Tag: internet

The historical events I remember.

I admit I am terrible at current events, and current events often become historical events. The reason why is I tend to think most news is negative or geared toward creating an atmosphere of fear. This is especially true during an election year.

Honestly, if you look back at history, I think it is largely a timeline of tragic events, this war, that riot, this catastrophe, that natural disaster, this charter to reduce freedom, that civil war to increase it, etc. Taken as a whole, it doesn’t really appear to be a very positive read. At least fiction usually has a happy ending.

Below are a few major historical events that I have experienced. I believe most of them are fairly positive.

  1. The emergence of advanced AI.
  2. The emergence of advanced robotics.
  3. The emergence of virtual reality.
  4. The rise of online shopping.
  5. The rise of the smart phone.
  6. The rise of social media.
  7. The rise of Internet culture.
  8. The birth of Ken.

What historical events have you experienced? Do you think the news is mostly negative? Do politicians use fear too much to get into office? Do you dread election years as much as I do? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

What I’m doing this evening.

Today is Wednesday, so I don’t plan on going out this evening, as I have to go to work tomorrow morning. This might change though, as I am somewhat spontaneous depending on my mood, or if I become really bored. If I stay home, I will probably browse the internet, or read something on Kindle, or buy something on Amazon, or brainstorm on something to write about.

There is one other thing I am going to do. I use an app called Microsoft To Do to remind me of things I need to do each day, mostly financial things. Like the name sounds, it’s just a fancy todo list in app form. It can also be accessed through a browser. Looking at this app, it tells me that I need to enter the statement from one of my credit cards into my personal finance application.

Screenshot of Microsoft To Do

I set these todo items up by going to the credit card company web sites, finding the date when they make the statements available, and then setting up a reminder to tell me to go enter and balance it. Today is the day when one of my credit cards should have the statement ready. I find this very handy, as I don’t have to think about it, or constantly go look at the site to see if the statement is ready.

The software I use to manage my personal finances is called Quicken. I just started using it this year. I enter the credit card statements manually out of habit, but I think there are ways to synchronize with the credit card companies. Actually entering it makes me very cognizant of where I’m spending my money, which is a good thing.

Are you doing anything exciting this evening? Do you use todo lists to manage your life? Do you have a favorite personal finance application? Are you a spontaneous person? Do you get bored often? Do you use credit cards to pay for things? Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts, and please like, share, and subscribe!

The last thing I searched for online.

Looking back at the web history in my browser, it looks like the last thing I searched for was day in the sun. I was searching for that phrase because it was related to previous post called Having your day in the sun. I knew there was some sort of idiom about a day in the sun, but I wanted to know the precise meaning. I found an article at the top of the search results that explained it very well. You can read about it for yourself on the page Day in the sun meaning.

The idiom fit well with the post I was writing because it was about a homeless man laying out under the hot sun. The idiom actually means you get attention and are appreciated. This also fits, because the post is about noticing and appreciating the connection we have with other people. I think it’s the perfect title for the article actually. I love it when things connect in multiple ways like that. It makes it much more memorable to me.

What’s your latest day in the sun? Do you like idioms? Do you like double meanings like that? Do you do a lot of web searches while writing? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

The most important thing to carry with you all the time.

I would say the most important thing to carry with you all the time is underwear. I have a pair on right now. They are good at absorbing sweat and occasional drips and catch things that unintentionally fall out. They also hold things in so that other clothing fit appropriately. I wear them practically all the time, with the exception being when I’m in the shower or having sex. I know some people in nudist colonies don’t wear them at all, but sometimes I wonder how that works. When you sit on your leather sofa, do you wipe it down afterwards? Don’t mean to offend any nudists here. I’m just a pro underwear kind of guy.

Sorry. A lot of my posts are pretty serious. I had to insert some form of humor in here. I’ll be normal in a few minutes…

Seriously, the material object you need most these days is your cell phone. It has so many critical uses. I don’t know how we would live without it anymore. I will list a few below, but there’s tons of features, and the list keeps growing. Unfortunately, there’s also plenty of downsides to cell phone usage.

