Toney ordered us two Ancestry DNA kits on a whim this past weekend. It’ll be interesting to see the results, ’cause it’s all a big mystery to me. I think our branch of the Kay family has lived in West Virginia since long before there was a West Virginia. We’re not really sure about our country of origin. At least I’m not. And my brother, who is really into genealogy, can’t pinpoint it either. So, I don’t know how accurate these things are, but it’ll be fun to see what it says. My mother’s side has some obvious Italian, so that should be in there too. I’m thinking England or Scotland, and Italy. But we’ll have to wait and see.
Toney, on the other hand, supposedly has some American Indian. I’m skeptical, and so is she. It’s something her father insists is true, and we’ll find out shortly. I hope she has enough that we can be awarded a casino. Is that how it works? They just hand out casinos? I’ll have to do more research on it.
Anyway, the kits should arrive today. Then our DNA information will be out there to be used against us by a shadowy Deep State or whatever. I know people who believe that, and the thought passed through my mind, as well. I’ve heard people on the George Noory radio show say they’d only submit their DNA info at the point of a gun, etc. etc. They seem to be physically distressed that the “sheeple” are lining up — and actually paying for the privilege — to open this Pandora’s Box. And you’re the world’s biggest fool if you shrug and say, “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Oh, you’ll see. You’ll see real soon.
Obviously, I’m not that paranoid. I’m sending that shit in immediately. I want to check out the questionable-at-best info that comes back. And if I get railroaded into taking the fall for a string of 1987 prostitute murders in the Pacific Northwest, I guess I’ll just cross that bridge of whores when I get to it.
How paranoid are you? And what are you paranoid about? My friend Steve pays for everything with cash, which seems exceedingly paranoid to me. But whatever. And I know many people who are highly skeptical of those Alexa devices. Including my wife. But where would you put yourself on the paranoia spectrum? Do you have your entire property under 24-hour surveillance for instance? Please tell us about it, won’t you?
I get paranoid at work sometimes, believing there’s “something up,” and that something undoubtedly involves me in a negative way. Oh, I can concoct some conspiracy theories like a champion. But I don’t walk around thinking I’m being watched by the government, or a den of thieves, or anything like that. What about you? Please tell us about it in the comments.
And I released a new episode of the world-famous West Virginia Surf Report podcast last night. You can listen here, or wherever you get yer podcasts. Here’s the summary:
In this one, I tell you about the just-passed weekend o’ near-perfection, the one hour of physical work I put in that nearly destroyed me, the final episode of the great HBO miniseries ‘Chernobyl’ and the unlikely scene I’ll never forget, and our purchase of two Ancestry DNA kits on a whim. I also respond to another question left on the hotline. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for listening.
I’ll see you guys again on Thursday or Friday.
Have a great week, my friends!
Now playing in the bunker
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I don’t know about paranoid –
But there is constant crime now in the neighborhood where I live. Along with people tearing open trash bags every night.
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
I’m not paranoid in the slightest, but I wouldn’t hand over my DNA to a corporation.
I let the Clear company scan my retinas, derive a facial model, and make a copy of my fingerprints so that I could get through an airport in time to catch a plane recently, and it did occur to me that I was going down a slippery slope. If Big Brother (or whatever) is watching me, He must be pretty bored by my lifestyle…..
Our neighborhood has a NextDoor group and it is fantastically paranoid. Every car that drives down the street (in a 500+ house neighborhood) is a burglar casing properties, and heaven help the person who dares walk down the sidewalk and slightly turn their head to the right or left. Burglars! Kidnappers! Salesmen! It’s ridiculous.
I would only rate myself a 4 or so for paranoia, but I still don’t think it’s a great idea to randomly submit DNA to an unsupervised entity who could in turn could do whatever they want with it. There are so many computer errors made every day by virtually every company using a computer that it wouldn’t be hard to envision one’s DNA going into a database and accidentally being crossed with someone else’s name – potentially that mass whore-killer. And we all know how internet-based companies share e-mail addresses and mailing lists. You can’t buy anything without getting an advert from some similar company a few days later. And lets not talk about the way advertisements for something you’ve recently bought suddenly start popping up on every site you visit. Okay, so maybe 4 is a bit low….
I have lots of friends doing that whole DNA ancestry stuff, and while the premise intrigues me, I’m not about to hand over the keys to my genetic makeup to anybody.
I just don’t trust them to protect my info, and not to sell it.
I don’t necessarily think I’ll be charged for some random crimes, but I do fear what insurance companies could do with that information.
23 and me sold access to Glaxo. ummm No thanks.
I won’t do the DNA thing because as I understand it, most genealogy companies are owned by or tied to the Mormon church. That tickles my paranoia hairs.
I’ve always been a trusting type and have no desire to harm anyone who isn’t trying to harm me. And I tend to think that everyone else is the same.
Well, as I age I’m very slowly learning that people are bastards who want to stick it to everyone else for reasons that are, to me, unfathomable. I’m finally learning that trusting anyone who isn’t me is probably a bad idea.
I also dislike the erosion of everyday privacy. I’m mild-moderately paranoid about the apps on my phone and my phone in general. I max my privacy settings and don’t allow anything to tie into the GPS. I really don’t like the idea of anyone knowing where I am all the time even if I only go to work and my home.
As I recall, a few years ago you had a neighbor shooting at another neighbors house and a couple of police officers knocked on your door and asked if you had any guns in the house. That would crank my paranoia up to 11.
I had to be finger printed to be licensed to work in my field and it made me uncomfortable.
I prefer to retain my anonymity as much as possible. If I could figure out a way to have no digital foot print I’d be fine with it.
