the Internet, on my face

So, I've been streaming the scifi show Continuum, about a cop chick from the future forced to do her thing in our own dark times. But she's not only equipped with a wearable computer, but also a chip in her head that lets her see people's heart rates when she speaks to them, etc. Basically, Google glass in her head. It's inevitable that someone, like me, watching a show, like that, would invariably muse: "gee, I wonder what she'd see if she looked at me."

My life has been fairly driven by the whole "what-people-think-I-am-at-first-glance". On the upside, it got me laid alot, people foolishly thinking I was more dark and dangerous than I actually ever was; on the downside, I probably lost a lot of good jobs because people can't separate their idiotic first impressions from my well-stacked resume. So, it's a slippery conundrum. In the coming age where people will look at me and get a whole lot more than just "a weird feeling", well, let's just say i will be effectively wearing my Linkedin profile. And so will we all.

I don't think they'll be much choice in the matter. It's not like we'll get ready to go out for a night of clubbing and stress over whether we'll wear our Google+ profile or our Add-Dating-Site-Here profile. It might be zen to say "we are who we are", but now it's literal. And to those people with different levels of access (or those who just hack well enough to pretend to be someone with a higher level of access), we'll be literally wearing our medical data, our criminal record, our tax record. When people squint at us or do a double take, it might be because they've discovered that awkward online photo before we have, superimposed over our faces.

Now, I don't want to get all dystopian like some old guy about the rise of the robots or anything. I'm Mister Cautious Tech Geek after all. I dream about the day when I only need Siri as a friend and confidante (but with Helen Mirren's voice). I have been well aware for quite a while that my shrouds of privacy would soon become a thing of the past. What I didn't realize was that I would also have to say goodbye to my air of mystery.

Middle-aged scifi geek, reflecting

When I imagine earlier generations of kids immersed in the fantasy worlds available to them, their dreams seem so damned honorable and American: exploration of far-flung planets, staving off the Martian problem and generally saving the Earth. Out of those honorable, fertile imaginations we got both the Apollo space program and Trek '66, so all those hours gazing at one of those hand-cranked solar system models eventually paid off for our civilization.

For those of my generation and beyond, however, we've seen so much, read so much, we should easily be making fantasy into reality at a pace much faster than the latest iPad app. But I think that's because we're not actually 100% certain what tech exists and what doesn't. We may have a suspicion that transporting technology isn't quite happening and that communicators easily became cellphones, but I'm fuzzy on whether we still make rockets that only run on massive amounts of fossil fuels or have we figured out that whole warp core thing yet.

While my father and his generation may have gazed out of their bedroom windows up to the Milky Way (well, my dad grew up in east Harlem, so probably not) and wonder what was out there, I never had to. I was neither curious nor overwhelmed by the possibilities. Disappointed perhaps that I would have to find a mountain in Patagonia in order to sneak a peek at our galaxy because of our overly-bright western civilization, but there was always the Pink Floyd laser show at the planetarium to give me an easy simulation.

Have I borne witness to so many versions of dystopia, with and without Pamela Anderson, to imagine I will ever actually experience one in my lifetime? (Or am I actually living in a slo-mo po-mo version right now?) Apparently whatever bleak rendition of the future we'll get, there will still be great rock n' roll - Tank Girl notwithstanding - and brothels will have to make a comeback. Evil computers? My iPod already thinks it knows what's best for me and I don't even have the one with Siri. Hell, my inkjet printer has a tainted, damned soul if you ask me.

Has all of my science fact or fiction repertoire a) been utterly useless to me as a human being or b) subtly formulated my outlook on life and its expectations? I mean, I already have a decent grasp on the theories of alt universes and time travel and understand why temporal mechanics gave Janeway a headache, so the idea that another version of myself is living the highlife on the other side of the world wouldn't surprise me in the least. Travel back to the year of my birth and vow not to do anything to upset the timeline? Yeah, I didn't need to go to university to figure out how that all will end badly.

My mother's generation may or may not have dreamed of landing on all those alien planets that look suspiciously like our California desert, but I suspect sadly that space travel will be less Voyager or Moya or even Serenity and more Nostromo, only with meals catered by Monsanto.

The Future of Our Society, autocorrected

During my job search today I came across this on craigslist:

"graphic tudor wanted"

I wanted to ask of the requirements: do i need to suffer from gout? have had several wives beheaded?

