The Solipsist Reads the Paper (So You Don't Have To)

Buried in a report about the Nemocalypse battering the Northeast was this little tidbit: "Maine declared a partial emergency, allowing it to suspend federal transportation rules, extend worker hours and bring in extra crews from Canada to assist with storm damage repair."

Dear Maine, I know you're digging out from snowfalls of biblical proportions, but don't be snowblind to the dangers posed by "well-meaning" Canadians!  Once these subversive maple-suckers gain a toehold in American soil, there's no telling where they'll stop!  This time next year, we could all be sucking on Molsons and acting politely to each other!  I urge all my Maine readers to resist the Canadian surge.  And in case I have no Maine readers, I encourage my followers around the Northeast to form a human microphone (a la Occupy Wall Street) to scream this warning to our for-the-moment compatriots in the Lobster State (or whatever).

Of course, if the Canadians DO manage to infiltrate America, we may just be able to sic a few drones on 'em.  During confirmation hearings for John Brennan as CIA director, the nominee revealed that the Obama administration has discussed the feasibility of creating a special court (along the lines of the FISA court, which currently rules on the admissibility of wiretapping) that would hear arguments about whether an individual--particularly an American citizen--could be targeted for drone-strikes.

Personally, if I were a judge, you could not PAY me to sit on such a court! I would TOTALLY do it for free!  I mean, come on!  "How was your day, Dear?"  "Oh, not bad.  Had a few meetings.  Lunch with Roger.  Authorized death from above."  How cool would that be?

I probably wouldn't last long in the job, though.  I think the administration would grow tired of my compulsion to include on all my orders lines from the movie "300" or pseudo-Schwarzeneggerian sign-offs: "Hasta la vista, terrorists!  You have not a REMOTE chance of avoiding being DRONED und CRATERED!"

Another article profiles the teenager who unwittingly helped ignite the Syrian revolts that have so far left thousands dead and hundreds pf thousands displaced.  The teenager (whom the paper does not name, for obvious reasons) inspired rebellion when he was arrested and tortured for participating in the relatively innocuous "crime" of anti-regime graffiti: "He watched his cousin spray-paint the wall of a school in the city of Dara’a with a short, impish challenge to President Bashar al-Assad, a trained ophthalmologist, about the spreading national revolts.

“'It’s your turn, doctor,' the cousin wrote."

All I can say is, an opthalmologist AND a sadistic dictator?  SOMEBODY had quite the "Tiger Mom."

An increasingly popular app called Snapchat combines the availability of instantaneous chatting provided by Facebook and Twitter with the ephemerality of those dissolving cassettes at the beginning of every episode of "Mission: Impossible."  It seems that people--especially younger folks--are growing weary of having every youthful indiscretion stored indefinitely on the world's servers.  Snapchat messages and pictures automatically self-delete after a set period of time, encouraging people to express themselves more revealingly than they might do on a less transitory platform.  I think this is a great idea, and I am already developing the app that I think will be the logical successor to Snapchat: I call it, "Talking to People."

In New York, the Department of Homeless Services is paying landlords thousands of dollars to rent rooms that would normally go for a few hundred.  I would hereby like to officially offer up my spare bedroom (formerly known as SOS's room) for use by New York's Department of Homeless Services.

Finally, John Karlin, formerly of Bell Labs, has died.  Actually, he died on January 28.  I guess the Times delayed the announcement of Karlin's death to spare his family the crush of paparazzi that would otherwise have surely disrupted his funeral.

Who was John E. Karlin, you ask?  (Don't pretend you know!)  He was a pioneer in the field of industrial psychology, the study of the way that human beings interact on a psychological and emotional level with technology.  The study of the way people interact physically with technology is known as ergonomics--or Japanese pornography.

Anyway, we largely have Karlin to thank for the layout of the touch-tone phone and its many descendants.  Much time was spent deciding, for example, the appropriate size of the buttons, as well as their layout: lower numbers on top vs. lower numbers on bottom, that kind of thing.  All I can say is, I'm glad Karlin's team rejected the proposed "QWERTY" keypad (or, more accurately, "KWERTY"), which would have had the top row go 5-9-3 and placed the "star" key (which even then nobody had a use for) where the seven is today.  Rest in Peace, Mr. Karlin.  To hear a eulogy, please press the pound key or remain on the line.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

The other day, we had a presentation on using social media in the classroom.  The presenter endorsed YouTube, as well as Facebook and old favorites like e-mail (not, strictly speaking, social media, but why quibble?).  She was especially enthusiastic, though, about Twitter.  She said Twitter provided a great way to stay in touch with your students.  I'm still not completely clear on how Twitter works, but I guess the idea is that you could have your students "follow" you, and thereby have an easy way to pass along interesting bits of information, as well as to communicate more prosaically about such things as class announcements, homework, etc.

Sounds reasonable enough.  And I suppose that, if I ever do decide to commence tweeting, I can now justify it under the pretense that I was doing it to become a more effective teacher.  Sure, you and I know the truth: that I could no longer resist my gnawing unease at the thought of a media platform existing without my presence.  But we'll just keep that between us.

I still have trouble with the whole 140-character limit: It takes me 140 characters just to say "Good morning" (I use a lot of extra 'o's).  On the whole, though I suspect I'm slowly but inexorably being drawn into the Twitterverse.  Resistance is futile.

The Antisocial Network

Maybe it's just end-of-week exhaustion, but we're feeling more solipsistic than usual. We just feel like curling up under a blanket and sleeping the long weekend away.

Are other people as fed up with the profusion of social networking sites as we are? We just heard Apple is launching a music social netorking site through iTunes, called Ping. Far be it from us to question the marketing acumen of Steve Jobs, but was "Ping" the best he could come up with? Aren't people going to get mixed up with Bing? If you like to sing and want to Ping but end up on Bing. . . . It could get a little ying--as in annoy.

Shut up! Come up with your own one-liners if you don't like it!

Seriously, though, Ping. . .. Bing. . . . This keeps up, people are going to think the Chinese are taking over the whole internet. And then Arizona Governor Jan "Opening Statement Meltdown" Brewer will outlaw it! Did you guys catch that train wreck?

Anyway, we're done! We've decided to start a new trend: antisocial networking. Instead of friending people, you can enemy (or arch-rival or nemesis) them. The default setting will be to block everybody. Look for us at hermitbook.com. Or, better yet, don't!