Title:  In a Mood
Date:  20191213
Tags:  me
========================================

Well, I'm in a bit of a mood.

After following along with Kensanata (or Alex) and watching "The Century of the
Self"[0], I watched a couple more documentaries by Adam Curtis[1],
"HyperNormalisation" and "The Power of Nightmares".  I couldn't bring myself to
watch any more.

Then I watched a couple privacy related talks by Laura Kalbag[2] and in one she
recommended the Netflix documentary "The Great Hack"[3].  It's about the
Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal after the 2016 US election and the Brexit
referendum.  And recently read an article (that I can't find now) where the
writer was disillusioned after finding out that a protest she attended was
orchestrated by Russia using social media which mentally tied some things
together for me.

I've been periodically reading through old issues of "Bits and Bytes".  I just
read Volume 1, Number 13 from 1993[4].  This one was focused on the dark side of
technology.  It's really interesting to read the predictions, fears, and
assumptions from 26 years ago with the knowledge of today.  While it's relieving
to see that past fears haven't brought about the end of the world, it's quite
unsettling to also see that we still haven't really solved many of those
problems, yet.

I decided to top off my mood by watching one of the more depressing animes I
have, "Now and Then, Here and There"[5].

See you on the other side.


[0] gopher://alexschroeder.ch:70/12019-11-15_The_Century_of_the_Self/menu
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAWxZyfEPejhGJv8Z4wbKBw
[2] https://laurakalbag.com/
[3] https://www.netflix.com/Title/80117542
[4] gopher://gopher.meulie.net:70/0/textfiles/magazines/BITSBYTES/bnb0113
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_and_Then,_Here_and_There