Obama Looking for People Who've Never Seen a Computer

...to help run his administration.
Here's one of the questions from the incoming administration's lengthy questionnaire for potential employees:

Electronic communications: If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect if it were made public, please describe.

So, assuming everyone guilty goes to the bottom of the pile, that leaves only Ted Stevens and John McCain to help Obama run the country.

Hannity: HEY! He can't even lift his arms to comb his hair! It's not his fault he can't use a computer!
Jetpacks: STFU, Sean.

Via 23/6.

Why This Depression Will Be Cooler Than The Last One

This one will be live-blogged, tweeted, facebooked and texted. All of your friends getting laid off and looking for work are telling you about it in real time.

Back then, in the Sucky Great Depression, you'd have to wait months for Johnny out in Nebraska to scrape together 2¢ to find a stamp and an envelope. Then he scratched his bad news on a spent matchbook with a gnawed-down rat bone and sent it to you in the mail. By the time you heard Johnny was at the end of his rope, he'd probably already hanged himself. At least now we can say, "Hey, now! Chin up, Johnny! Life's not so bad! There's a breadline I just Googled not 5 minutes from where you are right now. I'll text ahead and save you a loaf."

You'll know it's really bad when your friends don't tweet, email or IM anymore.

Where's My Jetpack? VOL. I, No. 15

IM is one of the greatest things to ever happen to cubicle/office dwellers. Whether it's maintaining contact with home, friends or people a few cubes down, I rank it right up there with the jetpack as far as cool inventions.

Wait. Jetpack hasn't happened yet.







My current gig blocks IM, yet another reason they are devils in human guise.

I have about 6 screen names at AIM. Try jetpackjockey or RadioFreeBabylon.

Face It: There are Too Many Social Options

Got this auto IM this morning from Facebook. I was apparently invited to join by a colleague.

I'm on MySpace in two places. I'm on LinkedIn. I've got Skype. I signed up for Twitter, but in order to put it on this blog I'd have to change my template, which would be a pain given all the mods I made to this template. I'm on AdGabber, a service of Ning. I've got 4 separate screennames on AIM. I get email on Google, Yahoo!, my local provider at home and two different work accounts. I also have dormant accounts at LiveJournal, GarageBand, PureVolume and a few more. I'm signed on to a few forums and stay updated on too many blogs. I just don't want to keep track of one more social media hotspot. I don't care what you're doing 24/7. Nor should you care what I'm doing.

Can we leave some places for the high school & college kids? Must we invade every place and turn it into another noisy midway of carnival barkers, driving the kids elsewhere again? Aren't you guys connected enough? I think some of you would die if you unplugged.

(And I will never play in Second Life. My first life is busy enough.)