money

If you're a regular reader, you have probably already noticed that our Creatives and our editorial staff are all out of town on a week's holiday in observance of Labor Day. It's just me here today with Wikipedia and a bottle of gin.

I thought I would use this opportunity to level with you. I'm slowly monetizing you. It's a gradual process and some of the changes happen only imperceptibly. Big Media doesn't like to talk about the downsides of end-user monetization. They are real. I think my readers deserve to know. Don't be duped by the privacy arguments and the talk of the usefulness of targeted ads. That's nothing but strawmen and canards to direct attention away from the real and irreversible physiological changes that you will experience.

Look down at that mark on your waist. You've been telling yourself that it's left by the elastic in your pajamas. It is not. Those crenellations are the start of a milled edge. You tell yourself that you've been wearing that 72%/28% cotton/linen blend suit to beat the summer heat but can you remember the last time you actually took it off? Sure, your flexibility has never been better. Are you sure it's the yoga? Look at the illustration below. That's not snail pose.

This is not snail pose.
Photo courtesy RangerRick (CC-SA)

I may have already lost you. Trust me, you're not looking askance at the screen just now. You're starting to look in profile.

The AMA has issued no clear guidance and the DSM spreads the syndrome across a dozen unrelated illnesses. Monetization is rarely disgnosed correctly as the underlying cause of lockjaw.

There are some simple things you can do to delay the onset of a full-blown hard currency attack. I  usually say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but this guidance may cut too close to home with British readers. Close your laptop. Read a book. Take a walk.

If you must go online, try and keep a coinage barrier between you and your keyboard wrist rest or touch screen. Choose coins that offer some galvanic protection. This offers pretty good protection for pennies per day. I find that it takes about six but it all depends on screen size, internet bandwidth, and your weight.

If you read on the go, you might try a combo cell phone/wallet case. I haven't found one that really works so I can't yet recommend one. It's important to distinguish an actual wallet case from new tools like Google Wallet or Apple's forthcoming Passbook. THEY OFFER NO PROTECTION. In fact, these 'services' may actually hasten your monetization by building ever richer records of the patterns of your life. Only your vigilance can keep those patterns from becoming guilloche.