Friday 27 November 2015

Big Cyber Brother is watching you closely this Black Friday

The internet marketing went mad today.

Biggest sale of the year! 50% off clothes! Limited time only! 35% off luxury goods! Free delivery! You want this! Your pet needs it! You really want that! Buy now! Buy today!! The offer will expire at 23 59!!! Buy!

And when it will all go back to normal tomorrow, we will be expected to oversee how sinister this normalcy of the internets has become as far as the marketing is concerned.

How when you go to any online shop and look at anything it will then follow you around as a little ad, jumping from one website to another after you, reminding you of what you just wanted to buy and not letting you forget. 

How when you scroll down your social media the sponsored content is barely marked as such any more, so that you skim it with the same open mind as the rest of the posts from people you chose to be friends with.

How the emails you're subscribed to receive cleverly tailor your offers to hook you and then reel you on to the right website.

How when you put something in your virtual basket but then change your mind and not buy it, you will still receive a reminder that you forgot to check out but not to worry, the item is still there waiting for you...

How your personal data gets used to create these digital marketing ghosts coaxing, reminding and enticing you to buy, buy, buy, all day, every day, using information about which internet shops you visit, where do you buy your morning coffee and what do you like to watch in the cinema. Remember these virtual tailored ads in Minority Report the movie? They already exist. There must be one or two right here, on your browser tab to the left.

And after today's explosion of offers, sales, special, buy, off, only, buy, be quick, special, today, now, sales! it will all seem mild and normal.

But is it really?


Tuesday 10 November 2015

A praise of proud loners

Apparently the nasty, devious internet AD 2015 is still killing socialising and making more and more people more and more isolated, says yet another research in a very concerned tone.

Well. (As it is not clear in type - it is a rather sarcastic 'well' with a prolonged 'e' sound.)

Here's an idea - we are a first generation that can choose being on one's own as a viable living option. And another generation is hitting an age of  making this choice as well. Or not, as it is a choice.
  
For centuries and millennia human monkeys used to huddle for warmth, safety, comfort and not necessarily out of preference for constant physical company of one another. Lack of living space would also be an issue and cultural and financial constraints. Not any more (I'm going to focus on developed countries here, as these are the ones where terrible digital loneliness is trying to consume us, doomsayer simon says).

I think there's more people who like and choose to not spend their every waking moment crushed amongst random others' body heat, odours and monkey chatter than it was previously noted. It used to be impossible to step away from the crowd if you lived in a crowd, worked physically in a crowd and relaxed in a crowd. Now, it is possible. You close the door and leave the crowd of random others outside.

An yet, when was the last time you felt like you're truly alone, between your bleeping mobile, pinging facebook, chirruping email, plonking Skype, plurping calendar reminders and, last but not least, actual phone ringing? As you juggle work people requests, family duties, friends needs and organising this once a week physical meet up and drink up on a Thursday, why does it matter that most of it is dealt with via a device these days? Just like kids growing up with touch screens right now will expect every flat display surface to respond to their touch, I understand someone working from home and communicating with friends/family/work colleagues mostly via social media, mobile and blog and somehow NOT feeling terribly isolated. 

Ans so I remain sceptical when I hear about such one sided research, because where is the study of how many people died early of stress induced heart failure after a life time of constant presence of others in their somewhat larger than average personal space in the past hundred years? How many people liked it when their spouse stayed at work later to finally have that evening  to themselves in the past fifty years? How many in the whole of human monkey history would be simply jealous to hear of a future in which you can live on your own and still be surrounded by digital shadows of the people you choose to stay in touch with?

And every so often even you, the proud loner, gather these shadows closer and go see them because there is a little bit of chattering, huddling monkey left in each of us, that the devious internet will never conquer.

Sunday 25 October 2015

For your internet security this post will self destruct in...

The worst thing about internet security these days is not that it is so unsafe in a big, bad digital world.

It's the passwords.

Every time you want to buy online from a website you use once every two years, put through codes from packets of cereals or post a reply in a vaguely interesting comments' thread, you have to register and pick a password for your new account.

Ok, so let's make it a standard password that I use for every such account...


Oh wait, this password has to have a capital letter, a number, a symbol and not end in 'a'.

