Category Archives: Media

Business, education, Media, Technology, Uncategorized

Unplugging! / Should I Stay or Should I Go?

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Photo credit: Crissy Jarvis

I had already begun a tech-related post about social media, (see below) and then found on my Firefox start-up page a notice about National Day of Unplugging

beginning this Friday at sundown. This, then, is the Public Service Announcement segment of the post.

According to one study:

75% of Americans spend 3 or more hours per day on their devices (smart phones, tablets, computers);

48% use the devices 5 or more hours; and

32% check in before getting out of bed in the morning.

I know myself well enough that I will probably not wean myself from my computer for an entire 24 hours, but will try to cut down during that period. (I don’t have a smart phone, and rarely use our tablet.)

Meanwhile, here’s the post I’d already started:  Should I stay or should I go?

A California friend recently posted one last item on her Facebook timeline, saying: “I’m going inactive on FB. A book can change me and THIS ONE DID… Picture the same posts: me baking, fostering senior dogs, meeting up with friends and reading, and watching Netflix, and volunteering, and going to Church. Contact me via email for a while.”

The book in question is Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts RIGHT NOW, by Jaron Lanier, a virtual reality pioneer. From the book’s dust cover:  “Lanier’s… reasons include its tendency to bring out the worst in us, to make politics terrifying, to trick us with illusions of popularity and success, to twist our relationship with the truth, to disconnect us from other people even as we are more ‘connected’ than ever, and to rob us of our free will with relentless targeted ads.” It’s not a huge book, just 144 smallish pages, and he skims over a lot of detail (and gives numbered references to innumerable online articles). I understood maybe 1/3 of what I was reading.

But he’s right about the Big Brother aspect to our current online society. I hate it when I go to, say, a Perkins restaurant (and pay by credit card), and see online the next day (for the first time) ads for Perkins’ Signature Burgers. It’s creepy – I feel like I’ve been spied upon. I’m sure you can all relate similar happenings.

Oxford’s definition of social media reads:  “Social media is computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and information through the building of virtual networks and communities. … Users engage with social media via computer, tablet or smartphone via web-based software or web application, often utilizing it for messaging.”

I got on Facebook years ago so I could see photos of far flung relatives, especially the little kids who are growing up so fast. Lately I find myself getting on sporadically, but once I’m on I seem to be addicted for days. I have also been addicted at times to msn.com’s news feed (which is full of junk), and of course I find myself checking emails – and this blog – multiple times on days when I’m home. And I’m starting to play Spider Solitaire more often… Who knows what I’d do if I had a smart phone!

Are you comfortable with your level of involvement on social media?

If not, what would you like to change?

Automotive, Business, Media, News, Science, Technology, Uncategorized

Auto Update

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Finally – some science I can completely get behind! An article last week declared that drivers of expensive cars are jerks.

One study measured this by clocking vehicles at various crossroads. It found that drivers of more “flashy vehicles” are less likely to stop for pedestrians.  And not just that, but as the cost of the car goes up, the likelihood that the driver will even slow down decreases.  The researchers speculate that luxury car owners “feel a sense of superiority over other road users” and were thus less able to empathize with lowly sidewalk-dwellers.  And I’m sure no one will be surprised that the race and gender of the pedestrian matters as well.

Apparently this discovery of a car-value-to-jerkish-behavior correlation isn’t new; The Journal of Transport and Health, backed up a Finnish study published in January found that men who own flashy vehicles are more likely to be “argumentative, stubborn, disagreeable and unempathetic.” According to the study “these personality traits explain the desire to own high-status products, and the same traits also explain why such people break traffic regulations more frequently than others.”

Obviously no one wants to tar every single luxury-car owner with one broad brush, but the generalities don’t look good. We just have to worry about how all the small, cheap, beater car owners will now feel smug!

What’s one extra component you’d like to have on your car? Extra smugness points to anybody who doesn’t have a car!!

Media, Radio, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

Baboon Podcasts

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Husband commented the other day that he thought the Baboons should make podcasts because we have so many  things to talk about and say to one another. It is an interesting idea. I don’t listen to podcasts. I probably would listen if I had a longer commute, but it takes me less than 5 minutes to get to work, and when I am at home I decompress by listening to music. I know that the topic has come up on the Trail before, and that  Baboons listen to them.

What podcasts do you listen to?  What sort of podcasts can you imagine Baboons creating?

Art, Media, News, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

No More Cartoons

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It dawned on me last week that the transition of our local newspaper to a weekly format means that we won’t have daily comics anymore. I can access comics online, but it just isn’t the same as holding it in one’s hand in a paper format.

I started to subscribe to the New Yorker magazine when I was in Grade 7, mainly for the cartoons. It didn’t take long for me to take notice the articles, but those cartoons were wonderful. These days my favorite comic strips are Retail (which is ending next week), Luann, and Zits. I also like reading For Better Or Worse. The creator of that comic strip produced it while she  lived in one of the farthest north communities in northern Manitoba where her husband was a dentist. Calvin and Hobbes is also a treasure.

What is your favorite  comic strip or cartoonist? What is it about comics and cartoons that is so appealing?

Gatherings, Media, Movies, News, Uncategorized

FRFF 2020

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I have come to love Winona’s film festival , which happens each winter after the Superbowl, and celebrated 15 years this past weekend. At the same time, I sort of brace myself because I know I’ll probably attend close to a dozen films or film sets over the span of five days, and there’s precious little time for anything else.