  1. It’s a lifeline to emergency services.
  2. You never get lost anymore.
  3. You are never out of touch with your peeps.
  4. There are useful apps for everything.
  5. You can summon transportation.
  6. You can do all your online shopping.
  7. You can check all your accounts.
  8. You can read your email.
  9. You can search the internet.
  10. You always have a camera and video recorder.
  11. You can record criminal behavior.
  12. You can live stream to the whole world.
  13. You can plan your whole day on it.
  14. It can become your alarm clock.
  15. It tracks your every step.
  16. You can run a small business on it.

I can actually remember a time when absolutely no one had a cell phone. All the phones were connected to a wire somewhere in the house, building, or booth. It’s called a landline today, but back then it was just called a phone or telephone. Some people still use a landline, but their numbers are dwindling. Also, when was the last time you used or even noticed a phone booth? Honestly, I don’t even know what to put in the home phone field on an application anymore. My phone is homeless.

Possible Discussion Ideas

  1. Do you find the cell phone indispensable?
  2. What do you like or use most on your phone?
  3. Do you remember landlines and phone booths?
  4. Do you remember traveling with only a paper map?
  5. Has your cell phone ever been a lifesaver?
  6. Do you feel naked without your cell phone?
  7. Do you feel naked without your underwear?

I found an uninteresting news story on MSN.

I found an news post on MSN that didn’t seem interesting to me. It was called 11 Legal Things That Are Expected To Be Banned in the Next 20 Years – Are You Ready? I clicked on the link and it took me to a slideshow list, which I don’t really like. Maybe it gives them the chance to keep me on the page long enough to throw one more ad at me, but I’m a fast reader. Just give me the whole list.

Let’s go through the list and see how it affects me. Maybe I might be losing some freedom I currently have. I mean, that’s what making something illegal does. It diminishes someone’s freedom. In some cases, as in criminal acts, that makes sense, but you can make way too many laws, and that ship sailed a long time ago.

  1. Telemarketing. No reason to make it illegal. Just set you phone to not accept phone calls from anyone not in your contacts. Everyone else can leave a voice message, and you can get back to them if you like. My phone even says telemarker when I get the call. It’s just not worth the effort to make this illegal and it’s vague sometimes. Of course, lawyers will love making this illegal, because they will get more work, another good reason to not make things illegal. In short, don’t feel even the slightest bit obligated to answer a phone call from a questionable source.
  2. Multi-level marketing. I have no idea what this is really. Someone is peeved by it though, so let’s make it illegal. Seems like some sort of money making scheme, so savvy people will just avoid it. Also seems vaguely defined, as they are saying some charities are MLM. This leads to more legal and court costs to determine if it qualifies. If it sounds too good to be true, dig a little deeper, and make sound decisions.
  3. Microtransactions. Basically, kids shouldn’t spend their parents money in game apps. Seems legit. Why not ban that for adults too. I hate downloading an app to find that it doesn’t work as expected without additional costs.
  4. Beauty contests. This doesn’t affect me at all, so I have very little to offer. I do know a girl who grew up in pageants and it seemed to have little affect on her. If anything, it was a fun memory. I guess it depends on how seriously you take it. My view of this is it has a lot to do with the parents. I guess it shows they have good genes. The dumb thing to me is that we believe beauty is not supposed to be a valuable trait, but it is a very valuable trait. I wish I had more of it. Honestly, I think these are harmless and make the parents and kids happy, under most circumstances. Making them illegal is an extreme measure.
  5. Data privacy. I think rather than making it illegal there should be a disclamier that pops up every time you connect your computer to the Internet. It should say, anything you do on the Internet is being tracked by someone. I really don’t care too much about what advertisers do honestly. The ad systems are really just trying to get the right product to the right people. Big brother is really the only privacy violator we should be concerned about.
  6. Single-Use Plastic. If there is a demand for a product, it will continue to be used. People don’t have time to wash every single item they use and reuse it. People dream of going back to milk bottle refilling days. Good luck. Our world moves way to fast to support that method. Here’s a solution, make all plastic biodegradable.
  7. Subscription Services. This is definitely a problem, but it makes too much money to stop. When someone is getting rich off of something, they will lobby congress if they have to. The problem with making everything a subscription is that you never actually own anything. It’s a bad model for personal property, but fine for actual services.
  8. Skipping ads. I do it on YouTube. I didn’t go there to see that content. I’m almost never interested in the particular product they are selling either. Maybe they aren’t tracking my preferences well enough? It’s more likely that it should be illegal to force someone to watch something they don’t want to watch. I just pictured a future where people are chained to a chair with some mechanical device that doesn’t let them turn their head away from the video and wiry things forcing their eyelids open. Is this where we are heading? Honestly truth, if someone clicks skip, they were presented with an ad that wasn’t going to make a sale anyway. They are not interested in that product. Consider the skip to be good feedback on which ads are a total failure.
  9. Fireworks. They are exciting and beautiful and I like them. Some of the best things in life are a little dangerous. Let’s not be fraidy cats about everything.
  10. Selling cigarettes. Doesn’t affect me too much, but I watched my dad die from them. I honestly hate the way they smell, except for maybe cigars or pipes. I think smoking is bad for your health, and really not a cool thing to do, but I also think adults should be able to make up their own minds about what the take into their bodies. It’s another one of those nanny state things, and I don’t support a nanny state.
  11. Online Tracking. Like I said earlier, use of the Internet should come with a disclaimer. Someone is logging what you do for their own protection, and to connect you with the things you are searching for, or wanting to buy. I do support the idea of anonymity. It’s just very hard to manage this on the public internet, but there are ways that don’t involve the legal system.

What are your thoughts on this article? Do any of these things peeve you enough to make them illegal? Do you think we have too many or too few laws? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Just skimming the surface.

I read a lot. I always have, but I’ve seen a shift in my reading habits these past few years. I still squeeze in some time to read whole books, but it feels like I spend the bulk of my reading time browsing then Internet and skimming content, rather than taking in a complete work. It feels a lot like I’m going from plate to plate, consuming only a thin slice, like the judge in a state fair pie eating contest.

I’m scrolling through social media, and something catches my eye, so I browse over there and read a bit, but usually not all of it. Maybe my attention span has shortened with age, or maybe I absorbed the gist and am ready to move on, or maybe there’s just more competition for my attention elsewhere, or maybe they truly lost me. Jumping back out of the rabbit hole, I’m browsing the next one, ready to jump in, but never too deep. It’s a shallow existence I know, and I feel like it grows on you after a while.

I remember it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I was very thorough and deep. I didn’t just want the cliff notes on everything. I assumed every word in the book was somehow important. I could see the high level, but I also hung on every word, how it sounded, how it was arranged, how it made me feel. If I misread or skipped just one phrase, the whole work wouldn’t make sense. I’d have to reread it all again.

I remember years ago when I would get a new watch, or clock, or VCR, or microwave, or any other odd device, I would read the little instruction book all the way through. I assumed that if I missed even a single page, I’d be totally lost as to how this thing worked, or I’d miss out on a special feature, or maybe it just wouldn’t work at all, or even become dangerous. Read the instructions first! That was my mantra.

I also remember my first computer came with an full user’s manual. The manual actually taught you how to program it. I read that book cover to cover and did every example. That’s actually how I became a computer programmer. Now days, you get a few pages of warranty info and maybe a quick start guide for someone who has never powered on a device.

I guess they just assume its cultural knowledge now. If you buy an electronic device, you must already know how to do everything with it, or maybe it’s just too complicated to tell people everything it can do, or technical writing became too expensive, or maybe they expect Google and YouTube will give you all the instructions you will ever need, provided you know how to get there.

Even on the search engines, I am just grazing though, grabbing just enough information to do what I want at the moment, never going too deep, never filling my brain to the expert level. Maybe it will come with time, as I sample enough of a particular subject, but for right now I just need to know how to make Excel do a pivot table.

I’ll figure the rest out when I have time, and deep down I know I will never have enough hours in my life, and I’ve become accepting of that. I’ve become comfortable with just being a pebble skipping over the surface, never diving in too deep, never being slowed down, just bouncing along on the surface making ripples, until I reach my final destination, and sink below the waves, never to be seen again.

I know I’m also not the only pebble in this pool. I see other people doing it every day. Some who read even less than I did in the past, who have never even peeked under the waves for one moment. A whole generation of people just browsing, and skimming, and skipping, and constantly refocusing, always a little behind and never taking a full deep breath.

Maybe it’s a good thing to stay shallow. There’s just too much content these days to take it all in, but I still sometimes wonder, what sort of society will this behavior create?

Does anything in this article resonate with you? What do you think the future holds for a society with a shortened attention span? Do you think there will ever be too much content on the Internet? Do you think this trend will have psychological effects on people? Let me know in the comments, and please, like, share, and subscribe!

The subjects I know best.

I do not consider myself an authority on any subject, but honestly, I wouldn’t blindly accept anyone else’s authority on any subject either. I will always think for myself and make up my own mind. That’s the only reason I can think of that we would have been given individual minds, so we can use them. There are quite a few subjects I know about though. Growing up, I was a very curious person and had a broad range of intellectual pursuits.

I’m also fairly well educated. I graduated summa cum laude with two bachelor’s degrees (double major), one in information systems, and the other in business administration, and I went on to complete a master’s degree in business. This means I’m quite knowledgeable of business, computer science, and information systems.

I also used to read a lot, sometimes over a hundred books a year, and they were mostly non-fiction and classics, so they were knowledge dense. Some of my favorite subjects are philosophy, psychology, business, personal finance, programming, internet, social media, marketing, blogging, spirituality, relationships, lifestyle, and society.

After all this learning, education, observation, experience and contemplation are done, I still feel like the fundamental questions in life have been left unanswered and no one is an authority on them. Going forward, the things I would like to become an authority on are having fun, being happy, making friends, enjoying company, staying healthy, talking much, staying relaxed, and enjoying a cold one. Cheers!

What are you an authority on? Do you think we spend a lot of time gaining our authority? Is it all worth it? Share your thoughts in the comments, and don’t forget to like and subscribe!

It wasn’t for me.

I remember there used to be a time when there wasn’t an internet, but I honestly don’t like to think about it. It was a time when everyone was expected to do everything in person or through paper. It was a time when people couldn’t work from home very easily. It was an era that predates blogging and many forms of self-publication. It was really not for me. I was born for the internet, and I spend a ridiculous amount of time there.

Some people like to blame the internet for everything, and there are some negative aspects, but if you really think about it, it has made the world a better place. Here are some things it has added.

  • Better connection to other people. Before the internet, it really wasn’t that easy to keep up with people you went to school with, or family that moved out of state. I remember my grandmother actually had to write to her cousins on paper and use snail mail. That definitely wasn’t optimal, though it did build anticipation and teach patience.
  • The internet allows for anonymity. Some people see this as an evil aspect of the internet, but I think it is absolutely critical. Societies and governments tend to silence and chastise people who criticize them out of fear that if enough people gather together, they will overthrow them. Without anonymity, those people would not be able to state the truth about their society or government.
  • It is more inclusive. The internet is pretty much everywhere now. Before it, you had to really work hard to connect with people outside your local community or state. The world has become much smaller and striking up a conversation with someone across the globe is trivial now.
  • The information age opened up tons of jobs that allow you to work from home, or anywhere there is an internet connection. You can literally work from the beach if you like. You can travel the world if you like, taking your work with you. You also don’t have to worry about that dreaded commute anymore. The only highway you have to be on is the information superhighway.
  • It provided an outlet for tons of creative minds. There are so many creators out there now. It’s almost becoming an expectation in our society. Without the ability to self-publish, you would have to get everything approved by a bureaucratic publishing system and advertising was pretty slow and expensive. Now, you just create an account on social media and start sharing.
  • Of course, the best part of having the internet is that you get to read this amazing blog. 🙂

So, what’s your favorite thing about the internet? Could you live without it? Tell me about it in the comments, and don’t forget to like and subscribe.