Earful for the future: Bluetooth, hearing aids, iPods

And to think that some folks my age are self-conscious about hearing aids’ being visible to others.

How about the growing numbers who now have Bluetooth devices prominently clipped to their ears? Rather than disguise them, wearers flaunt them like status symbols.

“Look, Mom, no hands!”

It’s being in touch without touching.

So what’s the difference between the Bluetoothed and the hearing-aided?

As one of the latter, I offer that the former have a choice, the latter don’t. And while my hearing aids are of the discreet, hidden-behind-the-ear type, there are times when I wish they were Bluetooth obvious.

“Hey, I wear hearing aids!” they would signal. That way folks might speak up without my having to ask them to.

With the spread of Bluetooths (teeth?), ear appendages might become a cradle-to-grave phenomenon. When the tonsils or the baby-teeth come out, the Bluetooth/hearing aid might go in.

Throw in an implanted iPod while you are at it.

What next? Contact lenses with computer-screen and TV insets. Multi-media tri-focals.

Human beings today will be seen like stripped down models of what’s to come.

Outta Sitemeter

One of the wonders of blogging is having a sitemeter. The "visits" and "views" tracker tells you a lot. Some of it is more than you want to know.

But the “Referrals” feature offers intriguing information. Most folks just visit the site because they know it and want to see whether I still have a pulse.

But a few, it would seem, come here seeking kinky thrills. The best evidence of the intent is a post that I titled “Sonic Sex on a Sweat Towel.” There must be a whole community out there interested in “Sex on a Sweat Towel” because those words suck in an inordinately large readership.

The post isn’t even tagged with “sex,” which is usually good bet for a few dozen visits. The content is about what happens to the wires on my iPod and its headset when I throw them into my backpack on my sweat towel.

I speculate in the post that some audio intimacy takes place in the dark resulting in obscene tangling of the cords.

The actual tags are innocuous: “iPod” and “Steve Jobs.”

Among the other favored referral sites is the famous “Sarah Palin’s Glasses,” which at the time it was posted drew a record number of strangers to The Red Electric. Now, months later, it seems the fascination with the good governor (and her specs and her weird family values) is endless.

Another enticing post is “PCC lockdown,” which isn’t about a particular lockdown (alas there have been a few) but about the bureaucratic memo the PCC administration circulated to tell PCC students and faculty what to do in an “active shooter” situation.

The short answer: Lock the doors, pull down the shades, stop taking notes, and hide.

Posting this little ditty has meant that every time there’s a PCC lockdown (there was one today), Google sends anxious readers to The Red Electric and my parsing of bureaucratic prose.

Clearly I am not meeting news expectations, which explains why the sitemeter tells me that Red Electric visits are brief — a mere 41 seconds.

Then again, if you stare at a sweep second hand, a 41-second interval isn’t all that brief, especially when the topic is Sarah Palin’s glasses or Sex on a Sweat Towel. Web surfers seeking such subjects must be slow readers.

It figures.

Stepping out with Neil Postman

I’ve been “reading” Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” I put “reading” in quotes because I’m really being read to — by an audio book “edition.”

I fear, given Postman’s passion for the printed word, that he would have looked down on my being read to. In audio form, his words march inexorably on, offering no opportunity to stop, ponder, re-read, check sources, etc.

So be it. I’ve chosen an Audio Book “edition” of Postman’s indictment of television because it can accompany me on my 10,000-Step hikes. That way I can exercise body and mind at the same time.

Postman is a great workout. Lucid, provocative, glib and insightful.

The introduction to “Amusing Ourselves to Death” offers an example. Here is Postman contrasting the worlds of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World,” and declaring Huxley’s futuristic vision frighteningly close to what we have in the Television (and, I might add, Computer) Age.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban books for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we could become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy… In short Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us … This book (“Amusing Ourselves to Death”) is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

As I hike around the neighborhood, iPod buds stuffed in my ears, I’m certain that I am closer to Huxley’s zoned out, somnambulant world. But when I think about the perversions and atrocities of the Bush Administration, its torture chambers, its manipulations of the language, its Big Brother eavesdropping intrusions into our private lives, I’m not so sure.

We may have one foot in 1984 and the other in Brave New World. And we are sinking fast.

Postman, who died in 2003, would no doubt have been pleased that I am here writing, pondering and trying to bring my own understanding to his premise.

If an Audio Book of “Amusing Ourselves to Death” delivered me this point, it’s all to the good.

Sonic Sex on a Sweat Towel?

Something lurid goes on between the cord of my iPod Shuffle and the wires to my earphones after I throw them into my backpack.

There, in the dark, they co-habit for two or three days, the interval between my using them to liven up my treadmill stints.

I’m convinced a three-day orgy takes place right on top of my sweat towel and next to my water bottle.

How do I know this?

When I dip into the bag to extract them, they are hopelessly intertwined.

Okay, so I don’t exactly wind the cord around the iPod and I don’t coil the earphone wires. But then again, I do not jumble them up. And I definitely don’t tell them to be fruitful and multiply. (Steve Jobs has that covered.)

Nor could my own actions explain their tangled relationship. I leave the backpack to sit inert in our closet between workout days.

It must be something inside the bag making this happen. I’m thinking perhaps suggestive music in the iPod is inaudibly leaking out causing some kind of unrestrained conjoining. Any number of tunes in my iPod might be the culprit.

Or there could be some strange electrical discharge that draws them together. Science certainly has an explanation. Or maybe one of those “new creatives” knows the answer. I mean, they invented this thing.

I’ve thought of lecturing the devices on abstinence, or simply segregating them. You, earphones, you get the main part of the pack. You, Shuffle, stay put in the outside pocket.

But, call me permissive, it seems like a bother.

I suppose I’ll just let them play around, trusting that they are taking necessary precautions. Whatever those might be I’m sure Steve Jobs has taken care of them too. If he hasn’t, the worst that could happen is that one day I’ll open the backpack to find a nest of little miniaturized Shuffles, kind of like the ones Jobs now sells for $79 each.