I am new to this country, this the United States. I’ve been traveling back and forth here almost all my life, and I became familiar with a lot of the conveniences that make this country so loved back home. But now that I live here, I am learning more about what makes this country tick.

In school back in Jamaica, we learned about the first immigrants to the US. They ran away from religious persecution in Europe, looking for a land they could call their own without fear of retribution for their beliefs. A country that did not belong to a sovereign so distanced from her people that it was laughable that she was able to make decisions for them. This made the new America a wondrous country. These were people who stood up to oppression and took their lives into their own hands and demanded that they make their own decisions about their freedoms, their lives.

They formed a nation built on freedoms for each person without fear of persecution for whatever they chose to believe in. They built a country where the people were the ones who dictated the rules and made the decisions that affected them instead of a monarch sitting on a throne far removed from everyday life. They wanted the freedom to choose what they should believe in, how they should earn their living, and what they should own. And this is what America was supposed to be all about… The land of the free. Am I right?

Yet I sit back and I listen to the debates currently on about reproductive rights of women. I listen to them object to giving women the same rights to choose that their ancestors fought for in the 1600s and 1700s. I listen to them compare women to beasts. I listen to them planning to take away the very freedoms this country was built on. And I wonder if they even realize just how much they are causing the founding families to twist and turn in their graves at the prospect of squashing the very freedoms they fought and died for. I wonder if they realize that they are essentially plotting to remove the freedoms they so lovingly and proudly boast about having?

And then I listen to them turn around and condemn Islam for being uncivilized, fanatical, violent, and evil for clothing their young women in swaddled of cloth with only their eyes visible; keeping their women from learning in school or having the freedom to choose a life path. And I have to pinch myself.

If comparing women to beasts and wanting to restrict their choices for their own bodies is not uncivilized and evil, then I don’t know what is.

At least the Muslims have centuries of history to support their so-called ‘uncivilized’ traditions. What does America have? A history they choose to shit on every time each of these imbeciles open their mouths. What a world we live in when the stupidest among us get to reign in power over the masses. Wait a minute…. Isn’t that what the middle ages was all about?

Hmm… Someone help me find my way back to that time machine. I seem to have stumbled into the 13th century without knowing it.

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I have deactivated my Facebook account. I have been debating it for months; maybe even years. The drama from the Fort Hood FRG and related persons, added to the drama of other people in my life was getting to be a bit much at times. Then we moved and I didn’t have to deal with half of that drama anymore. The remaining drama was bearable. I could see, laugh, and ignore.

Then came my own personal tragedy and all of a sudden everybody’s update was a potential bouncing betty for me. I was literally afraid to get on Facebook because I was never sure when the next bomb would explode in my face. As it turns out, there were none – not really and not for a long time…. until this week. Then 3 of them exploded in my face and took me so completely off-guard that I think all the good of the last 3 weeks has been undone in 2 days.

I thought I could handle it – and isn’t this the way these things work? You think you can handle these things until they happen and you realize that you may not be as strong as you thought you were. I’ve been moping around for 2 weeks and this was like the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I didn’t quite break, but I was so close that I considered closing my computer and heading right back into bed and under the covers indefinitely. Which is fine if you have no need to be up and about and have little or no responsibilities. I have work, I have a husband, I have a house – and all of them require attention if I want to keep them. I had to DO something.

Some of you might say it is as simple as not being on Facebook at all. Which might be true, but considering I had to be on it for work purposes, it was a little hard to resist trolling my own timeline for updates – especially when your own timeline is what pops up when you enter http://facebook..com. Trust me, if there was a way to avoid that altogether, I probably would. Deactivation felt like the best option all round. Work be damned … well, no; not really. There are other ways to get on Facebook if work absolutely needs me to be on. And if it comes to that, I’d rather create another Facebook profile free from the people I know just so I can administer the work pages.

But then, the whole drama of this morning got me thinking … why do I need Facebook anyway? To stay in touch with family? Friends? How did I manage to do that before Facebook? And if I didn’t manage it before, how can I manage it now? Is it possible to be off Facebook completely? I think it might. And I think I am eventually going to try that. Just unplug from it completely and move on. Those who really need to contact me already know how to do that offline anyway – so why am I fooling myself? I can stay connected in other ways.

