It’s
hard to drive down the street anymore without noticing the
person driving in front of you. It seems as though just about
everyone looks as if they have a wire or an antenna of some sort
protruding out from their ears. Of course, we know this is
simply the antenna of their cell or mobile phone, which seems to
be permanently attached to their skulls. Perhaps it might be
better for all of us if we surgically implanted some sort of
micro device at birth that would make hands free dialing while
driving even safer. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for
progress, but everyone needs to just slow down and smell the
Starbucks at some time or another. I’ve written articles in the
past about observing folks driving to work while putting on
their makeup or shaving and zipping along the freeway at 60 or
70 miles per hour. Now, we have an added dimension of
excitement….around the world conversations with someone while
driving, applying eyeliner and holding a cup of fresh, hot
coffee.
Can you imagine what someone
forty years ago would have thought if you had said this would
not only be possible, but fairly commonplace? They’d have
thought you were a taco shy of a full dinner. Progress is
wonderful to an extent however I don’t care to listen in on your
conversations while I’m at a restaurant or sitting at the
airport waiting for my flight. I am amazed at how panic stricken
travelers get when the airlines tell them they have to stop
using their cell phones for the duration of the flight. The way
they acted, you’d think they would die if they were out of touch
for more than a few hours at a time. First thing that happens
once the wheels touch the ground is for most of the passengers
to pull the old phone out of the bag and check in with someone.
Have we become so insecure in our modern hustle-bustle life that
we fear our world will cease to exist as we know it if we can’t
be reached by telephone for more than a couple of hours? How
sad.
The very height (or perhaps I
should say, depth) of useless technology is a refrigerator I saw
the other day. This $6,500 gadget has a computer keyboard on the
front door along with a camera and is Internet connected. The
purpose of all this you might ask? Well, the keyboard allows you
to enter and list what you have in stock and the expiration
dates of say, your milk or orange juice. I don’t know if it’s
connected to a printer so you can make a list of things to buy
at the store when you run out, but I suspect it does. Now, tell
me who’s got time to enter an expiration date onto some keyboard
so they can go back and review it later?
Can you see yourself sitting at
home in front of the fire, after dinner and saying to your
spouse…”Honey, let’s print the refrigerator contents and review
the expiration dates tonight instead of watching “Law and
Order”? Oh, yeah I can see this happening all over America.
People who might want to do this have entirely too much time on
their hands and need to get a life. These people would be prime
candidates for some sort of community volunteer service. The
really idiotic feature is a camera. So, who needs a camera on
the door of their icebox? Well, it’s so you can e-mail photos to
your friends and loved ones of the wonderful things you’ve
cooked or baked or bought. I don’t know if there is an phone
hookup as well, but you could probably call and then e-mail
photos of things that have gone bad to your friends and family
as well.
“Look Aunt Sarah, what happened
to your Christmas pudding we left in here for three months.” ….
I suppose you can also e-mail photos of your ever enlarging
posterior as it grows due to your overeating as well. I’m not
certain if this unit has a wide-angle lens, but you’ll probably
need it after a couple of years. Most likely it’ll come out on
the next version.