But here's the thing:

The person who posted this ad up probably doesn't care about spelling - it's next to grammar as an antiquated function in our society. During the reign of "i know there's spellcheck somewhere but I always forget to use it" I thought we were on the road to more pristine communication. Then texting brought in the great devolution of communication; however, while in school, I noticed few of my fellow students could arrange a complete sentence. So, now, in our technological nanny state, we put in the hands of these same people, software that "autocorrects" bad spelling, usually with hilarious and unpredictable results.

But the biggest result: people no longer have to feel the social stigma of being a bad speller - they just have to add the disclaimer ("stupid autocorrect") to the bottom of every post, every text, every email and they are automagically saved by the very technology that mocked them to begin with.

Advice, virtually

I noticed in the last round of 2013 predictions that this would be the year there will be no more "guessing". Have a question, look it up. Speculation is unnecessary; you have the capability to find any answer at your fingertips (unless you're on wifi, like me). 

Throw Google a juicy question and many search results will turn out to be forums: other people worrying about the same thing I am. Advice, like anything on the web, is ubiquitous - and you have to be vigilante about whose to take. Posting on forums is a good practice, but like any conversation in which you try to engage strangers (or know-it-alls), prepare to be trashed or ignored.

Apple's forums are a good example. The unspoken rule is never to ask anything without laying out the exact specifications of your computer or device, its OS, its RAM, maybe even its color. It saves a lot of time and stupid quips; however, more often than not, most of my questions on Apple's forums go mysteriously unanswered. Understandably, the database is huge, possibly hundreds of questions are posted every hour and the chances that mine will snag an expert's attention can be dim. Still, it's an epic fail if I'm in dire need of some virtual I.T.

It's also prudent to be wary of multi-paged discussions. Usually these are filled with folks raking back and forth over the same territory, throwing in their $.03, contradicting each other. I spent an entire evening this week reading through an Apple forum about why Netflix doesn't stream well with AppleTV. Hours later, I still had no good answer, and streaming Netflix over my AppleTV still sucks. 

Perhaps the only thing more satisfying than posing personal needy questions online is to incite fervent opinion. I use one of LinkedIn's graphic design forums to get other professionals' takes on current working conditions. This is one of the best functions of a social network like LinkedIn - introducing yourself to your community by delving into current issues, and in the course, revealing bits of yourself as well. Opinions seem to flow easier than answers in the virtual world.

iPod resetting instructions, how best to clean my saltwater aquarium, what's the latest rumor coming out of Walt Disney World, how to treat shoulder bursitis naturally, how many times has T'Pau shown up on Star Trek…my google search inquiries are all being filed somewhere in order to directly market to me. A blessing? A curse? Privacy invasion? It's still a flawed system. A few months ago I searched for natural answers to sciatica relief. Now every banner ad on mostly every website is about, yes, sciatica relief. Good thing I didn't search for reasons why genital parasites are on the verge of extinction because of all this excessive manscaping.

Elementary, in the details

I had the chance to catch a few episodes of Elementary, the U.S. take on BBC's Sherlock, itself a 21st century update of detection, deduction and the art of fine, sometimes crazy tiny, detail. I am all for fine detail, a skill that is sadly neglected in our education system, but what makes both new versions of Sherlock Holmes' adventures palatable for the mainstream viewer is that the lead character is presented as a "high-functioning sociopath" to quote one of the shows. In other words, the only way an ordered mind can excel in our society is by acting out in the most disorderly ways: no social skills, no guile, no vanity, no use for authority - the many habits of highly deductive people.

As chance would have it, I also watched a brief video talk today on the subject of "should designers learn to code". I won't bore you with the outcome, as it is fundamentally self-evident, but I did perk up at the lecturer's spritely comment that it is somewhat fashionable to hire brilliant coder/developers who "verge on Asperger's" syndrome, to paraphrase out of context. As if that thin line between autism and ADHD can produce brilliant, if not cleverly hip,  individuals who may be useless in the real world but whose focused brain can mean a goldmine for any commercial enterprise. (In other words, they are good hires, just don't expect them to dress well or be up to date on Buck Wild.)

Both Sherlock versions have shown the detective describe himself as only having so much room in his brain (comparing it  to a hard drive) and all vacuous, useless, trivial information needs to be excised so that the brilliance of deduction can have the space it needs. And I think there's an interesting lesson here, as most of the viewing audience - myself included - has to ingest so much information in a day, the fine details of life can easily be lost, or worse: the big picture fades because the everyday minutiae of social networking, tweeting, texting, rss,  - and, sure, blogging -  distort, confuse and shroud sometimes both the forest AND the trees.