Off-the-grid Weekend

I am a tech head.  My phone is always at my side, I spend waaaay too much time on the internet, and I'm the personal 'geek squad' for my neighborhood and friends.

And for this past weekend, I was without all of it.

I was off the grid.

My girlfriend and I decided we were spending more time with our tech than we were with each other, so we decided to do a tech-free weekend.  No phones, no computers, no internet, just each other.

A good idea, in theory, but it was going to be rough.

We read books.  We cleaned the house.  We took a walk.  We did other things as well.  All without playing games on our phones, me checking my blog, or her chatting with her scrap-booky friends all over the world.

We had a productive weekend, and got a lot of things done.  It felt good.

Mostly.

This weekend showed me two things:

1 - If you cut out all the time you waste online or playing with your phone, you have a TON of free time to do productive things.  I scratched more off my 'to do' list this weekend than I have in the last three months.

2 - I'm addicted to my tech.  There were times at 2am where I wanted to sneak out to my laptop and check my facebook.  Or play Words With Friends.  It was hard to give up tech for a full 60 hours, but I did it.

Mostly.

She granted one pardon, for the Super Bowl.  Honestly, the game was less than spectacular and most of the commercials were 'meh.'  I could have probably gone without.

Have you ever gone 'off the grid' like this, just to see if you could, or to see what the result would be?

#Racism and #Technology in the 21st Century

Racism is a touchy subject, and will be for years to come.  Recently a law passed in Alabama regarding illegal immigration, and almost immediately anyone with brown skin became a "Damn Mexican" and was harassed to go back to Mexico.  Where you are for or against illegal immigration laws, the basic public ignorance will make your stomach turn.  (check out this article for more)

A lot of racism, though, is probably unintentional.  Take technology for example.  Computers with webcams now fave facial recognition technology, and will automatically zoom and center on your face when it sees it.

...unless you're black.  Then it can't see you.

This video has been passed around the internet for a few years now.  It's funny, but brings up an interesting point:  When building technology, do you HAVE to think a little bit about race?  Absolutely.  Because the software doesn't work for black people, I'm assuming nobody on the testing team had dark skin.

...just like I'm assuming the testers of this camera were probably not Asian...

...which is interesting, because the Headquarters for Nikon is in Tokyo.

If there is not a diversity of engineers making this technology, I understand.  Same with Quality Control.  But when product testing, maybe you have to think a little bit racist.   Not to be a bigot, but to make sure the technology capabilities work for a diverse group of people.

This makes me wonder... would a vehicle with voice recognition understand Ebonics?  Or redneck?  Or English with a heavy accent from another culture?  Anybody want to test that out for me and let me know?

If you have experienced a technologial goof-up due to race or culture, please share below.  Thanks!