A few days ago, the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV saw a Colbert skit on an apparent report that Gen-Z's forming a taste for "vintage" tech. TSV thought long and hard as to how Gen-Z could know that old tech -ever- existed, because their only information source would otherwise be their smartphones. TSV is also sure that big tech would constrain their algorithms to not include mention of any media tech that existed before 2007, so TSV would think that any search results that a Gen-Z would see onscreen would either disinclude the tech they were looking for -or- display a blurb that says they shouldn't be interested in anything old because One Thing Shall Replace Another. After all, big tech is -terrified- at the prospect of having the old and the new exist together side-by-side. Not only is it a form of competition, but big tech wants to have a -mental- monopoly and not just a monetary one. They're worried about losing social power that TSV still sees them as hoarding dictatorily. So he's trying to figure out how Gen-Z could have ever found out about older tech, and it occurred to him that one thing grownups don't understand about young people is that at least a signficant minority don't value their phones as much as their gaming consoles and gaming laptops. As for the latter, TSV gets the impression that gaming laptops can also be used like ordinary laptops, kind of like before there were smartphones, so big tech's constrained algorithms would have no effect, because they're not searching for info on old tech on their phone as much as on their gaming laptops. That's why contrary to the impression that Colbert's report might leave, TSV's 80% sure that maybe only 20% of Gen-Z would care about old tech, because that's the 20% nerd slice. You got to be a "nerd" in order to show interest, so TSV's pretty sure Gen-Z isn't going to be sexting using semaphores any time soon.

What the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV considers as the 'yammerings' of this one 'futurologist' downplaying the importance of AM radio and also ostensively attacking AM's coalition of the faithful comes across to him as astroturf. It sounds to him something like someone is paid to say as a fake 'equal time' to a point of view some commercial interests worry as enjoying majority support. However, to the futurologist's credit, TSV did -not- hear anything to the effect of, well why would today's teenagers looking at 5 videos at once on Tiktok while filtering themselves with dog noses and dog ears should even care there was -ever- a thing called AM radio? That doesn't matter, because, yes, someone -is- going to ask that question, and TSV considers it to be just as replete with logical fallacies as the futurologist's comments. Now here's TSV breaking down those fallacies. When the futurologist claims that he did not hear any emergency information on maybe a non-representative straw poll of AM stations he tuned to, he may very well have picked out those stations -least likely- to do so outside of EAS, because they're not necessarily newsradio stations. There are also sports, religious, gospel, talk, cultural and even still the occasional music/various station. A lot of the cultural ones are not even in the futurologist's native language of English. There are Spanish and Hindi and Mandarin stations, so how's an English native speaking futurologist supposed to know when an announcement in Spanish somehow doesn't count as an emergency bulletin just because he doesn't understand the language? They're not always going to preface such a bulletin in Spanish with 'Hay una emergencia,' and TSV doubts the futurologist knows enough Spanish to know how that translates into English. As for a number of the stations being 'automated,' he depicts the automation per se as somehow being the same thing as being incapable of putting out emergency information. Some degree of automation on both AM and FM (not to mention Sirius-XM -and- Internet radio) has been around for decades, so if TSV gets the impression that the futurologist is expecting that it -has- to be like how they did it in the 30s 40s and 50s, TSV does not consider that realistic. While TSV also wants to question the very concept of 'futurology' as necessarily a valid science, it's more of a priority for him to point out that radio's death has been predicted ever since TV started showing up in people's homes, and it's still there today. People also predicted the death of newspapers and vinyl records, but they too are still around, though TSV doesn't see them as 'trendy' as Tiktok with its 5 videos at once with dog nose and ear filters. So when someone says something is 'dead,' what they really mean is that it's not trendy enough for greedy companies to try to exploit at that thing's expense. TSV asks that people in general try to look at it with perspective and not hear someone go 'X is dead,' just to repeat that person and go around saying 'OMG did you hear that??? X is dead!!!' Just remember it's strictly a business phrase.

There's a lot to unpack for the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV with the latest Pentagon hack, now that they have a suspect in custody, and TSV needed to first put out a PSA about not relying on your smartphone as a -sole- means of information about current events, which we did here the other day. TSV expects investigators to comb through Jack Texiera's (sp?) social media to find out whether he's either been in contact with Ed Snowden or with Snowden sympathists. TSV's not sure about Chelsea Manning, and as far as he knows Julian Assange is still in jail. But even if investigators don't find any Snowden links, it's clear to TSV that this hack would not have happened if Ed Snowden did not do -his- hacks 10 years ago, thereby making classified breaches more socially acceptable than pre-Snowden, propagandizing to young people that hacks and breaches are somehow a form of social service, biased in favor of 'you're being lied to' or 'you're being spied on,' or just plain 'the enemy has something to hide.' But TSV is encouraged that at least on audio he's not hearing sympathy for the suspect, but apparently also an awareness of how classified breaches are actually -dangerous- to the citizens of the free world. Not every breach is about the Pentagon Papers, and in fact TSV sees it as -the exception to the rule.- It looks as though foreign policy hawks like TSV are finally getting their message across 10 years later. See? The hawks told you so.
One Year And We Are All Still Ukrainian

So are you the kind of person who -only- gets their news through their smartphone, specifically those system notifies? If so, then it's by the Heir's/Tropical Soulvangelical's/TSV's estimation that you did -not- hear about an alert notice cybersecurity experts put out about charging your phone on one of those charging stations at an airport or a mall or any other public space. The alert has said that people doing so stand a greater than likely chance of having hackers access your username or password or possibly credit card numbers. This got TSV to reason that the hackers have already hacked, and in doing so disabled any notifies coming to your phone about security regarding your phone. TSV had continued to listen to business newsradio at 7.30am sharp, and has also reasoned from his listening that public businesses have an interest in encouraging/pressuring their customers into using their charging stations, because those businesses have a relationship with those providers who installed and maintained those stations. To have people not use those stations means that the businesses won't get a return on the services they've paid for. Cybersecurity has encouraged people to bring their own charger to plug into a standard outlet, and TSV also recommends bringing a charging bank for those instances where you don't have an outlet available but you -do- only have those vicarious charging stations available. TSV is encouraged by cybersecurity recommending something old school, rather than that 'retired intel officer' whom TSV caught carrying water for Apple Pay in suggesting tap-to-pay as an alternative to using your credit card strip, as opposed to your credit card -chip-. This all goes to show that if you're relying too much on smartphone notifies as your mostly sole source of news, you're not getting reliable news, and TSV again recommends using an actual radio to listen to A.M. newsradio first thing in the morning.