In a recent issue of Time Magazine, which I decided to read from cover to cover, I discovered that a whole lot is going on that I know absolutely nothing about. I know one has to keep up on new discoveries for fear of being hopelessly left behind in a mire of old-timey things, such as reading or figuring out how to run our lives on our own, stuff like that, but some of this, it seems, can actually be done for us by all kinds of super-gimmicky tech advances. It’s helpful, of course, to eliminate drudgery types of time consumers, but part of pop inventions seem just plain weird.
A teeny-weeny home...
I understand how advantageous and money saving it can be to live in a teeny-weeny home of two or three hundred square feet when there might be no other opportunity for a home, but does it have to be so “connected” that it can think for you? Isn’t it a little creepy to know that your house “knows” when you get up and turns on the heat? Okay, so it knows you got up, but does it know why? What if you just took an early morning bathroom pit stop and then went back to bed for another cool, unheated doze? Does it "sense" I'm getting too warm and moderates the heat? It seems that now tech gadgetry can “internet” our homes to think about our needs faster than we can.
Privacy is portable...
It’s kind of scary to think that we can take the “sum of an individual’s private life” on a mini-computer we can carry in our pockets so that now the Supreme Court is taking up the issue of cyber-rights and the notion that “privacy is portable.” Certainly some of us are very aware of video gaming and like to play, but now it is possible to watch professional gamers, both in auditoriums and online, compete for serious money…and sometimes the Evil Geniuses win. Oy! Look at what I’ve been missing!
Working with my own devices...
Still, I kind of like working with my own devices, the ones I still mull over in my own mind, that is. I guess part of my question is: How much of my own life do I want to keep under my feet, and how much am I willing to give over to external devices?
A teeny-weeny home...
I understand how advantageous and money saving it can be to live in a teeny-weeny home of two or three hundred square feet when there might be no other opportunity for a home, but does it have to be so “connected” that it can think for you? Isn’t it a little creepy to know that your house “knows” when you get up and turns on the heat? Okay, so it knows you got up, but does it know why? What if you just took an early morning bathroom pit stop and then went back to bed for another cool, unheated doze? Does it "sense" I'm getting too warm and moderates the heat? It seems that now tech gadgetry can “internet” our homes to think about our needs faster than we can.
Privacy is portable...
It’s kind of scary to think that we can take the “sum of an individual’s private life” on a mini-computer we can carry in our pockets so that now the Supreme Court is taking up the issue of cyber-rights and the notion that “privacy is portable.” Certainly some of us are very aware of video gaming and like to play, but now it is possible to watch professional gamers, both in auditoriums and online, compete for serious money…and sometimes the Evil Geniuses win. Oy! Look at what I’ve been missing!
Working with my own devices...
Still, I kind of like working with my own devices, the ones I still mull over in my own mind, that is. I guess part of my question is: How much of my own life do I want to keep under my feet, and how much am I willing to give over to external devices?
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Essays About Everything is now available on Amazon
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