Dear Kid,

I hate technology.

That’s not true. I love technology. I love the ease and convenience it brings. I can’t imagine going back to typewriters or princess phones. But right now I hate technology.

I was working away happily when I got a message that Word had decided to take a short break and would be back shortly. This did not amuse me. My new-ish laptop and I have not yet developed a solid working relationship, which is to say I don’t understand all the joys of Windows 8 yet. Like why Word would spontaneously stop working and why there is no bar on the left saying Here Are the Docs I Saved for You, Do You Want Them Back? (Note: it eventually showed up, but “eventually” wasn’t soon enough.)

The point is, I probably have to recreate some things unless I can talk George the Laptop into coughing up the data. But before I perform a laptop-Heimlich, I thought I would share with you the Ten Commandments of Technology in case you’re not up on Important Theology.

1. That Which Goeth on the Internet Remaineth on the Internet
2. Just Because Someone Else Posteth Something Doth Not Mean Thou Art Required to Repost It
3. Thou Shall Plug in Thy Laptop if Thou Expecteth Thy Battery to Work
4. Thou Shall Back Up Thy Work
5. Thou Shall Not Punch Thine Laptop no matter how annoyed thou shalt be
6. Someone Else Shall Always Have a Newer, Cooler Version of Technology. Thou mayest drool enviously, but thou shall not be getting a new device any time soon
7. When Thou Watchest Cat Videos Thou Shalt Not Claimeth to be Studying
8. Thou Art Smarter Than Thy Laptop
9. Typing Thy Class Notes Is Not the Same as Studying and thou shalt not pretend it is (even to thyself)
10. Thou Shall Be Kind to Tech Support Even When They Are Busy Not Solving Thy Problems. Techno-frustration shall be no reason for rudeness.

Hope you are having a techno-happy day, kiddo.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Mashable recently conducted an interesting study about technology and dating. Because I am that kind of a mom, I am summarizing (and might be persuaded to provide a comment or three on) the study.

Phones on a Date
Turns out there are people who think pulling out their cell phone during a date is acceptable behavior. Even during a first date. All I can say is those people better not be related to me. Well… there are a few exceptions.

1. If the building is on fire or someone is experiencing a true medical emergency, you can use your phone to call emergency services.

2. If your parent is supposed to pick you up at the end of the date and you need to coordinate the time the movie ends, you may use your phone.

3. If your date is truly horrible, by all means use that phone and get out.

Otherwise, turn your phone off and put it away. Even if your date has gone to the restroom or something (because it is truly tacky for your date to see you checking your phone when he or she returns from the restroom—it implies you’ve been waiting for something better to turn up).

Calling
To call: as in to use the phone to speak with someone not in the same room by a method other than text, email, or social media. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, the technology exists to make phone calls on those things. I promise to show you how if you’re not sure.

Call someone after a first date. Even after a second date. There are people who think sending a text is ok, but the percentage (even among college students) is pretty low.

Facebook
There is a wide range of opinions on when to announce to the world via Facebook that you are in a relationship. Opinions vary by gender and age (big shocker there) with men generally thinking it’s ok to announce a relationship sooner than women (ooh, that is a surprise…).

In my expert opinion, there is a delicate balance here. You certainly don’t want to announce this too soon and freak out the other person who isn’t ready for you to tell the world. And you don’t want to seem too reluctant to post it if the both of you are in a committed relationship. On the third hand, if it doesn’t last and you change your status back to single there will be lots of questions and comments. I’m going with the 13/G rule: If you don’t want your 13-year-old sister and your grandmother to know, don’t post it. (I KNOW your sister isn’t 13—that’s not the point.)

Sexting
The answer—the only answer—is no. Not now, not then, not ever. Yes, other people are doing it, but fewer than you think according to this survey. And they shouldn’t. You’re in college—you’re smarter than that.

Go with friexting (pronounced frexting; friend-texting G-rated photos of oneself—I just made it up).

Send a photo of your gorgeous smiling face, or your hands making a heart or spelling I Love You in sign language. Send a photo of the two of you holding hands or the sign on the place where you went on your first date. All say “I’m thinking of you” and none will get you arrested.

Have a wonderful time at college. Remember the quote from the Blind Side (yes, that one) and put your phone away on dates.

Love, Mom

How do you say No Public Restrooms in Bird?

Dear Kid,

In case you missed it, Apple is looking at a new technology. Since that is not a very helpful sentence (seeing as how Apple is ALWAYS looking at new technology), allow me to be more specific. Apple is evaluating/inventing/refining/whatev Gaze Detection Technology. What does this mean? So glad you asked. (You always seem to know just the right thing to say when I’m putting words in your mouth.)

Basically, it means that when you look away from the screen, the computer pauses and waits for your attention to return. Kind of techno-egotistical if you ask me. I can just hear the robot voice, “I AM the center of attention and I can just wait here all day until you’re ready.”

More importantly, it means that when you look up at the ceiling in hope that the answer is magically written there you won’t miss anything important on your laptop.

In the biggest non-event in the technical world, Twitter had some down time on Monday and is now back up and happily running. The “duh” is implied.

There is a new Facebook app that let’s anyone co-sponsor a bill in the House. It’s called Cosponsor.gov and I’m pretty sure I don’t get it.

Did you know that Ben and Jerry’s has Cannoli flavored ice cream? According to their website it is Mascarpone Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Cannoli Pastry Shell Chunks & a Mascarpone Swirl. That may be the most beautiful thing I’ve heard all day.

