Hasta La Gadget!

It hit me the other day while I was standing at my son’s baseball game. I heard the thunder in the distance, I felt a drop on my arm. I didn’t grab an umbrella. I didn’t go back to the car. No. I took out my phone and checked the weather, like every other parent around me. Hello? It’s raining! That’s the weather. We felt it. We saw it. But there we were, trying to keep our phones dry as we checked the weather.

Apparently, I’ve become a dumb person with a really smartphone because my phone knew it was raining. And I actually confirmed it. “Yep, rain.” That’s what my phone said. By now I was pretty wet, but I guess I just couldn’t grasp the fact that it was raining until my phone told me.

That’s the incident that got me thinking of the other ways my phone has changed my life. I have no idea how I used to entertain myself. I’ve become consumed with word and number games. BTP (before the phone), I didn’t play scrabble every day or try to double numbers to reach some unattainable goal. But now it’s mindless, addictive nonsense that I must do!

I used to be able to attend to a conversation. Now I can have a conversation with six people at once via text while some real human is talking to me. But am I really paying attention to any of it? Nope. Now I’m mindless and rude.

I used to be able to go places by asking someone how to get there. Remember being a kid and driving somewhere far with your parents? It could’ve been a zoo or a museum, or maybe you even left the state. I’m pretty sure when Dad drove us to Disney he used a map, then as he got closer he asked people. And we always made it where we wanted to go. Yes, on occasion we got lost, but we eventually got where we wanted to be.

Now I type an address into my phone and I wait for it to tell me which way to go. In my head I’m saying, “Pull out of the driveway, you know it’s south, just start to drive and when you get closer you’ll figure it out.” But I don’t listen to me. I wait for my phone to tell me what to do. And guess what? I get lost. A lot. I swear that GPS voice is taunting me. Just the other day I was looking for a baseball field. I know, shocker. I was listening intently as she barked commands at me. “In one quarter mile turn left … Make a U-turn if possible.” When finally she said, “Destination.” I stopped dead in the middle of the road. I looked to my left… a llama farm. No joke. I looked to my right… woods. I actually thought for a minute: Could they really be playing baseball here? Of course not, fool! It’s a llama farm. So I kept driving.

I eventually called the coach. There’s a plus to having the phone; I didn’t have to pull over, get out of the car, dig out my dimes or make a collect call, but let’s be realistic, who pays attention to the way they get anywhere anymore. He probably also followed a voice saying “turn left” and “destination.” Only his smartphone must have been smarter because he was on a baseball field and I was, well I don’t know where I was.

I retyped in the address. I tried again. The kid in the back seat was googling “baseball fields in my area.” Definitely a futile attempt. I drove on. I approached the llama farm from the opposite direction. Again, “destination.” What the hey? But this time, I looked around. I saw a police station. I vaguely remembered someone saying that the field was behind a police station. How had I not noticed that on the way before? The telltale sign that said “Municipal Building, ” the police cars in the lot. Was it there before?

I turned, even though the voice didn’t tell me to. In fact, I’m always kind of waiting to hear the satellite voice say, “If you aren’t going to follow my advice, don’t ask me.” But it didn’t. And guess what? There it was, right around the bend. I parked the car, the kids ran into the dugout just in time. No harm done (except for the one who was getting a little car sick from the extra half hour in the car).

I settled into my chair, felt the hot sun on my skin instantly. Then I took out my phone to check the weather. Yep, hot and sunny, that’s what my phone said.

Visit me at www.lifeinthefrathouse.wordpress.com

Look Up is a series produced by The Huffington Post and Cat Greenleaf of NBC’s Talk Stoop about the benefits of disconnecting from our devices and re-connecting with our sense of wonder at the world around us. If you are taking steps to unplug and Look Up, email thirdmetric@huffingtonpost.com to share your story. And use both hashtags #LookUp and #ThirdMetric to share photos on Twitter and Instagram of the things that inspire wonder in you.