If I could choose a superpower it would be invisibility. That way I’d be assured I could pass through the world unnoticed. I’d also be passing into NFL cheerleader locker rooms, but that’s a whole different thing.
Fred Zain
Only a medium-low level for me, just the common sense stuff. Of course the definition of “common sense” is that it’s those things that make sense to me. I’ve never been on Facebook, but I am on Linkedin. If you have a smartphone, then either Apple or Google is tracking your every move.
I’m mildly curious about my DNA, but not curious enough to send in a kit. Any data of yours that a corporation has in its possession WILL be compromised. It would be cool if we could pay for companies to not “share” our information, but it seems that this is not happening. Here’s an article by Paul Vixie: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/infosec/i-want-a-new-drug-1-1-1/ – paragraph 6 has the money quote: “…personally identifiable information of our employees as they travel the world was simply too valuable for [the service provider] to leave in our hands – they can’t compete in the global data marketplace if they don’t extract every possible one or zero from any information that comes into their orbit. Note that this is a paid commercial service, and I would pay more to keep our employees’ privacy safe, but that option has not been and will not be offered to us.”
My Mom’s sister sent in her spit and was told, against our family lore, that she has no American Indian blood. If my Granddad were alive, he’d give them the what-for.
A relative recently did one of these tests too, and family lore was he (and his Mom) had Native American blood. Nope, none, but a nice dollop of Persian. Nobody knows (or wants to fess up) why. LOL.
I have read that when you submit for one of these tests you have as good a chance of being found to be part chimpanzee as you do of getting an accurate result. Just saying….
Well I should hope so. Chimpanzees and Bonobos are our species’ two closest relatives. We share about 98% of DNA with chimps, and maybe minutely more with bonobos (still some debate about which is closer). The three species unquestionably have a common ancestor species. We’re nearly as closely related to chimps as we are to Neanderthals or the Trumps, but I’m not sending any of them Fathers Day cards. That Hallmark shit is getting expensive.
John
I’m mildly paranoid. I’m ok with Siri but would never trust Alexa. My house is under 24 hour surveillance, but I also have all the doors with keyless locks on them. I haven’t used a house key in 7 years. I suppose someone could hack into my smart home system and get into my house, but there’d be a record of it on all my smart devices and cameras. I fall into the “I don’t want my DNA out there” group, but the man already has it as I’ve been hauled in for a DUI in the state of Texas where they take everyone’s DNA and my dad has his DNA out there because he’s been doing some super-deep dive into genealogy. He even bought a massive computer to sequence DNA results off of genealogy databases. He’s turned up family members who were products of extramarital affairs, located the families of those cheaters and gotten them in touch, found family members that were descended from former slaves owned by former family members… every time we talk there’s new revelations about how jumbled up our WASPy family is.
About two wives and a hundred cases of bourbon ago I went to college and studied social science. I thought I remembered what paranoia is, but I refreshed my memory in the Encyclopedia Galactica and, sure enough, paranoia is the IRRATIONAL and persistent feeling that people are ‘out to get you’. That’s not exactly the DSM definition, but close enough. People who worry about corporate America holding details about them and their families which might later be used to sell them items at an inflated price or to otherwise influence them for the profit of the corporation are not paranoid by definition: it’s in the damn corporate charter. OF COURSE that’s what corporations are doing. We’re a little over halfway through the Information Economy; information about people and their behavior is more valuable than the people themselves.
I carry a John McCain flip phone without GPS or Inet access partly to honor the memory of an American hero and partly to defer participation in our collective corporate dance. Of course it’s just a sad attempt to hold back the tide, but it’s MY attempt and I do what I can.
I’m hardly an expert on behavioral or cognitive disorders — I didn’t pursue my studies after college — but the only paranoia I see above is the house under 24 hour surveillance. Good god, I forget to lock doors at night sometimes and I live in a normal, non-gated neighborhood in a house I bought in 1979 and have yet to encounter violence or thievery. I don’t know what a keyless lock is, but I carry something jingly that starts my car and lets me open my front door when I remember to lock it. The keys serve as a handy metaphor for the limits of my reach and for the respect I need to hold for other folks’ privacy.
And I might have made a mistake above. I think it’s actually closer to two hundred cases.
John
Apropos of all things Surf Report:
https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-burger-king-five-guys-wendys-best-burger-2019-6
Highly appropriate. Five Guys is my default choice but I’ve been enjoying Freddy’s a lot recently. And their burgers.
I like the squeeze test. Ha!
Also, I’ve never had Shake Shack. I need to remedy that situation.
I do like me some Shack. I am partial to the Smoke Shack burger. I really like the Shack-ago Dog, as well. The dog is all beef and has a nice ooze after you bite into it.
Some people have told me the Shack seems greasy compared to 5 Guys. Maybe…but it’s still really good. Plus, they have beer & wine!!!
Like johnthebasket , i carry a flip phone with no attachments. I will never get a smartphone, cuz thats what da man wants you to do. Not taking a chance. Paranoid of Big Brother, I guess. Other than that, not paranoid. I will deal with anyone who infiltrates my happy life…….personally.
And I love Black Sabbath!
I work at a campground part time. We have campers for rent for folks that don’t have one. Lady calls the office a couple nights ago scared shitless. Someone was knocking on her door and running away and she says she hears a woman screaming “Help Me”. Long story short (too late) earlier that day the woman had purchased that Google Alexis like thing at Wal. It had been returned and they resold it. The prior owner had put knocking sounds and the screams on it and programed it to fire off occasionally.
I should start a blog about the weird crap that happens in a mega campground.
That ought to be the default setting on those things 🙂
More common sense than paranoia but I’m not willingly having Amazon or Google listen in on my home.