Let us see just how long I feel this way – and I predict that if in a month’s time I am still feeling “meh” about being on Facebook, I may never ever return at all. Maybe it’s time to start cutting out the distractions in my life. Maybe it’s time to be hyper-focused. And the more I say it to myself, the more I believe it to be true.

Facebook begone!

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This morning, I tweeted: “So takethislollipop.com would have been more impressive if done in HTML5 #BoycottingFlashOnMyMBA” and was accosted by a follower thus: “@fyrfli boycotting flash is like boycotting windows; you love to hate it but its popular because it works.  Boycott  itunes.“.  And it reminded me again how people just love to jump on a band wagon and ride it until its wheels fall off.

There was no discourse on why I chose to boycott flash (“OnMyMBA”, note) and no discussion as to it’s merits or downfalls – just a random attack on my choice to do so. When I subsequently tried to be witty with the well-known mantra “#DareToBeDifferent”, I was again told that it is common place, used, works, known … etc. yet still no asking after my reasons.

I have a long time love-hate relationship with all Adobe products. A lot of it is irrational I will freely admit. I simply have not chosen to educate myself fully on the matter. Frankly, I believe that the larger issue here (the stability of Flash as a platform) is above my pay grade. And this is possibly another irrational judgement call, but there it is.

The fact is that in my experience, Adobe products (Reader, AIR, Flash) have given me more headaches than I care to remember. In fact, just about every single experience I have had with Adobe has been painful and forgettable. But this is my experience … no one else’s. That it coincides with the general view out there of the products is telling. I’ve seen a great number of people lament that Flash could perform better, that it’s implementation is buggy, that it doesn’t play well with others, etc. The problem is that up until now, Flash has been the only option and so people embrace it, love it, defend it and … continue to patronize it.

One of the things that I am telling myself these days is that I need to really live my life out loud and stop being afraid of being decried or debunked. My life is the sum of my experiences – I own them and they have taught me things that I don’t know that anyone else can claim to have learnt. My choices and my opinions are based on my experiences and I make judgement calls based on that and that alone.

I have never been one to conform to the crowd just because everyone else was doing it, or because it’s the one thing that works or because it’s the only known solid solution. Just because everyone is using Flash – to develop or to publish – doesn’t make my choice to NOT install it on my laptop a bad decision. Nor does it make it an uninformed decision. If at any time in the future I find that my daily duties are hampered because I do not have Flash installed, I will certainly swallow hard and do the deed because at the end of the day, my choices are never the kind to “cut off my nose to spite my face”.

Until then I shall continue to #BoycotFlashOnMyMBA because I LOVE how that snappy, happy, speedy feel and would hate to bog it down with more crap than is absolutely necessary.   #JustSayin’

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There was once a time when I truly loved to blog. I filled paragraph after paragraph with drivel or opinion or rants. It was all truly personal and extremely subjective … and sometimes downright hateful.

Apparently, I have either lost that ability – or motivation – or I don’t remember how to.

In those days, I was not known – I was invisible, simply another voice in a sometimes discontent sea of voices. It didn’t matter what I had to say because no one could take personal offense to what I was saying. I could rant and rave in relative anonymity and not think for a second that I was going to be causing harm to others.

Things have changed and just by virtue of who I have become – per se – I am no longer anonymous and what I say DOES matter and WILL offend.

I still have my opinions, most of which are now so inflammatory that I am sometimes afraid to even THINK them much less write about them in a public forum like this blog is. Lately, I have realized that the inflammatory nature of these thoughts and opinions is not only not improving, it is getting worse. And I am moving further away from a time when I could speak freely and anonymously.

I sit and watch people express themselves on Twitter, on Facebook … even on Google+ and I realize that were I to open my mouth about any of the subjects that are now on constant debate I am either so far out of the loop as to cause the wrath of the ages to be called down on me for my ineptitude to research … or I am so far beyond the “norm” that I get the wrath of ages called down on me for my opinion and insight.