Along the lines of that the-world-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket men’s rights activist conference the other weekend, we present what has to be one of the most horrifying video games to be released this year (and hopefully ever, though we realize that’s far too much to wish for). Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed is a Japanese “adventure” game that will be making its way to PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PS Vita this August — and our humble opinion is that you should never let anyone you love/care about/even kinda know/saw one time on the street play it.

So, *spoiler alert* (that is, if the title didn’t already give it away), here is the plot: You’re a young man (because, duh) and you’re charged with identifying and destroying bloodthirsty demons that have invaded Tokyo. Seems like a valiant if a bit overdone plot line, no? BUT WAIT FOR IT. Many of the “demons” you’re supposed to vanquish take the form of young girls. And the tried-and-true method for kicking their asses/saving Tokyo is to take their clothes off.

Apparently, ripping off the clothes of these demon-Selena-Gomez-look-alikes exposes them to the sun, which kills them. Recap: instead of vanquishing scary, grotesque, evil, or otherwise at least kinda-equal-in-size-and-stature enemies, you’re stripping teenage girls down to their panties. Worse (oh yeah, there’s a “worse”)? The game makers are creating a sequel that allows multiple plays to strip “enemies” together — aka, gang assault, yay!

And, oh shit, buckle up because there’s ANOTHER what’s worse: the PlayStation 4 version allows people watching the sexual assault simulator (oops sorry, we mean game) to control the undergarments of the random female characters that inhabit the world. Viewers utilizing PS4’s Twitch and UStream broadcasting features can type “panty” in the chat feature and a random (we’ll reiterate: young) girl will drop trou. Typing “panty jump” causes panties to rain down from the heavens and “panty around” surrounds the player in a ring of undies. We can’t even.

Upsettingly but unsurprisingly, many of the reviews of the game center instead on its faithful recreation of the real-life Akihabara — a district of Tokyo. The most a (female) reviewer says on the, ahem, possibly totally problematic plot line of the game was:

That isn’t to say that Akiba’s Trip does not shy away from debauchery; fan service of the anime/manga variety was definitely present. Girls dressed as maids and unavoidable panty shots were just some of what I encountered.

What instead the reviewer focused on — or as she says, “what surprised me the most” — was the “touch of self-awareness the game alluded to,” because it’s set in Akihabara, an apparent “bastion of consumerism” and our hero and protagonist “was thrown into his predicament as a result of his obsession for collecting figurines.” Huh. So that social commentary on consumer culture is what’s salient here?

Another female reviewer reports: “After hearing the plot, I was bracing myself for fan-service fluff but was pleasantly surprised to find that this was more comical that perverted.” Is that supposed to make us feel relieved!? That this misogynist women-derobing theme is so common as to be taken as frivolous instead of horrifying?

I’ll readily concede my non-gamer status (though not to throw shade on lady-gamers — get it, girls!), but of course I know the industry has a bit of a reputation for catering to, ahem, the male gaze (shall we delicately understate). But we are freaked the ef out that if this game is raising so few red flags among those in the community, it can only mean that this kind of dangerous “woman = object best served rendered naked” theme is so prevalent that it hardly warrants an eyebrow raise. Just the kind of normalization of sexualized violence against women we need in a world where one-in-three women faces violence in her lifetime. Just what we need.

This story by Kelley Calkins first appeared on Ravishly.com, an alternative news+culture site for women.

Robot journalism has gone from being an idea of the future to a real-life practice being utilized everyday in some newsrooms. But with more and more news outlets turning to technology to crank out stories, one has to wonder what the human journalist is to make of it all.

New York magazine’s Kevin Roose noted in a piece on Friday a recent AP story summarizing Alcoa’s quarterly earnings that took less than a second to produce. It was written by a robot.

Associated Press is one of a few news organizations to jump on board with robot journalism, using a program known as Automated Insights to write breaking business stories at an incredibly fast pace. Whereas human journalists might produce around 300 stories in a set time frame, the automation technology can produce as many as 4,400. The Los Angeles Times used robot journalism in March to break a story about an earthquake in the California area. The technology proved its worth: LA Times had the story out in just about three minutes and beat out every other news outlet.

In June, Japan took the idea of robot journalism to the next level when it created the very first robot news anchor: an android that could arguably read news stories better than humans.

