Damn right, the nickle rolled under the door. If it hadn't been just about the high point of my day, I wouldn't be writing about it. And actually I'm not writing about it, but rather, the fact that it was nearly the high point of my day. Sort of.
I'm not changing the subject at all when I say, slack time is dangerous. Slack time is wasteful, and it creates time for product developers to egg software engineers into making stupid changes to formerly good programs. Word processing programs just aren't what they used to be. Try highlighting some text. I've made every modification I could find to make, but you still have to try several times to highlight text, and all the while, the damned thing is trying to predict what it is I want to type. And I absolutely hate that!
Oh, I do know how to turn off the auto-complete “feature.” Doing that, however, alters or eliminates other things that I can’t afford to change.
I freely admit, I allow too many silly, stupid things to bother me. But consider, everything is just naturally a trade-off. Example, if you want to lose weight, you have to eat less and to exercise more. If you eat something extra you'll have to work it off, and if you put that off you will lose ground, like it or not. Everything is like that, it's just the way things are. But how much of that sort of thing is directly imposed on us by other humans? Why should that be so? The program worked fine before, but some product developer wanted to keep his job, so he persuaded his software designers to fuck it all up so it would look like he, the product developer, was still working. I say, fire him. Breaking something just to change it is just cause enough. The same applies to an operating system that more than once has failed to improve on the system it followed. But if we leave it alone, why, we won't make money! Folks, vote with your feet. Choose an alternative.
And as usual, I digress.
But not really. Because that particular list is long. The much-publicized computing “cloud” doesn’t even really exist, did you know that? There’s nothing new at all about time and storage sharing between networked servers. They’ve hung a new name on it, and now they’re eliminating your hard drives so that you require access to it. It’s a short trip to being charged to use it, which is the endgame, the objective. Not a one of the players gives a damn about your privacy, but only their profit. And then there are the “content deliverers,” who actually are doing far more than delivering content for their big customers. In actuality they follow you wherever you go on the internet, into your bank accounts, into your email. They want your passwords, they sell your data. My port scanner sees you people, and you suck! I block you, and you interrupt my ability to move about.
I shall continue to block you. I will not purchase any computer that has no storage capacity. I shall never pay for cloud services. No matter what.
So now, there’s a new reason why slack time is dangerous. It gives me time to think, and sometimes, thinking leads to writing it down. And it can become a rant.
Let me tell you just a tiny bit about the human condition that will affect you no matter what you do, and you do need to be aware of it. In order to understand where things are headed and what should be allowed or opposed, first you must know how things used to be. Some things were good, some were bad, but without any understanding of prior conditions, you cannot possibly know what should be acceptable, now or in the future. It isn’t just about history that could repeat itself; it is also about why no one knows what a block party is like, anymore. Why we know nothing about our neighbors. What it was like when the authorities had to get a court order to intercept communications. The “powers that be” can’t handle that they are not yet absolute. Young people haven’t lost sight of real freedom, because they’ve never known it. The generation that follows theirs will know even less. But it’s not because the information isn’t there; it’s because nobody cares, except the people who are taking your freedoms and your privacy and certainly, your money.
Today during my slack time, I happened upon an advertisement (an ad!!) that claimed that “all sixteen U.S. security agencies” were preparing for World War Three. Further, it claimed that this war was expected within the next six months. I’ve seen similar ads (a few months ago) claiming that billionaires were selling off their U.S. stocks in preparation for the upcoming world depression that would begin right here. In neither case is there anything to it whatsoever. My point is, the creators of those ads are human slime. They would love to be proven right, although they already know it’s senseless hype. It’s for the purpose of getting hits and selling subscriptions. Period. If their ad somehow set off a massive war and billions died because of it, what would they care?
Like all power-hungry, money-grubbing profiteers, they would not. And that’s what I wanted to point out about the human condition. Take care of yourself. Watch your back! “Question authority!!!” Trust very, very few. If any.
All of this came together because I had some slack time, and the reason for it was both sad and silly. I won’t get into it. I needed something to do, and I’ve stopped smoking, so I thought I’d lighten the change in my pocket and pick something from the vending machine that stands in the hall. Of course it was like texting and driving, but I extracted the handful of change that was weighing down my pocket and sorted for quarters as I walked. A nickel got away, and it rolled under a door. The door was locked.
And I guess it just kinda pissed me off.
