Tuesday, April 29, 2008

KISS me, you old fool

There comes a point in an old guy's life when he begins to wonder if all this new technology is worth learning. My lovely bride is the master of the remote (as well as of the intimate, but that's another story). Whenever I turn on the television set, I get as far as pushing the button for sound, and hitting the power button that turns on the TV. After that, all bets are off.

If I hold my mouth right, I can get the weather report on the local Cincinnati channel. If not, the DVR will report that both channels are in use, and to be able to shift channels I'd have to cancel one of the recordings currently in progress. Do you think I'd have the nerve to even consider such a possibility? If you do, you don't know me very well.

It's not that I care, really, because J and I share a lot of the same interests in programs that she records. These include The Daily Show, apparently the only reliable source of media-based news reporting in the USA at the moment, and Deadliest Catch, the story of the rigors that crab fishermen endure in the Bering Sea for the sake of their share of a million dollars or less a season. We root for the crabs.

Video games are becoming so sophisticated that the next phase will be the surround helmet, which will convince the player that s/he has stepped into a real, not virtual, world. Beyond that is 3D computer and movie screens that require no special glasses to view.

Cars that drive themselves, kitchen robots that take care of meal preparation, cranial implants that will replace the functionality of diminishing senses, all of these and more are well on the way to mass production.

If these can all be operated by pushing one simple button, then I say, "Let them come and take over". But so far, it has been my life's experience that more sophistication entails more difficulty. Consider the barbecue, and how it has morphed from a grill over a pan of briquets to an outdoor appliance, complete with timers, rotisseries, warming ovens, side burners and self-cleaning ovens. Just putting one together, never mind learning how to use all its features is a challenge suitable for a younger mind.

At some point many of us feel a growing discontent with the complexity of our daily lives. It isn't necessarily a sign of senility to feel that it's getting more and more difficult to find simplicity and contentment, even though automation is moving the mundane to the periphery of our existence. First, we voted with a shout of assent. Then we began requiring a show of hands. Next came the paper ballot. Then the voting machine. And now the computerized voting station. With what result? More certainty? More fairness? More accuracy?

There's a lot to be said for the KISS principle, "Keep It Simple, Stupid". When the things that make your life easier make it more complex, then something just isn't adding up.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Get a Horse!

Do you remember a song called "Love and Marriage?" It claimed that "they go together like a horse and carriage".

You know, there's a downside to the horse and carriage. I don't date back quite that far, but I did once "enjoy" a ride in a pony carriage, on a farm owned by a cousin of my mother's, down near Picton, Ontario. That was about all I could handle.

My first and only recollection of riding a horse was that pony. I guess I might have been about nine or ten, and, as my dad so eloquently put it, "scared shitless".

When you climb aboard one of those animals, you become conscious quite quickly that you are astride some independent-minded horsepower. That, and the smell. Thank goodness old Henry Ford didn't find it necessary to capture the essence of horse in the horseless carriages he produced. Note, by contrast, that contemporary horseless carriage manufacturers (or horseless carriage dealers) use synthetic "new car" sprays to bring the olfactories in line with the old factories.

This pony was docile enough until it started to move, but even though it was being led around by the cousin using a short lead and tight control, I was more or less paralyzed by the feeling of straddling a rocking bench with ears that constantly turned toward me, daring me to issue any commands that it might challenge.

I did not stay long aboard. "Get me offa this thing!". Amidst the spectatorial merriment, my carriageless horse came to a gentle stop, and I slid down some way or other, smelling of horseflesh and humiliation.

No, it is not a tale of someone who, first time aboard, was thrown, as my dad so eloquently put it, "ass over teakettle" by an ill-tempered bronco. It was more like the gentle repudiation by a knowledgeable animal who totally understood that some are made to ride and most are not. I recall a sound of equine snickering, which, in later recollection morphed into a whinny, only because my pride prevented a more accurate depiction.

Yes, I did go for a ride in the pony-sized carriage, but cannot claim to have enjoyed it. The driver seemed to want to urge her steed to higher rates of speed than I felt were safe. Neither she nor her pony appeared to think that the speed of a normal walk would be worth the effort of harnessing.

My cousin later appears in one of our home movies, riding the pony bareback, chasing the family dog in ever-tightening circles around the expanse of the front yard, and loving every second of it. It is a tribute to her patience and sense of humor that she was willing to lead her fear-soaked cousin around on his gentle, thirty-foot trip aboard such a free-spirited mount.