the entire human race stands no chance at all.  We’re all bound for the crypt.

I just don’t understand how any reasonable human being can do something like that and just drive off.  I know it’s a cruel harsh world with a whole bunch of bad things happening, so this is kind of just a minor rounding error.

But this sort of thing bothers me immensely because it’s indicative of rot.  I can’t even imagine how that lady must talk to a bank teller.  Or what she would do if she saw a guy get hit by a car.  Say like, a guy who was moving her cart out of the road.  She’d probably just walk / drive on by.

Sometimes those dark news stories about how pedestrians will just walk by a wounded human are all too true.  People will just walk on by.  People just don’t care.  Don’t be that way.  Don’t walk on by.  Don’t let the creepy frowny face pin guy win.