I'm not saying the tax software is how your info is out there. I'm saying if you have a phone in your pocket, your info is out there. Geo fencing is a thing.

But it's even more basic than that. If you use a credit card, information is shared about your purchases with third party advertisers. The biggest compiler of your information, whether you're on the platform or not, is Meta. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/29/facebook-privacy-monopoly/)

If you use any of those membership cards at your grocery store, your purchases are shared with third party advertisers. If you browse on your phone, that's shared with third party advertisers.

Basically anytime you go somewhere or buy something or search something, that data is tracked.

And while your doctor can't share information about you, most software doctors offices use can share your data with third party advertisers (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/13/health-privacy/).

This is why the attitude of "well I don't use it so I'm okay" is so misguided. It's an illusion of control that you don't have. Even if you take precautions (don't use the apps, don't go on social media, use DuckDuckGo, browse with Tor) you're not actually preventing third parties from knowing your data. We would need our laws to fundamentally change to protect any of our privacy.

If you carry your phone in your pocket you have an online presence.

Geoffrey Fowler at WaPo had a whole series of articles about how even if you don't use social media or Amazon or any other big tech product, through your connections and whatever apps you do use, they can make a profile of you.

Basically the "I don't use it" is immaterial. No one in the US has data privacy

>So if you’re in some smaller city you can still get maybe a great city traffic planner from across the country to come to your meeting and help you work through it.

Traffic is usually modeled in 2D, not 3D. There's no added benefit to a 3D visualization.

I model complicated fluid flowfields and while we've used the NASA 3D virtual reality visualization, it's usually just confusing. It's much easier for us as human beings to process the information in 2D.

The only area where the 3D really can be helpful is 6DOF modeling but again, we're talking a very specific application.

Jenny in accounting doesn't need a 3D representation of a spreadsheet on an expensive headset with shitty cartoon renderings of her coworkers.