Cruising Speed

I have a secret. My right foot is really heavy. I mean, heavier than my left foot. It drags sometimes. I've noticed that the later I am, the heavier it gets.

Which is why I've come to rely on my car's cruise control.

Usually it keeps me out of trouble. I set the speed for the posted limit (2-3 mph over if I want to push it) and I can sit back and relax, knowing I don't have to keep checking my heavy foot. I can just "enjoy the ride."

Now, YOU may push the speed up a bit, if you’re really worried about getting somewhere on time. Say, when you realize you have to stop for gas or risk running out, and when you’re already running late because the dogs wouldn't come in when you called them. (This is particularly crucial on a morning when you have a big presentation you’re already worried about, one that you were up until 3 a.m. the night before, finishing.)

On a day like that, you might set the cruise at, say, 10 miles over the speed limit. Doing this could cause you to see pretty lights though, so I don't recommend you try this at home.

Going 10 mph over speed limit is bad enough. But then if you have to speed up to pass the bloke who was going just slow enough to make you brake off your cruise control... (Don't you just hate people who do that?)

Then you get a guy like this questioning your motives.

Or maybe this.

Or, if you're not paying attention and you're rooting through your glove box looking for your ID and insurance card, this.

Or, if you're lucky, this.

Even if you're honest about speeding (it goes better for you if you are), you will most likely end up with a $200 fine, and find that now you're even later for that presentation than you were, and you still have to stop for gas. Especially now that you've been sitting at the side of the road for fifteen minutes with your engine idling.

When you stop for gas, if you're lucky, maybe the pump shut off valve won't freeze in the below freezing temperatures and cause gasoline to pour all down the side of your car before you realize that far too much gas has pumped than should have.

And maybe there will be paper towels on your side of the gas station and you won't have to run all the way to the other side (five gas-pump islands over) to get the paper towels, and then run to the women's restroom inside the store (because the water outside is frozen) to wet the paper towels, then run back outside and try to wash the frozen gasoline off your car before it ruins the paint, and all without coat or gloves or hat because a half-hour after you got on the road this morning you realized you forgot to put your coat and stuff in the car which was in the garage attached to your house, so you forgot that it was only 26 degrees and very windy outside when you got in the car.

But all is okay now, because you are back on the road, warm in your car, gas tank full. Maybe you’ll be only slightly late to give that presentation. You are, after all, so diligent that leaving the house in time to arrive ten minutes early (barring problems) means “running late” to you.

As you pull back onto the freeway you notice two State Troopers (on the other side of the freeway) and both have a car pulled over, not fifty feet from each other. 

You realize technology is not intrinsically good or bad...it’s what we do with it that defines the outcome. You take it up to the speed limit, tap on the cruise control, take your heavy foot off the gas pedal. No presentation is worth another ticket you think, and you’re right. Technology is there to save you from yourself. Maybe you are a wee bit addicted to it. There are worse things to be addicted to.

Just One Addict Helping Out Another

I was a hold out. I couldn't imagine having my PDA and cell phone together in one device. Really? How inconvenient is that? I waited. And waited. And while I waited, smart phones got better, and cooler, and then the iPhone came out.

Finally, I got one.

Now I'm addicted.

It turns out it's not so hard to make a phone call after all--although it is a tad more clunky than the tiny streamlined folding phone I had previously--in fact, it's very easy to use and even has a built in speaker phone, bluetooth capability for wireless headset use, or jack to use with the plug-in headset that comes with it.

I don't really use the iPod feature much (iTunes), I don't want to run the battery down. I rarely use the regular iPod Nano I have, unless I want to listen to an audio book or something.

At current count I have something like 228 Applications (called Apps) on my iPhone. Most of them were free. I paid 99 cents for maybe a half dozen or fewer of them. I don't really use them all. Actually, I don't use most of them. I guess I'm addicted to downloading apps I think are cool and might be helpful. Sometimes I download several different "brands" of the same kind of app, since I don't know which one I'll like best before I try them all out. iTunes is an app, so is Calender, and iMovie... Netflix has an app. Basically everything you do on the phone, has an app to do it with.