Hell, I find even when I state my mind in simple, non-judgmental terms without even attempting to incite debate and drama, I get it anyway.

Therefore, there should be no doubt as to why I have become silent in the last few months.

Unfortunately, it has hampered my ability and my propensity for fluency and it is beginning to affect my work… at this point in time, I can no longer write as I used to because I can no longer find the words to express myself. I am out of practice. Badly out of practice.

As a result, this blog has become a sparse collection of random topics ranging from a recitation of events as they have occurred in my life or a random miscellaneous commentary or review on some new geek toy or service that I have “discovered” for myself.

Not exactly how I want to be.

And so … I have decided that I need to write again – as anonymously as I once used to. For that, I have chosen to move my rants, opinions and scorching commentary somewhere else – somewhere anonymous – where whether or not one wants to be offended or not is separate and apart from my so-called public persona. A place where only a few select actually know me and care about what I think – no matter what it is – and respect for me even having an opinion.

The rest of you will have to deal with my random miscellaneous posts if and until you can prove to be as discerning and objective of what I choose to speak about as I expect you to be.

My apologies. It may seem harsh to you – and maybe even unnecessarily drastic, but I must attempt to save the one thing I have always loved to do … and that is, to write.

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I was in the middle of a discussion with a friend on Skype about this whole nonsense about privacy online when I realized I need to rant.

Your SmartPhone is smarter than you think

So, Apple.com is tracking your last locations over the past 10 months on your phone and keeping the information in an unsecured file on your phone.

I get why this could be worrisome for people – the “unsecured file” part of this news is definitely something worth worrying over. It means that a malicious person with the right tools can track your movement over the last few months with a view to learning your routines and catching you off-guard to be mischievous. I get that and I am appalled that the information is indeed unsecured. I also have no doubt that now that it’s all over the web, Apple.com will issue an update very soon that will plug that hole.

However, this brings up a whole ‘nother dispute about whether your location information should be accessible by Apple.com in the first place.

And this is where I get really frustrated.

It can’t be private if its accessible in a public place.

As my post title says, privacy online is an oxymoron. It’s akin to standing on your front curb, naked and screaming at the neighbours and passers-by to stop looking at you.

If you want to keep your business private, on the internet is the last place for you to be posting it.

The discussion my friend and I were having was that we liked when social networks work together to keep you connected with your “friends” and followers. For instance, we love that Ping goes out and looks for our Twitter friends and suggests them as followers. It makes sense that if you’re following someone on one social network, there is a small chance you might be interested in following them on another.

This doesn’t strike me as a violation of privacy – because I never had the expectation of privacy regarding who I follow.  It seems rather counterproductive since Twitter screams my followers out to whoever wants to look. So why should that information not be accessible by other networks? Especially if they ask for permission first.

What are you saying online is essentially being said over a high-tech loudspeaker

I once installed Ethereal on my work laptop to see just how much information about me was being passed over the local area network. I opened up a Yahoo chat window and fired up an instant message session with a good friend. It was interesting to see that every single word we said to each other was being trapped and reported by Ethereal in perfectly understandable language. It was like having my IM conversation read back to me by someone who wasn’t part of the conversation in the first place.

It was literally like sitting in the middle of a parking lot and having a conversation with someone over a public address system.

Privacy? Over any kind of network? Impossible unless you have the money and time to invest in an advanced encryption process – and even then, unless the intended destination has the same tools to decrypt your messages, it’s pointless. That would be like talking to me in Aramaic when not only is the language obsolete, but I have no knowledge of the syntax anyway.

I really wish people would stop talking about their privacy online … those 2 words don’t belong in the same phrase.

If you don’t want me knowing that you and your best friend had a fight over who’s boyfriend Mark is, then stop writing it on a poster and placing it on your house front wall – because that is exactly what your Facebook wall is to me.

Ok – rant over.

( Thanks Ang. )

Edit: There is some talk of a semi-official response to this uproar over the “consolidated.db” file.

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