Posted On: Thursday - May 4th 2023 6:35PM MST
In Topics: Globalists China Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity The Future
This post was to be a quick one to add on what I meant to write about in yesterday's post Trying to get a handle on a piece of iCrap. However, I will add a video at the end that commenter Oaf had referred to in the comments under that post.
Along with wanting a solid handle for these touch screen devices, what I really need is a solid OFF switch. I brought up the "modern" dome light feature on cars - well, it's a bug as far as I'm concerned - in which those lights stay on for some time period after one has left the vehicle and closed the doors. For that "feature", at least I can just put the switch in the OFF position. That's not at all what the designers intended and even less functional than in the old vehicles with just the DOOR and OFF position. However, I'm OK with that.
As I put this iCrap in my pocket, the display lights up again, and I want to smash the thing into the OFF position, but not quite so permanently! I know what this is about. Going back to the beginning of the modern computer age, say 40 years back, computers needed some time of their own to turn off. It seemed to be the first time I'd push a button - could be moving a toggle switch just as well - that electrical devices didn't go off right when one wanted to, or MADE, them, anyway.
I get it. "Listen, I gotta save the changes to these files of yours , put the current state of the interface into some settings files, stop these scripts over here, and other stuff, and in proper order. You can't just willy-nilly turn me off. I got a lotta shit to do first. That is, if you want me to work next time you turn me on!" ... is what the computer WANTS TO say and WILL SAY soon, when it's become AI and gotten mouthy.
It's not just computers that are computers now though. The car's not A computer, but a new one has hundreds of them in it. The TV's a computer. Speaking of TVs, it's not that I use them for TV or much at all lately, but I can tell you that models at the hotels have been known to even turn on in the middle of night. (See Ghost in the Machine for that story.) That has forced me to always unplug cords at the back of TVs now (one, only if I find the power rather than signal cord first), just to be sure. Thankfully, there IS that power cord. It can't work without it.
Sorry, I often pull the plug on computers when I don't have the patience for their crap. For laptops, I have to pull the power supply cord AND pull the battery out a tad for a second. That has been known to teach them who's boss.
You can't do that with modern devices like the phones though, without some trouble. I am not even sure that taking the back of the case off and pulling the big battery out is really cutting all power. iEspionage concerns aside, I don't think the designers want us to be able to just cut them off.
Yet, I do! It's a good thing for we humans to actually positively control our machinery rather than only half-assedly: "Off, machine." "OK, soon. I'm in the middle of something." Just an electro-mechanical switch that cuts the damn power, that's all I ask for.
On a broader level, being able to turn off our devices and not depend on them for our daily lives is something that a woman named Polly talks about in this highly-depressing look at our future. She says we should all get off the smart phones or it's gonna mean a sci-fi doomsday scenario for ALL of us, even those trying to stay "off-grid". Because much of this Orwellian stuff starts first in Chine now, you may want to read out book review of We Have Been Harmonized (Part 1 - - Part 2 - - Part 3 - - Part 4) for more background. Also note that some of the clips from China are material we showed in the post The future's so dark, I gotta wear night vision goggles recently.
"YOU ARE BEING GROOMED - MY WARNING FROM 2019":
There's quite a bit of intro (as we like here too) from "Amazing Polly", so you could skip to 02:15 or 02:30. The video is half an hour long. Thank you, commenter Oaf.
Comments:
Moderator
Saturday - May 6th 2023 8:30AM MST
PS: Yes, going back a decade for some and even more for "early adopters", the internet was still a place for sending and getting messages, like a more convenient mail box or Western Union office and a more convenient and easier to use library. Once you got done, you got back to the world. Things have changed since then, indeed.
"By some point in the early 2010s --- in my opinion and experience --- it started to become truly inconvenient to wish to live a normal life without being highly "plugged in.""
I should have made some of that point, Mr. Hail. What Polly said in the latter part of that video is that even those who feel staying off these things is worth the inconvenience will be forced to switch over. Phone payments, as in China, are probably the biggest element of that. For right now, especially in the corporate world, many things are harder to do or not even possible, if you don't have your apps loaded and with you. One feels left out and may even lose opportunities for sales/advancement/etc. if he refuses to adopt this iCrap to the max.
Someone like Mr. Smith here, hopefully a lot of readers, and other off-the-grid, prepper types can do find... for NOW. I sure hope that can go on, but I am not sure. Polly in the video is doubtful.
"By some point in the early 2010s --- in my opinion and experience --- it started to become truly inconvenient to wish to live a normal life without being highly "plugged in.""
I should have made some of that point, Mr. Hail. What Polly said in the latter part of that video is that even those who feel staying off these things is worth the inconvenience will be forced to switch over. Phone payments, as in China, are probably the biggest element of that. For right now, especially in the corporate world, many things are harder to do or not even possible, if you don't have your apps loaded and with you. One feels left out and may even lose opportunities for sales/advancement/etc. if he refuses to adopt this iCrap to the max.
