Posts tagged technology

Advertising: I don’t want to know.

1 year ago
by Rico Penguin in

  I’ve been thinking as of recent about the concept of advertising. Goods and services detailing to me what the benefits of their existence are. Be it flat rock-hard abs, high protein diets, organic foods, or fuel with some fantasy ingredient. These things are touted in every magazine, television show, billboard, internet page, and bus stop seemingly in existence.

  But perhaps I’m alone in the sentiment of “I don’t want to know.” I am a huge fan of knowledge but I quite honestly don’t have any interest in your new movie, new game, new purse, new perfume, new makeup, new hamburger, or any other product you have to sell when I am not explicitly shopping. You know the only time I learn about new McDonalds products? When I pass their business or enter it, it isn’t that they don’t spend millions on advertising (I’m sure they do) but that’s the only time I care. If I see a product of theirs outside of that avenue I go out of my way not to buy it (for that my heart thanks me).

  I’m sure eventually this article will be read with advertisements on either side of it which will make it exceptionally funny if not blatantly hypocritical (which I could probably argue it isn’t). However that doesn’t change my personal feelings. I like DVD releases of shows because I don’t have to see commercials, I’m never swayed by them (or at least very rarely) and my personal choice to boycott anything I see in an ad for as long as I can makes them negative advertising for their business.

  If I’m in Target and you want to wash over me with advertisements, I wouldn’t hold it against you in the least, but outside of Target I would rather be convinced you and everything you make didn’t exist. I have more important things to do with my eyes, ears, and brain. You know where I want to hear music advertised? On the radio, where one would expect to hear about it. Movies? I’m a fan of the previews before movies (that are about movies and not Pepsi) because it targets the audience that pays for movies. It’s eloquent and accurate and I support that.

  Television shows advertised on the station they’ll be airing on (or on TV in general) makes a ton of sense to me. But everything else just doesn’t.

  I don’t want to know, I actively don’t purchase things that are advertised, and I hope that someday in the future instead of advertisements becoming more and more entangled in information (so far as to have fake news websites to market crap) we will instead see less (and more efficient) advertising.

  But that’s like hoping for world peace, because unfortunately advertising apparently works. The numbers don’t like, I just wish folks wouldn’t buy every stupid ab lounger they see on television, maybe then I wouldn’t need to see the same commercial for it every 5 minutes.

  If books ever start having magazine style advertising pages in them I think I might snap.

  Also yes, I am fervently against the internet personalizing itself for me. It takes 12 minutes and an IQ of 50 to get the internet personalized manually without losing my privacy, so we should investigate why the majority of the world is apparently dangerously stupid or dangerously lazy to warrant this new integration of sites between one another.

Rico Examines “Technology and Depression”

1 year ago
by Rico Penguin in

  I was discussing this topic with my Mother-In-Law a short while back and felt it was interesting enough to post here. If you disagree, imagine instead I’m talking about puppies, because everyone loves puppies.

  We’ll begin with the subject of change and the effects of it on our psyche. I don’t believe I’ll be citing anything today, so if you disagree with my points go check out case studies and I’m sure they’ll provide the same information. While it is true that change, and paradoxes, help expand the gray matter, many people are very resistant to change. This may be a survival mechanism, once you have mastered your surroundings, you would be very unhappy if those surroundings changed because now you would need to utilize more time (a precious commodity to mortal beings) to once again become learned.

  There is an irony to this, the more open to change an organism is, the faster it will adapt and the higher likelihood that it’ll survive. So how is it, that humans have survived this long? As a whole humans have proven they are overall highly resistant to change, so much so that they’ve many times over developed belief structures that are themselves the ultimate hyperbole of static. Beings with unchanging infinitely wide power that exist for an unchanging amount of time over an unchanging swath of existence (namely all of it). The answer lies in a natural check, in a sense humans are one massive organism, while our bodies do contain various organs that seem to have no purpose other than to kill us, there are balances to these that keep us as a whole alive.

  The relatively small percent of humans that are not only open to change but actively searching for it, these are what keep humans alive. While many people find distress in change, they can avoid it (to the misfortune of them and all around them), this small group however continually discovers and advances knowledge in the universe and thusly sparks change, which generally leads to longer and much less painful survival.

  Depression, or at the very least stress, is derived from seemingly uncontrollable circumstances. The worse the feeling of no control, the higher the level of depression or stress. In most situations the loss of control can be rectified but it cannot usually be rectified quicker than merely avoiding it, which may be the reason that people largely avoid change or things they don’t understand.

  However Technology has become basically unavoidable, for a truly productive life people must tie in with technology. This has some amazing ramifications, because I’m willing to bet that not a single person reading this article has a deep understanding of exactly how a computer works. Many people have a rough idea of how cars work, the mechanisms for their function are fairly straight forward. However a computer (though arguably no more complicated) has a much more daunting scope. You could contain all the knowledge of the collective human existence into a device that is the size of a dictionary. This is a daunting concept that mystifies PCs amongst many people, and puts plenty of money into the pocket of the “Geek Squad” ;) .

  We are technologically much better off than we were in the early 1900’s, but with that has come the inescapable necessity to learn and change. This is a massive, utterly unstoppable, reality that I do feel has made the majority of people less happy than they were in a relatively simpler time. War has always been here, disease has always been here, and wheels have been around for a long time. But technology, electricity, and the extremely quick evolution of information has put a globes worth of people who live off the idea of the rawest static ideals in check.

  This is a very good thing however, forcing people to accept change and to enjoy new challenges has nothing but positive ramifications in the short term and in the long term. For the entirety of human history it has been the people accepting of change, and only these people, that has kept the rest of the human population advancing and alive. The larger this population becomes, the better the lives of all people will be. However it will be an uphill struggle considering just how strong the desire for static infinitives is. If you need a very real example look at America and Pluto. Or really America and basically any scientific advance in the last 100 years that didn’t obviously and immediately make life easier. I’d comment on other countries, but I don’t live in them so all my comments would be largely assumptive and that’s not fair.

  Unrelated I would like to congratulate Volcanoes, you have once again reminded everyone just how badass you can be.

 

Common Courtesy: A dying art.

3 years ago
by Rico Penguin in

  Three daily college realities have seemingly overlooked the age old idea of Common Courtesy, do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you (albeit flawed that logic works pretty well most times).

   021001_WineSpitting_Main
(Image from Slate)

  Spitting is an activity that I’m quite certain has been around since the very first organisms blessed with the ability to do so. Likewise I feel that in some situations it is a very important activity that may indeed save you from certain death (I’ll let your imagination go wild with that). However I find this incessant equation of spitting = cool to be getting out of hand. I have four classes that I walk between every other day, which equates to 3 walks of roughly 5-10 minutes in duration. On each of these walks I see at least two dozen glossy splatters of mucous on the ground. If the wind catches it you’ll even see people walking with snot slathered on their shoes.

  This is ridiculous. If you can’t make a walk between your classes without spitting you need to get help. If you can’t make it through a day without spitting you should acquire medical attention this instant. “But it’s gross to swallow spit.” It’s produced in your mouth and frankly spitting and swallowing cause it to cross nearly the same amount of taste spots on your tongue. It’s bad enough that people can’t make it to a trash can without dropping their gum on the ground we don’t need to add piles of disease everywhere.

  Oh you didn’t realize that? Whenever you spit you aren’t simply safely discarding of germs from your system. When other people step on it they carry that disease into their home, into classrooms, dining areas, and even into hospitals (yeah thanks). Tuberculosis and similar diseases are spread quite consistently by spitting, whenever the spit dries the germs are carried through the air, so next time you see a beautiful windy day take a gander at all the dried flem on the ground. What used to be camping out on it is likely dancing around in your lungs.

  This is one of the three activities that I’m forced to examine with each school day that is disgusting in every meaning of the word.

smoking2sw5  
(Image from winston.hoyhouse (Site not linked because of virus attempt))

  Smoking while you walk in a crowded area. I have nothing against smoking as a personal activity, frankly I’m in full support of any drug habit you feel isn’t destroying your life (someday I’ll write an article on that view to help flesh it out) but this is different. There are a few common courtesies that I give to all people that are anywhere in my vicinity, I don’t press their face up against my ass and fart, I don’t pee on anyone, and I don’t carry a campfire with me to blanket all those around me with smoke.

  It doesn’t matter what you smoke, be it tobacco, weed, or a chimpanzee, if it’s smoking it’s not good for your lungs. In almost all cases your lungs hate when solid particles are caking inside of them, regardless of it those particles are literally Costco cake particles or crystallized chunks of toxins. Likewise standing a foot away from me doesn’t magically make the smoke not come my way, many times while waiting at bus stops there is a small group of people chain smoking about three to five feet away from the stop that has a prominent “No Smoking” sign on it. I find it an odd paradigm that you can’t drink alcohol in public yet you can smoke. Of the two I prefer the obnoxious drunks behavior to the coal train walking in front of me.

  I know in the same breath most people can say its not addictive and ignore the fact they can’t make it through a school day without smoking and frankly that’s not what this post is about. If you can find a way to smoke without me having to inhale your leftovers we have no conflict. Otherwise stop smoking when you are in public, even propaganda aside that is not in the slightest way courteous. Unless we can agree that I can fart directly in your face without recourse. Then I think we have a deal (keep in mind when I have pot stickers you may not survive the incident).

Texting(Image from yorkblog)

  This falls back to the last conversation of smoking. I really don’t feel there is anything wrong with texting, it’s a form of communication and I feel that’s a wonderful thing. But much like smoking it has its place. That place is not in a classroom. I am driven to a near homicidal rage when I find the student behind me, the student two kids to the left of me, and the student directly to the right of me all texting. The clicking becomes this haunting orchestra that distracts me and leaves much of the class discussion collapsing beneath its weight.

  You are not that important, people CAN survive without you for 50 minutes (much like I feel you can survive without a cigarette when in crowded areas). I don’t have my cell phone on when I am in class, because I understand two major things. I don’t NEED to be available at all times of the day, I’m not the president nor am I the pope. Secondly I am not the only person in the classroom. Much like smoking in the middle of 100 non-smokers is an obvious dick move you should not be clicking away at a tiny keyboard in a course that cost everyone in the class hundreds of dollars.

  If you don’t feel the lectures are worth your attention then stop coming to class. If you can’t survive without discussing things with your BFF then start taking all the same courses. This is unacceptable in almost all situations. The only time I feel that you should be texting in class involves situations that warrant you not being there in the first place. This problem is absolutely out of control at my university and one of the major players in my inability to suggest anyone ever attend this place.

  There are likely other things but in my daily life these three are rampant. In the last year I have never had a day where I wasn’t dodging smoke clouds, mucous mounds, or attempting to ignore the endless clicking of gossipy texters. If these situations had been played out in a book I’d feel they were exaggerative but this is everyday life at Western.

  I have no plans to have rants all the time, these are just some things that are going to cause me to lose years off my life (from stress and disease which each feed off one another) or cause me to end someone elses life early :P .

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