5 Irons In The Fire

• Smartphone A Battery Guzzling Vibrating Pinball Machine
• Spare Bike Apparently Sold For $35
• $48 Dollar Friday Begins Before Sundown

I had to get up at one point and affix my spotlight to the vines overhead at the Lilly Pad, just about the time that the street lights were coming on, up and down the street, triggered by their light detectors.

I had started busking at around 6 PM, after having re-arranged my sleep schedule so that I was waking up, once again, at around 1:30 PM, and not 6 PM.

Sometime around 8 PM, I got a 20 dollar bill from a couple that I had played a couple songs for. They had just come from Las Vegas and I sensed that they were the kind of tourists who had money. I sang them the parts of my song: Hubert's Trip that were about Vegas.

It wound up being a 48 dollar night, after I played for 3 hours, took a break and then came back for another 45 minutes. My fingertips were stinging on my left hand for a couple hours after I stopped playing.

How Smart?

Sure, Google is now going to find ads trying to sell me a new set of golf clubs right? I may have even lost my 5 iron in a fire. As soon as the title of today's post is digested.

I say this because, I have accepted Google's "offer" to use my data in new ways that are going to improve my experience online.

But, they specifically mention that the feature will send "more relevant" ads my way.

How about more non-existent ads, that would be nice, Google.

But, I clicked and accepted, thinking in the back of my mind; what a coincidence that, a day after getting the first smartphone of my life, I get an offer to use a feature that will allow Google to do more with my search data and that which pertains to Youtube videos that I watch.

What a great job that would be for a creative software developer; to work on that algorithm...Gee, I'll bet a lot of girls watching this new Beyonce video would love to own a belt just like the one she is wearing in it; especially the ones that pause the video just past the shot of the belt, rewind it, and then watch the belt again...type of thing. If the subject views the belt more than 6 times, then link her to ads trying to sell tickets for the Beyonce concert closest to her "location."

I thought it funny about 5 years ago when, after, I informed Facebook that my new location was the city of McKenna, Washington, population nine hundred and something, I began to have things pop up, such as announcements about things that were going on in the McKenna area, and if I might like to attend them, etc.

Now, I guess it is all automatic and controlled by GPS. Will the new feature alert the FBI to anyone who gives a false location, as determined by the GPS tracker...this guy might be up to something...?

The New Smartphone

To avoid going into technical details, I will merely say that the smartphone rang like a chime Friday morning, 12 hours after I had followed the instructions to switch my old number to it.

I like my old number; it's easy to remember (333-4123) and is sort of musical sounding, so I wanted to keep it.

The smartphone otherwise would have come with its own number. I guess this is because its previous owner decided not to have it transfered over to another phone.

"You shouldn't have kept your old number!," said Bobby in Building C.
"That's gonna allow them to track you and start bugging you with a bunch of crap!"

I have blogged before about how it think that the whole "lifeline" program is a means for the Census Bureau to be able to count the homeless portion of our society, which comprises about 18%, I would say, as a wild guess. I would Google "what percentage of U.S. citizens are homeless?" but the figures I got might not take into account all of the lifeline phone holders.

Someone with the right data might discover that most of the "addresses" given by people signing up for the free phones are already occupied by people other than them. They are just not people who hold lifeline phones.

So, when the person who qualifies for the phone, based upon their being recipients of food stamps and/or medicare, gives the address of a dwelling in which nobody already has a lifeline phone, but one which is occupied by someone other than the lifeline phone holder, it could be assumed that the person is homeless.

It was kind of like playing the game Battleship, I recall, where the addresses I gave were checked by the guy under the free phone tent to see if they were a hit or a miss, as far as a lifeline phone holder already "living there," or not.

"Don't worry, I'm gonna find you an address," the guy had said, who then tried a few residences in a well-to-do area of the city where nobody would "qualify" for a Lifeline phone.

I'm sure the census count ballooned to something more accurate after all the Lifeline phone owners, who were blissfully surfing the mobile web, were figured in.

I picked up the thing that had invaded my apartment and saw "Will you take 20?" displayed upon its screen.

The night before, I had listed my second bike -the one Howard Westra had given me as a late Christmas gift- on Craigslist, with the price of $35 on it.

I guess the person who saw the ad had used their "messenger" application to send it, because the same application had popped open on my phone.

The phone gave me all kinds of suggestions for applications that I might find useful.

It turned into a pain in the ass in short order, chiming and vibrating every time one of my Facebook friends did anything, showing me videos that I might like, and worst of all, chewing up the battery.
The phone became physically warm like a hand heater from all the juice that was being drained by the thing as it connected automatically to any nearby wi-fi signal and then used that connection to bug me with stuff.
The epitome of it was when, earlier this afternoon, I was near Filipe's Mexican Taqueria and, honest to God, the phone chimed and vibrated and gave me a message to the effect of: There's Filippe's Mexican Taqueria, would you like to take a picture of it  and tag it?
So, the smartphone needs to be pared down, so that it is only a clock and a camera and a texting device that makes calls to my mom about 5 times a year, and that will hold a battery charge for more than the 5 hours that I seem to be getting now....
-people with good jobs, who own the house, don't need a lifeline phone