saraewood.com

A few weeks ago, Jeevan and I were discussing how being on-line all the time impacts the way your brain works.

We defined a few new terms, but, being as we were in a bar drinking beer and not on-line at the time (ignoring the fact we both had iphones, blackberries and laptops in the bags at our feet), I have forgotten most of the words we came up with. Therein lies the truth in how I use the computer and the internet. As a proxy for having a brain with a functioning memory. Which maybe needs a new term as well.

1. nooble: [new-bull] - verb

The act of IMing someone to ask them a “quick” question that you could easily find yourself on google or even in your own email archives.

ex. q: “Hey, what was the name of that restaurant you emailed me about last week?” a: “Stop noobling me.”

2. suggest a word: [pro-nounce?] - verb

Checking other mobile devices even though you are in front of computer. how “rewards” (comments on your stuff, email, new RSS items, etc) that come at irregular intervals rather than timed intervals seems to create more addictive behavior (temporal differencing algorithm in neuroscience?). And how that basic prehensile reaction is expounded by being on-line with multiple devices simultaneously. Driven a bit by boredom and a bit by ADD.

For ex., if I have a blackberry and an iphone sitting on my desk with my computer, sometimes I look away from my computer, see my iphone, pick it up without really thinking why and catch myself checking it for new stuff, looking for some form of reward; a new comment, email, sms, whatever. But mostly the same type of thing I would have already seen on my computer. As if my brain thinks there may be something new or different on that phone that I didn’t see in my computer.

I rarely go into Facebook these days, preferring to keep my profile updated via Twitter. But for some reason, last week I decided to go in an waste a few minutes. While there I also decided to update a few things in my profile with the aim to make it a little less personal. I’ll get to some of the reasons why in a minute. At any rate, I went into the “edit profile” and changed a few settings. Namely the ones that let you hide things.

I also selected not to show my relationship info, because it is really no one’s damn business.

What I expected to happen, ie, my personal information simply be hidden from my profile is not what happened. Instead, this note:

“Sara E Wood and John B Pike ended their relationship”

was sent to my 276 friends and John’s 354. How is that something you would expect to happen when choosing to “hide” information from people?

(Within 5 minutes both John and I had both received countless condolences. Even phone calls and people in my office coming to see if I was all right. Thank you all for you concern in my non-crisis moment! )
Another reason Facebook is for losers, I have had to unfriend people - who I actually maybe knew for like 5 minutes sometime in High School possibly because I was being sent Facebook CREEPY cruft such as:

And even being invited to groups like:

DESPITE not yet having blocked my personal info like my political affiliation (Vote Obama!).

LinkedIn, Flickr, etc know to give the content provider decent controls over their own private content. Seriously, how hard can this be to grok? That content is about me, provided by me upon which Facebook exists and claims to have some value in the world. At the very least allow me to control my own bytes!

xkcd makes my day.

My kids are relatively well-behaved on planes. They don’t so much as drop a raisin without picking it up. They don’t spill their juice. They don’t scream and cry. They basically sit and either color in coloring books or watch Diego on the portable dvd player. So why do I have to listen to assholes complain about kids on planes every time I fly? That includes at least 2 flight attendants on the last flight. Are people generally misanthropes? Because I agree, people do suck.

Some people just don’t like children, or, more specifically, don’t like sitting near them on planes. They like to complain about them loudly so that the poor parent has to hear their pathetic muttering. If you are one of those, I have news for you, you suck worse.

A parent, having just had to deal with transporting luggage for three persons with no extra hands but needing to hold the hands of two small ones, ticketing counters, security checkpoints (all staffed by seeming misanthropes) where backpacks are rifled through, dvd players taken out, tiny shoes taken off and put back on, hurrying through crowded terminals with slow walkers (or carrying one, 3 backpacks and holding the hand of the other), much less trying to take a bathroom pit stop with two kids running in different directions (including unlocking the stall door and running out through the terminal), does not need to hear you snort loudly or glare over your newspaper every time the kids gets excited at the sight of a blue airplane (wook mama, bue airpame!) on the tarmac or the fact that the seat belt sign just lit up. God forbid something happens to make the kid CRY.

Just because I have two of them doesn’t mean I enjoy the sound of small kids whining, crying and screaming either. But your snide remarks and evil glares don’t encourage me to do anything about it. You are more insufferable than they are because you, presumably, can control your behavior. Kids are people too, last I checked, and if you don’t like people, stay off airplanes. Jerk.

With their hokey way of talking and hillbilly ways, they annoy me. And, as Huned points out, Brother and Sister get along way too well to be remotely interesting.

Like in the episode “Out for the Team”:

Brother and Sister are good baseball players and both sign up to try out for the Bear Country Cardinals. The problem is, there’s only one position left on the team. Worried about the humiliating possibility of losing to his talented kid sister, Brother backs out of the competition. Sister has some encouraging words for Brother which inspire him to stick with it. The two cubs practice for the big tryout together.

I mean, COME ON! I don’t know about you, but growing up in my family, that episode would have gone something like this:

Brother and Sister are not terrible, but not great either baseball players and both sign up to try out for the Bear Country Cardinals. The problem is, there’s only one position left on the team. Worried about the humiliating possibility of losing to his talented kid sister, Brother beats the shit out of his Sister after she steals and destroys his baseball glove. Sister has some encouraging choice words for Brother which inspire him to stick with it just so he can show her that she is inferior. They forget their differences soon after the big tryout when they are immediately absorbed in their next big adventure: Who hid the Oreos?

Though my kids seem to like them, I think that is merely a byproduct of them just wanting to watch whatever is on. Since PBS Sprout is still their channel of choice, that means the Berenstain Bears is often what is on. Ugh.

At least they are better than Caillou (don’t get me started on that one). And I have, so far, completely avoided letting my kids watch Barney. At least that I know of.