No Secrets

You go to an event and meet a new person. A friend tells you they are buying a house. A cousin tells you about a cruise that they are taking. In the past you might wondered about her or the place or the trip, and asked around, trying to build up a more complete picture a piece at a time. That would have meant querying a mutual friend, a colleague who lives in that neighborhood, perhaps an associate who took a similar vacation. 

No more. Now the first thing you do when you are alone is grab your phone or your keyboard. A few taps, and in seconds you have all the answers you need (or more correctly, are curious about): history, costs, experience, reviews. No middleman, but first-hand knowledge based on experience or real-life reporting, often from the very people to whom you were talking. Carly Simon said it best: we have no secrets, we tell each other everything.

Well, not really. Of course we still have and keep secrets. Or so we think. But these days only the most determined among us eschews all that interconnection that we have so come to depend on, and which rats us out. Mind you, we're not talking about online firms amassing your data for their own marketing uses, much of which we lazily consent to. What we are referring to is the vast trove of information available to any and all through the publicly available databases that make up our world.

Want to know a person's career path and history? LinkedIn, Indeed, and even Facebook groups help you piece together a dossier any HR professional would swoon over. Curious about a particular house or property? Zillow and its ilk not only give you photos and valuations, but tax assessments, neighborhood amenities and school ratings. And that trip? Expedia, Travelocity and others detail every aspect of every cruise, from menus to cabin size to ports of call, not to mention the all-inclusive cost. 

And those are just the bold face names that come up at the top of any search. Dig just a little deeper and you find a multitude of other of troves of easily searchable information, some public, some private. OpenAddresses and The National Address Database from the US Department of Transportation cover most public and private parcels in the country. Glassdoor and Yelp offer windows into companies, salaries and how they are viewed by customers and employees alike. And with just a little cross referencing, Google Maps and Amazon will show you people, places and products, not to mention pictures of everyone's mailbox.

Wonder what your friends are drinking in Boise? Go to the Idaho Department of Commerce Liquor retail Sales site, and you can sort by individual store, item and day. Heading to the Bay Area and want to borrow a bike? San Francisco Ford GoBike Share tells you the most popular pickup and dropoff spots, and even the best bikes by individual ID number. And if you are sure your bestie called you out on one of her other handles and isn't coming clean, you can use Twitter Advanced Search to scan the 500 million posts a day to nail her.

If you really, really – really - must know, it takes just a few bucks to get access to data that, if not secret, is certainly buried a little deeper. Truthfinder (and other sites like it) scans pubic records of all kinds to compile a folio on any individual who has interfaced in any way with any a government agency or company. There was an old Prego commercial where a newlywed's father disparaged his use of canned spaghetti sauce. A taste of the pot changes his mind. To paraphrase: court records? It's in there. Bankruptcy filings? It's in there. Traffic pleadings, negative reviews, a touch of social media discord? It's in there!

With every transaction moving online, unless you pay for everything in cash and never sign up or purchase anything, there is going to be a record of what you are up to whether you like it or not. You might not post it on Facebook, but it's there for anyone who really cares to find it. Buried, perhaps, but secret? Unlikely. Or as an old Chinese proverb goes, if you don't want anyone to know, don't do it. 

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has few things worth being secretive about. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Unsafe Eating

In some respects it's amazing anyone in my cohort is alive, though not in any metaphysical or religious or biological sense. It's just that knowing what we now know, it's amazing we made it out of childhood in one piece. We rode bikes without helmets. We played at the beach with no sunscreen. We went into the woods or streets to play unsupervised. My wife recalls riding with her folks in a car while standing up in the back hanging onto the front seats. And I rode bikes with friends as we chased a truck fogging our neighborhood for mosquitoes; the more of the cloud you could inhale the better. Try or allow any of that with kids today and you'd be hauled before a judge.

What seemed harmless then has since been shown to be anything but. Each of those activities and many more have been all but banned for reasons of health, prudence or just common sense. That said, you can say that we've merely swapped one set of perils for another. After all, smoking is looked on as a great evil, and most would no more consider eating a cigarette than smoking one. But who hasn't also wondered about what staring at and living on screens 18 hours a day is doing to our eyes and our brains, not to mention our social skills and ability to actually talk to each other.

