The Curmudgeon Speaks

Ah, it’s tough out there, a good muse is hard to find
Living one word to the next, one line at a time
There’s more to life than whiskey, there’s more to words than rhyme
Sometimes nothing works, sometimes nothing shines

Do you have something you turn to when the creative process seems stalled? Here is my new favorite – Hemmingway’s Whiskey by Guy Clark

We are probably late to the cruising experience among those our age we know. Much of what I describe is likely a discovery for me, but old hat for many others. Here is one experience I can guarantee you past cruisers have not had. This is a combination virtual reality / 5 course meal. This was explained as the third such facility in existence and the first on a ship. You sit at a tables with a special top with dishes that must be in exactly the right position. The lights dim. Before each course a special projector system fires up and a miniature chef appears on your table and prepares a course from the meal. This is not a cooking show in the sense that you see the preparation of an actual meal. You see more of a comedy routine which the chef capturing a lobster from the sea, lighting a barbecue grill, making ice cream from snow, etc. Here are some images of the VR displays and actual pictures for several of the courses.

Boilie Base

Lobster

Filet mignon

Rice pudding

Ice cream sundae

We had this experience at half-price as Celebrity cruise line wants to make certain the experience will be well received and to work out the kinks. This had to be very expensive to create – a room with very carefully placed tables, special furniture and plates, and projection systems over each table. The cruise line gave each attendee a one-hour courtesy wifi access code ($9) to encourage images and promotion of the experience. This does not apply to us as we purchased a wifi plan, but it does allow for both of us to be online at the same time this evening.

There must be plans for more than this one “performance”. It was an interesting experience and for we techie types, it promises more to come.

For more posts from our travel blog, see Grabe Travels.

In his book, Lifelong Kindergarten author Mitch Resnick promotes the value of making thinking visible. He focuses on the importance of generating products, primarily the wide variety of products that can be generated within the Scratch programming environment.

This has been a perspective I have tried to adopt for years. I started blogging and posting web content in the late 1990s. I called the site offering my content learningaloud because the title had an ambiguous meaning when heard and because it allowed me to explain what I was learning from my study of educational psychology and educational technology. My multi-decade journey has included more topics than one might imagine. At one point, I functioned as a webmaster for the educational efforts of Game and Fish in North Dakota mostly trying to support schools that adopted the department’s OWLS (outdoor wildlife learning sites) project. Later, I began sharing tutorials and commentary for future educators in support of my wife and my educational technology textbooks for future teachers. This has been an ongoing process now for approximately 20 years. More recently I felt the need to use Facebook to comment on the state of U.S. politics. Over this entire span of online activity, this was the first time I felt the need to discuss my political opinions so my motivation for becoming more openly political is likely obvious.

I endorse the process of externalization (making thinking visible) no matter your age or purpose. Producing a product is a great way to clarify your own thinking and to engage others. I pay for the server space I use for most of my writing projects, but a service such as Blogger or Facebook is available to anyone. I now write as a nearly 70-year old individual in his retirement years, but the processes of reading, thinking and writing are important for all.

If there is a project others outside of education might find interesting, it would probably be the writing I have done while traveling. My wife and I have had the opportunity to travel the world and I have tried to provide commentary to share these experiences.

My earliest efforts were included in a blog I call Curmudgeon Speaks (posts from travels in Russia), but in recent years I have used blogger to provide descriptions and images of the trips we have taken in retirement.

[on the Celebrity Reflection about half way across the Atlantic]

I am easily intimidated in this environment. So much sophistication:

• People who speak multiple languages and who have been to so many places.
• People who recount stories from the dozens of cruises they have taken.
• People who can keep which is a white and which is a red wine straight.
• Even people with those giant wrist watches.

What is the deal with those watches anyway? Perhaps they are suited to people with poor eye sight or people who do not like to carry a phone. I know they are expensive, but there must be easier ways to show off. Buy a current season Twins baseball cap and a jersey with a player from the present roster. This would be a better and more subtle way to show folks just how cool you are.

Whenever I am feeling particularly intimidated, I head to the iLounge – a place where I can be around people I understand and I can fit in. This ship has a combination computer lab and Apple store. If you purchase an iPad on the ship you get free access to wifi for a day or so. I must say that wifi access is better than I expected. Cindy and I take turns connecting to the account we purchased. Each time one of us logs in the other individual gets shut down. So far, this has not become an issue between us, but there is the possibility of an altercation always on the horizon.

You can tell how tech savvy these folks are. I heard one such gentleman complaining that a speedier wifi would be appreciated as he had purchased the 90 minute plan and he wasn’t getting his money’s worth.

All of that rhetoric about digital natives aside, I don’t see any of them in the iLounge. This native stuff is all hype as far as I can tell. So, me and several of my over-70 friends can check Facebook without competition from the younger crowd. They are probably still sleeping off last nights glow in the dark dance party.

Here is to hangin’ with my peeps.