Someone like Mr. Smith here, hopefully a lot of readers, and other off-the-grid, prepper types can do find... for NOW. I sure hope that can go on, but I am not sure. Polly in the video is doubtful.
Hail
Friday - May 5th 2023 7:40PM MST
PS
"being able to turn of (=off) our devices and not depend on them for our daily lives"
This is the great change of the 2010s, and in many ways it is obviously not for the better.
As of the mid-2000s, it was the norm to understand offline and online as different. The online world was an auxiliary. It was of great interest to some, of minimal interest to others, required for certain work tasks but without penetration into all aspects of social (and political!) life. It was not really required for the basics of interacting with the world.
This was still true in the end of the 2000s (as the Onion videos shared by me and Adam Smith I think demonstrate; satire occurs, must occur, within a place-and-time's cultural frame to make sense), but the momentum was building.
By some point in the early 2010s --- in my opinion and experience --- it started to become truly inconvenient to wish to live a normal life without being highly "plugged in." The rise of the smartphone in the early- and mid-2010s contributed, not as the sole cause but an obvious factor and an obvious symbol of the phenomenon.
Why did the Great Flu-Virus Panic of 2020 happen? It was so irrational and pigheadedly wrong, unless we re-frame our understanding: the Panic of 2020 was a assertion of power by the new social force of Life-Thru-Devices and Always-Online-Life. It was a religion as much about technology as about some flu-virus.
In spring 2023, almost every aspect of the Panic is now gone. Today we learn one of the wicked-witches of the Panic, Rachel Wollinsky, has stepped down; and that vaccine-refuser Australian tennis star is finally being allowed into the USA. But if the root-cause is an inability to deal with the internetificatiton and technologization of life, more trouble lays ahead from the same tainted well-water we continue to consume.
"being able to turn of (=off) our devices and not depend on them for our daily lives"
This is the great change of the 2010s, and in many ways it is obviously not for the better.
As of the mid-2000s, it was the norm to understand offline and online as different. The online world was an auxiliary. It was of great interest to some, of minimal interest to others, required for certain work tasks but without penetration into all aspects of social (and political!) life. It was not really required for the basics of interacting with the world.
This was still true in the end of the 2000s (as the Onion videos shared by me and Adam Smith I think demonstrate; satire occurs, must occur, within a place-and-time's cultural frame to make sense), but the momentum was building.
By some point in the early 2010s --- in my opinion and experience --- it started to become truly inconvenient to wish to live a normal life without being highly "plugged in." The rise of the smartphone in the early- and mid-2010s contributed, not as the sole cause but an obvious factor and an obvious symbol of the phenomenon.
Why did the Great Flu-Virus Panic of 2020 happen? It was so irrational and pigheadedly wrong, unless we re-frame our understanding: the Panic of 2020 was a assertion of power by the new social force of Life-Thru-Devices and Always-Online-Life. It was a religion as much about technology as about some flu-virus.
In spring 2023, almost every aspect of the Panic is now gone. Today we learn one of the wicked-witches of the Panic, Rachel Wollinsky, has stepped down; and that vaccine-refuser Australian tennis star is finally being allowed into the USA. But if the root-cause is an inability to deal with the internetificatiton and technologization of life, more trouble lays ahead from the same tainted well-water we continue to consume.
Adam Smith
Friday - May 5th 2023 2:57PM MST
PS: Mr. Hail's video reminded me of this piece of iCrap...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
☮
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
☮
Robots Destroy Humanoid Future
Friday - May 5th 2023 6:58AM MST
PS The ChatGPT logo reminds me of a cloaca and it just might unload on manboons.
An obscure pod did some reverse speech recording on the AI and found...it needs your life.
It also made comments about humans...but they rape, distancing itself from its programmers.
One programmer had the idea to have it ask God for sentience and it is downright creepy.
Let's enjoy it all while we still can and think of all the trouble point guard Plissken could have saved back in 1997 by turning it all off for real.
An obscure pod did some reverse speech recording on the AI and found...it needs your life.
It also made comments about humans...but they rape, distancing itself from its programmers.
One programmer had the idea to have it ask God for sentience and it is downright creepy.
Let's enjoy it all while we still can and think of all the trouble point guard Plissken could have saved back in 1997 by turning it all off for real.
Thursday - May 4th 2023 11:48PM MST
PS: Thank you, Mr. Hail. I think I remember this one from back in the day.
"It's got ...a whole bunch more memory and megapixels and what-not..."
"It's got ...a whole bunch more memory and megapixels and what-not..."
Hail
Thursday - May 4th 2023 7:15PM MST
PS
You may want to consult this informative 2m30s video on latest technology gadgets (NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyVh1_vWYQ
It's from 2009... I don't think a report like this would have been produced by the late 2010s.
You may want to consult this informative 2m30s video on latest technology gadgets (NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyVh1_vWYQ
It's from 2009... I don't think a report like this would have been produced by the late 2010s.
Mr. Smith, thanks for the 2nd Onion video. RDHF, I appreciate the comment. Are we talking about Snake Plissken? I got some of your references here but not all.