Right? only now you won't notice when someone (your roommate, mom, little child) walks in on your gherkin-jerkin' in Super Techy Advanced Human Land!!!
Arm Grill...needs to happen. I'd love to walk into a party swinging my Arm Grill around and watch people either hand me a hot dog (some guy) or back away quickly before I brand them (some guy's bitchy wife, who knows I would 'accidently' get too close to her judgmental hair extensions if I could).
for some reason when I think of Arm Grill, the Wayne's World song plays in my head. Arm Grill, Arm Grill, Party On, Excellent So fashion reference would have to be Futuristic Grunge with a Tasteful Mullet
Epic. This brings to mind when Wayne and Garth did a promotion for the fictional Flowbee Haircutter knock-off, the Suck Kut: "Well, it certainly does suck."
'The Arm Grill: Well, it certainly does grill.' And also sucks.
5. a neighbor boy in our Soviet apartment building used to come to our apartment to use our phone because we were the only ones on our floor who had a phone line (that was early 90s, yeah? maybe even late 80s. I'm ancient.)
I also really enjoy thinking about the entire marketing and creative production apparatus behind that video. A team of people wrote that script and came up with that set and cast those actors, and that team of people were all in the same headspace that this is what awesome looks like. And somehow they all missed, or did not care, that this is also exactly what dystopian chic looks like? This video is obviously a flashback scene from the larger feature-length film where still-human roommate is battling through a bombed-out husk of a city through cyborg-zombies to rescue her sweet-but-gullible former bestie, only to find once she infiltrates cyborg-zombie command that her bestie is now General Blorg, ski mask no longer held on with straps but surgically embedded, with only the dimly shaded EyeSight feature revealing the greedy glint of those same eyes and perhaps a last ebbing spark of humanity.
Tech loses me at the thought of wearing glasses on top of my glasses. Also, Hollywood loses me for the same reason whenever they release a 3D film. When I bring this up, tech bros always say that one day, the Apple Pro glasses will be my prescription glasses. Well, that's fucking great news for my bank account because I get to add another $600 to the cost of these ridiculous goggles. But here's my question: don't any of these tech bro nerds wear glasses? Can't they see how annoying this type of wearable tech is?
It's so fucked up! It's like they built all this tech without ever seeing the people they're building it for. Maybe instead of helping a handful of rich people see shit that isn't there, they should work on helping the tens of millions of people with vision issues just see a little better.
there's something to that. but i also think they've read too much science fiction, which is fine, I read a lot of science fiction, it's great, but also, put the book down, touch grass, and talk to a human being now and then because my dream is to see shit better, not be Geordi from Star Trek.
Nobody seems to talk about recharging them. Apparently the charging port is in the bridge of the nose on the inside of the goggles. So, what? These are clearly a leisure product and aren't intended to be used for work situations? I'm sure people will start using them for making money, and by this point we will have obnoxious people walking into traffic because they're lost in cyberspace to the point where the physical space no longer exists. Did nobody watch Ready Player One, or does Apple really want to emphasize and reinforce our dystopia single-handedly?
re: #5 ...I suppose "wood" especially cut wood is a technology, so I was gonna say all the old treehouses we had as kids. If you haven't experienced "treehouse," GET OUT THERE NOW (or better yet wait till summer!) fun stuff here alex!
I’m not steamed yet only because I haven’t yet seen much advertising and talk about the goggs…. But yes I’m with you. You know what really STEAMS me up, when I’m watching a movie with a friend, ESPECIALLY when it’s one they wanted to watch, and i see them looking down at their phone, either scrolling memes on instagram, or more understandably, but still irrationally irritating to me, chatting with someone on Hinge… and the movie’s getting to a good part and critically important to the plot and they’re missing it…. And like you said, I know I do that shit too sometimes, but it still irks when I see it, and i don’t like myself when i do it. And like I get it, someone has shown interest in you on Hinge and you want to pass the baton of flirtation within a certain window of time, which is also the thing I dislike the most about our connectedness with technology— that there are ongoing continuous activities and conversations that never really end or begin. They are just little tabs open that are running in the background of your brain OS and with just a little ping they can demand your attention mentally and physically regardless of what you’re currently doing in reality. I admit I thoroughly enjoy and benefit from this connectedness, and I depend on technology in so many ways, but I hate what it does to our attention, and even more so I lament how little people seem to notice or care. That is to say, how little an amount that people notice or care, not that little tiny people seem to notice or care.