I will say this one more time. When you use a free service, you must assume that you are paying for the cost of operating that service and some profit for those responsible by offering information about yourself that has value to others. This was acceptable to me when it resulted in ads for things my data suggested might inform me. Of course, this personal information had other uses. Personal information offers a mechanism by which personal biases can be used to manipulate.

Tech folks seldom started by finding a way to manipulate, but others with such inclinations quickly understood what was possible. I am uncertain if this situation can be salvaged. Solutions require either payment or a willingness to accept responsibility for what we ignore and what we promote. Sharing and favoriting are especially important as these are actions under our control. These actions signal your priorities which I do not necessarily see as bad AND offer the opportunity to promote information from trusted sources.

Read what you promote? If I could, I would also require social media users to add personal comments when favoriting and sharing. This would slow down sharing and would hopefully result in more reasoned positions. Use of the favorite and share buttons is not engaging enough.

I am also a fan of federated social media services that do not collect user data. I have offered some recommendations in previous posts.

Writing does not always come easy. I think I have found a song to play when the words do not flow.

I don’t really mean the title as snarky or mean-spirited – it really is just a way to describe a practice as free market capitalism.

I have a measure of sympathy for the present reaction to the big tech companies – Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. They have gotten themselves in trouble (or at least should have) for their business practices. However, they are all doing what they need to do to make money. What I find offensive is how they defend themselves in explaining their business practices. They should just say – we need to make money and we did what we had to. Perhaps they could have done a little less of what they did, but stockholders want more and not less.

Here is how I see the various players:

Apple – makes money on hardware and selling stuff (music, apps). Apple is not good at social (I am not counting person to person tools such as Facetime here). The business plan includes overpriced hardware and a closed system that tries to keep you within the Apple environment. Rather than explaining that over pricing and a closed system are to boost profits, Apple has taken to position their tactics as privacy oriented. Of course, this is true, but Apple users still want to use the services that have privacy concerns and Apple cannot provide these services.

Google – the company promoting the “don’t be evil mantra” makes money most by providing a superior ad experience. The experience is better for the consumer because they see ads targeted to their personal interests and for those who purchase ads because their money on ads is spent in a better way. Of course, to provide this targeted service, Google must harvest information about users and their online activity. Google supports a more open experience and products such as Chrome have become the basis for hardware that other providers use to offer lower-cost products.

Facebook – Facebook has a similar business model to Google, but has found itself in trouble because it harvests personal information beyond user experiences within Facebook (now to change if I understand the newest proposals) and allows services to use information obtained within Facebook outside of Facebook (e.g., Cambridge Analytica). Of course, Facebook users do not pay for Facebook activities by subscribing for a fee and the power of the “free” service has made Facebook popular with users.

So, I can find fault and benefit in the behavior of all of these companies. I can also see how these companies conveniently focus on the faults of the other companies when promoting themselves to the public. The information collectors may end up subject to federal regulation and the adjustments they will have to make will reduce their profits and the benefits to stockholders (probably why their market value has been decreasing). Apple will likely continue to overcharge for their hardware until enough consumers find they can do what they want to do with equipment running Chrome and Windows.

The current frustration with Twitter and Facebook have causes many to wish they had options. Options do exist and I can direct you to them, but you are likely to be frustrated by the lack of action you presently find on Facebook and Twitter. The major problem a new product faces as Facebook or Twitter options is not the quality of the technology, but the fact that fellow users will not be there if they make the switch. POSSE is a way to increase the likely options will become more desirable.

POSSE – publish on your own site, syndicate everywhere. This is not my concept, I borrowed it. It usually means publish from your own server, but also on existing mainstream outlets. What I am proposing here is a similar idea – publish on Twitter and Facebook, but add the same content to alternatives. If this became a more common strategy, it would eventually more feasible to just make the switch if desired.

At present, I would recommend Mastodon as a Twitter alternative and Diaspora as an alternative to Facebook. Both Mastodon and Diaspora use a different model from Twitter and Facebook – they federate or loosely link multiple versions of the basic service. You join one of these services. You have immediate access to those in your own “instance”, but you can view posts from all instances and can interact with those from other instances. For example, I belong to diasp.org and mastodon.social.

You will find that Mastodon and Diaspora are not supported by ads or by selling your personal information. You are encouraged, but not required to contribute. I have sent a few bucks to each organization. These organizations are growing. I tried Diaspora several years ago and still have an account on one of the original servers. I was surprised to see how much more active the present version is.

While these new services allow you to avoid ads and data security issues, they still work in the manner that will see mostly what your “friends” offer unless you make the effort to see the group feed.

It is not my intention to destroy Twitter or Facebook. I do not totally blame the present state of social media on purposeful actions by these companies. I do feel that increasing the popularity of alternatives will encourage existing services to be more assertive in addressing problems and spreading participants across several services will reduce the impact of everyone being accessible through the same service.