Ahead of the Curve

I finally have it. I have an idea which I sincerely think will be feasible and practical and yet will be the wave of the future. As far as I know, it hasn't been done yet and it CAN BE DONE. I am going on record by putting it here so that when, in 3 months, Google makes a bajillion (that's a one with a squidillion zeroes after it) dollars on this, you will all know that I thought of it first. Hashtag that, baby.

So here it is. You go to a central site, subscribe (for free) and enter information about yourself - yes, some personal, but nothing that you haven't already posted in 10 other places. Name, age, occupation, location, hobbies, news stories you like, musical tastes, pets, relationships. All in one place. Instead of having a profile here or there, the cloud now has a snapshot of you in all dimensions of your personality, from your religion to your shoe size.

The service then spits out a qr code thingy for you. You take it, print it out and maybe even laminate it.

When you get anywhere (especially if you travel) there is, in addition to the ubiquitous video screen, a scanner (like the lens of a camera phone). Pass your qr code in front of it and type in (touch screen) a password (or use some sort of biometrics for security) and the screen then puts out info tailored for you. Video news on the topics you follow, tourist information tailored to your tastes and of course (have to pay the bills...) ads addressing your purchases and preferences. The radio then plays music you like and the screen recommends restaurants in line with your tastes.

For the tourist this would be invaluable. You can change your profile before the trip to put in "special requests", you can use it along with a guest login to access basic info on other people (like before a date, the women could give the guy a limited password to her account so that he will know what kind of food she likes, what allergies she has etc). Sort of like Facebook but in real life.

Yes, the stuff you put into your profile is voluntary and not confirmed, so it could be false, but if you use it to inform yourself so that your radio gives you just what you want to hear while you ride the subway in the morning -- the songs you like, the news stories about the industry you follow, the scores of whatever teams you follow -- giving true info would help. The content is a series of aggregated material pieced together from all the mainstream news services that something like Google news uses already, but assembled with the occasional ad to be personalized to you and only you.

Groups could make group qr codes so a business could control what employees listen to in the office or watch on TV. Schools could also so when a class takes a trip, content can be filtered into hotel rooms.

This CAN be done. We have camera phones that can scan qr codes. All this needs is a dedicate lens that connects to a single cloud based server, and your identity travels with you. This is MY IDEA. If you use it and get rich and famous, show a little love to me.

I am immortal except for the dying

I was at another of my favorite activities -- a memorial service. I went to pay respects to a woman who lived on the block where I grew up. Nice lady. She had a well maintained garden and had a cool accent (two things which I cannot contribute to anyone's childhood memories). One thing which was stressed time and time again (note: 2 times) was her achieving immortality through the memories others carry of her. So I wish to write this to those people who show up to my scheduled memorial service. I am assuming that the service will be on a Sunday much like today, except in the year 2179. If I am not dead by then, have the service without me. I'm probably off having fun somewhere else.

Dear all future people (that's how people talk in the future...with an uncanny awareness of themselves as the future incarnations of all the people in the past's imagination...heady time, the future),

Thank you all for coming to pay tribute to me. I hope that in my time on earth (and other affiliated planets) I had an effect on your life that allowed you to formulate a positive impression of me. And if I gave you a hair sample, please clone me so that I can see the release of Windows 192 SP3.

I would like to think that you have all kept those memories of me, the moments we shared and the good deeds which I hoped to have accomplished in your (memories/hard drives/memory chips/optical crystals/brain implantables/virtual nodes/inter-dimensional nexi) and will be able to relive our time together over and over, or at least over. I hope that through my teaching, my humor and my saving our solar system countless times, I have given you stories to share with your own children and now-talking-dogs. So, please don't wait to help me achieve the immortality that our best scientists were unwilling to sell to me. Post to whatever is our future version of the internet (possibly, the internet) now, even as my still handsome body lies here in Repose, Iowa (where I chose to make my summer home because of its view of the beach...remember the time that everything west of Iowa was teleported to somewhere else for the sake of this anecdote? Yeah, that was AWESOME!). Make sure that for the foreseeable future (I assume that now in the 2179, we can all foresee the future) the world knows that I was here and I tried make a difference. And a sum. And a total. And a dividend (HA! dead in 2179 and I still got it!).

