On Being A Glasshole

-or-

I got them early adopter blues

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Preface: pls pardon the lack of formatting and illustrations.

I'm sitting at a NJ Dunkin' Donuts writing this on the Blogger app on my iPad, which lacks some of the subtlety of the PC Blogger app.

I'd normally eschew dining at a place with such an egregiously grammatically incorrect and misspelled name, but the only other place nearby is Fourbucks, sorry, Starbucks and after 6 weeks of that in Sochi, well, I'd rather drink rainwater out of the gutter on Bourbon Street than give the Seattle mermaid  my money. But I digress...

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I was, briefly, a Glasshole.

I got an email last week from The Google (the G-Spot? The Big G? Need to come up with a properly mildly derisive term for Google) inviting me, for a relatively obscene amount of money, to join the Google Glass Explorer's Club, with all the rights and privileges (like getting thrown out of bars and clubs, or attacked on the street for invading someone's soi disant privacy) thereof.

Stupid expensive, because I could build at least two well-appointed AR-15s, buy a dozen Mosins, or go hafsies on an FN-SCAR if I could find some poor fool that wanted to waste the big wad of cash that Google wants for a pair (?) of Google Glasses.

(Hm. That's uncomfortable to write too... That singular-plural paradox- a 'pair of pants' vs 'a bra'. GGlass is one item. One unit. How 'bout we call 'em 'Glosses'?)

So... Google gets you coming and going... Kinda like them forcing you to get a G+ account in order to comment on YouTube a few months ago. To throw that big wad of your hard-earned rubles (53,650rub) at them, you have to have a Google Wallet. Fortunately for me, I already have a GWallet. It goes well with my G+ account, my GLicense, GMail, GCondoms, and will help immensely with my GLobotomy this summer.

When you do throw your money at them, they have the good sense to really deliver... Like the very next day. I ordered it on Thursday afternoon and got my Glosses on Friday morning.

Yay.

I had had a conversation with The Big Hat (now the 2nd Biggest Hat after our buy-out) regarding Glosses last fall. He had mentioned that it'd be good to get them into the hands of our propeller-heads back in development to see if there is anything they could be useful for in the scoring/timing/stats/sports technology area... We have several folks that applied to Google for Glosses but so far I'm the only one to get one. 

I had to give them a test flight... I got them configured, figured out how to control them- how to get data into and out of them, how to do searches, emails, and took some pictures and videos...

All without leaving my office...

To tell the truth, I was a little hesitant to walk around even in the relatively safe environs of the office mainly because a significant portion of our staff are suspicious to the point of cutting a piece of opaque tape on the built-in cameras on their laptops. They'd most likely freak to see The Office Ogre walking around with a video camera stuck to my forehead.

And this is the problem I have with that kind of mentality in people...

These people freak out when they see new technology that could possibly be used to eavesdrop on them, but have no problem with the thousands of CCTV cameras they walk around and under every day. 

It thinking about this, I did an informal survey as I walked around Jax Airport, EWR & Manhattan yesterday... I stopped counting at 1500 cameras around 3:00pm.

When you stop to look for it, there are an obscene number of cameras watching us at any given moment.

As I write this, I'm in the view of 4 cameras inside the store, there is one that can see me through the front window, one that can probably see me on the ATM across the courtyard, at least 4 more watching the courtyard outside, and no doubt several more at the other stores and restaurants that I will pass by.

What prompted this was a piece on CNN last night that showed video inside the club in SanFran (Molotov) that was made by a girl wearing Glosses as she was attacked, verbally and physically, for wearing them.

People complained that their privacy was being compromised and that they were having their oh-so-precious rights violated. You can see on the video several of those unobtrusive clear hemispheres mounted in the ceiling, each containing a CCTV camera...

I guess those don't count when one is concerned with privacy violations. Hypocrisy much?

I monkeyed around with the Glosses on the weekend... They are cool.

I shot a little video riding my bike (dangerous- need video display blanking app when doing this)... I shot a little video playing the Dark Menace.

They would probably, in the right environment, be more useful (or useful more often) than a couple home-grown ARs... Perhaps not as soul-soothing, but from a opportunity-to-use standpoint I'd get more mileage from Glosses...

They have been factory-reset now and the Chief Propeller Head has them...

I'll be interested to see what he is able to come up with.

I have a new toy to play with...

I got a Google Chromecast unit for Christmas... It's been sitting on the shelf waiting for my return from the Far Side of the World. When I get back from this trip I'm going to see what kind of trouble I can get into with it. 

(Can you say "copyright violation' children? I knew you could.)

Onward, through the fog...

TBG