Good morning folks,
I will be working in Montreal today.
This might be the gullibility edition or the conspiracy edition of The Pulp. Not sure, let's find out. In the last few days I have had a variety of email, facebook, twitter and other social mediaesque messages that all are just.. wrong. Untruths, false conspiracies and pure wastes of time.
The first was the dire warning, that the gov's is spying on us. Well, yes they are but tell me Binky, what revelation do you have for us? That the Samsung phone battery has a secret hidden circuit wrapped around it under the label and it is used by the gov't to read everything you have in your phone, and here is a video explaining how to disable it.
Um... I wrote my Alberta friend back. The guy in the video demonstrated how to destroy the Near Field Communications antennae on his phone, and now he will be unable to share contact info, links, photos or whatev with other close at hand Samsung phones. It's not a secret, Samsung ads and instructions all explain their NFC and how great it is. Except video conspiracy dude's -his is now broken. BTW, I am not saying that NFC can't be used by someone to spy on you, depending on your settings it could happen. But the g-man would need to be hanging out pretty close to you. There are much better (read: more efficient) ways to spy on you.
Then there was the RCMP alert, please pass this on if you care about the children! There are gangs wielding guns kidnapping teenage girls off the streets in Grande Prairie and forcing the girls into prostitution. Odd I thought. For those not in the know, GP is north of Edmonton, has a population in the mid 50k and while fast growing and know for some spectacular bar fights (at least back when I was younger) is not know for gun toting gangs. A quick check revealed that a couple years back a 6 year old girl claimed that a car pulled up to the curb with a couple in it that asked her some questions like, do you live alone?, do you want some candy?, does the East Witch live nearby?, and 'implied' that they were going to steal her and sell her to Gypsies or that is what the girl 'inferred'. The RCMP are still looking for the light grey coupe. The girl is now 8 and has her own reality TV show.
And then there was the Petition. Sigh. Okay, this one is just dumb. Before I reveal the nature of the petition I will provide some back data. China has 1.34 billion people, give or take a few hundred. Canada is about 1/38th of the population and with Djibouti having less than a million people is about 1/38 the population of Canada.
in China there is a celebration of the summer solstice aka the dog-eating festival. During this festival there is perhaps 10-15,000 dogs eaten, mostly nureongi (yellow animal) along with lychees (soapberry) and grain alcohol. The latter tastes a lot like diesel fuel thinned with acetone. It hits you like a ball peen hammer in the forehead, but strangely you do desire more almost immediately.
About a week ago I was send a petition to sign to demand the Chinese celebrants halt this practice and eat something else instead, like chickens. Really? This would be a lot like Canadians receiving a petition signed by a few Djiboutans (I am guessing that what they call themselves, that or Djiboutians) asking me not to eat beef. Although there are more than 40 million cows eaten each year so it's not really a fair comparison. It is unknown how many were named Bessie by their rancher handlers, but safe to say none of the nureongi were named Spot.
I do not know how many chickens are eaten each year, but I do have concerns that there are more wings being sold than chicken feet. Should there not be the same number - where the hell are all of the chicken feet going? Please pass that question around.
I remember during the birth of the Internet as we know it, then it was easy public access to a an existing university network (yes I know, and the military industrial complex, thanks conspiracy-antiestablishment dude). As I was saying, I remember that this would usher in a new Age of Enlightenment, the free sharing of knowledge and wisdom, that it would be like the Renaissance. New development in the sciences and the arts, our children would grow up in a world of immediate access to the great works, to culture, history, leaps in medicine and human rights.
And...
We have instead, photos of Walmart fashion faux pas, Nigerian bank scams, fake news, celebrity gossip, and online surveys of who is hot, and who is not.
Yeah. Have a great day.
This is a great post with many valid points! I personally think our children already do have access to modern development at their fingertips today. With access to sources such as About, WebMD, TED and many others, any person with a internet connection has access to some of the world's most useful data. Our children may in fact have it too easy! Today, we're seeing a generation where many see no reason to innovate, since everything is handed to them. This is due to the advances in technology, including information-sharing such as the internet. Because of these technologies, everything is becoming automated and youth are having more and more free time on their hands. I just wish they would spend it doing something constructive, rather than create and forward bogus web content to friends. The fact these contents are viral is a negative one of course. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful and inspiring demonstration of how powerful the internet has become and how fast data can reach millions of people all around the globe at once.
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