Rant on Technology

We are all well aware that technology is expanding and in some ways taking over our lives in unpleasant ways, if we let it. Of course advances in technology can be good. GPS helps us get where we want to go and find lost hikers. Computers make finding and transferring information easier, faster, and more efficient. I am certainly happy that I do not have to calculate all the statistics that will appear in my thesis by hand, I think all statisticians are happy to have computers. This morning I was watching the Today Show and they have a correspondent at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Last year I followed the CES pretty obsessively because I was temping for a company in Cerritos, CA that makes entertainment chairs and all of their sales people were in Las Vegas. Anyway, the segment on the Today Show featured a new innovation- wireless electricity. There are panels that send out radio waves that are then translated back into electricity in electrical devices. This made me concerned about proper cell replication, seems ripe to be a new cancer causer…. I say with my laptop perched, yep, directly on my lap. But the correspondent pointed out that it is the same as listening to the radio…. Or the fact that you can listen to the radio because there are radio waves flying around. Okay, I guess. Also I am wondering if you have to get all new electric devices or if there will be adapters. Probably both. The examples they showed didn’t work very far away from the panel that was sending out the waves and it was mentioned that maybe you would get these panels installed under your floor or in your walls. Yikes, a lot of renovation! But it could lead to the resurrection of the floor lamp which I feel is being neglected in favor of sconces and other lighting. The more practical thing they showed was charging stations that are being used or will soon be used in vehicles like police cars and fire trucks that charge cell phones, radios, and other devices without cords.

That really wasn’t where I was going with this! What I am annoyed with is the proliferation of communication avenues, our reliance on them, and their varied effectiveness and reliability. So I have a few examples. When I was in CA for my ten day tour (1400+ miles in a car after an 1800+/17 flying adventure) I knew I was going to be in Fresno to see my grandmother for a period of time. My friend Darryl, who I met at the Long Beach Press-Telegram when I was a freshman in high school and he was a junior or senior at Los Alamitos/Orange County High School of the Arts, lives in Clovis these days and I have not seen him in a looooong time. He is my friend on Facebook so I asked him if he wanted to get together, he did, great. Except that my grandma doesn’t have Internet access nor does anyone near her have wireless and I didn’t have Darryl’s phone number. My mistake, of course, and the amount of time I was there was not such that I could meet up with him. But how easily I forgot about such a ubiquitous luxury as the Internet. Second example, Monday afternoon I was at school and knew that my friend Ryan was working at his coffee shop, The Last Drop. If you live around Milwaukee and you haven’t been there you should stop by try some of his delicious sandwiches, and wonderful beverages. You might even drop in when my baked goods are on sale. He recently introduced breakfast sandwiches and one is named after me- it’s the most boring one ;). Okay, okay enough of that – it is my blog and I can plug who I want to. So Ryan was at work, and I text messaged him to find out if he wanted to do something after he was done with work. I sent the message at 4:57, at 6:15 he messaged me back to say that he would have if he had gotten my message before he left. Hrm. What’s with that? Why did it take more than an hour for the message to get to him? Stupid cell phone companies ruined the potential for some great conversation. Oh wait; I had an interesting, though not great, conversation that evening anyway (see previous post). Okay, I have a third example. It is kind of a meta-example as I have several friends who this example could depict. I have a friend; the evidence would support claims that she is a good friend. But she is hard to get a hold of. I know her email, her cell phone number, her address, heck I could drive myself to her home, I have done it before. I know where she works, where her significant other works. She is my friend on Facebook, and maybe elsewhere via the Internet. We have mutual friends, more than a handful of them. I have, at times, used multiple avenues to contact her with no response. Like a communication blitz. And I wonder, do I have the right email address, street address? Has she changed her cell phone number but left the message there? (Brad did that when I convinced him to switch to Verizon so we could talk to each other for free- he had two phones for a while, but used only one.) Was she getting my messages or not? Was she busy? What was going on with her? My point here is that we have grown reliant on technology: we expect it to be easy, fast, and efficient, but sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the message gets lost, it goes to the wrong place, or we can’t get to it even if it is there. In these times I get frustrated, how about you? Because sometimes you don’t know what’s going on. Did it get from point A to point B? Did I get ignored? I don’t know what it is that we can do about these communication issues. Be patient and persistent is all I can conclude.

In the future: why this blog is called Tri-coastalism and my conversations with Eric about my blog.