But yeah, please forgive me for ranting but I love reading your stuff bc this kind of stuff really bothers me, and it doubly bothers me that it doesn’t seem to bother other people that much. Now I’m bothered at myself for assuming I know what other people are thinking. I do wonder sometimes if maybe people are actually more well-adjusted than I think they are, and these concerns are more personal to me than I want to believe. Because they certainly are personal to me, but I also think this stuff concerns/angers me more than most my age because I’m not as immersed and seamlessly living in the interconnected social media meme culture zeitgeist realm as most of my friends.
That’s how I think about this stuff. Like maybe it’s just cause someone I respect showed me Ralph Waldo Emerson and it stuck with me, but being independent minded (not being different or edgy, but to truly form your own judgments and beliefs and trust/own them) and deliberate with your time and force and attention, those are such clear virtues to me that it’s so apparent to me how our relationship to technology is decaying our ability (and probably our desire) to be those things. I feel like a total curmudgeonly misanthrope saying this, but your posts remind me there’s other people who feel similarly.
All that said, I also think we are going to be okay. Not sure why but I just do.
The pen analogy was the high point for me in this post. Yes!!! so many pens, distribute the pens and wealth. I was already enraged this morning with an article about all the work going into anti-aging stuff, and all I could think of is, let's spend that time and the resources to distribute food and housing and clean water everywhere so kids can actually age! And as someone who is currently wrestling with glasses where my prescription is so dense that my nose always hurts from the glasses sitting on them, you are now telling me that I would be fine with goggles on my tiny nose (and where do my glasses fit in those goggles????) And then supposedly these goggles will let you feel like you are having a conversation with your co-workers, because you can see the people you are talking to life size! Of course these underlings...oh excuse me...coworkers get to see you standing there in those goggles, unless they are also wearing them, and that will be fun! Yeah, that will improve the conversation. The the section on spending time with your kids, you get to never be present for them when they blow bubbles, because you are too busy taking their picture so you can "enjoy" the moment with them when they are gone. But more likely dad will be on the couch behind the goggles and your kids will have to come right up to you to see if you are even awake, and if I was one of those kids I would take the goggle, pull, and snap it back onto your face. And, all your tv and movie watching is going to be alone, which makes sense because if you have spent all that money on goggles, why would you be willing to go to a movie with a friend, or sit on the couch with your partner and watch a tiny-assed tv. And.... Ok, I guess the answer to #1 is yes for me. But to #3 is also yes. Because this particular madness is not going to become widespread. Or if it does, it will help kill out the rich who won't ever get sex again because... they will be too busy sitting alone pretending to have a life.
Anyhoo, thanks for stirring me up so early in the morning. I am now going to start back on my WIP which is actually all about a near future colony on another planet where the protagonists reject much of modern tech, including the contacts that act like the Apple goggles. then again, they have developed psychic abilities, so the don't need no stinking.... Well, you get it.
1) I think they look stupid and dumb and it won't be worth anything until it's like invisible to others (the glasses, like an implant which is a terrible idea but we'll get there eventually) and you have every right to be steamed and that van looks like it might belong to a killer but I mean...
2) New Coke? Crystal Pepsi?
3) I had a dream last night in which I said "“I’m so excited about the future. Oh, I know there will be dystopias and problems but all this magic” AND I WAS SPECIFICALLY talking about technical inventions!!!!
4) Apparently I dream about them while you write about them? This was a box that a young man had, and inside it was a "ghost portal" which could send things between two places, any two places, so long as there was another portal on the other side. This, in the dream felt really innovative, but upon waking I realized it was derivative because it's just...any tech-telephones, radio or TV waves, email inboxes. We just haven't gotten to the stage of making concrete things beam. Also, I think this was basically the Vanishing Cabinets from HP. Great creative mind, Julie.
5) Improv shows and rehearsals. Parties. My first kiss with Chris. Childbirth (I mean...it's vivid though there was a lot of tech around me). Doing Karaoke on the Britt Stage with my son last year (again tech, but not intenet). Loads and loads. l'm glad for them.
This whole invention just means some really really rich people are going to watch porn in a very very high tech way, and then we're really very much not going to want to see their eyeballs
"HANDMAID'S TALE X COCHELLA OUTFIT"!!!!!!! is this your best joke ever??? it is for me!!!!
Agreed! I snorted, which is not how I usually laugh.
1) NEVER RELAX
2) the fried mac n chz ball I had sure changed my world yes I just wanted to brag that I had a fried mac n chz ball for breakfast
3) yes. human spirit resilience station 11 last of us meet me at midnight
4) begrudgingly
5) river trips!!!
I fucking hate these fugly goggles but ALSO I am so worried that they're gonna market it like the apple watch and make it successful when it's dumb af
I STILL don't understand what the apple watch does? It's like a speaker for your phone? on your wrist? Why?
