Aimless Wandering

So NewTeeVee is reporting that Comcast’s Senior VP of user Experience Gerald Kunkel is saying that Comcast is experimenting with putting cameras into devices so that Comcast can know who is in your living room… What Comcast is trying to do is have your DVR or cable box recognize you and then serve up show recommendations or targeted ads.

Mr. Kunkel (aka Big Brother Wannabe) says that the system wouldn’t use facial recognition but rather some sort of general body form recognition so that supposedly Comcast (aka The Ministry of Love) wouldn’t have a picture of you on file…

Now I’m not a conspiracy theory, tinfoil hat wearing kind of person (besides the tinfoil just makes it easier for the aliens to read our minds not harder) but this – this scheme just creeps me out… Despite what Comcast says this scheme just reeks of George Orwell’s 1984. TiVo has been reporting viewership information on it’s DVRs for quite a while – but just cataloging what I watch is very different from WATCHING me watch TV. I may have a blog – but I don’t broadcast all my activities for the world to see and I DON’T want some company or worse the government keeping that close a watch on what I do.

Which comes to my other concern, the government has already been conducting warrantless wiretaps of people’s phones which sadly doesn’t seem to upset most folks. What’s to stop them from now tapping in to Comcast’s video feed of my living room? Or worse coercing or encouraging Comcast to improve the camera quality so that the government could peek in on what we are doing? In the last 8 years we’ve given away many of our civil liberties in the name of increased security – but allowing a company to put a camera in our living room to better personalize our viewing experience or some crap – NO, NO, NO, NO!

In all honesty it’s not much further of a jump for Comcast after installing such cameras to start sending us messages like:

“Hey Bill, you’re looking a little chubby there. Maybe you need to add fitTV to your channel lineup.”

“Mary, the living room is looking a bit dirty, maybe you should straighten up… but leave your TV on.”

“Roy you perv, we’re turning your porn off go find a preacher and confess your sins!”

“Betty, we saw you with the milkman and we’re telling your husband…”

Really, what’s to stop these from becoming like the two way view screens in 1984 that were used to spy on the public? Hmm, I wonder if Comcast is next going to decide that their bills are too wordy and experiment with sending them in Newspeak?

Honestly I can’t believe that a company would be so daring to even try something like this. I have been a Comcast subscriber in the past – but with them even considering something as creepy as this I’d have to think long and hard about ever subscribing to their service again…

But since I really don’t have much to do today (or at least much that I want to do today) I ended up becoming inspired while on a visit to the office supply closet…

As a result I have embarked on building a rubber band ball (old school!) with a rubber band core (hard core too!).  I’m not sure what triggered this impulse especially since I’ve never created a rubber band ball.  Although I once worked some where that had a rubber band ball that was larger than a soccer ball and weighed over 20lbs - when I left it was 6 years old.  It was so large we couldn’t stretch single rubber bands around it but rather had to tie two together in order to add more rubber bands to the rubber beastie.

Although right now I have not so much a ball, but more of a rubber band nugget or maybe a rubber band larva.  At best maybe a rubber band football.  Of course I have a 4oz bag of number 19 rubber bands (translation- a whole lot of skinny rubber bands) at my disposal to properly shape my rubber band ball…

As I took inventory today of all the clocks that I need to adjust for daylight savings time i started wondering why is it car manufacturers can’t make a few simple changes that would make life a little easier and safer for drivers…

We had a car that would turn your headlights off when you turned the car off  unlike the two cars we have now that will leave the parking lights on when you turn the ignition off.   But with all the states that have laws that require you to have your headlights on when you have your wipers on, why don’t manufacturers make it so that your headlights turn on automatically when you turn on your wipers?

The other feature is related to all of the clock setting I had to do today.  Why don’t manufacturers add a wireless time synchronization feature on the clocks they put in their cars?  You can buy an alarm clock that does this for less than $30, how hard could it be to incorporate this into a car?  Instead of having to repeatedly mash buttons to set the time there could be 1 button to turn daylight savings on or off and one to select your time zone…  Quick, easy, and cheap.

Cars that can park themselves or being able to control your stereo by talking to it is great, but those features are really expensive and can be very complex.  On the other hand  these two features have got to be pretty cheap and simple to incorporate into new cars…

No, not that Biggest Looser. 

I’ve had this rolling around in my head for the past week…. 

Why is Ralph Nader running for President again?  I mean really, he’s been in what 4, 5 Presidential elections and has he even managed 10% of the popular vote?

Ralph, there’s a message the American people have been trying to send you :  ”We don’t want you to be President.”

Now I’m all for third party and independent candidates.  However, they need to have a message and a platform that appeals to most Americans - that’s the same if you’re a Republican or a Democrat.  Ralph Nader and most third party and independents don’t have that, if they did then more people would care that they have entered the race.  If these folks had platforms that made sense, or in some cases at least remotely appeared to have been devised while not stoned or drunk, then they might have a fighting chance of raising enough money to put together a viable campaign.

I think by now it’s apparent to most that of all the possible third party candidates out there - Ralph Nader is not going to be the one to capture the imagination of this country and generate the support that will lead to a winning Presidential bid.  Honestly, I think Jesse Ventura has a better chance of getting elected President as a third party candidate than Ralph Nader - Heck, Ventura has name recognition, military experience, and even political experience…  Besides, how much worse than what we have now could he be?

The other thing though is the way this year’s election has been going.  Let’s face it, the Republican and Democratic candidates have now been campaigning for a year or longer.  Folks like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee who were mostly unknown a year or two ago are now household names.  These candidates have been grabbing headlines for well over a year and have the advantage of a significant amount of publicity.  For a third party candidate to throw their hat in after how much has happened in this election is setting themselves up for an even larger uphill battle.  Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was part of the reason that Mike Bloomberg ultimately decided not to run as an independent this year…

So again I ask, why is Ralph Nader running for President again?