You can make the same observation about the foods we eat, but in that case old habits die hard. We ate copious amounts bacon, hot dogs, French fries and sugared cereal. And while we have been admonished to try and eat healthier, we still consume copious amounts of bacon, hot dogs, French fries and sugared cereal. And just as in other areas, we look the other way as we likely swap one edible problem for another. While I am not eating as much bologna as I did when I was a kid (every day for lunch with mustard on white bread) I eat more raw fish, which carries its own set of risks.

Which brings us to our lawsuit of the week. 

A class action filing in California is going after candy maker Mars Inc. for its formulation of Skittles. According to the complaint, the second most popular Halloween candy in the country (Reese's Cups are first, as they should be ) contains "heightened levels of titanium dioxide (TiO2)," a possible carcinogen. While the company committed back in 2016 to phase out TiO2, the lawsuit alleges that they have not done as much as they can or should. In response, the company counters that "our use of titanium dioxide complies with FDA regulations," which say that it is OK to be used as long as levels do not exceed 1% of the weight of the food. 

While the scientific evidence is not conclusive as to the material's harm, some others have chosen to take action none the less. Dunkin' removed it from their products seven years ago, and in 2021 the European Food and Safety Authority declared the nanoparticles unsafe when used as a food additive. Still, they didn't ban it, leaving that action up to country regulators on a case-by-case basis. The bottom line is they don't really know about its long term effects, but are acting out of the overused mantra of "an abundance of caution."

I am not advocating consuming harmful chemicals, nor learning from scientific advances and applying those findings to make us safer. But it does call to mind the 1973 Woody Allen movie "Sleeper," in which two doctors are discussing a health food store owner who wakes up after two centuries. Dr. Melik: "This morning for breakfast he requested something called wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk." Dr. Aragon: "Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties." Dr. Melik: "You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or hot fudge?" Dr. Aragon: "Those were thought to be unhealthy, precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true." Dr. Melik: "Incredible."

Incredible indeed. I'm not saying it's not dangerous, but what isn't? Not wear a seatbelt? Are you out of your mind? Indeed, I'll have mine on as I review your text as I drive to pick up our takeout order of sushi. And yes, I'll make sure to get extra packets of low sodium soy sauce.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford picks his risks. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Turn Me On

Some people are tech savvy, and can bring a computer or phone or smart appliance to heel with little effort. Should things go off course, they are adept at troubleshooting the problem and executing a solution. Others, well, not so much. These individuals know which buttons to press to do their usual tasks, and are fine if all goes according to plan. But should there be a glitch, they are up a creek without an electronic paddle. First they panic, then they look around for help, then they reach into their limited electronic toolkit and execute the most basic and powerful reset there is known to expert and novice alike: turn it off, turn it on.

In probably more than 80% of cases that's all it takes. And why is that? Tech does a myriad of things. Most times when we want to move to the next task we just jump across without shutting down the thing we were working on. It makes for lots of open jobs with potentially conflicting sets of instruction and demands. Should the system be unable to juggle or figure out what the heck you are asking of it, it gets confused. And knocking it out and making it start all over again usually helps. 

Perhaps the best explanation came courtesy of an experienced online hand who goes by KDY_ISD. As described in the "No Stupid Questions" section of the Reddit website, "Imagine you live in a huge, ancient city with winding streets that have many twists and turns. You want to get from your house to the grocery store. Somewhere along the way, you aren't paying attention, and take a wrong turn. Now you're lost. You don't recognize any buildings. What do you think is more likely to help you -- going around and around in circles, or magically teleporting back to your house and starting again from the beginning of the route you already know? That's what power cycling does. It takes a device that's trapped in some kind of problem, picks it up, and puts it back down at the starting line again. 'Ah, the starting line,' it says. 'I know what to do from here.'"

Makes sense.  There's just one problem: finding that power switch.

Designers and engineers who create cars and vacuum cleaners and screen interfaces are always trying for a fresh take. They change the cabinet, the color, the way you attach the accessories. Sometimes it's an improvement, other times it's just different for the sake of being different. And so you wind up bitching because the menu for "bold type" no longer lives where it used to. Eventually after poking around a bit you find it, and it becomes part of your muscle memory going forward.  

