Monday, January 22, 2007

Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 11

I am in another study now.

Some time has passed.

Tick, tick is the sound of time elapsing. I like the sound of "elapse".

The new study is my Health Diary. It goes on for two years.

It is in the Health Diary that I found out that The Traveler isn't lying: there is a Vast Machine.

That's because the Health Diary is not a blank slate. Each day I log in it knows stuff that has happened the day before if I was sick.

When I am well my ToDo List is empty. If I have been sick my ToDo List may know a great deal.

It knows if I have been to the pharmacy.

It knows if I went to the doctor or an emergency room.

It even knows when I go to the dentist.

Is that familiar or what? Shades of Santa:

He know when you are sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been good or bad
So be good for goodness sake!!!
Maybe instead of elves working for Santa, it was the Vast Machine.

Well, yes. At first my ToDo List freaked me out. Now I realize the Vast Machine has always been there only, because I wasn't a sampled person, I wasn't privy to it.

I thank my lucky stars that I am a sampled person. Because now it is my turn: I get to set the record straight.

Like is the cough that I had treated yesterday the same one I had a month ago?

Did I see the doctor yesterday or someone else?

Did I get a next appointment?

Of course maybe I should be UPSET by the Vast Machine. What do you think?

You think it is a force for good that cannot act unless and until I sign the permission forms?

You think it only fetches my information pour moi and that, if I have doubts about this, EFF and Lawrence Lessig are reassuring.

Maybe so. Because just when I think I should be UPSET, the Vast Machine ask me non-sequitors.

One day it asked me if I was satisfied. I wanted to know about what. It answered: your life in general.

I mean what the fuck. I can't remember the last time my wife asked me that.

I think this is the beginning of a strange relationship.

Technorati Tags: EFF, Lawrence Lessig, Vast Machine

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Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sampled Person X7-1234: Day 3

I just started a food diary on my N800. I love my N800... The food diary is what you call interactive. Interactive indeed.

It starts with an on-line calendar and the N800.

The way it works is that I go on-line to my food diary while I am eating. I seem always to be able to go on-line because of mobile broadband. I love mobile broadband.

My food diary opens to the current day and waits for me. That my cue to, using the N800, take pictures of my meal. I won't show you all my meals for thirty days because I don't eat well. I know another SP though who went to Japan.



Maybe by now you have looked at the diary and saw the comments. The comments come from friends. My diary has a rolodex, and I add a card for each friend. Only my friends can make comments. That's a good thing.

In addition to the friendly fire, from time to time other comments will appear. The other comments take the form of Digital PostIts. Someone sticks one on top of a picture, and I reply.

Whoever said that a picture was worth a thousand word never met my nutritionist.

I call her a nutritionist and I call her a her. We have never met. I have only seen her avatar when we IM (instant message) from time to time.

She calls the PostIts food probes. They happen. Not every meal. Just sometimes. I don't really mind either because I've got probes.

Technorati Tags: mobile broadband, N800

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