Poop
There is a lot to say about poop. Yes, human excrement. The best book I know on the subject from a social point of view is The Big Necessity by Rose George. The title refers to a toilet, which will have more respect from you after you look at the book.The Tao of Poop by Vivian Glyck is about the more challenging aspects of raising a baby. An acquaintance of mine wondered about her ability to face a dirty diaper when she was younger. Now, many dirties later, she is fully acquainted and unafraid of a little poop.
If we lose control of our bowels, we will probably feel embarrassed and like we are babies again. Control of our elimination of body waste is one of the primary signs that we are grown-ups and civilized, as opposed to being animals.
Work
The application of computers, communication and digitization has changed and continues to change many aspects of our lives. I saw a talk on the web the other day that said we are now in a time when we have flying computers (modern airliners, drones), computers who operate surgically on people, computers that send out movies in streams.When Napster came along and people exchanged files of their sound tracks, that had a big effect on the music recording business. When the digital camera came along, it has had a big effect on photography and firms such as Eastman Kodak. (Kodak just filed for bankruptcy.)
Just as albums can be separated into sound tracks, many jobs can be separated into sub-parts. Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a web site that allows small jobs to be assigned to those willing to accept them and earn money for completing them. The article by PC magazine lists 20 sites on the web they feel are good ones for seeking a job. I read several years ago about a man living in Latvia or one of the Baltic republics who earned a good living, not from the local economy but from Elance (like 'freelance", catch-as-catch-can job acceptance).
Text messages
People can get email on smartphones and they can get text messages. What's the difference? In some ways, not much. Because of the small keyboards and modified keys that stand for multiple symbols on some phones, there is a strong tradition of communicating any way one can. Similarly, text messages carry no voice quality, only symbols and are cheaper. Indeed, free in some parts of the world. Thus, "u" instead of "you" and things like "how r u?" for How are you?I keep advocating that people try Google Voice, which does both voice and text but I have had little success. I have never used the free service for voice but I do all my texting through it. It gives me access to texting on my computer keyboard, allows my inexpensive Tracfone to signal me that I have received a text and allows me to forward such messages to Lynn or others.
I am impressed by friends who are nearly instantaneous at responding to a text message sent to their phone but rarely pay attention to their email. Teen-agers are especially like to be more responsive to texts, which are short and to the point.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
