The progression of advanced technology has rapidly changed our lives, most relatably in recent years with the advent of mobile technologies so advanced that PC purchases have been in decline year-over-year for some time now.  Yes, there are far more positive impacts than negative, but that doesn’t mean the negative should be completely downplayed.  While there are plenty of debates over what tiny screens in our pockets have done to us socially as a species, there are also many far-less controversial consequences, like distracted driving.

Today, however, I’d like to talk about one of those controversial impacts, and that is the issue of privacy.  The world has become very data-driven, for example, by services like Instagram, which is a simple photo-sharing app at face value, but is a huge sales and marketing tool for influencers.  We can now buy $50 devices that sit in our homes and react to commands to buy things and turn our lights on, and cameras on our phones are so good that owning a point-and-shoot digital camera these days is practically…well, pointless (pun intended).

But these things come with tradeoffs, and as we move further and further into this data-driven ecosystem, people are starting to become concerned about how much is too much.  Is it okay to put an Amazon Echo, Google Home, or Apple HomePod in your home, knowing full well that those devices listen to you and have the potential to accidentally record and store much more data than intended?

"Hey wiretap, can cats eat pancakes?"
This image is, of course, ridiculous, untrue, and conflates compulsory government with voluntary enterprise, but it sure made the rounds on Facebook.

We know, almost certainly, that the Amazon Echo is not recording everything that a person says.  The way these devices work is by waiting to hear a specific waveform – that of your trigger word (“Alexa,” “Okay Google,” “Hey Siri,” etc) – at which point it records the sound that follows, sends it home for analysis to Amazon, Google, or Apple, then returns a result (this is also how assistants work on your phone).  They don’t record all the time (except when an error caused the Google Home Mini to do exactly that), or we’d know by sniffing the network traffic.

The reason I used the phrase “almost certainly” above is that there is always the possibility of the government forcing Amazon (or any of these companies) to record and store all listening data for a single user, but the instant a savvy user noticed increased network traffic and tracked it back to their voice assistant, it would be the biggest news story of the week.

People worry about these devices, and have every right to, because as consumers, we don’t completely understand them.  However, because of that very concern, worry is often misappropriated.  Take, for example, those that refuse to have a Google Home in their living room, but carry a Pixel 2 on their person at all times, so far as even keeping it on a night stand 3 feet away from their head while asleep.  This same concept applies to those that tape over the cameras on their laptops but would never do the same thing on their Galaxy S9.

It’s not a completely black and white issue, but if you are truly concerned about privacy, it would be foolish to take precautions like taping over your laptop camera and depriving yourself of modern home assistant technology, but not also take some kind of precaution with your phone – the most personal device currently imaginable (which, by the way, probably has at least 2 microphones and 2 cameras, minimum).

Consumers are almost always willing to trade a little privacy for convenience, which is why Google’s entire business model of knowing everything about you is working so well for them.  Conversely, there are still those that are concerned about these types of things going too far, and Apple has a model that is more friendly to those consumers.  Yet, either way, some privacy is sacrificed, or at least, the possibility of complete privacy is given up.  Even with a privacy-focused company like Apple, if you backup your phone data to iCloud, the government can subpoena that data from Apple, and they will provide it.  But does that mean you should never use a phone?

We should always be wary of what information we give to companies, because whether or not that info improves your experience with a product or service, it is almost certainly also being used to feed complex algorithms with ways to make more money from you.  On a personal level, I don’t particularly care if Google knows the area I work in so it can advertise relevant local eateries around noon, but some people take offense with this, even if the company is upfront about it.

Privacy is a difficult and delicate issue, but there is no blanket statement that those of us that understand the intricate details can provide to make the less tech-savvy make better decisions.  Unfortunately, I’d guess the lack of brevity tends to make people disinterested.  What we need to remember is that we shouldn’t oversell convenience without taking into account what our data is worth, but we also shouldn’t oversell the value of certain data that we can exchange for a greater amount of convenience.

If you’re looking for a takeaway, I’ll say this: being concerned about putting a Google Home in your bedroom is absolutely, completely valid.  Do your research, understand how it listens and responds, then make that choice, but also remember that your phone follows you around and your Google Home does not.  Mentally separating the two because your phone is more familiar is cognitive dissonance if you truly want to sacrifice convenience for security.

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Source: Philtered Tech

Something a lot of people probably don’t know about me (unless you read my blog) is that I’ve been writing novels for over a decade.  I remember the exact moment that I decided I wanted to be an author: I was walking across LSU’s campus (with my long, neatly straightened hair #throwback) to Grace King Hall, and I suddenly just knew.  It’s one of those weird memories that will stick with me forever, and I can still picture the lush, green oaks, the old residence hall in view, and I believe it was even cloudy that day.

Yes, writing is a hard game to break into, and I never expect to make more out of it than a hobby, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make the attempt.  I know it takes a lot of talent – talent that it is questionable whether or not I have, but I at least have had the perseverance to try.

I started my first novel in 2006 and finished it in 2011, but don’t let that fool you – most of that period was procrastination, and was probably more like 5 or 6 actual months of time spent writing.  Also that novel was bad.

I wrote my second novel starting right at the end of 2011 (literally a day before the new year) and finished the rough draft 5-6 weeks later.  I actually self-published that one under the name K.J. Holdeman and shared it out via social media like one time.  It was the first one I published, and I was – and still am – pretty proud of it.  I’m currently re-editing it and will publish it under my real name within the coming months.

My third novel was written in 2015 (might have spilled over into 2016 a little, I can’t remember).  It ended up being a convoluted mess, despite being fun to write.  I didn’t publish it, and won’t ever.

My fourth novel is Iterate, which I’ve clearly published and am really excited about.  This one was a blast to write, and I have a sequel for it in very early planning stages, but I’ve got some other ideas I want to get to before starting that in earnest.

That might sound like the end of that story, but it’s not.  I’ve got folders on my computer and posts on my writing blog with dozens and dozens of abandoned first chapters, a handful of outlines, and hundreds of thousands of words of partially written stories that never got finished for one reason or another.  And just in case you think that’s an exaggeration…

 

 

 

 

 

 

None of those are the completed novels I didn’t publish (which together are about 110k words).  The longest one pictured above was actually a rewrite of something (not pictured) that was already around 20k words (I kept the first ~4-5k words and rewrote the rest).  I have so many stories left off around 5k words that I didn’t bother screenshotting below 7k.

My current goal is to continue improving, write more, and become better at marketing myself.  Qualified, this means:

  • Challenge myself.  I don’t like doing atmospheric writing, but maybe it’s because I’m not great at it.  I need to fix this by creating more atmospheric settings.
  • I write for about 5 hours a week when I’m working on a novel.  I know this because it’s how I spend my lunch breaks.  I should dedicate more time on the weekends.
  • I don’t know how or where to advertise my work except social media.  Being a successful self-published author requires marketing, and that means I have to figure this out.

Anyway, I guess that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about me and my writing journey.

If you want to write your own novel, but don’t know how to start, I wrote a beginner’s guide that might interest you.

I released my latest novel last week.  You can find it on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.

If you’d like more info, you can check out this link, or just read below.


The cover of my novel, Iterate

How many times would you have to relive the same day before your life became only about that day? How long would it take for your memories before that day to become too fuzzy to recall details? How long would it take for you to break down under the monotony of not being able to escape?

Brendon and Hayley don’t have to imagine this situation – they live it. For longer than their natural lives, they’ve been stuck in a repeat of August 28, 2018, and they have no idea how to stop it. Every morning they wake up to a reset world where no one remembers what is happening, and everything happens the exact same way.

That is, until one iteration, something changes…