Skip to main content

Stuck behind a stick

A selfie stick that is.  Another supposedly great idea to help with taking pictures where no man could go before, it has morphed into a safety hazard.  On our recent excursion into the Sierra wilderness we encountered these hoards of teenager zombies that were intent on capturing their grins amidst the verdant canyons.  Perched on ledges or rock precipices they were not only risking their own life and limb in so doing they also started blocking traffic with this cane like object protruding at weird angles in the path where others tried to tread.

If there was an invention to aid in self admiration since the mirror, it has to be this telescoping stick that can hold a cell phone that allows to take pictures of the stick owner- specifically with backdrops that vary depending on how insane you are.  Instant sharing of the same follows with the chick finding app now popular across 1.5 billion citizens.  Vanity thy name is humanity.

Some were newbies to the whole selfie genre and so were fiddling with their cell phone cameras at the same time.  This created its own hazard in the form of people walking into the middle of your path looking down and not at you.

The whole circus of introducing new gadgets and making the gullible folks buy into it lock stock is quite ingenious.  More power to the ones that can con the minions that seem desperate for some action.

The drone piloting, smart watch wearing and selfie taking idiots have inundated North America.  The pristine wilderness is slowly turning into yet another Disneyland for the millenials.

Labels:

Comments

  1. RajendraMay 27, 2015 at 10:43 PM

    be selfless and let others click, is what i say, before occasionally losing it and clicking one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diamond HeadMay 30, 2015 at 10:12 AM

    yes - I too can snap

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...
Post a Comment
Read more

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...
Post a Comment
Read more