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Is big brother watching?

It's a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, and the temperature is right around 50°F. It's a perfect day for a bike ride, if only the roads were somewhat dry. But just like last Thursday, the roads are soaking wet from last nights rain, and I refuse to subject myself to those conditions. So here I sit, bored to death (so wanting to be out on the bike) composing one of my meaningless posts, this time about Facebook.

I don't get the fascination with Facebook. Sure it's a great way to stay in contact with old friends from high school and elsewhere, who may be light years away, but what else is it good for? And what's this new craze of friends pointing out where they are at every given moment in their life? Who cares when someone checks in at the grocery store?

Anyways, yesterday we went to my niece's house in Granada Hills for Christmas dinner, and for whatever reason we were discussing the "places" app on Facebook, and I ended up "checking in at Kim's house". (Which I couldn't delete.)

What was even more surprising, when I checked my Facebook page this morning, I discovered someone actually liked it. Now I could understand someone liking it, if I had checked in at some fabulous resort in Tahiti or other exotic location, but this was just my nieces house. Why did they like that? Or did they think I was doing something more sinister? :) But I digress.

More importantly though, I have another app on my Droid which I downloaded from the "Market", also called "Places", and was testing it out as well. And what surprised me here was, it knew exactly where I was. Not just a longitude and latitude, or a general vicinity, like Granada Hills, it knew the EXACT street address?

How did it know that? And who has the ability to write the programs to accomplish this? Can you imagine how much time that must have taken? Think about it. That can't have been easy. And should I delete it? Will it do any good?

And what is really the point? Is this just some government plot to track our every move and thought. Was George Orwell just ahead of his time?

This is scary!
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Comments

Gerry said…
LIKE
P.S. I'm sitting on my couch awaiting dinner......
8:14 AM
Becky said…
I thought the government always knew where we were with cell phones which is why terrorists buy those disposable types. With the App Foursquare you collect points when you "check in" hence some peoples fascination because it gets competitive. (I, for one, am the mayor of Mrs. Figs Bookstore due to my numerous check-ins, but can be thrown out of office at any moment by someone in the parking lot who didn't even go in!)

I'm going crazy being off. Thought I was going to do some hiking.

Creating games to keep an eye on people's whereabouts is both scary an ingenious. I had no idea our gvt was that smart!

I wish someone could figue out a program to decifer my friggen Kaiser bills. The contract says prescriptions are $10.00 I pay $10.00 then get a bill for .23 cents AND I'm 60 days past due.
12:01 PM
Marc said…
Awaiting dinner Gerry? I hope for your sake, Denise doesn't read my blog. :)

And Becky, prescriptions only $10. I don't think so. Maybe after the deductible, but since I don't take any I really don't know for sure.

OH, and be careful what you complain about. PCC knows everything!
1:35 PM
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