Try the space ice cream and don't forget to tip your cow-waiters.

Yours futurely,
Dan

I'm going through some changes

I have heard some people say that we totally change all the cells in our body every seven years. Apparently that means something to the philosophers out there, but to me, it never made much sense. The entire question of identity and strict philosophical sameness is fascinating but the reality of the situation is that I have always been pretty confident that I am me (or "I" depending on the case).

But I have noticed recently that I am, indeed, changing. Foods that I used to like, I no longer have a taste for. Foods that sat well in my stomach now upset me. Activities, hobbies and habits that used to define me and my personality now aren't on my happy list. Yes, I have a happy list. You wanna fight about it?

It seems that I really am "growing up" and not just in that more parts of me hurt more often. There are some real changes in my physiology and personhood. I am only writing this down so that in future years, when we are all star children and look back on the quaint internet, we can see how man confronted not only his own mortality, but how he spent the time till his mortality kicked in.

A thesis, part 2

When I was a younger man, I wrote a paper for graduate school about the confluence of an expanding litigiousness, a burgeoning "reality" TV market, and the production of the star/celebrity mythos in popular culture (especially as it related to and explained public reaction to Milli Vanilli). Now, all these years later, I have been suddenly hit with another culture related thought. Now, I'm not going to turn this into another thesis, but I have some random thoughts which I will try to lay out in order (well, some order) so I can see if I have an interesting argument.

facts:
there are more venues for the release of new music today than in the 60's
there is more chance for a piece of music to be heard and purchased by a world-wide audience than in the 60's
creating music by an individual, especially music with the sound akin to the production of "real" music is easier than in the 60's

conclusion:
therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that there is more chance that an "unknown" or non-establishment artist will dominate (or at least top) sales charts now than in the 60's.
it is also reasonable to assume that there will be in the current charts, a higher percentage of one-hit wonders than in the 70's when the "garage band" mentality of the 60's which allowed for the one hit wonders in an underpopulated industry gave way to centralized production and dissemination of music.

therefore, a prediction:
the established industry will have to co-opt the individual-based market in order to reestablish its predominance. Music distribution venues will collaborate with software developers so those who download and produce homegrown music will have distribution contracts with established companies (and the appropriate rights and royalties packages) included in the software purchase.

We will all be famous, but not for 15 minutes. there will only be time for 3:24, but if you have a video, you'll get recognized in the street by every other famous person.

My new diet

In my ever present quest to find the perfect diet, I have gone far afield and have looked at some of the more extreme diets. One that was popular was the caveman diet. According to it, man should eat natural, raw foods, and (I think) also has to live in a cave. The details are fuzzy. But I think about that diet and the lifestyle which it was part of and I am not convinced. Do I really want to wear an animal skin and have a pronounced forehead ridge? I think not. But, while ancient man was slaving over a hot sabre toothed tiger, there were other 'things' which existed and seemed to be having a gay old time (Flintstones reference, people. Pay attention).

Maybe, I think, perhaps, the goal shouldn't be to be the caveman, but to be an animal. But what kind of animal? At first, I thought I should try to be a lion. I mean, to be the king of the animals? And to have all that hair? Excellent, right? But I did some reading. First of all, lions live where it is really hot. I don't mind the heat, but I can't stand the mosquitoes so that won't work for me. And it's a pity because as food groups go, I'm a huge fan of zebra. Also, lions have to hunt occasionally and that requires running. Not my thing.

I thought about animals which don't have to hunt like the lion, but even if I turned vegetarian and slothful, I'd still end up the size of an elephant. And what kind of diet do I want that has me looking like an elephant? Roadrunner? Too much running. Aardvark? I don't like ants. So what animal's diet should I emulate, knowing that doing so will turn me into that animal?

I have decided on alligator. Before you ask, I'll tell you why not a crocodile. I like being American. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Think about an alligator - live in water, but sun on land. Nice. Eat meat. Nice. Sleek. Nice. Fast in the water (where I already weigh so much less...apparently is has to do with rho GH and MGH and some other letters and numbers) and quickly but apparently lazy on land.