This was funny and I agree with you!
But we all know these are just porn glasses! 😭
this makes it all make sense
AHHHHHH now I get it. I was tense and upset and now I’m not. Thank you for clarifying.
Right? only now you won't notice when someone (your roommate, mom, little child) walks in on your gherkin-jerkin' in Super Techy Advanced Human Land!!!
Arm Grill...needs to happen. I'd love to walk into a party swinging my Arm Grill around and watch people either hand me a hot dog (some guy) or back away quickly before I brand them (some guy's bitchy wife, who knows I would 'accidently' get too close to her judgmental hair extensions if I could).
You just wrote the commercial for Arm Grill.
'Futuristic' clothing or not in this one?
for some reason when I think of Arm Grill, the Wayne's World song plays in my head. Arm Grill, Arm Grill, Party On, Excellent So fashion reference would have to be Futuristic Grunge with a Tasteful Mullet
Epic. This brings to mind when Wayne and Garth did a promotion for the fictional Flowbee Haircutter knock-off, the Suck Kut: "Well, it certainly does suck."
'The Arm Grill: Well, it certainly does grill.' And also sucks.
1. these things creep me out.
2. probably yesterday but I don't follow anymore.
3. probably not.
4. see #1
5. a neighbor boy in our Soviet apartment building used to come to our apartment to use our phone because we were the only ones on our floor who had a phone line (that was early 90s, yeah? maybe even late 80s. I'm ancient.)
I also really enjoy thinking about the entire marketing and creative production apparatus behind that video. A team of people wrote that script and came up with that set and cast those actors, and that team of people were all in the same headspace that this is what awesome looks like. And somehow they all missed, or did not care, that this is also exactly what dystopian chic looks like? This video is obviously a flashback scene from the larger feature-length film where still-human roommate is battling through a bombed-out husk of a city through cyborg-zombies to rescue her sweet-but-gullible former bestie, only to find once she infiltrates cyborg-zombie command that her bestie is now General Blorg, ski mask no longer held on with straps but surgically embedded, with only the dimly shaded EyeSight feature revealing the greedy glint of those same eyes and perhaps a last ebbing spark of humanity.
Imagine wearing Apple ProGoggles while riding a SegWay to a Bitcoin ATM. Nirvana achieved.
Tech loses me at the thought of wearing glasses on top of my glasses. Also, Hollywood loses me for the same reason whenever they release a 3D film. When I bring this up, tech bros always say that one day, the Apple Pro glasses will be my prescription glasses. Well, that's fucking great news for my bank account because I get to add another $600 to the cost of these ridiculous goggles. But here's my question: don't any of these tech bro nerds wear glasses? Can't they see how annoying this type of wearable tech is?
YES! Shit is even more annoying when you have glasses.
It's so fucked up! It's like they built all this tech without ever seeing the people they're building it for. Maybe instead of helping a handful of rich people see shit that isn't there, they should work on helping the tens of millions of people with vision issues just see a little better.
part of me thinks it's bc they're all so rich and get lasik
there's something to that. but i also think they've read too much science fiction, which is fine, I read a lot of science fiction, it's great, but also, put the book down, touch grass, and talk to a human being now and then because my dream is to see shit better, not be Geordi from Star Trek.
Nobody seems to talk about recharging them. Apparently the charging port is in the bridge of the nose on the inside of the goggles. So, what? These are clearly a leisure product and aren't intended to be used for work situations? I'm sure people will start using them for making money, and by this point we will have obnoxious people walking into traffic because they're lost in cyberspace to the point where the physical space no longer exists. Did nobody watch Ready Player One, or does Apple really want to emphasize and reinforce our dystopia single-handedly?
LOL. that's some scary shit man
re: #5 ...I suppose "wood" especially cut wood is a technology, so I was gonna say all the old treehouses we had as kids. If you haven't experienced "treehouse," GET OUT THERE NOW (or better yet wait till summer!) fun stuff here alex!
I’m not steamed yet only because I haven’t yet seen much advertising and talk about the goggs…. But yes I’m with you. You know what really STEAMS me up, when I’m watching a movie with a friend, ESPECIALLY when it’s one they wanted to watch, and i see them looking down at their phone, either scrolling memes on instagram, or more understandably, but still irrationally irritating to me, chatting with someone on Hinge… and the movie’s getting to a good part and critically important to the plot and they’re missing it…. And like you said, I know I do that shit too sometimes, but it still irks when I see it, and i don’t like myself when i do it. And like I get it, someone has shown interest in you on Hinge and you want to pass the baton of flirtation within a certain window of time, which is also the thing I dislike the most about our connectedness with technology— that there are ongoing continuous activities and conversations that never really end or begin. They are just little tabs open that are running in the background of your brain OS and with just a little ping they can demand your attention mentally and physically regardless of what you’re currently doing in reality. I admit I thoroughly enjoy and benefit from this connectedness, and I depend on technology in so many ways, but I hate what it does to our attention, and even more so I lament how little people seem to notice or care. That is to say, how little an amount that people notice or care, not that little tiny people seem to notice or care.
