If A Tree Falls in the Forest ...

The newest update to Foursquare is called Radar, and it takes the FS app to its logical next step: a program that alerts you when friends are checked in nearby, and suggests places for you to check into that are in close proximity. The linked article goes through the details, and points out the obvious awkward/stalker vibes emanating from this latest collision of technology and social media.

While the average person's response will undoubtedly be revulsion, I find it inevitable and entertaining. I suppose ignorance is bliss, so that as long as your friends are cavorting behind your back, social norms are preserved and no one's ego is slighted. In our new Foursquare Radar era, there is the potential to be acutely aware of every hang out to which you are not invited to participate. And that's the real crux of the situation- not that you haven't been invited, because no one socializes with all their friends all of the time, but the knowledge of the missed moment, that's it's no longer being done behind your back.

But then there have always been two types of people in our new social media, hyper-connectedness age. The ones who revel in thrusting every detail of ordinary life onto the internet for all who are interested to gawk at, and those who find it all appalling. I happen to fall into the former category, and am generally forgiving of flaws in privacy protection in favor of the opinion that my anonymity protects from identity theft. If someone really wanted to steal my identity, nothing I could do would really be effective in stopping them. And who is that interested in my life anyway?

Blogging, Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter are all just self-indulgent guilty pleasures. They play as much of a role in keeping people connected as they do in making our lives seem more important than they are, and thereby making humanity happier.

And really, what's wrong with that? In my head, my legions of dedicated followers read every post I write, and marvel at my literary acumen. Reality is, afterall, perception.

Open Heart

The Stryker hospital bed is the same,
Though it is newer, same buttons.
Do all hospitals use Stryker beds?

Though the bed is familiar,
standing where I am is not.
I know what all the buttons do,
it's familiar but not comforting.
Like a lot of things I know:
the feel of the sternal saw,
the perils of anesthesia,
the blue angel hairs of 6-0 prolene suture.
Familiar, and shockingly not comforting.

For all the things I know,
I am still not prepared
when the orderly stops us,
"time for last minute hugs and kisses."
Not prepared to lean over my dad,
not quite Dad without his glasses,
and say goodbye and good luck.
Not prepared for the break in his voice
as he says he loves me and he'll see me soon.

I know what transpired
behind those automated doors,
but how they cut him open,
and made him whole again,
back to bespectacled Dad,
that I will never understand.

16 October 2011
2343

To Infinity and Beyond

The 10 Year Starship Study Symposium took place in Orlando, Florida in early October, an event that slipped by me in obscurity until Ira Glass brought its idiosyncratic dreaming to my attention today.


The convention featured scientists from NASA, DARPA (a specialized advanced research arm of the Defense Department), science fiction writers, and the public. It tackled with laughable gravity the quandary of interstellar travel- the stuff of my favorite science fiction shows and novels.

For example, the nearest star to the sun is 4 lightyears away, which would currently take us approximately 10,000 years to traverse.

Ten thousand years.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable hurdles obstructing our trekkie dreams, the panels hashed out viable options for sustaining travel across such distances, coming up with options like light sails that harvest the energy of the sun. They discussed plasma shields, like a cosmic windshield to protect starships from the missile like qualities of space dust, encountered at light speed.

The 100 YSS Symposium gives me goosebumps like the first time I read Ender's Game. This was the first annual convention of its kind, and when Ira Glass supposed that future generations of space travelers will laud 2011 as the initial trailblazing of a new frontier, I imagined the future. The gossamer dreams of scienc fiction seem to have inched infinitesimally closer to the everyday fabric of this American life.

Zeenat, Like the TV

I used to blog a lot.

But it's been years, and I hadn't felt that self-indulgent itch for some time. That finally, inevitably, changed as I was driving my rental car down I-5N one recent weeknight, forcing myself to keep my eyes on the road and away from the city lights of the Seattle skyline. Although I nearly always carry my camera, I refrained from snapping away at 75 mph on the highway. This stock google photo suffices in lieu of reckless driving.

I've had a stretch of several unruly weeks, and today marks the end of what has turned out to be quite a spirited run. Lately the commotion has revolved around interviews for a minimally invasive surgery fellowship. Seattle and San Antonio were the sole outliers as the majority have been in Northern California. The best-in-show routine grows arduous quickly, so maybe the urge to return to routine writing is a response to an SOS from my stifled creative mind.

An interesting facet to West Coasters is the lack of a response to foreign names; although I never thought of it as unique to the Midwest, folks in the heart of the country tend to struggle with anything but the traditional Anglo-Saxon name. Although my name was uniformly butchered by the interviewees, receptionists, and peers I encountered, there was no hesitation to tackle my titular conundrum and ask the source directly for help in navigating its tricky syllables. It was refreshingly unexpected, a subtle departure from the personal apology I unknowingly issue every time I introduce myself- "It's pronounced Zenith, like the TV".