Synchronize: in time with
I asked Google to define synch. The top line came back with
Webster’s definition. Think eyes intently on wristwatches, setting each
timepiece to the time called out by the leader of the group. Now, in the old movies, a plan could be
precisely executed.
What does synching do, I next asked Google. A thousand user
boards answered, Synch synchs!
I let that sink in for a day, while I read my comments, and
looked around the internet for unsynching. (Unsynching is also a word on
thousands of user boards.)
In my mind’s eye I saw all the brooms in Fantasia carrying
buckets of water, the music synchronized; the action relentless. The applications, or uses of our devices are
synchronized (oops, synched) to the wand of our device’s conductor.
The electronic world is synchronized to travel the information
highways, mostly in harmony. There is no benevolent mind intoning for the greater good. It simply is for
the greater ease of information, commerce, recreation, communication. All the
ageless activities of man, facilitated by the speed of electrons and radio
waves.
The option to unsynch seems to be parked in every device and
every application. I found some easily. I can disconnect Chrome from my Google
account. I can unsynch the data back up from my android phone. Free at last…
But what happens. If my phone data isn’t backed up, it is no
longer available to be restored on the occasions I get stupid and lock up my
phone. Soft reset, my miracle go to, would have nothing to put back in my
phone. No apps, no numbers. NO GOOGLE MAPS!
What if Google is disconnected from Chrome? Apparently my
Google account (Blogger!) is used by Chrome to encrypt and safeguard my
internet sessions.
There is no going back. We bought into the ease of
information in a flash, phone calls at our fingertips. Even my sister, with her
old flip phone in her purse, bought into the system with the iPad that’s in her
purse, too.
That’s the long and the short of it—this technology is
predicated on everything working together. Everything running on the same
information highways. Gatekeepers along
the way protect some of our data by encrypting it, but there is a trade off for
them to be out there working for us for free. The gatekeepers fund themselves
by selling advertising.
No going back. I am many light years from my first phone
number, Hemlock 9805, that I memorized at age three. No going back and not going back.
Hemlock 9805
I had to learn an extra number...MAnhasset 6 4402.
ReplyDeleteOurs was Twining 5. Simplicity. Does anyone remember simplicity?
ReplyDeleteIt was a pattern!
DeleteI read part of Snowdon's last message about the loss of privacy and how privacy allowed us to be who we are. that the loss of privacy that we deal with today, the constant surveillance, is far worse than what George Orwell could imagine in 1984.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Snowdon wants to turn his mea helpa into a bid to come home.
Delete“I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.
“All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed.”
oh I'd love to have a rotary dial phone, we had one on the wall in Arkansas in the mid 90s and it was put in in the early 60s and it still worked just fine, they probably won't even work any longer but I still wish I could hear one of those true ringing sounds coming from one of them
ReplyDeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteIpswich 4892. Amazing isn't it? Can't tell you what I had for breakfast...!
Remember, the same thing was said about steam engines, production line manufacturing, the automobile. The devil at play, they'd say. Big Brother. We're doomed. Meanwhile, let's make it work for us!! YAM xx
Technology goes a little too fast for me. Often. Though I am grateful for what I have gained hanging on its coat tails.
ReplyDeleteI'm more of the 'press this and hope like mad' era
ReplyDeleteAll you need is a computer wizz in the family and you just hand it to him and say "this doesn't work, fix".
ReplyDeletemost of the time it gets fixed.
Merle...............
I wish I had one of those old black rotary phones, though...
ReplyDeleteI have a rotary dial phone. It still works, but it doesn't ring. I think i need to have some special hookup so it knows to ring. My i-phone, which is my new work phone, has that classic ring. I wish my late FIL were still on the planet, he'd know how to hook up black rotary dial phone so it would ring, since he was a phone man most of his working life.
ReplyDeleteYes, i can dial and receive calls on it. It's wonderful in a power outage, but i do need a flashlight if it's nighttime, so i can see what numbers i'm dialing.
I'll ask my brother. He's probably the last two wire guy left on the face of the earth.
ReplyDeleteWhen you had a local exchange you knew the old biddy who was earwigging your calls.....now you have no idea who is messing about with your stuff.
ReplyDeleteHahaha! So true! Nothing was private then either, although it was only shared in the community, not across the country :)
DeleteI'm stubbornly sticking with the few gadgets I have and not adding to them.
ReplyDeleteFlip phone, laptop, TV and DVD player. And three mp3 players that almost never get used anymore.
Nothing new unless something dies first.
What interesting food for thought, but ominous..
ReplyDeleteMy phone prefix in those days was "dunkirk 8"
ReplyDelete