\t\t\t\tToday felt like I was on my way to Tipperary, that place about which I
\nknow nothing and scarcely could identify as anything but a fanciful place
\nmentioned in cartoons and song. There was a long Peanuts strip in which
\nSnoopy is seen rambling over hill and dale, crossing rivers and traversing
\nmountains and byways, seemingly on his way somewhere but ultimately going
\nnowhere. In the last frame he is seen sitting down, tired, saying .They’re
\nright. It is a long way to Tipperary.. I felt exactly like Snoopy today,
\non my way to Tipperary but with no idea where or what that place is or how
\nlong it might take me to reach the destination. I traveled far and wide,
\nrambling the streets of Queens with the confidence of a conqueror, feeling
\ngood about all this because I’ve had so much trouble of late simply
\ngetting out of the house and walking a straight line from point A to point
\nB. It’s been a scary few months, I don’t know what to make of it all, but
\ntoday’s ramble felt like good policy for my body and for my mind. I have
\nplans for another epic stroll tomorrow, though I might save that one for
\nMonday, since it involves inter-existing with a bike lane, and I could do
\nthis trip on Monday when the bicyclists are sitting at their desks.<\/p>\n
I have ideas again, and thoughts, and motivations, even some ambitions. I
\nthink I know what got me on this path again, but I’ll keep my secrets
\nsafe. I’m tired of giving it all away, taking the imagined high road only
\nto find it a muddy alley. I’ve been changing my routines up, once and for
\nall, trying to get away from this assumption that computers own me and
\nthat I work for them that I work for the software development industry as
\na life-long beta user, a lifelong provider of feedback and helpfulness in
\nmaking sure those overpaid software kings get all the free advice they
\nneed so they can keep selling me shit.<\/p>\n
I’ve had some ethical dilemma conversations with myself of late. An e-mail
\nfrom a Romanian film-maker reminded me that I have not made peace with the
\nSepulchral Portraits project, never quite deciding if it’s morally
\nacceptable to snap hundreds of photos of the faces of the dead and mass
\nthem together with hundreds of strangers, chopping off their identities
\nand shuffling them into a moribund hive a humanity, an ocean of the dead.
\nBut then I think about it a little more deeply and I find that the
\npresence of these portraits does not necessitate that their dignity be
\nmemorialized to a higher degree than those whose tombstones have no
\nphotos, or those who don’t even have tombstones. The portraits are an
\nexpression of something but I don’t think it signals that the individuals
\nburied there be singled out for extended immortality. The decision to
\nplace these pictures on the tombstones most likely had no input from the
\ndeceased. Certainly this is true of the infants and children who couldn’t
\npossibly have had any say in what image of them appeared for all to see.
\nMost of the dead whose images appear on their markers would likely be
\nhorrified at the choice of image, I think.<\/p>\n
And then there is the ethics of commercial search engines, and those of
\nwhose livelihood leeches off of them. Searchies go around the world,
\ngobbling up public content, indexing first and asking questions later,
\nranking and relevating, determining who gets prizes and who gets left
\nbehind, building its empire on the content of other people who may or may
\nnot even be aware of the contribution they make to the empire. Is it
\nethical for these companies to act like Grand Poobahs? Scooping up content
\nand manipulating it for its own reputation and for its own goals? As the
\nWWW goes more and more private the future of the searchies is imperiled,
\nand the advertising dollars are already reflecting the trends away from
\nthe .WHATEVER THE FUCK. aesthetic of algorithmically determining merit and
\nvalue with no responsibility for the minds of the robots or for external
\nmanipulations and the incessant game-playing of the leeching public. What
\nis the future of public information when the searchies can’t gobble up
\nyour content and do with it as they please, slapping ads all around and
\nmonetizing, monetizing, monetizing?<\/p>\n
OK, I’m outta gas. Back en route to Tipperary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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