StormLite

Storms come and go and nothing much happens. Well, not here at least. In China, not so good. Sure the wind blew a bit and some of the dead branches speared themselves into the lawn. But then the lawn is a bit of a misnomer anyway. Yes it might look green from a distance and indeed it looks green if you pass out on it and open your eyes several hours later when the next rain shower hits. But lawn, is a stretch. Some grass, of course but proportionately more weeds of a zillion varieties and moss than actual green bladed grass. That said there is still sufficient for it to require cutting every week or so, but lawn, it ain't really.

I noticed today when someone sent me an email that it is still frowned upon by some people not to have them as friends on FB. Thing is I got very very tired of FB some years ago and have not used it since. Sure, I log in and have a quick nosy about once a year but I am not 'on' FB! And, more than a few years ago I deleted 90% of my 'friends' on FB for a simple, and in my crazy mind, valid, reason. Being connected on FB does not make you friends. Being friends makes you friends. My friends, such as they are, are the people that know how to communicate with me in all the traditional methods and not simply by being connected through an interface that seeks to exploit you financially.

And to be certain, all social media platforms do seek to exploit you for financial gain. It is the quid pro quo that we have with the platforms. If this were not the case then their astronomic market valuations would not be astronomic, in fact, they would be subterranean, to continue the metaphor! We cannot and should not care too much about this. It is how a consumerist, capitalist society works. People develop stuff so that other people pay for their time and investment in the stuff.

There are considerably more times that it does not work than does. The trick, if there is such a thing, is not to reveal too much about yourself that you really do not want everybody to know about. And just because you click some random boxes about privacy does not mean that you are safe. The information you reveal is out there. On several servers spread around the world. Sometimes this information escapes the confines of the metal casing in which it sleeps and is seen by others not intended to see it. Sometimes maliciously. Sometimes not. And even when it is not taken from these supposed safe areas, the custodians are not so good as being custodians as they should be.