A bit tangential but not entirely OT:
http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/shareable-google-news-badges-for-your.html
>From the article:
Starting today, in the U.S. edition of Google News, you can see
how voracious a news reader you are by earning Google News badges
as you read articles about your favorite topics. The more you
read, the higher level badge you'll receive, starting with
Bronze, then moving up the ladder to Silver, Gold, Platinum and
finally, Ultimate.
In my rural 2-room grade school in NH, in 1948, Miss Giles would put a
stickum-backed star on a wall chart next to your name when she was
pleased with you. Green stars were good but gold or silver stars were
much better. When I was 6, that seemed very cool. By the time I was
11 or so, it seemed like manipulative frippery.
Now some great, huge gigabuck corporation is going to give me -- or
wait, that's "legitimate in some way my ability to display" -- a cute
little icon in order to......what? Make me feel important, eh?
Persuade me to put my identifiable and marketable eyeballs on more
pages of ads? "Jeez, I'm bored with all this $WHATEVER but if I just
fetch nine more pages I'll get an upgrade in the border color for my
I-Read-$WHATEVER merit badge." Yow!
Coupons, air miles, loyalty cards, "free" 30-cent hat with the
purchase of a car [1] -- The mere existence of all this crap
represents a calculated attempt to infantilize the public (regarded,
though, as single-dimension "consumers") and its gleeful reception
represents the success of that attempt.
[Consumers are]...best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly
ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh
of the anointed [viz. celebrities]....something the size of a
baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by
itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of
Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. It has
no mouth...no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of
murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on
a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections. [2]
Every time you see an ad on TV or the net, every time you're offered
a freebie, somebody that thinks of you that way is on the other end.
And now, once again, back to the more carefully reasoned and
responsible discourse that you expect from this channe^H^H^H^H^H^H
list.
- Mike
[1] Against my better judgment, we recently bought a Toyota from the
local dealership. I have not had a more unpleasant experience
since I had thoracic surgery 35 years ago. The sales droid gave
me a "gift" that I suppose was meant to be endearing, a good
quality pocket knife retailing for less that 50 bucks but one that
had been abused by a former owner. I infer that he picked it up
at a yard sale along with other potentially "endearing gifts". My
last (I hope) contact with the dealership was to return the knife
with the explanation that I did not need to be reminded of how
pissed off I was every time I used my pocket knife.
Oh, yeah, and a silly gimme hat, too. Didn't bother to return
that, just threw it away.
[2] William Gibson, _Idoru_
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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