Cox Cable wants me to store my PC back up and photos and stuff outside my computer on a "memory" somewhere in India or Sri Lanka. Dell Computer is trying to send my PC back-up to Hong Kong. Kodak/Sony/etc want me to save my photos with them somewhere off shore. "Off Shore" sounds like a greasy rusted old oil tanker somewhere anchored on a reef full of old computer tape machines with my data on them.
Now comes "On Star". On Star was given to me "Free" for one year with my basic super cheap Chevy Pickup Truck. The locks on my truck push down to lock and pull up to unlock. My windows crank down with a handle. My heater or air condition have a nob that turns to get more or less. I have cloth seats, vinyl floor mats, and no thing that is extra. Except ON STAR!. (and XM/Sirius but that's another rant).
So I get this email from On Star on my PC that tells me that I have 400 miles on my three month old truck, my oil life is 87%, and my tire pressure on all of my four tires is low.
Holy Mother OF God and Madre Mater of Man! Mind you I can't tell if my basic ole truck has low tire pressure while I am in the truck (basic trucks don't have that display). I would have to get the air gauge left over from my 83 truck and get out and stick in on the tire pressure valve. OR go in to my PC and access the On Star Computer (located in Thailand?).
What ever happened to autonomy? Why are we(my truck) not self contained? Why is my data, photographs, emails, personal credit history, bank accounts, and truck tire pressure spread all over the damn world?
I have a in-law that speaks as though he could survive if all of the modern systems failed. Not quite a survivalist he does think of himself as self contained and self sufficient. I think we have passed a tipping point on that score. If you want to see what happens to "Self Made Men" when all those off shore/on shore etcetera systems stumble, just watch an hour of the Angst and Fear and Madness on CNBC any week day while the stock market s are open.
OK, I surrender. I'm going to drive down to the local 7-11 and air up all four of my tires and then drive back home to my PC and see if they now have the right amount of air in them. Of course if I had a Blackberry I could just look it up on that. Say if I push that little On Star button on the mirror would some little gal in Singapore tell me if I got my tire pressure right? Maybe I could get her on the "mirror" while I'm airing up my tires and turn the radio up real loud and when the pressure was just right she could holler at me from Bangladesh, "STOP".
Tire Pressure! We are screwed.
4 comments:
We are all part of the collective now.
Well said 3 of 8.
On-Star? World is passing me up too fast. Last year, I broke down and got a remote garage door opener. One of these days, I may look into cellphones...but I'm way too old for twittering, whatever that is...
Me too, it was last week when I discovered that a web log was the same thing as a blog cause they had taken the "word" weblog and chopped off the we to get blog.
As for Twitter I think it is a well named phenomena. I mean starting the the 1325 A.D. definitions up till now Internet twittering is actual twittering:
twit⋅ter /ˈtwɪtər/
Show Spelled Pronunciation [twit-er]
–verb (used without object)
1. to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird.
2. to talk lightly and rapidly, esp. of trivial matters; chatter.
3. to titter; giggle.
4. to tremble with excitement or the like; be in a flutter.
–verb (used with object)
5. to express or utter by twittering.
–noun
6. an act of twittering.
7. a twittering sound.
8. a state of tremulous excitement.
Origin:
1325–75; ME twiteren (v.); akin to G zwitschern
If the they had treated twitter like they did weblog it would come out as itter. Now Ittering actually sounds better to me. Less superficial you know.
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