So in pursuit of that, I will eat like an alligator. I just looked it up and I'm not the first to think of this (http://animals.howstuffworks.com/reptiles/alligator3.htm) so I'll just follow what it says to do there and I should be all set. Then I'll write a book and when people come to have me sign it, I'll eat them.

Perfect.

Video doesn't kill -- people with videos kill

I was in the middle of a conversation about esoteric religions and a song hit me. Pow, it went. And I thought to myself, wow, that's a great song. So, as my nephew walked by, I recommended the song to him. I had him repeat the artist and title and then sent him to a computer because, I figured

1) he has nothing better to do with his time right now
2) he is in a band, so he must appreciate music
3) any song is available on the internet

He came out of the den a few minutes later and said that he didn't much like the song. I asked why and he said "there were all those guys dancing around. I couldn't figure out what was going on."

It seems that the modern idea of a song is inextricably tied to that video presentation. It is almost as if one cannot simply listen to a song -- one must see it before one can try to access its quality. Video isn't killing the radio star because it is a more interesting presentation of the musical package, but because it is becoming the only acceptable or recognizable presentation of said package.

Now this is not unprecedented, nor is it necessarily a bad thing. A while ago, in a moment of both weakness and largesse, I agreed to go to the ballet with my wife. I asked only one favor. I asked to be able to close my eyes and simply listen to the music. I got a solid "no" answer. The visual dimension is apparently part and parcel of the performance and one cannot appreciate the music without it.

So in conclusion, your honor, I would suggest that Video is not guilty, because ballet killed the orchestra star.

Cultural Literacy

I had an unexpected and refreshing discussion with a good friend today (via email, of course...no one has face to face talks anymore...reminds me of that great movie "My Facebook with Andre"). His starting position was that cultural literacy was the only redeeming value of a variety of what is considered the liberal arts/literary canon. I made the statement that there are other uses for the material but cultural literacy was part of it. If that's the case, he answered, why not isolate those components which are necessary and simply present them as sine qua nons of cultural literacy. Why must the entire body of work be learned in order to cover a relatively small percentage.

My response (geez...it's like you were there, right?) was that context and place are necessary components to the understanding of the references and allusions. He then wondered whether my position was that cultural literacy required awareness or deep study, and if the latter then most people are culturally illiterate. So of course, this got me thinking.

I think that, yes, most people are culturally illiterate in one way or another. I can talk about Shakespeare but can't about Basketball, and in my culture, a level of literacy regarding sports is necessary in many contexts. I can't talk politics and I can talk music so sometimes I am 'in' and sometimes not. Cultural literacy depends on the aspect of culture currently at play. No one can know everything about everything (except, according to my brother, my brother) and in some areas we are all bound to come up short, whether we want to admit it or not.

The problem is the word "literacy" -- I can't accept a claim to literacy which is really a claim to familiarity. Knowing that "To be or not to be" is by Shakespeare does nothing to let someone understand the psychological import which should be part of its citation in conversation (fortunately for that guy, the guy using it is probably similarly stunted and is using it in its most superficial way, simply as a shorthand for Shakespeare). Think about the scene from the Simpsons ("The Springfield Connection") where everyone is at a July 4 picnic and the band slips Twinkle Twinkle into its performance of Star Wars. Dr Hibbert's reaction? "Devilishiously satirical! I wonder if anyone else got that." Homer heard the reference but he didn't get the cultural value. One isn't literate because one can recognize a word. True reading and literacy mean comprehension of cues and clues and making inferences about importance and meaning. Sure, it isn't about full fledged expertise, but about a level of mastery which comes from something more than simple memorization.

So not to slam humanity, but most of us are culturally illiterate to a large degree. What we don't know, we don't know. And often, what we know, we only know; we don't understand. So when we see it in another context we recognize it as it triggers our factual knowledge, but it doesn't always trigger the deeper cultural significance. Only because it often isn't used with that significance in mind do we get away with not seeing anything deeper in it.