Do you remember Net Neutrality, do you miss it? Do you even notice when you had it? To me, it sounds like people are trying to say that people have a “right” to a fast internet connection. The next step is that everyone gets free gigabit broadband. The Internet is not a public utility, you still have to pay for it, just as you do water, electricity, feces removal, and rubbish pickup. If you want a better service I think if you should have to pay for it. Why would your ISP want to slow down Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon streaming? Not everyone has a right to transportation. You can ride your skateboard, bike, bus, train, personal vehicle, luxury car, commercial jet, or private charter plane. Which one would you rather take? In my opinion, it sounds like people are being paranoid because they don’t want to give up their favorite “free speech” websites. Take that however you want to. Since we are on the subject of “public utilities”. What about…
Water Neutrality
I will gladly pay more for premium filtered water coming into my house rather than the water that smells like it was just boiling a dozen duck eggs dipped in the sewage treatment plant. However, do I think that if I used my allotted water my water company will cut me off and let me die of thirst, no? But I pay more per month if I use more water, and I pay a minimum no water what. If I don’t pay my bill, then I get no more water.
Electricity Neutrality
I’d love a service where I didn’t get any brownouts. Companies are really cashing in on putting solar panels on your roof. What about energy neutrality, shouldn’t it all be free since the sun is free?
Website Neutrality
I already pay more for my internet because I want faster speeds, I don’t want buffering of my YouTube and Netflix so I have a business account. This way I don’t have to share bandwidth with all my neighbors who are playing video games. Truth is, I’ve already paid premium rates for Hulu with no commercials. Guess what, there were still commercials.
Trash collection Neutrality
I’ll pay more for a service where I can fill up as many containers as I want rather than just the one small one. And without bags, and I’ll pay someone to sort my plastic, glass, and cardboard. I stopped recycling because it became too much of a chore to separate all the crap myself. I don’t care about the environment anymore. Our society hates children anyway, so why should we care about their future?
Conclusion
Universities already have Internet 2 How is that fair with net neutrality? There is also this thing called the “Dark Web”, and I really have no interest in it. That thinking will still exist regardless. However, I would be interested in something called the “Light Web”. An internet that doesn’t have all the depravity, perversions, and other garbage so I don’t have to put a million filters on my internet router so I can keep my children sheltered as long as possible. Right now I guess the “Grey Web” will have to do.
There is a time and place for hashtags. They are supposed to be short and readable. #dontdoahashtaglikethis #notproperhashtagusage. Those are hard to read. At a minimum, if you are going to build a long hashtag, use camel casing. #itMakesTheHashTagMoreReadable. If your hashtag is that long, just spell it out as a sentence.
Older folks read the hashtag as the pound symbol. So be careful when starting a hashtag campaign that starts with the pound symbol such as the #MeToo movement. Also, #hashbrowns are delicious.
Remember back in the days before Caller ID and *69 when you could call someone and say something offensive, then hang up without any recompense? Well, now telemarketers have an arsenal of war dial devices at the ready.
My favorite is the lady who’s having trouble with her headset. The call starts with a “Hello, hello?” Then, an apologizes that her headset isn’t working correctly and she asks for a confirmation that you can hear her. If you say yes, then it’s a go-ahead for her (the robot) to begin the sales pitch. The second time she called, I said, “Didn’t you call me an hour ago?”. The robot replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you please say yes or no?”. Once I knew it was a voice-activated prompt, I began asking all sorts of questions that she couldn’t process. Finally, I talked so much that it disconnected me. However, I still get calls from time to time.
Typically, if I don’t recognize the number, I will just silence my phone or double-click the power button to send it to voicemail. If the caller is not in my contacts and it’s an important message, they will leave me a voicemail. However, these robots are now starting to leave voicemails. My call block list is growing exponentially.
While at the pool, I had a great idea for a new smartphone app. It’s called iDrowned, the Anti-drowning smartphone app. The app works in tandem with a bracelet. Attach the bracelet to your toddler who doesn’t have swimmer’s wings on. The app will alert you when your child has fallen into the pool. As an upgrade, you can have a bracelet on yourself that sends out an electric shock once your kid begins to drown. This allows you to keep looking at your smartphone as long as possible while ignoring your child.
Please remember to look at the camera lens and not the image on your screen. It does make a difference. The selfies where your gaze is slightly askew are annoying. It’s even more irritating if you have a group shot and everyone is focused on themselves on the smartphone view screen. Think about it. You don’t go to Olan Mills and look off to the left or right (that’s for Glamour Shots only), you look at the lens!
Putting your life events in digital format is the easiest way to capture your memories. You know, instead of actually watching the event with your own eyes, you watch a smaller version of the event as you “tape” it with your smartphone.
There are some people that are beyond help. Those people watch a widescreen video in portrait mode on their iPad. It doesn’t even register when it’s played back on a widescreen tv that there are huge black bars on the side of the screen and the video in the middle. These are the same people that complained about the widescreen DVDs.
Social Media Platforms have caved to the masses by allowing most formats to be filmed vertically. It’s almost impossible to upload a widescreen video to Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. Youtube is the last resort for widescreen videos, but they now have “shorts” that allow this vertical format. I hope soon that the entertainment industry will start filming vertically so we can match our smartphone users’ video filming and viewing preferences. Maybe smartphone technology will advance to the point where it will always record in the widescreen aspect ratio and fix the issue for good. Or maybe the TV industry will start making portrait sets to hang on your wall.
Some schools are now using your taxpayer dollars to put WiFi on the school bus. This is can have its pros and cons.
The Pros
The convenience of GPS Tracking of the bus to know where your kids are. You can get alerts via text message when the bus arrives so you don’t have to waste your time at the bus stop. Having WiFi could keep the kids quietly in their seats. Reduces the amount of face-punching to other students and or bus drivers since the kid’s occupied with their devices.
The Cons
Cyber bullying would skyrocket. Think of all the passive-aggressive ways kids could be mean via social media to their fellow bus passengers. Why get up and punch someone in the face or body when you can emotionally destroy someone on InstaFaceTok?
Watches are quite annoying and I was hoping they would eventually go away. I think it’s hilarious that marketing has tricked people into wearing watches again. For me, the smartphone did away with the need for a watch. I grew up wearing Ironman triathlons. The rubbery plastic band would begin to reek of rancid cheese after any pre-pubescent physical activity. The watch would also pull the hairs out of your arms if had one of those metal Cylon accordion bands.
But here we are in a smartphone era and watches are still selling. Why are watches so popular now? Because they’re stuffing smartphones into watches. Brilliant! The only watch I currently own is a SkyCaddy Watch. It tells me how far into the woods I am. It also tells me it’s time to give up looking for it.
Daily Irritant 
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