It’s not hard to imagine then that there would be some speculation and fear about robots coming into the newsroom practice and taking over the industry. Journalism has been named one of nine professions that humans will eventually lose to robots. The Examiner wrote that AP’s Automated Insights “will replace human journalists this month.” “Computers could soon replace Australian journalists,” the Australian also reported.

But maybe journalists shouldn’t be so afraid after all.

Roose, for one, is an optimist. He argued that the robot-generated stories still lack in talent and creativty, skills that only humans can bring to the writing and editing process. He said that no robot, at this point, can contextualize, piece together, and create “original, evidence-based conclusions” like humans can.

“Not only am I not scared of losing my job to a piece of software, I think the introduction of automated reporting is the best thing to happen to journalists in a long time,” he wrote, adding that robots can deal with the “miserable” and “excruciatingly dull” stories that “humans hate writing anyway.”

Bodypainting has come a long way from scrawling Obama’s visage on our naked bodies.

Experts like Gesine Marwedel — whose body art is featured below — are integrating the human form into their work, and we can’t get enough. Marwedel’s surreal depictions of animals, the human body and nature will have you wondering whether you’re actually looking at a human body.

“Body painting is not just paint to a living canvas; it is receiving the body shapes in the design, painting on and with the body,” Marwedel says on her website (in German). “It is the transformation of a human into a breathing, moving, living work of art.”

Photos by Thomas van de Wall

By: Chad Brooks
Published: 07/11/2014 08:43 AM EDT on BusinessNewsDaily

Co-worker friendships could be the key to getting the most out of your youngest employees, new research suggests.

Nearly 60 percent of workers ages 18 to 24 say friendships in the workplace make them happy, according to a study from LinkedIn. Additionally, 50 percent say work friends keep them motivated, and 39 percent say work friends make them more productive.

It’s not just millennials who enjoy having friends in the office; nearly half of all the employees surveyed believe they are happier when they are friends with their co-workers.

“Relationships matter because they help us feel connected, making us more motivated and productive,” Catherine Fisher, LinkedIn’s director of corporate communications, wrote on the company’s blog. “It’s much easier to share feedback with someone if you have built up a solid rapport, or ask someone for advice if you have invested in the relationship.”

The research revealed that personal relationships among co-workers have evolved in recent years. Nearly 70 percent of millennial professionals are likely to share personal details — including salary, relationships and family issues — with co-workers, compared to only about one-third of baby boomers.

This shift in personal relationships from generation to generation is also affecting how employees communicate with their bosses. The research discovered that one in three millennials have texted their manager outside of work hours for a nonwork-related issue, compared to only 10 percent of baby boomers.

“I’m not suggesting we all start texting our managers at any hour about our latest crush or favorite new shirt, but it does indicate that our growing workforce wants to have more of a connection,” Fisher wrote.

Fisher offered several tips to help managers who aren’t comfortable with becoming too personal with their employees, while also helping to ensure their millennial employees feel connected:

• Don’t limit conversations to email or formal meetings. Take awalking meeting. Walking meetings are part of LinkedIn’s culture, and they are popular because people tend to relax during a walk, which allows for a more open and creative discussion. Plus, not having a phone or computer interrupt you every second allows you to be more focused on the person you are talking to, and ultimately more connected, Fisher said.
• Take an interest in their personal lives. While you may not want to give relationship advice, you should have an interest in your teammates as people. Take a few minutes during every one-on-one meeting to connect on a personal level. If your colleague always jets out with her yoga mat, ask her about it. Work is only a part of who people are. If you get to know people’s other passions, it may give you a glimpse into what motivates them.
• Congratulate, share and like. A simple gesture on social media can do wonders for employee morale. Think how great it feels to get “a job well done” email from your boss, and then imagine having the same recognition shared with your network. It feels great to get acknowledged for your hard work, and by sharing it publicly, you also help to build your professional brand.

The study was based on surveys of more than 11,500 full-time working professionals from around the world.

Originally published on Business News Daily.

• 6 Ways to Handle Annoying Co-Workers
• Quiz: How Well Do You Know Your Co-Workers?
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