As to the aforementioned power switch, like the key or button that starts your car, you would think they would be put in roughly the same place no matter the manufacturer or model. You should be able to walk up to a device, extend your right hand to the top edge or right side or bottom corner, and turn it on. But that would make sense.

And so you find the situation we were we in. We had several large screen televisions spread around the room, each showing a different video. First thing in the morning it should have been a simple matter and a few moments to fire each up. One was a Sharp, one a Sony, one an LG and two were Samsungs. And every single one of them, even the two from the same manufacturer, had power switches in different places. One was bottom right, one was back center, one was on the right edge. There were buttons, rockers, even a small joystick. We had to run our hands over and around, feeling for something that made sense. The crew looked like a bunch of blind men trying to determine if the beast in question was an elephant, a camel or a horse.

Eventually we got them all turned on. But why? Why take something so simple and elemental and make it hard? No one will ever buy or not buy a device because of the design and placement of the power switch. I'm a simple guy: if you want to turn ME on, just make it easy to turn IT on.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford turns his computer off every night. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Everyone A Song

If you are a band that played live, the last few years put a serious crimp in your world. Didn't matter if your audience filled an arena or a pub, there was no filling going on. While some income might be generated by music sales and online concerts, it barely matched the take you got from playing in front of a paying audience. Additionally, musicians of all stripes live to connect with each other and their audiences: not making music is simply not an option. 

Trent Wagler, the singer/songwriter who leads The Steel Wheels, was in just such a predicament. An established journeyman group, the band's rootsy brand of Americana garnered rave reviews and adoring fans. While they have a healthy catalog of work, their bread and butter was appearing at venues, fairs and festivals. When all that stopped, they scattered to their respective homes. How could they keep their musical spark alive, stay connected with their fans, and generate some income? And so began their "Everyone a Song" project.

They put out the word that they would accept commissions to write a song about any and all, be it a birthday, a wedding, a life's work. Not just a simple verse and a guy playing guitar, these would be fully formed tracks in the band's signature style with banjo, guitars, bass, drums and fiddle. "I think when we started, we really had no idea and very low expectations," said Trent. "Are we gonna get flooded? Is anyone gonna be interested?" It started slowly, but as word got out, the pace picked up; indeed, it snowballed: "I think at this point we have probably written and recorded somewhere around 60 to 70 original songs, plus covers of ours and others. All told, we probably have recorded closer to 150 songs."

For the band, it was a different way of working. They were used to using Trent's songwriting as a starting point, and working collaboratively in the studio. This couldn't be more different: each was in their own home studio, and the volume of material was magnitudes beyond their usual pace. In this approach, after talking with the requester, Trent would come up with lyrics and a musical backbone, then send the base track on to one of the guys. They would add their part and send it to the next, eventually winding up in drummer Kevin Garcia's hands to add rhythm as well as mix and master. Trent again: "I would say 95% of what ended up on the albums, and probably more like 98% of the stuff we sent out to people was first draft and was first choice."

From a songwriting perspective, it was a unique challenge for a person with years of experience penning his own stories. "I was inspired by the process itself in letting go of some of my own self, my own insecurities, and just kind of letting some of those first ideas go. Sometimes I'm so quick to criticize, oh, that's cheesy or that's cliche. And then after a while you realize, oh, actually I do like that. It's the art of finding things that just ride close enough to cliche that they feel familiar, but don't feel tired. And that's a hard line to walk as a writer." 

And the songs? You don't need to know their backstory for them to draw you in. Spread over two albums, "Everyone A Song" rings with tracks that play not as one-off demos, but as polished pieces of musical craftsmanship. You don't need to know that "Where I'm From" is about a Catholic school, nor that "The Healer" is about a physical therapist's retirement to appreciate them. That said, it is fun to know that "It's Your Fault" is about a woman tearing her ACL while dancing to the band, and that it eventually led to their former bass player marrying her. 

As the world moves on the band has resumed touring and plans head back to the studio to do their own material. But they've learned from the experience, including new ways of working, new ideas, even different musical styles and techniques. And they may reopen this project as well: "While it was born out of the pandemic, people connecting to songs on a very personal level can be a really meaningful thing, and it is a unique way to continue to connect with people, too."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves listening to live music of all types. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.