Start it Up

Today's launch of Windows Vista has already started bringing the detractors out of the Angry Nerd woodwork, roaring about bugs and patches, especially those hyper-paranoid internet denizens that constantly fret about being watched, or observed, or recorded, the ones that use the phrase "Orwellian" and genuinely do not expect you to stab them with a utensil. Though I've found that my friends of this type are typically the absolute last people I would expect to be performing any sort of incriminating, or even interesting, activities in their off-hours--I would be shocked if any of them even leave dishes in the sink overnight--I admit that it lends them a certain air of mystery, like they might come home after a long day at work, take off their cuff links and unbind their breasts, then sit down with a cup of cocoa and a snuff film.

Someone's got a case of the Mondays...

Now, I'm not against my webdoings being recorded for future use; at one point while writing my college thesis, the only thing that kept me from lashing the other end of my school tie to the overhead light fixture was checking my Ebay feedback for the brief buoy of being described as A+++++. But considering the fact that I am a moth to any NSFW flame that gets passed my way, I don't see how anything named a "cookie" would be the thing that brings the government to my door. When friends complain that they're worried that their work's IT department will pick up the use of swear words or references to actual social events taking place outside of their office, I apologize, then write a Tourette's-like stream of filter-trippers (fuck shit sex Hitler bestial heroin manga) in transparent text at the bottom of the email. It's not that I think computers aren't smart- Clippy's intuition as to when I'm writing a letter is uncanny, and Joshua figured out how to win a global thermonuclear war back when I was still writing "BOOBIES" upside down on my calculator- it's just I don't think the people monitoring them care.

Of course, I'm not saying that the new wave of recommendations systems are infallible-you post one sarcastic fake review of a friend's book on Java algorithms, and Amazon thinks you're Bill Gates for the next four years- but all in all, they're pretty spot-on about most of their suggestions. When I go to my Netflix account and find that they think I'd like some of my already-favorite movies , I feel momentarily validated, like I've done something right, followed the correct course of human existence or something. I think my ultimate fear is to login to Netflix and find that the "Movies You'll Heart" section looks like this: