New Beginnings and Old Conspiracies

Happy New Year and welcome to 2016. You are being watched.

Is Google evil? They say they're not, in fact since their founding it's been a guiding principle. As a young start-up they were cute and cuddley, now they are a behemoth seeking to devour your very soul, according to their detractors.

Google and let's be fair, all of the internet powers know you intimately. What's more, most of us voluntarily offer up all of that information. Are you on Facebook? Posting blurbs about your likes and dislikes, your family secrets? Posting non-stop about your vacations and partying on the weekends with your friends? Did you just complain about your hemorrhoids and then acted shocked when you got coupons for Preparation H? Oh my, what magic is this? How did they know about my affliction?

They know where you are and what you want. How many times have you been on a website only to notice that the ads most peculiarly seem to be all things you love and buy. Even more creepy how about those ads that mysteriously appear from e-tailers you regularly buy from but you're not on their site. Like the Sirens of legend they beckon you, they seduce you, calling you to come and get your goodies through the ease of your credit card which they generously will preserve all information for you. They'll even remember your passwords so that you don't have to be burdened with such trivialities.

Recently I watched a program on C-SPAN, I do watch that network far too much, are you listening Mr. Lamb? Throw me a bone for my support. The topic was all about the great lie of the internet. All about how it was going to liberate the average citizen and give voice to the voiceless. This, according to the chronicler, never came. We are in fact being used by the internet powers we know by name and those we do not. Bloggers in particular are used to provide the internet content. Hallelujah if that were true, with very few exceptions, almost no one reads blogs. According to statistics as of 2013 there are approximately 152 million blogs and most of those are abandoned after a few weeks or months. That number by the way is a dramatic drop since I first wrote about blogging in 2008. For the record Kanesrealm began in November of 2014 and has over 180 posts and the data does not reflect a high readership. In fact there seems to be a drop in our Russian readership which would seem to indicate, in the conspirators mind, that their internet worms merely focused on references made to Vladimir Putin, so here's some more. Mr. Putin speaks glowingly about Donald Trump because Trump has given every indication that Putin could have a free hand in the middle east and probably everywhere else. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Generation X is completely at ease with all of our technology, especially social media. As a middle aged man who began with using dumb phones I'm not always so enthralled. Oh, I love technology, as a sci-fi fan how could I not? And equally as a sci-fi fan how could I not conjure all the nightmares that entail?

I don't think Google is evil, I think they're like any other company, they want to be the best at what they do and make a shit load of money, they just happen to channel the powers of ancient gods.

All that said I'm excited to announce that shortly I will announce the launching of two new blogs birthed through the Google portal and possibly a website promoting my unique mental acrobatics.

I hope your 2016 brings you all that you hope for and remember as Harold Finch would say, "you are being watched..."