The films are documentaries from 4 to 84 minutes in length, concentrated on Saturday-Sunday on the WSU Campus. At the atrium of the Science Lab Center are food vendors, ticket sales and merchandise, display booths, and conversation corners for those who would like to continue discussing what they just viewed. Other local venues include the Winona Cinema 7, Senior High School, and this year there was an early day of films in Lanesboro, MN, the previous weekend. Clusters of shorter ones include the Adventure Set, Moving Mountains Set, Indomitable Spirit Set, a Local Set…

Husband and I volunteer as ushers/ticket-takers for two of the sets, which gets us a weekend pass to all films. (!) My favorite mind-bending films this time around began on Wednesday evening with Hillbilly – how we have stereotyped people of Appalachia, and how that has created the perfect “soil” for Trumpism.

Frozen Friday was wonderful:

– at the Library: I wish everyone could see The Economics of Happiness, an overview of how globalization has changed the world, and how we might survive this.

– at the Sr. Friendship Center:  Love is Listening: Dementia without Loneliness – who knew this is how to get under all the surface stuff and just be with people?

– at St. Mary’s Univ. Student Center:  The Francis Effect – the impact the current Pope has made in the world, on groups and individuals.

Saturday, I started out with The Serengeti Rules – a cadre of nature researchers have discovered that the natural world operates differently than previously though (another “must see” in my opinion), if you look over the long term. While “working” as ushers, we viewed Singing in the Grain, highlighting the music that holds Minnesota’s Czech communities together, in New Prague et al; and Blood Memory, on reparations just now being made to First Nations People who were impacted by adoption/foster care forced on them in the last century.

Sunday featured a rather disjointed but still powerful film (produced and narrated by Jeff Bridges), an overview of our current global situation:  Living in the Future’s Past.

Lest you think it sounds way too “heavy”, I also saw a horse painting pictures (My Paintbrush Bites), a goatherd high in the Tibetan steppes on her cell phone as her son played stick hockey (Jagrlama), and a club that predicts when celebrities are going to kick the bucket (Riplist).

What was the last documentary you saw?  Do you ever attend film festivals?

Family, Health, Media, Uncategorized, Words

What’s in a Name

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Husband had to get prescription eye drops for after his cataract surgery. One option involved two different drops administered to the affected eye three times a day. Those drops could be obtained at our local pharmacy.  The other, more expensive, option involved getting one eye drop mixture from an East Coast company called Designer Drugs.  I thought that the company name was pretty clever and spoke volumes to its mission and activity. I wonder if it also leads to regular visits from the drug enforcement agency where it is located.

We ate in a Thai restaurant called Eat Thai Cafe after Husband’s surgery. That, too, has a clever name. Where are you going? Oh, we’re going to Eat Thai. (The food, by the way, was fabulous!)

What are some memorable names you have encountered? What are some product names you would like to see? How do you choose names for your pets?

 

 

100 Words, Business, Media, News, Uncategorized

Mail Delivery Update

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I am happy to report that we had mail delivery every day possible for the past week, and on only one occasion did it come after 8:00 pm.  I spoke with the carrier, who told me that there still isn’t anyone permanently assigned to our route, but that a couple of new Postal Service hires are making it possible for the mail for our route to be delivered on a regular basis.

We needed some good mail news. In fact, I think we need a lot more good news all around these days.

What good news have you run across lately?

Fifty Words, History, Media, TV

Comedy Tonight

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On February 5, 1967, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour premiered on CBS. I remember watching it, as well as Laugh In, Carol  Burnett, Jackie Gleason,  Jonathan Winters, Jack Benny, and Red Skelton.

I was only 9 years old at the time, and sometimes I just didn’t get the humor.

I think I liked Carol Burnett the best.

It was such an unhappy time, the late 60’s, yet  such shows proliferated. One thing that surprised me as I researched this was how long the sketches were that I found.

What was your favorite comedy show? Know any good jokes?

Family, Media, Technology

Too Much Tech

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I realized the other day that between the two of us,  Husband and I have five computers we use on a regular basis. I think that is kind of excessive.

We have a desktop computer at home that we both use.  I have a personal laptop that I use for my regulatory board work,  when I travel , or I need one when I am out and about.  (I  also use it at work to live stream MPR  since  I am not allowed to use my work computer for that.)   I have a  work laptop supplied by the State  that I use in my office and that I  can also  bring home to  access my work email as well as the Electronic Health Care Record system. That means I can do paperwork anywhere.  I used it at home yesterday just for that purpose when I was ill and at home with a fever and a cough. Husband uses a personal laptop for his private practice,  as well as a work laptop supplied by the Tribe for his work on the Rez.

I suppose that is how it goes when one has work and personal business to take care of, but it seems like too much tech in our lives. Thank goodness we don’t have work cell phones. It is hard enough to keep track of the two we have.

When have you had too much of a good thing?  How many computers in your life?

Fantasy, Media, Nature, Science, space, Technology, Uncategorized

Too Hot to Handle

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KELT 9-B seems an innocuous-enough name for an exoplanet. It was discovered in 2017 and is apparently an “ultra-hot Jupiter” – huge gas giants hotter than anything in our solar system.  In fact, some of the new data coming in suggests that it is three times larger than our Jupiter and approximately  7,800 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface.  So hot in fact, that hydrogen atoms are shredded by the heat during the daytime and can only re-form until they appear on the dark side of the planet; KELT 9-B is tidally locked to its star, so the hot side always faces its sun.

It’s amazing to me that we can figure this stuff out since we can’t just look it up on the internet. All the data on KELT 9-B has come from two robotic telescopes in the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope project, one telescope in South Africa and the other in southern Arizona.  And of course, it makes me wonder how a planet like KELT 9-B comes into existence.  And can it survive its own heat?

How do you cool down when you’re angry?