Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

First 'real' mail became trash. I only get envelopes in windows either demanding payment or trying to sell me stuff ('To The Homeowner'), this has been the case for many years now. I do get a couple of Christmas and Birthday cards (a couple, literally) and a letter over Christmas of a friend and former pupil who updates me on her life and times but leaves no address, real or email, to which to answer. The rest of the paper mail I receive is either boring or stressful.

Now e-mail is going the same way. Communication with friends and family seems to have moved to Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and a couple of other ad-hoc apps. Most of the email I receive these days seems to be people trying to sell me stuff or people trying to scam me. And receipts of things I've bought, ok. It is a pity, in a way, given that on those messaging applications you tend to stick to one paragraph or two, email lends itself better to long form and when looking for something you said or was said to you it is much easier to do that on an email archive than trying to slowly scroll backwards on, say, WhatsApp.

I suppose every step we take and every door we open and get through involve the giving up of the possible alternatives. With email you lose the thrill (a small thrill but one nonetheless) of getting an envelope with an exotic postmark from a friend you've long not seen. With the messaging apps you lose the ease of writing or reading long form. What's next? Purely emoji communication, like the Kinographs in Neal Stephenson's Anathem? I don't think I would like that.

I must be one of the few people still using Google Plus. There are a few peeps there that are not on FB or LJ/DW; I also follow a few communities (mostly on classical guitar, science-fiction, pop science… I’m predictable like that. One feed I read is that of NASA. It is nearly always interesting but I have to refrain from reading the comments. Why does NASA seem to get more than the usual share of crackpots, conspiracy theorists and just plain loonies? One interface detail I definitely don’t like about G+ is the way it shows a comment at a time, then the next one, in succession. This draws your eyes in and makes it difficult, at least for me, to avoid looking at the wacko comments by said crackpots, conspiracy theorists and loonies. There still are people around that believe that ‘all of it’ (space exploration, modern science, etc) is a hoax made up by the System to keep them subjugated. No idea how that is supposed to work but TBH I can’t be all that bothered to find out how a mind like that works.

Amongst several interesting feeds I follow there, one that stands out is Open Culture (they also have a web site here -just in case :)

Interesting piece in Zdnet, if a little bit rather a personal attack, on the guy at Google who came up with Google Plus. Ephitets apart, it does reflect something that I've felt about Microsoft, Google and to an extent also Apple: they may have good intention to begin with ('do no evil..') but their developments and policies encroach in our lives in a way that in time may make Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' look like child's play:

http://www.zdnet.com/thanks-for-nothing-jerkface-7000030306/

Hating the new livejournal layout. It took me a while to find how to log in again, even. Yeah, let's make it simple and put large fonts and make it more like facetwit. And mobile.

[Edit ] Ah, it has reverted to the previous look once I logged in. Confusing. The info page still has that 'My Little Info Page' look, though.

Doesn't this sound to you like only a slight aggiornamento of the good old 'you be good to us and we be good to you otherwise bad things could happen when we send the enforcers...' old Mafia protection warning?

And what would you do if you get the letter?

So I didn't make it to Black Plastic, Invocation or any of the other options. Instead, I've been sorting out what CDs, records, DVDs and books I can keep and which I can not, when I move.

Also reading 'The Singularity is Near' by Ray Kurtzweil. Fascinating exercise, but I wish I could be so optimistic.

Put like this, it is rather scary

nicked from strawberryfrog

What shall we do with him, now that he's not a drunken sailor?
It’s a strange world...

Well done, America. Or rather, US of A (’America’ really extends from Canada to Patagonia, a lot of which did not elect a President yesterday, even if it all will affect them, as it will the rest of us). Let’s see what happens now. There are larger forces at play than the good intention of one man or even his team. But it is a step in the right direction.