It seems that one of the adult birds now raising a family in our garage took advantage of my open car window to pretend to be an Indy car racer. Why a bird would choose to sit in a 400 year old Camry rather than going (key word here) outside on a beautiful day is beyond me. But go it did. On the parking brake. I am not amused. I am also not interested in trying to teach a bird to be house broken. Garage broken? Car broken? Anyway, I am posting a No Public Restrooms  sign on my windows.

In other news, we are still waiting to hear the results of Pi’s soccer non-tryouts. She did well at the Tryouts Part I but was injured for Part II (I swear the only thing holding that child together is duct tape and will power), so we’ll have to see what the coaches do with her. Stay tuned.

Also, she’s leaving for camp on Tuesday, so now would be a Most Excellent Time to write her an actual letter so that it gets to her in the first couple of days. This reminder has been brought to you by your mother.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I don’t know whether to be fascinated or horrified. Or perhaps a little bit of both.

Have you seen the child abuse ad that displays differently depending on how tall (or short) you are? The idea is to get a message to children being abused even if their abuser is standing right next to them. This is done with (get this) a lenticular top layer which shows different parts of images at various angles. Look straight ahead, see the standard message; look up from a child’s vantage point, see bruises and cuts and a phone number to call for help.

(Between this info and the invisibility cloak info from yesterday, I am turning into a real science hound, am I not?)

IMHO, this is wicked cool technology. But as others have pointed out: don’t you think the abusers might be on the internet and might have noticed all the commotion? Don’t get me wrong—anything anyone can do to help a child, especially an abused child, is all to the good. But there might be a dark side to the technology.

Back In The Day when I was in school (yes, Ray of Click and Clack fame was my marketing professor—different story for a different day), we spent a lot of time talking about subliminal messaging (which I’m pretty sure is mostly illegal in advertising these days). But Back Then, soda manufacturers would put an image of a soda or someone drinking a soft drink in the previews before a movie. It would be just one frame and go by so quickly your conscious mind would never see it. But the unconscious mind (ho, ho!) was another story entirely. Drink sales skyrocketed. There are lots more examples. Of course, the ones I remember are mostly not appropriate for polite conversation.

The point (and yes, my dear, there is a point) is what happens when advertisers figure out they can talk to children without mom interpreting knowing what the kid is seeing interfering. As a parent, I think it is part of my job description to help kids (especially small ones in the throws of ‘gimme!’) understand what is and is not appropriate at any given point in time. It helps if I have a clue what they are talking about.

On the other hand, there might be some extremely cool uses for this lenticular top layer technology. What if you could show one message to the student section of a football stadium but not to anyone else? Or one message to people going up the stairs to a given landing and another to those going down? I don’t yet know what the point would be, but it sounds cool.

Beware of messages, Kid. You can’t always be sure you know what they’re telling you. What you can be sure of is that I love you.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

At today’s soccer game, the need to invent invisible referees once again became apparent. Somehow I always (yes, always) manage to sit at the exact spot where the line judge will choose to plant his or her feet. Yesterday one of the line judges was about the diameter of a pencil, but more typically I sit behind someone who has a significant behind to sit behind.

I was talking (shocker, I know) to a dad from the other team about the need for this invention. First he laughed and said, “You have too much time on your hands, don’t you?” Being a polite sort of person, I did not spit in surprise at the very notion of too much time. I was about to respond with something witty, when he said, “You know, we really do have the technology to make that happen.”

HUH???

Invisible people?

I was so stunned I said nothing. (Make a note. It does happen occasionally.)

He went on to explain that in his opinion there were two options. One: do away with sideline judges by using chips in the ball and cameras from different angles and such (eh) or Two: use some super cool technology to more or less make the line judge invisible. I opted for Box Number 2 rather than whatever was behind the curtain.

He went on to explain that there is a fair amount of scientific research aimed at rendering things invisible. Some things are invisible only to microwaves (not sure why you’d want to be visible to the human eye but invisible to microwaves, but I’m sure there is a good reason). And there is technology that works as long as you’re small enough to live in a Petri dish (I have yet to meet a referee, no matter how fit, that would live happily in a Petri dish).

There is also technology that is basically a tee-shirt where the front acts like a camera and the back acts like a projection screen so someone behind the tee-shirt sees whatever the front of the tee-shirt sees. Voila! Floating head, invisible torso, legs running around trying to catch up. Useful and hilarious.

I went to the website How Stuff Works which has fab-o info on real life invisibility cloaks. Pages of good stuff. Which I plan to go back and read sometime when I’m not quite so tired. Like 2035. The point is, not only is there real science about this, there are real world applications that make pursuing the science a pretty nifty idea. Well, not for me, since I’m pretty sure I’d set the research back a decade or so. But for someone who has a clue about this sort of thing.

Real world applications they talk about including making the bottom of a cockpit clear so pilots can see the ground when they are landing. And making a surgeons hands invisible so they can see everything when they are operating (I think that would take some getting used to).

Before you ask, I double checked and there was no mention anywhere of using this technology to make referees invisible. Sometimes science is very short-sighted if you ask me. I’m sure they will think of it—it will just take a little longer.

Now all we have to do is figure out the science of getting folding chairs to make coffee at the game and I’ll be all set.

Get your highly visible self to bed at a reasonable hour, kiddo.

Love, Mom