I had to finish up a little project for spouse and get it in the mail so he could enjoy it for halloween. I made him a luminary with a mandalorian design and included some led tea lights. Maybe it'll make a good nightlight. Made it from two pieces of scrapbook paper that can be had from michaels for $1.50. And I engraved his initials on the clip of the pocketknife and sent that, plus a little leather pocket organizer and a small write-in-the-rain memo book that fits in the organizer. (Mostly these were excuses to buy myself a little leather pocket organizer and a write-in-the-rain memo book, because my pockets are limited or nonexistent and I ran out of notepad for grocery lists. I have coveted the write-in-the-rain notepads for a while. And what's good for the goose is good for the gander.)

To make the luminary I needed to do a little basic image editing, print the design, transfer it to the scrapbook paper and cut it out with an exacto. Not hard. Wasn't in the mood to jump through all the hoops to get it done on the raspberry pi. Like, it's going to have to be a whole day set aside to crank up Enya and get gimp working and then get the printer interfaced. (I have this theory that the downfall of our modern civilization began when some programmer traded his soul to get the first printer "working". I think it let a greater demon loose in the world, whose purpose is to make us question our core sanity. Cyberpunk and bionics are cool ideas and all, but behold the printer, a relatively simple device whose interface is convoluted and malicious and only seems to get worse as tech progresses. WHY. We went to the moon! Yet printers are horrible! I've worked with various printers, scanners, plotters, copy machines, embroidery machines and they are all riddled with demons as far as I can tell. They cannot be trusted. They know whenever you need something on a time crunch and that's when they "forget" settings and make your life hell. Anyway there's no way I am getting cyber implants until they make reliable, hassle-free printers, which I anticipate being roughly never.)

Spouse made me a login on his desktop machine before he left. I figured I would just hop on his machine since it's already hooked up with the printer and all. So I login, anticipating this would be a trivial task. Oh. My. God. I was not prepared for what a clusterfuck a spankin' new windows login has become. Especially if you have hamster powered internet like ours. Why is it downloading all this mystery stuff in the background and not telling me. Why is it shoving all these weird preferences on me and putting all this shit in the toolbar. Why is everything so needy and stupid. What are all these necessary notifications that are hidden requests for more info and I can't just dismiss them. I don't want a cloud drive. I don't want a cloud drive. I DON'T WANT YOUR CLOUD DRIVE. I DON'T WANT TO SHARE PICTURES. I DON'T WANT TO CONNECT WITH FRIENDS. OH MY GOD. I swear, it killed two hamsters before I eventually disconnected the hard line to the modem. Putting that thing on an internet diet.

All I have to do is some very basic image editing. I just want to crop an image and set the resolution and size. I figure I don't need to download a whole app/program for something that simple - it should be trivial to do that with an in-browser editor, right? This is the future, right? Any image editor should handle that. Well apparently in the future everyone just wants to edit selfies for social media and resolution is forgotten ancient voodoo knowledge. I end up having to search for a gimp online editor that I knew would have a less "user friendly" interface because I was pulling my hair out. And that worked.

The whole convoluted process just made me so sad. I've ranted about the state of the Internet before, about how frustrated I am with inferior search results. Any search function on any major platform seems to be calculated to dismiss what you want and show you whatever it thinks you might want, as if it knows better. When I search for something I want that exact specific thing, but what I get is all this other crap, plus "sponsored listings", with the results that are actually what I want scattered in with the drek, like hits on a slot machine. The Internet/technology isn't a tool for me to use anymore. It's a tool that is using me. The computer or tablet/phone isn't a time and effort saving device. It's a corporate owned portal to sink tentacles into whatever human interaction it can and farm it for potential profit. Desire for knowledge is encouraged so it can be exploited. Curiosity is encouraged so it can be exploited. Creativity is encouraged so it can be exploited. Rage against the machine, so the machine can exploit your rage (fantastic profit potential there). Everything is a sales opportunity. I never felt more like a wretched farm animal in my life.

It's just so sad, because once upon a time I really enjoyed new technology and the internet. Once upon a time it was like a good friend. It was an interesting puzzle and a magical window that could help you learn whatever struck your fancy, show you a funny joke, connect you with someone who knew the answer to a technical problem, etc. I wasn't afraid of it. New technology was cool and fun. It feels like I've been friend-dumped. I used to have a really good friend and now they don't want anything to do with me. I'm an annoyance because I have oddball interests and I'm not rich. They've decided to ditch me for the cool kids. Maybe they'll see me around, but they don't have time for me anymore.

Feels like a form of grief. I've been angry about it and now I'm just sad. I guess I felt entitled to the old version of technology, where it worked for me instead of me working for it. HOW COME EVERYTHING IS SO DUMB NOW. It's not a bug, it's a feature. The dumbness is deliberate. They're engineering everything for the most profitable audience to create a feedback loop of flattery and intermittent rewards spiked with outrage. I'm just mad because I'm not the valued end user anymore. I'm a relic. I'm an undesirable.

Google keeps trying to get me to click on a guacamole recipe from foxnews. (I can't get rid of the stupid news teasers on chrome, I tried, so now I just interpret them as amusing tells from the corporate overlords.) This is peak modern Internet as far as I can tell. Google maybe thinks I'm conservative, or is trying to fish to see if I am. But why would anyone want a guacamole recipe from foxnews, of all sources? Why does a supposed news site even have food recipes? Why does google think I want to make guacamole? It's a black hole of stupid, with an algorithm primed to see if I nibble. I refuse to interact with it to give it anything.

I read that facebook is fixing to rename themselves or something because they are working on augmented reality and "the metaverse" (and am I slow or have they cribbed that name from Snowcrash in some new height of corporate fuckery?). This makes perfect sense. The incarnation of the internet as we know it is like an old world city with layers built upon layers over the years. Even facebook's purpose has changed drastically from a college kid online hangout to dominating advertising juggernaut. So much outcry and hand wringing over eroding privacy to serve the evolving corporate interest. So of course facebook will want to reinvent the internet in its own image, where it makes all the rules. It's building a pleasure island, like from Pinocchio. Something so spectacular and shiny and addictive that everyone will flock to it. Something conceived as a corporate profit powerhouse from the very beginning, so they don't have to play footsie like they do with facebook. They are inventing the next incarnation so they can own it from the core. You can't cry monopoly if a competitor never existed.

I must be honest, I'm secretly optimistic and relieved somehow. Perhaps they will take their target audience to pleasure island and this internet as we knew it will be left behind, discarded. A ghost town. Maybe only those of us with hamster powered internets and crotchety opinions will remain, stubbornly resisting the future like luddites. Nope, I ain't doing your new-fangled "augmented reality" whatsits. You dummies can't make a printer without loading it up with proprietary cartridges, bloated watchdog apps and bad interfaces. ON PURPOSE. Your search engines can't give me good results. ON PURPOSE. Social media is a rage generating big brother parasite. ON PURPOSE. You keep trying to get me to get my guacamole recipe from foxnews. ON PURPOSE. Like, to hell with whatever you guys are selling. You'll serve me a boiled hot dog with a parsley sprig and tell me it's french pate.

I guess this means I am old now. When you go from being excited about new things to being suspicious and hateful, you have to accept it. You are officially old.

If the Internet is an old friend who dumped me for the cool kids, I feel like maybe I might see that old friend again, crying on the side of the road. Got tossed out of the convertible because rich kids are mean and fickle. I secretly hope I'll get my friend back, someday. Maybe?