So here is what I mostly do with my phone (I mean besides make and get phone calls):

I get up in the morning and check the weather so I'll know how to dress for the day.

Then I check my email. 

I almost never check my email on the computer, unless I need to open a file or especially if I need to download a file. It's just so much quicker and easier to do it on my phone. And I can do it from anywhere at any time (for example, when I'm waiting in line). So I do this several times a day, especially since it's important to stay up to date with what my professors may be sending me.

During my day I text message a friend about one of the assignments, or about getting together for coffee or lunch, or to say happy birthday... or...

I often click on the Calender app to see if I have any appointments, and because I have typed all my assignments into it so I'll always have them with me. 

Now there's another really cool app called Blackboard Learn. It lets me type in my school and user data, and I can go straight to Blackboard and access (read only) my syllabuses, reading handouts, grades, messages (the ones that aren't sent via email by profs and other students), and all the other essential data for every class I'm enrolled in that uses BB. How cool is that? (Sorry, I don't have a pic of that one.)

I have the DropBox app, and some others like it, so I can carry homework files with me, and even open them and read them. I have a bunch of eBook readers, I can search for books by typing in the title, author, ISBN number, or by scanning the bar code and get a list of new and used books for sell by price and dealer (particularly helpful when locating textbooks). Oh, and I have a lot of free eBooks too.

If you want to pay $15 per month, you can have a service on your phone (the app is free) that locates you when you go on a date, or walk the dog, or whatever. It will even call you periodically, if you set that up. If you don't answer your phone, or say the agreed upon thing, it will call the police and your parents (or whoever you have designated) and give them the last known location of your cell phone (you). It seems like an awesome security service for these times.

So I also have apps to keep track of my weight, my meals, my exercise... I have recipe apps, (even one for fixing a six-course thanksgiving dinner), grocery shopping apps, ringtone making apps, mahjong game apps, feng shui my environment apps... I have apps to fix photographs (somewhat), and apps to take photographs, and apps to share photographs on twitter and facebook and...

I love to snap shots of things:  Funny signs I see, my dogs, whatever. I love to share them with my friends. 

My dog is wearing her Invisible Fence collar.

So of course, I have the Facebook app (I think that was the first one I downloaded), and I have Twitter, and I have blogging apps too--doable, but not fun for more than short sentences on the iPhone keyboard.

Sometimes I want to check my math when I'm subtracting an expenditure in my checkbook, or I want to know how much of a tip to leave, or I need to split a lunch bill three ways and I'm too foggy to do it in my head quickly. There's an app for that:

There's a lot of times when I need to look something up on the web, maybe google something quickly. Once I Googled a needed word definition during an English Literature class small group discussion. Using my phone was so much faster and easier than dragging out the ole laptop, waiting for it to boot up, waiting for the browser to boot, then navigating to Google, then...

I don't have stocks anymore, but if I did this app would come in handy. It came on my phone. I can tell how things are going economically each day just by looking at the markets. Okay, well sort of. 

I use this app a lot. Whenever I need to jot down someone's name or number and I don't want to put it in my phone book just yet. Or there's something cool for sale that I want to consider. I keep a lot of "Stuff" notes in here, and a few ideas too.

 If I had those special computerized Nike running shoes that went with this app, this would be cool. Of course, it would help if I ran. (I wonder if you could use it for a walking program?) This app came with my phone too.

Oh, I get a lot of use out of this one:  Google Maps. I also have apps that tell me where the nearest restaurants, gas stations, hair stylists, etc. are. I have flight and hotel and hostel apps (never use - except once I used the flight app to find out my mother-in-law's flight was delayed twice, then they lost her--not her luggage, HER). I even have an app that will tell me where I parked my car (one I am liking better and better as time passes).

Sometimes I just want to record a quick note, especially in the car, and especially when I have a creative thought or idea I don't want to lose. This came with my phone. I have another one too, free, that promises I can record a class lecture with it. I've not tried it yet. It might be worth it to experiment though, you never know when you might actually need it.

I could watch a NETFLIX movie from my phone if I wanted to run the battery down. What would be the point? The screen is so small. If I wanted to do that I'd rather do it from my laptop. But the point is I COULD, there's an app for that. That's just so awesome to me!

