Tools
If an engineer is as good as the tools he uses, then, whoever built this computer should be shot.
That was just by the by. In actual fact, my brother-in-law is a joiner, and he seeks perfection in every job he undertakes.
So, technologically, when we look at the bigger picture, we should seek this also?
The tools we use to create words, sounds, and graphics hold many hidden treasures.
Sights, sounds and a myriad of wonderful pictures are yours to admire - just by using the right tool to bring them to life.
A computer is a box containing the tools of the trade every Inter Active Technician requires to ensure that a good standard of work is achieved.
Every Bank Holiday, DIY stores are jam packed with those of who would rather stay at home and fit a kitchen than join the throngs on the crowded beaches or in even more crowded pubs. How long will it be before technology will be so advanced, that you will be able to go on holiday, and when you return, your kitchen has been fitted by an all thinking, all doing team of computers?
Phew! What a prospect. Sitting at a bar in sunny Spain, with your laptop on your knee, supervising things at home.
Treat your tools with respect. Don鈥檛 let your hacksaws, drills and other of your favourite pieces of equipment you have used for years feel neglected though. In the future, some magnetic force may enable your computer to issue commands for them to do the heavy work.
This article throws up a few issues about the future: Why can software be so frustrating? Why does it take years for my mother, who is an elderly but mentally lively woman, to learn how to use her mobile phone? Who pays for the development of human-machine interfaces? The users?
Or the bosses who don't have to use them?
There is interesting work going on to make computers emotionally intelligent. See
Or type in Rosalind Picard to Google for more on this.
In the future I'm confident that the equivalent of making sure your chisel is sharp will be to answer honestly when you turn on your computer (called Halle in my imagination) and she asks you "How are you today, Dave?"
Emotional intelligence between humans seems to be in short supply on this planet. When computers have have E.I. as well as A.I. built in, will we simply prefer to spend our time with computers?
When that time comes will we have a moral compunction to treat our tools with respect?
Technology is an artifice- it is the futile attempt by humankind to bridge the unbridgeable gap between the physical limits of a single species and the cumulative ambitions of the human brain.
The only thing that actually matters is the natural world- intricate, self-sustaining web, chaotic continuum of flux, divine creation, however you perceive it.
In attempting to replicate/ decode/ encapsulate, with ever greater complexity, the infinite beauty of nature as a circumscribed, synthetic world, we devalue reality and overvalue delusion.
The failings of technology are inevitable; nature's way of reminding us that we are all frail, fallible creatures whose potential to wreak havoc is far greater than our innate humility on which we supposedly pride ourselves.
Whatever! - what many of us do not realize is that if we just concentrated a little more - meditated a little more - then our minds could do all that technology tries at the blink of an eye!
ps - oh yes just add a little drop of faith!