But yeah, please forgive me for ranting but I love reading your stuff bc this kind of stuff really bothers me, and it doubly bothers me that it doesn’t seem to bother other people that much. Now I’m bothered at myself for assuming I know what other people are thinking. I do wonder sometimes if maybe people are actually more well-adjusted than I think they are, and these concerns are more personal to me than I want to believe. Because they certainly are personal to me, but I also think this stuff concerns/angers me more than most my age because I’m not as immersed and seamlessly living in the interconnected social media meme culture zeitgeist realm as most of my friends.
That’s how I think about this stuff. Like maybe it’s just cause someone I respect showed me Ralph Waldo Emerson and it stuck with me, but being independent minded (not being different or edgy, but to truly form your own judgments and beliefs and trust/own them) and deliberate with your time and force and attention, those are such clear virtues to me that it’s so apparent to me how our relationship to technology is decaying our ability (and probably our desire) to be those things. I feel like a total curmudgeonly misanthrope saying this, but your posts remind me there’s other people who feel similarly.
All that said, I also think we are going to be okay. Not sure why but I just do.
The pen analogy was the high point for me in this post. Yes!!! so many pens, distribute the pens and wealth. I was already enraged this morning with an article about all the work going into anti-aging stuff, and all I could think of is, let's spend that time and the resources to distribute food and housing and clean water everywhere so kids can actually age! And as someone who is currently wrestling with glasses where my prescription is so dense that my nose always hurts from the glasses sitting on them, you are now telling me that I would be fine with goggles on my tiny nose (and where do my glasses fit in those goggles????) And then supposedly these goggles will let you feel like you are having a conversation with your co-workers, because you can see the people you are talking to life size! Of course these underlings...oh excuse me...coworkers get to see you standing there in those goggles, unless they are also wearing them, and that will be fun! Yeah, that will improve the conversation. The the section on spending time with your kids, you get to never be present for them when they blow bubbles, because you are too busy taking their picture so you can "enjoy" the moment with them when they are gone. But more likely dad will be on the couch behind the goggles and your kids will have to come right up to you to see if you are even awake, and if I was one of those kids I would take the goggle, pull, and snap it back onto your face. And, all your tv and movie watching is going to be alone, which makes sense because if you have spent all that money on goggles, why would you be willing to go to a movie with a friend, or sit on the couch with your partner and watch a tiny-assed tv. And.... Ok, I guess the answer to #1 is yes for me. But to #3 is also yes. Because this particular madness is not going to become widespread. Or if it does, it will help kill out the rich who won't ever get sex again because... they will be too busy sitting alone pretending to have a life.
Anyhoo, thanks for stirring me up so early in the morning. I am now going to start back on my WIP which is actually all about a near future colony on another planet where the protagonists reject much of modern tech, including the contacts that act like the Apple goggles. then again, they have developed psychic abilities, so the don't need no stinking.... Well, you get it.
1) I think they look stupid and dumb and it won't be worth anything until it's like invisible to others (the glasses, like an implant which is a terrible idea but we'll get there eventually) and you have every right to be steamed and that van looks like it might belong to a killer but I mean...
2) New Coke? Crystal Pepsi?
3) I had a dream last night in which I said "“I’m so excited about the future. Oh, I know there will be dystopias and problems but all this magic” AND I WAS SPECIFICALLY talking about technical inventions!!!!
4) Apparently I dream about them while you write about them? This was a box that a young man had, and inside it was a "ghost portal" which could send things between two places, any two places, so long as there was another portal on the other side. This, in the dream felt really innovative, but upon waking I realized it was derivative because it's just...any tech-telephones, radio or TV waves, email inboxes. We just haven't gotten to the stage of making concrete things beam. Also, I think this was basically the Vanishing Cabinets from HP. Great creative mind, Julie.
5) Improv shows and rehearsals. Parties. My first kiss with Chris. Childbirth (I mean...it's vivid though there was a lot of tech around me). Doing Karaoke on the Britt Stage with my son last year (again tech, but not intenet). Loads and loads. l'm glad for them.
This whole invention just means some really really rich people are going to watch porn in a very very high tech way, and then we're really very much not going to want to see their eyeballs
My all-time favourite "both are true" piece.