The new iPhone4 has even cooler features: Face2Face (F2F) video phone conferencing (and you can Skype from your phone), iMovie... 

So yeah, unlike my iPod before it, or my PDA of previous years (which I dearly loved) - I've become addicted to my iPhone. It's a major technology vice of mine. 

On the other hand, look how helpful it is - ESPECIALLY FOR A STUDENT. I carry ONE SMALL DEVICE, where otherwise I would have to carry (at least): a calculator, a date book (or PDA), an eBook Reader, a cell phone, a voice recorder, a memo pad, a flash drive, a recipe book, a meals log book, an exercise log book, a diet log book, a meal planner book, a grocery list planner pad, a laptop computer....

So if you can see where I'm going with this: you might want to have your parents and grandparents (maybe even your uncles and aunts...siblings, and cousins too) peruse this blog post prior to Christmas and Chanukah this year... I'm just sayin'.

I don't want a new phone.

"The phone to save us from our phones."

This commercial is awful, yet scarily prophetic. It's only a matter of time before people are so engrossed in their texts that they lose sight of the true meaning of communication.

Texting has become an epidemic, a disease. Phones are everywhere and everyone has one. And pays egregiously to use it.

I just don't understand.

Face-to-face conversation has always been my forte, has always been what I'm comfortable with. But no one wants to talk anymore. At parties, the glow of a cell phone always lights up my friends faces, while I'm stuck talking to myself. Relationships start and grow through texting. People stop what their doing to answer their phones, even in the middle of a real conversation. Some people are so engrossed in the glow of their Blackberry they forget that the outside world is there. It's like no one else wants to pay attention to life anymore.

They prefer the life inside their phone.

And it's worrying me. For the past few years, I've been looking down on these people, thinking that they have a problem, that this was just a fad, a bad habit that I was the first to break. Lately I've been worried that it's not them with the problem, but me. I'm worried that my unwillingness to use technology as the foremost means of my communication has been hurting me, and that everyone else has been looking down on me like I've been doing to them. Looking at me as if I'm the one with the vice.

I really hope that that's not the case.

Hello… My name is Mara and I’m addicted to Facebook.

sickfacebook.com

I created my facebook account almost five years ago and I never looked back. I am a self-admitted facebook addict! More than 500 million people have a facebook and I am one of the 175 million people that check their page daily. (TechCrunch.com) I can’t go an entire day without checking my profile and my feed. And why not be addicted? I am able to connect with hundreds of people at the click of a button, post a funny video, or take care of my virtual pet all in one place.

I had never questioned my devotion to the Holy Grail of social connections until just a few weeks ago when I saw the movie “The Social Network.” It is a really good movie if you haven’t seen it but once I knew the struggle that went into making this worldwide phenomenon I started thinking about how different the world would have been if facebook had never been made.

1. I defiantly wouldn’t spend as much time on the computer. I would have to read a book, do homework, or interact with people face to face! (gasp!)
2. My contact list on my phone would be overflowing. We would need to talk or text in order to contact people instead of just facebooking them.
3. None of our virtual worlds would exist! No petville, yoville, farmville, or other community games.
4. No one would remember anyone’s birthday. I need that notification or I feel horrible for forgetting.
5. Facebook creeping wouldn’t exist. We would actually have to ask people what we wanted to know about them instead of just creeping on their profile!
The list could go on and on.



I know that I’m focusing on facebook but my argument can be applied to other social networking sites as well. Yes myspace came before facebook (facebook is better) but myspace has become the place to find out info on the latest music. Twitter lets you post anything from “Going to Wal-mart to buy stuff! Hit me up later” to “To be, or not to be--that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- No more.” As well as granting or taking away fame. And who can leave out search engines! Yahoo and Google save my life when I’m writing a paper and am too lazy to spend time trying to find research. Within seconds you have 500,000 possible sources!



I am an addict and I need my fix! If that means spending 7-8 hours a day with my page open in front of so be it!!! I’d much rather live in a world where I was addicted to facebook then a world where it didn’t exist. Yes, it distracts us from work we need to get done. Yes there are pointless and mindless games we can’t stop playing. Yes we can creep or be creeped on. But I wouldn’t have it any other way!