Facebook's Timeline

While I'm no maverick, I don't want Mark Zuckerberg's programatons dictating my use. I chafe against being herded toward the promised land of social media. But on August 25th, I'll have no choice but to become cyber cattle. And unlike Sarah Palin, I can't go rogue.

As someone farther along on the OCD path than most, I like to organize...a lot. And I don't cotton to some chump developer's idea of organizing and classifying information for my supposed benefit and ease of use. I can work with chronological dumping on my Wall, listing posts and messages with the most recent on top, the way it's been displayed up to now. That makes sense. That should have been called Timeline.

Bitching about Facebook changes is nothing new. But it's new to me. I've figured that Facebook, as a free social network, has the right to do whatever it wants. I still do. But it's finally gotten my goat because, like  multi-line slot machines, Timeline doesn't make sense. I don't understand the logic behind it, and that causes me agita. Why is my friend's comment showing up in the right-hand column? Why are there two columns to begin with? Why are some things and not others listed in my Recent Activity? What if I don't want people to see what I've been listening to on Stitcher? And for the love of Tim Berners-Lee, why is the cover photo taking up so much real estate? Most of us aren't good enough photographers to take really sharp, well-composed photos, let alone ones that are wildly landscape in their dimensions. I'm a words person and I would much prefer that space to be utilized in a more meaningful way than showing one big-ass blurry snapshot that's supposed to sum me up in a glance.

Fuck you, Timeline, and your activity log, too.

Have you liked TIWTPITF on Facebook? There's a lot of good conversation going on there, if you can figure out where to look.

Autocorrect

In this age of hustle bustle, packed Outlook schedules, fast-talkers, and even faster walkers, it's nice to have technology clean up after us. 

However.

Autocorrect is a handy tool, sure, particularly if you’re illiterate or have sausages for fingers. But as a persnickety gal in a hurry, I don't fancy my phone's inner editor redlining and overruling my words in the most supercilious manner, even when I spell them correctly. When I text about my cat Frida, she becomes Friday. Higgs boson defaulted to Hugs Bosom,which would be an AWESOME porn or drag name but not quite what I was going for when trying to rock a particle physics confab. I wished a dashing young man luck on a potential job and his reply? "From your lipids to God's ears."

Not exactly what he was going for, methinks, although my triglycerides are pretty fucking awesome.

While trying to be helpful, this presumptuous hit, I mean, git is putting words in my mouth, or at least on my screen. If I wanted to be second-guessed and condescended to, I'd ring up my ex-boyfriend. He was a champion speller of jackassian proportions and he had a Prius, I mean, penis.


(photo: damnyouautocorrect.com)

Passwords

Every since I was a wittle gurl, I liked security. In the form of my binkie, my mother's bedtime kiss, a sturdy deadbolt. And I thought passwords were the shit. They were currency into the cool kids' clubhouse, sometimes literally.

And then…the internet. In its infancy, I could use one password—a pet's name, some iteration of my birthdate, a word that always makes me giggle—for everything.

And then…now. With secure office servers, viruses, hackers, and just plain annoyingly efficient websites requiring frequent password resets, my mind and my secret codes are a jumble. Some are written down in various notebooks, some are trapped in my mind, hanging out on the trashheap of other lost memories like the last name of that nimrod boyfriend who always kept his gum tucked behind a molar when kissing me, and some are plopped God knows where on my laptop. 

Technology is supposed to make life easier, not remind me at every turn of how old and infirm my mind is becoming. 

macdaddy18

MacDaddy2000

TIWTPITF2012

TrueLove1

Haircut100

LakersRule86

IH8Scrabble

FUpassword

Butterfield8 

maisoui123

No, they're not vanity plates. These are my desperate attempts to find the right combination to unlock my iTunes/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/LinkedIn/Microsoft/GoogleYouTubeFlickr/bank/investment/online retailer account. Maybe I should just reset everything right now to Amnesiac4ever.

Don't talk to me about security questions. I'm too busy trying to remember my family's first phone number.

(art: sync-blog.com)

The ever-present Bluetooth

Are you a cyborg? Ari Gold? A sex phone operator? No?

