I’ve written before about ridiculous technology, but I can’t pass up this opportunity to yell at the clouds once more.
Y’all have no doubt heard about the concept of an “internet of all things.” I’m not talking about the quantum-mechanical, interconnectedness-of-all-things that physicists go on about, but rather the push by various industries to make products that communicate with one another.
To that end we already have cars, refrigerators, phones, houses, cutlery, toothbrushes, beer mugs, toilets, and probably even candles, that have embedded microchips controlling the collection and dissemination of data via wi-fi/RFC. Some of these are truly handy, others less so.
Well, now you can add doormats to the list.
Is that some Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door, or just the pizza you ordered? Well, the SmartMat’s gotcha covered.
If you forget all the obvious problems with such a device—the need for batteries, exposure to weather, the fact that nobody stands on your doormat while they ring your doorbell—what you have is a really…stupid idea. A wireless doormat is the answer to a question nobody asked.
Hey, I’m no Luddite, nor a Doomsday Prepper, but having worked professionally with technology for many years, I recognize the dangers of over-reliance on it, or the misapplication of it.
“So what is the problem then?” you ask.
There are a few, but for now let’s forget about the decay of our mental acuity because we rely on computers to do our arithmetic/spelling/grammar for us.
Let’s also overlook our increasing inability to follow a logical sequence of steps to gather, sort, and categorize information in order to diagnose and then solve common problems because of our alienation from the basic concepts and processes that make our world work, because they’re hidden by machines that perform the magic for us!
[Gimme a minute to catch my breath. Ok. I’m all right now…]
The problem lies in the machines themselves.
You see, because designers must anticipate every possible scenario for their device’s operation (an impossibility), the machines necessarily become highly complex in order to perform their PFM. Again, forgetting all the foregoing, the basic problem with highly complex machines is that they break.
Highly complex, inter-connected machines have the added possibility of bringing others down with them. We see this happen regularly in the spread of computer viruses, the loss of financial data to hackers, whole power grids collapsing in a nightmare cascade of failures, etc. You get the point.
Douglas Adams wrote about this concept in his usual amusing fashion. He said—and I’m paraphrasing here: “The difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong, is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong, goes wrong, it will be impossible to get at or fix.”
I offer as a case in point the saga of my poor car. Over the last couple of weeks, my car’s electrical system went haywire. While driving along, the gauge cluster would go out, rendering me blind to my car’s speed, fuel state or basic operation. After two visits to the dealer, who literally disassembled large parts of the car, they finally found a fault in an electronic module that was losing voltage. I hope that was the problem. But I’m skeptical enough about computers that I’m withholding judgement for the time being.
Do we really want a doormat that refuses to recognize our tread due to some programming glitch that then alerts our computer-controlled security system to immobilize the electronic lock on the door, leaving us out in the cold to eventually succumb to the elements or be eaten by a pack of wolves??
No thank you! I’ll use my plain ol’ metal key if you don’t mind.
Then of course there is the very real issue of what information belongs to us, and what is in the public domain. Recently, we’ve been having an ongoing national discussion about privacy and our government’s ability to monitor everything we say or do.
[By the way, did I mention how handsome and intelligent everyone who works for NSA and the IRS is? Just sayin’]
Does connecting my doormat with my neighbor’s washing machine really advance the cause of privacy or even common sense?
I had a conversation about all this with a friend yesterday. We came to the conclusion that whenever we humans embrace a new technology, we inevitably give up something as its price. A price which all too often is not obvious until it’s too late.
Well, thanks for listening to me rant.
Uh oh! My toaster just notified my smart phone that my bagel is ready. Gotta go!
