Technology today - The Social Knotwork
As anyone who has put two steaks and a jar of bovril in a blender, then hit the 'blend like fuck!' button in an attempt to make a meat smoothie will know, technology is a marvellous thing but in the wrong hands it can be messy. See also, smart-bombs. The problem with the democratisation of technology, of putting more computing power than took man to the moon into a mobile 'phone, is that that technology is now in the hands of idiots rather than astronauts, who use it to sodcast tinny tedious music choices to a public who are devoutly wishing that the mobile 'phone owner was indeed in deep space, preferably without the benefit of a space suit, and where famously no one can hear you scream, nor presumably hear Rizzle Kicks played through a Lillyputian PA.
The use of technology can also have unintended consequences. Social networking sites were probably not invented by peodos to allow them to groom children. The socially responsible original intention of sites like 'Friends Reunited' was, I seem to recall, to wreck formally happy marriages by putting ex-boyfriends and girlfriends back in touch. The only pictures of schoolchildren on Friends Reunited in the early days showed them sporting flares and a nylon tee shirt, and any peado arranging to meet with one on the basis of their photograph would be justly surprised when a 47 year old accountant turned up, no longer sporting the choirboy outfit, or full head of hair, that originally captured the predator's attention.
As social networks moved from connecting you with people you knew to people you didn't know but shared an interest in hob-nobs with to, via the arrival of Twitter, connecting you with people off the telly, one wonders if the next obvious step as we all carry our computers round with us now is going to be to put us in touch with people who may share some of our interests and may be sitting in the same coffee shop. Perhaps an app that uses a personality quiz and a list of your top dozen interests, combined with an honest assessment of 'how desperate are you to make friends?' with a scale of Robinson Crusoe to Not Really could let you know if like-minded ugly socially awkward people are nearby.
To really take off, of course, it's going to need Google glass, so it can guide you to these people and you an see if they are as attractive in real life as that photograph of them wearing that choirboy outfit on their profile page would have you believe.
The flip side is that this might encourage others to talk to you. Cyber stalking is a truly first world problem, especially if you don't guard your privacy and deactivate those real time location updates. Essentially, if somebody you have been avoiding sends you a message reading 'I see you're in the knicker aisle at M&S', it's time to go offline for a while.
Going after net nuisances can be problematic. A few years ago, tiring of e mails from associates of the apparently countless deposed members of royal families in Africa who were keen to send me oodles of loot in return for only my bank account details, I tinkered with the notion of replying to these would be benefactors instead of simply deleting and continuing my daily routine of looking for diverting porn.
My reply would read that this was an automatic reply, generated by 'Microsoft Curseware 2009 Beta', that the recipient was immediately and irrevocably cursed upon reading the first line of the e mail and that the curse itself was encrypted in the body of the e mail.
I never had the guts to try it. On sober reflection, it's cruel and actually fairly irresponsible. Also, I have read enough horror stories to know that these things invariably backfire. But more than that I was always worried that if some poor sod in an e sweatshop in Nigeria read my e mail and then had a freak accident, possibly involving a goat falling on him or something equally newsworthy to net nerds, suddenly I'd be the bad guy.
The use of technology can also have unintended consequences. Social networking sites were probably not invented by peodos to allow them to groom children. The socially responsible original intention of sites like 'Friends Reunited' was, I seem to recall, to wreck formally happy marriages by putting ex-boyfriends and girlfriends back in touch. The only pictures of schoolchildren on Friends Reunited in the early days showed them sporting flares and a nylon tee shirt, and any peado arranging to meet with one on the basis of their photograph would be justly surprised when a 47 year old accountant turned up, no longer sporting the choirboy outfit, or full head of hair, that originally captured the predator's attention.
As social networks moved from connecting you with people you knew to people you didn't know but shared an interest in hob-nobs with to, via the arrival of Twitter, connecting you with people off the telly, one wonders if the next obvious step as we all carry our computers round with us now is going to be to put us in touch with people who may share some of our interests and may be sitting in the same coffee shop. Perhaps an app that uses a personality quiz and a list of your top dozen interests, combined with an honest assessment of 'how desperate are you to make friends?' with a scale of Robinson Crusoe to Not Really could let you know if like-minded ugly socially awkward people are nearby.
To really take off, of course, it's going to need Google glass, so it can guide you to these people and you an see if they are as attractive in real life as that photograph of them wearing that choirboy outfit on their profile page would have you believe.
The flip side is that this might encourage others to talk to you. Cyber stalking is a truly first world problem, especially if you don't guard your privacy and deactivate those real time location updates. Essentially, if somebody you have been avoiding sends you a message reading 'I see you're in the knicker aisle at M&S', it's time to go offline for a while.
Going after net nuisances can be problematic. A few years ago, tiring of e mails from associates of the apparently countless deposed members of royal families in Africa who were keen to send me oodles of loot in return for only my bank account details, I tinkered with the notion of replying to these would be benefactors instead of simply deleting and continuing my daily routine of looking for diverting porn.
My reply would read that this was an automatic reply, generated by 'Microsoft Curseware 2009 Beta', that the recipient was immediately and irrevocably cursed upon reading the first line of the e mail and that the curse itself was encrypted in the body of the e mail.
I never had the guts to try it. On sober reflection, it's cruel and actually fairly irresponsible. Also, I have read enough horror stories to know that these things invariably backfire. But more than that I was always worried that if some poor sod in an e sweatshop in Nigeria read my e mail and then had a freak accident, possibly involving a goat falling on him or something equally newsworthy to net nerds, suddenly I'd be the bad guy.
Labels: Computers, IT, Magic, Microsoft, Technology
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