Coming Facebook “This Is Your Life” Changes

There has already been plenty written about the upcoming Facebook profile changes, and how it will be even more intrusive.  It can be checked out in beta, and some people love it, others despise it. It appears that if you are in the latter category, there are at least some controls in place to allow you to keep limited some of the information you share. That’s a good thing, no doubt about it.

The sad (in my opinion) fact is, however, the privacy horse was out of the barn before Facebook even existed. No matter how careful you are with what you put on the web, if you have had any dealings with businesses at all…and most have unless they live in a cave with no contact with the outside world…THEY will have put info related to you up on the web. In fact, your info is being sold and resold at warp speed. Some of it is ‘annanomized’ so that your identity is stripped out, but there is plenty that isn’t.

On the flip side of all this lack of privacy, if you are trying to dig up information about someone who passed away before the internet (besides death notices and family tree information), good luck getting much detail about them! This may make for some very interesting historical research issues many years from now, even with Google’s fabled digitizing of all books. It may make digging through Egyptian tombs look like a walk in the park!

On Cos’ Little Old Man

This morning, I saw a kindly, white-haired ‘little old man’ at the supermarket.  He was cheerfully going about his business. For whatever reason, Bill Cosby’s recording of years ago, “Little Old Man” popped into my head. It struck me that in the many years since recording the bit, Cos’ has kind of BECOME the ‘little old man!’ Further, it occurred to me that I’m not really all that far down the road behind him…and neither are some who will read this.

Here’s a thought…give a metaphorical tip of the hat next time you see a cheerful little old man or little old lady. Heck, if you actually wear a hat, and are so inclined, give ’em a REAL tip of the hat! Whatever you do in life, someone that’s a little old man or little old lady now blazed the trail for you!