“World War Wired”

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Following are a few of my favorites nuggets from an essay in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman:

“On the first day of the war, we saw invading Russian tank units unexpectedly being exposed by Google maps, because Google wanted to alert drivers that the Russian armor was causing traffic jams.”

A large-scale modern war will be livestreamed, minute by minute, battle by battle, death by death, to the world.

Russia, has an economy that is smaller than that of Texas.

The musician and actress Selena Gomez has twice as many followers on Instagram — over 298 million — as Russia has citizens.

Vladimir, the first day of this war was the best day of the rest of your life.

Television on the iPhone

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When commercial television was introduced in the 1950s, a 16-inch set was the biggest available. Twenty years later, the biggest screen size was 25 inches.

We recently purchased a 60 in OLED TV and it’s amazing. But last night I watched an Apple TV episode on my iPhone using my AirPods (3rd gen).

There was no sense of watching (for an hour) a small screen. And the sound was unlike anything I’m used to sitting across the room from the big screen. Occasionally had the sense of being in the room with the characters.

We called them “pay phones”

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There was a time (before mobile phones) when I knew the location of every Casey’s and Hardee’s pay phone in Iowa. They were the only way to stay in touch with the office. Check for messages, etc. Here’s how I remember making calls from the road:

  • enter 10-digit Sprint Card number
  • enter 10-digit number of the person being called
  • enter my personal Sprint number (10 digits?)

And while I couldn’t recite those Sprint numbers, I could punch in the numbers without thinking.

Men in masses, and of causes

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“I have had such a sickening of men in masses, and of causes, that I would not cross this room to reform parliament or prevent the union or to bring about the millennium. […] And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.”

— Master and Commander (Patrick O’Brian)

1.5 billion active Gmail users

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In May of 2004 I received an invitation to beta test Google’s new email service, Gmail. Google had acquired Blogger in early 2003 and sent invites to users. We were allowed to invite two friends. As I recall, people were selling such invitations. It was early enough that I was able to get “stevemays@gmail.com”

For reasons unimportant, yesterday I created a second Gmail account, my first ever. I decided to use the name of a character from one of my favorite novels. I searched for more than half an hour, picking the most minor and obscure characters I could think of, and never found one that wasn’t taken. I finally gave up and went for nonsense: poontangmeringue@gmail.com. And decided I didn’t really need a second account after all.

Google says they have 1.5 billion active Gmail users. I’m a little surprised poontangmeringue was still available.

Good to be alive!

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Don’t recall where I found this or who said/wrote it, but it goes something like this:

You died ten years ago and –somehow, miraculously– were brought back to life ten minutes ago. You’re fully aware of having missed the last ten years but have all of your memories and sense of who you are (or were).

Before digging into what you missed in the last decade, you begin getting a sense of what’s going on now. A deadly virus killing millions; a climate crises that might be too big and too late to fix; fascism on the rise; the flame of American democracy flickering.

And your response to this horrible state of affairs?

“Man, it’s good to be alive!”

“You gotta live your life, dude”

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On the COVID Caution Spectrum I’m probably an 11 out of 10. And fortunate in my circumstances so I can avoid unnecessary exposure. For the last two years I’ve listened as friends and family lectured me on the importance of not letting “some virus” control your life. “You gotta live your life, dude.”

A philosophy I have yet to hear in any of the countless interviews with people with severe and/or protracted cases. These are mostly of the I’ve-never-been-so-sick-get-vaccinated variety. Where are the folks on oxygen saying, “I almost died but, hey, you gotta live your life, right?”

Carnivore

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On May 20, 2013 I began an experiment with plant-based eating. Was never hard-core and always thought of myself as a half-assed vegetarian. I ate eggs and cheese and such. And several years ago I started eating fish.

I never found the plant-based path difficult but in the last couple of months I have strayed. I started dreaming about ham sandwiches. And as I’ve aged (74 next month) I’ve lost muscle mass. Not really anything I can do about that. But part of my original motivation was “I want to be perfectly healthy and live forever!” Silly but true. Neither of those things are going to happen so give me one of those pepperoni pizzas to go.

Knowledge

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“Knowledge will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no knowledge.”

“Knowledge is inherently precious even if you can’t sell it,” Greta said. “Even if you can’t use it. Knowledge is an absolute good. The search for truth is vital. It’s central to civilization. You need knowledge even when your economy and government are absolutely shot to hell.”

— Bruce Sterling’s Distraction (1998)

Analysis by Perplexity »