Unwired - A Case Study

Recent events in Egypt have really made me question some issues as it relates to technology.  It's pretty common knowledge by now (for anyone who has read my blogs) that I have a fundamental concern with technology is that that we're overly dependant on it.

With the recent political crisis in Egypt, the government has decided to unplug the whole country from the world.  Yep - that's right.  They have pulled the proverbial plug on the Egypt that is wired.  The rationale is that it by doing this, they are preventing the dissemination of reports and images coming out as a result of the mass riots.  I am very hardly a political person, so I cannot comment on how legitimate this is.

However, there's a couple of things here that caught my attention.

First of all, when the plan was initially put in place, the government decided that the everything would be shut down, with the exception of the stock markets.  Ironically, after the markets lost 10% because of the instability, they put a freeze on them too.  This makes me wonder - what other aspects of the Egyptian infrastructure were not considered to be exempt from this unpluggage?  It's mind-bogging, unfathomable.

I don't think that it would be possible here in Canada to unplug the country in the same way.  Well - I guess anything is possible, but the number of Internet entry points must be magnitudes greater than in Egypt.  What I wonder is if this were done here, how can that be?  I can't imagine our society having the magic carpet of the Internet yanked out from under our feet.  What would the hospitals do if they needed to communicate with a colleague or to look in medical journals?  How would transportation agencies manage.  Banking - let's not even get into the impact of the banking sector if there were no Internet access.

As I alluded in a recent post, should something "happen" to our technology, it would clearly be catastrophic in all areas of our society, but we would adapt, that's what we do.

I'd be totally fascinated to see how the populace of Egypt has managed to adapt.

And Now For Something Completely Obvious...

There's a new warning out there of a scam.  Apparently, said scammers are cold calling people and saying that they're from Microsoft and that Microsoft has determined that there is a virus on the machine, so they are calling to 'help' them clean their virus up by either (a) getting access to their comptuer or (b) to redirect the poor sap of a victim to a phishing site or one that delivers malware.

Okay - maybe I'm not giving people the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure that there would be many people that would so be so naive to think that there's a chance in hell that Microsoft goes around offering to help people.  But still...really?

Technology Schmechnology - Talk About a Love/Hate Relationship

Probably no surprise to my millions of faithful readers but I am decidely Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to technology.  As evidenced by my many posts, it concerns me greatly and pisses me off to no extent sometimes, but Jiminy Cricket, I have to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds me.  As much as I'm critical of it from time to time (okay - more than just "time to time"), our lives have been hopelessly enriched by it.

Quite honestly, I can't imagine where I would be professionally and personally without technology.

--- Signing off

Oopsies - That Must Have Been Just a Tad Embarrassing

I have to admit that I don't know all of the details as I just skimmed the article, but when there are always so many questions and issues about security and privacy on Facebook and Herr Zuckerberg's profile gets hacked...well, I have to imagine that the old adage about poo running downhill probably applied in this case.  Man, I would not want to be the dude where said excrement stopped and collected in a proverbial puddle.

This May Fall Into the "Okay Ethel, Maybe We're A Bit Too Dependant on Technology" Category

News story about an elderly couple from the UK driving in Germany.  This is one of those cases where common sense should prevail, but they were just too trustful and dependent on their GPS instructions and drove smack dab into the side of a church.

However, before we all chuckle and guffaw (as I originally did), it made me pause for a moment and think, how many times have I just blindly followed what technology dictates.  Certainly not to the extent of something as immediate obvious as "oh dear, there's a brick wall, should I stop, or should I go..." sort of thing, but still, there are probably numerous subtle instances in my life where I have engaged fingers and disengaged the brain.

And the countdown is on...

...for the purchase of the ten billionth app through iTunes.

I swear, the one thing about technology is that it gives a whole different concept of magnitude of numbers.  Ten BILLION apps.  Really?  Wow.  Of course, my daughter is probably responsible for a goodly chunk of these.

Mind you, there was no discussion on how many of these apps performed some function or otherwise had intrinsic value.  How many of these ten billion apps are farting machines, talking characters, bubble makers, lighters, flashlights and other tripe that seem to have a monopoly in the App Store.

Not saying there isn't some great apps there, there really are, but man, sometimes it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Research Heaven

There are a goodly number of my blog entries that diss technology, and in most cases, rightly so.

The real benefit to me personally lately has been the incredible information available at my fingertips.  Now, before proceeding, one kind of has to define "information".  As I've suggested in previous posts, I think that it's very important to take anything that I read online with a grain of salt, to look for verification and backup and to understand that anyone can put an opinion out there and dress it up as a fact and themselves as a subject matter expert.

All of that having been said, 2010 and 2011 has been a revelation for me in terms of mining the web for information.  Without going through too many sordid (and personal, I might add!) details, those who know me, know that I am going through the Ontario court system for some family law matters.

At present, I have been able to navigate through the process and system without legal representation.  Before proceeding, I want to be clear that I'm not advocating this.  After all, proverbs say:

"He who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client."

Probably in my case, truer words were never spoken, but at this stage, I'm preferring to fight for the rights of my children and it seems counter-intuitive to me to be trying to protect their future while at the same spending oodles upon poodles on legal fees.

The experience that I will share is that being self-represented is definitely not for the faint of heart.  It's a nasty and intimidating process and system and every step is an adventure.

What has made this a little easier for me has been some guidance from a lawyer who has been fantastic about answering quick questions from me on how to file, what to file, how to word it.  Also, my girlfriend has been an amazing help to me too.  Although she doesn't have a background in law, she is very intelligent and has been my advisor through it all, and I'm thankful to her more than you can imagine.

The Internet too has been an amazing resource.  I was thinking of this fact this morning.  Without having this information at my disposal, I don't know that I could have managed to get this far along on my own.  I've found amazing resources, including the online database court rulings so that I can review cases to see what the judges ruled, and why they made their ruling.

All of this material has been a god-send to me.  It is a great feeling to be able sit down in front of the computer on a Saturday morning with some Motown playing and some coffee beside me as I research what ever needs to be researched or write a brief that needs to be written.

It's been a totally awesome tool for me, and as I mentioned, I don't think I could have gotten this far without it.

Stay tuned and buckle up - much more to come on this saga, I'm sure.

Hello, World!

Okay, for those of you that are not programming-related, this is a phrase that us developers use.  The context is that when learning a brand new programming language, the easiest task is to to write a program to display one line of text.  That defacto standard in the code-head society is to write a program that displays "Hello, World".

Anywho, my context for Hello, World is that I haven't forgotten about my TecHumanity community.  It's probably about a month since my last post, but Holy Cannoli, it's been a whacky few weeks for me.  Not only did I have Christmas to attend to, but I've had some biggish "personal issues" to work through over the last few weeks and I've badly neglected the millions of my loyal TecHumanity followers - well at least the 2-3 of them.

Tis a new year, and I've been negligent.  My humble apologies.  Onto an incredible 2011 in my own personal life and with TecHumanity.  Can you give me a "Woot!  Woot!"?