Too bad.

If you were, I might give your face a pass (particularly if you’re a T-800) but now I’m going to have to give you a smackdown that will leave you black and Bluetoothless. I know the frequency, Kenneth, and you and I are on different wavelengths.

The 2012 version of a pager clipped to your waist, an eewtooth not only receives messages, it sends one. It communicates one thing loud and clear: YOU’RE A MASSIVE TOOL.

If you have to try that hard to look important, chances are you’re not. Unless you’re driving or performing surgery or tracking down Sarah Conner, stuff that thing in your pocket. Heck, clip it to your belt. Maybe I’ll think it’s a pager, which is almost old-school cool by comparison. Almost.

(photo: submergemag.com)

GPS addicts

“What are you doing?”
“I’m putting the restaurant we’re going to into my GPS.”
“Um…it’s a half-mile down this road.”

Shuttle and cab drivers, go crazy with the positioning systems. Maybe the route from the airport won’t be quite as circuitous (and therefore expensive) with some help from above. On a long road trip, go ahead and bust it out. See, I’m all for things that make life easier. But some geographically challenged chumps seem to be using GPS to find their own ass.

You’ve lived in this neighborhood for years, Lostco de Gama. You don’t seem as if you’ve suffered a crushing blow to the head resulting in temporary global amnesia. So why on earth do you turn to a bossy machine to get anywhere and everywhere? Why do you require assistance to drive in a straight line, Christopher Coldumbass? High school geometry must have been a real bitch. Word problems probably sent you into the fetal positioning system.

Why do you need a disembodied automaton with an Australian accent to tell you what to do? That’s what a dominatrix is for, duh. And I’m right here in the passenger seat, ready and willing to tell you where to get off, if you get my drift.

(Photo: german-way.com)

Spinning beach ball

My computer is on its deathbed, I get it. I don’t have to hear the death rattle to know its days are numbered. But yet my iBook has to keep reminding me that it’s a hunk o’ junk. In fact, it throws it in my face in the form of an obnoxious beach ball that frolics all over my screen, mocking me and my three-year-old equipment.

Apparently, my rotten Apple can’t keep Word from quitting on me but it can still muster up the energy to flip me the rainbow bird.

I hate to wait to begin with. Throw the spinning Trivial Pursuit pie into the mix and you have a serious suck cocktail. Since baby needs to blog, I have to resist the urge to punch my laptop in its smug but increasingly ineffective LCD face. But on the rainbow brite side, while I wait for the beach ball to get its yayas out, I have ample time to think about how I'm going to burst this trouble bubble when I finally upgrade.

(photo: thunkdifferent.wordpress.com/.../)

Texting at the table

You’re having a lovely time at dinner with friends or family. Maybe you’re even on a date. Conversation, along with the wine, is flowing. You’re relaxed and feeling connected. You’re experiencing the power of now.

Then someone pulls out a cell and checks his text messages. He might try to be subtle about this, holding it below the table so you’re only tipped off by the glow of the screen and the fact that he hasn’t heard what you just said.

What am I, chopped liver? Who are you texting who could possibly be more important than me? What could be cybersaid that could rival the pearls of wisdom and wit dropping from my lips?

Everyone agrees that it’s rude but when it’s you, you always find a way to rationalize it. So as not to be a massive tool and hypocrite, I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of this, when in the throes of a weird text and IM-only relationship. But no more (I'm tired of punching myself in the face). If I need to text or call someone, that’s what the bathroom or the front door is for.

I can see only a couple of instances where texting at the table might be allowed:

1. You’re a brain surgeon, or someone else with a job way more important than mine, and you’re on call. And if this is the case, excuse yourself and take care of your thumb business out of my sight line.
2. You’re by yourself, since your friends have ditched you and your boorish behavior.

The most fitting punishment, aside from breaking your thumbs, would be to take that snazzy new iPhone of yours and drop it in a really large glass of red wine.

TAFN & NRN

(photo: foodrush.ivillage.com/food/archives/2009/05/texting-at-the-dinner-table-th.html)