Clare Coffey at The New Atlantis brings us the following. Things Used to Work in This Country: An appliance used to be a machine. Now it’s a bureaucracy.
Okay, so she admits to being a bit technologically challenged. She makes several good points about the longevity of the things we build.
I take it as a vote of confidence that I will never be enough of a nerd (sorry, sorry: high-IQ techno-optimist) to think that syncing the smart refrigerator to the smart TV to the Alexa is a good use of any human being’s limited time on this earth. I like the way simple, sturdy machines unite generations rather than dividing them — because they are capable of being passed down, because their interfaces are built off broad intuitions about a limited range of actions (turn knob, push button), and because they can be mastered via direct experimentation that will not immediately take you down a hopeless rabbit hole of arcana and administration.
The whole thing is worth your time.
And somehow, some way, the stuff that works stops getting made. It might seem laughable to point to a broom,but not so many years ago I could get a broom that would make getting the corners and next to the walls a quick and painless venture. That broom is no longer available. The ones that are? Imposters! They Look like the same thing. But they don't do nearly as good at Getting it. Ya gotta hit it again and again. Like mowing with a dull blade.
ReplyDeleteThe push to get rid of analog everything, the We Must standardize and communications Must be digital? Why? Because digital can be captured, run through a computer, snooped through, searching for Bad Words, unapproved words, the source reasonably placed on a watch list..
By the time They get done with the Internet of Everything They will be controlling our thermostats .