the watch of time

Our lives these days are filled with passwords, exacerbated to the extent that we conduct aspects of our affairs on-line.

There are many theories and rules-of-thumb about establishing passwords: use different ones for everything (but where do you safely store the list?), use the same core, but not easily deciphered, pattern so it’s easy to remember (but what if someone figures out the first domino?), frequently changing them, etc.

Once upon a time – notably in the heyday of TV game shows in the 1960s and 1970s – if someone spoke of passwords, they were likely to be referring to the popular word identification game, ‘Password’, which ran on network television for many years, including a while in prime time. (This summer, ABC TV is running a sort of game show renaissance, although only one of its offerings, ‘The $100,000 Pyramid’, really connects to that time in the spirit of a program demanding mental dexterity.)

One wonders, if ‘Password’ can have such a cultural, technologically driven, transformation, how could evolution apply based on the titles of other iconic game shows over the years…

• Jeopardy: the fallout of infiltrations leading to potential identity theft, misappropriated government stored data, unjust incarceration, etc
• The Price Is Right: definitive deals, from market-changing tech mergers and acquisitions to bottom-line (deemed) cost efficiencies from offshore sourcing
• Let’s Make a Deal: a prequel to T.P.I.R., essentially behind-the-scenes edits of the planning and feeling out stages, as parties begin to interact while seeking synergies
• Concentration: identifying one’s ability to stay working on a particular issue, while caught up in the myriad, enveloping tools of social media
• The $25,000 Pyramid: generating interest in connecting geometry to infrastructure and construction, by leaving money trails in exhibits of historical recreations  
• Hollywood Squares: Hollywood celebrities, attempting to escape unceasing demands of fans and paparazzi, form units like soldiers in The Battle of Waterloo
• Eye Guess: the use of phonetic language to ease communicating with increasingly diverse cultures creates a challenging array of double-entendres, and lessons in homonyms
• Split Second: the explosion of information sources acting with competitive abandon contends with one’s reactive capacity to funnel through details to the meat of a story
• Name that Tune: musical expertise becomes increasingly categorized, since almost anyone with cell phone video can create, pirate, or salute themes from famous to obscure sources
• Sale of the Century: on-line bidding and shopping provide never-ending access to a broader range of specialized merchandise or services, making the definitiveness of a great deal subject to the shifting sands of marketing