I am making the case that ambiguity was essential for our survival as a species. I also speak to the role that it has played in my life and specifically my career. I talk about my worries for the human race by removing our exposure to ambiguity and the need to develop logical skills as a result.
Tag: technology
October 9, 2023 – How to Keep From Getting Old
I think that we all want to be comfortable. It’s OK to take advantage of the experience that we have hard earned. After all, why not benefit from the work we have done? It’s not OK to never learn anything again. I know, it is hard to step outside when it is cold and raining and do the hard work but it is necessary for us to continue to push boundaries and keep trying if we want to stay young.
March 3, 2022 – Did You Know that I Hate Technology?
Sorry fans of Tacticool Thursday. It will be back but unfortunately, I have kind of run out of content since I have not been to the range in two months and as a result, I have not invested much thought or expense in that direction. I am going to my local gun club’s gun show this weekend. It is the first time in two years that it has been held and looking forward to it.
Two things this week irked me. The first is that we actually (kinda) have a home phone. It is not a landline but a wireless device that plugs into the phone lines and allows you to have phones throughout the house. This is truly not necessary but we got it a long time ago, when my kids were babies. It was also the time in life that not everyone had a cell phone. The intent was for the kids to be able to access to a phone or even a babysitter. I have also found that I can have a cordless phone in the shop and can see it or hear it ringing when I have machinery running. That is not always the case when my phone is in my pocket.
It is important to my wife that I am instantly available whenever she calls. Me, I like the redundancy factor that it provides. Well, it runs on 3G which is getting decommissioned. So, they sent us a new device to replace the old one (I think this is 4G). All we had to do was unplug the old device and plug in the new one. Nope, not that simple.
I had a foreshadowing that this would be problematic as my parents did this same thing about two months ago. When my dad called me to explain this problem, I really didn’t know how to help him other than call support. Two hours of phone support resolved the problem. I believe that it was something to do with our phone plan and including the new device but I am not entirely sure.
More bad news. I have been using Myki as a password vault for the last year. I have been pretty happy with it as I can share passwords across devices. Consequently, I have been pretty disciplined in adding new accounts and a lot more free with password generation. Meaning I have not been using the same one over and over. I got news that it will be discontinued in a month.
Talk about a major hassle. I spent all the time to migrate from iOS mini Keepass to this and now I need to do it again.
I spend all day in technology. Honestly, the last thing I want to do is spend my evening with technical support. I realize that technology is a necessary evil but both of these things feel a little arbitrary to the customer. I know that both have strong business cases to do what they are doing but technology advances their interests without regard to the customer.
I think that it is a cultural phenomenon. The more an entity shits on it’s customer base, the more polarizing people seem to react. Some people seem to build status in having the latest and greatest. I think about when my iPhone 6 stopped working for no good reason. My iPhone 10 really doesn’t do anymore (at least that I care about) than the 6 did. To top it off, it is bigger than I wish it was. No one from Verizon or Apple could answer why it stopped working. By the way, I was also on-call that weekend.
I am a ‘Apple’ guy because I think the user experience is better than Android. I also appreciate their stance on privacy a hair more than Google. I also think that there products are well made. I thought that my Windows phone was just fine too. However, don’t think that I am in the tank for them or that I even trust them.
End Your Programming Routine: I think what I am trying to say is that I am beyond the technological arms race. I just want stuff to work and work without hassle. Maybe we should simplify and get rid of the home phone, it would be cheaper and less hassle. I guess that is the sign of getting old and crochety. At some point, I will stop online shopping and looking for jobs, etc because it is too much hassle to keep up with passwords and 20,000 accounts.
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