But it can't contain my initials, two numbers in a row, a hash tag or a dollar sign.

Or a pound sign.

Or a 'K'?

Or a 69??

After half an hour of playing  a "make-a-password' game that seems to be a strange love child of sudoku and scrabble....

How about *********?

Great, here we go.

Oh no.

I misread the bunch of tiny squiggly "prove-you-are-human" letters that appeared for a second and typed them in wrong, so now I'm a bad robot and I can't have an account.

No worries, I can always start over, at least I have now chosen the password.

So I type **********  smugly.

"You can not use the same password twice."

...

I hate you, internet security AD2015.




Wednesday 25 March 2015

Definitely NOT procrastinating

I'm NOT procrastinating.

It's just that:


  • My back is all knotted and gets annoyed with me if I sit on a chair for longer than 20 minutes at a time.
  • I have four cats to entertain and they start pushing things off the stairs when bored, things that I later trip on.
  • The plant looks like it needs watering.
  • I better sort through this paperwork and send some invoices to actually be paid next month.
  • Oh no, it's the end of the financial year! I have to find out who didn't pay me and chase them for the money.
  • It's quite entertaining to write politely threatening emails that mention small claims court.
  • One cat just tumbled another one down the stairs *sigh*
  • After dispersing the War on the Stairs it's time to tend to my scratched hands.
  • Is this delivery at the door?
  • ...
What the hell is it I was supposed to be doing ...?

See, NOT procrastination at all. Just the art of selective remembering.

Sunday 4 January 2015

Best books of 2014

A subjective list, not in any particular order.

1.Tim Lebbon - The Island - Fantasy, conspiracy and a dark secret from the past. Yum.

2. Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo - Yep, I've never read it before and I was pleasantly surprised by this witty study of cold blooded revenge.

3. Harlan Ellison - Deathbird Stories - This man published over 1700 short stories, so he knows how to write them good.

4. Scott Lynch - The Republic of Thieves - Book 3 of Gentleman Bastard series so I won't spoiler the fun, let's just say there's even more politics, intrigue and skilled thievery in it.

5. Kim Stanley Robinson - 2312 - A classic space opera from one of sf heavy weights.

6. Beth Vaughan - Destiny's Star - I admit that's this book does not boast a very original plot but it's a well written heroic fantasy. Also, there's a cat in it that's basically Ginny...

7.  Ken Grimwood - Replay - Imagine you wake up twenty years earlier... but with all your memories intact. And it happens again. And again. And again....

8. Kate Danley - The Woodcutter - An intriguing play on fairy tales' motifs.

9. Justina Robson - Natural History - The world of the future where humans as we know us live side by side with the Augmented. All is kind of well until a new planet is found, that can be colonised - by just one of the human species...

10. Kurt Vonnegut -Welcome to the Monkey House - Another master of short stories that aged well.

11. Chris Adrian - The Great Night - Three people get lost in the night in the park that's a fairy realm and it's a very bad night to get lost there.

12. Elizabeth Gilbert - Eat, Pray, Love - Yeah, yeah, imagine my surprise... I did like the book, it's essentially a well written, thought inducing, travel diary. The movie is crap.

13. Paweł Jaszczuk - Marionetki/Plan Sary - Well I do read Polish books as well. Look out for the translation as these criminal novels set in pre-war Lwów are a gem.

14.  Elizabeth Gilbert - The Signature of All Things - A stubborn 19th century woman does all it takes to lead her life the way she wants to and study mosses. More interesting than it sounds.

15. Ian McDonald - Ares Express - Sf which takes place mostly on gigantic interplanetary trains.

16. Hillary Jordan - When She Woke - ...she was red from head to toes, as in this brave new world criminals get dyed, different crimes, different colours and have to live, or die, with it.

17. Spider and Jeanne Robinson - The Stardance Trilogy - Who would have thought that dancing in space is such a hassle and also a way to communicate with aliens.

18. Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death - Phillip K. Dick. Need I say more?

19. A Roger Ekirch - At Day's Close. A History of Night-time - I didn't realise how terrifying and dark and full of thieves and death nights used to be even a mere hundred years ago...