My love/hate relationship with technology goes on

My love/hate relationship with technology goes on
                        

I just try to be the best I can be and help others, so I don’t make any New Year’s resolutions. If I want to start something new, I can just start anytime during the year. One thing I have resolved though is to continue my love/hate relationship with technology.

I saw a recent newscast that talked about a technology show and all the great new technologies that are coming out. One is a car that changes colors. Just change the car color to suit your mood, so you could have a purple car one day and decide you want a red car the next day.

It was cool, but why would we need that? That’s right — we don’t really need it. The only practical application would be to use the car to commit a crime. Immediately after breaking the law, just change the color of your car to help avoid detection.

Another highlight was the return of the 1980s-style boom box, and they were complete with a cassette tape player. We don’t need this at our house, even though I found Joe’s old collection of cassette tapes in the back of the closet about a year back because we are old. That means we still have an authentic boom box in the house.

I remember the ‘80s, and my memory of boom boxes is they are very annoying. This was immortalized in the 1986 movie, “Star Trek: The Voyage Home,” in which the crew of the original series returns to 1986 Earth to collect some humpback whales needed in the future.

So in one scene, the crew finds themselves on a public bus where a punk-looking character is blasting music on his boom box. Capt. Kirk politely asks him to turn down the volume, but the punk is not receptive to that request. That is when Mr. Spock utilizes the famous Vulcan nerve pinch, which I sometimes wish I could do, to knock out the punk. The entire bus applauds.

The Vulcan nerve pinch, now there is a technology we could use, although it’s more of a technique. Anyway, I can only say I was very happy when headphones became popular.

But lately I was in a quandary while setting up a new tablet device. After adding all my necessary apps, I wanted to add my favorite solitaire game app.

I love to play solitaire on the computer. It reminds me of my great-grandma, who used to enjoy the game, and she would even sometimes cheat. I can relate. I have my solitaire game set to only get winning deals every time. I am not wasting my time playing a game I can’t win. And if I lose, I know it’s my fault.

I don’t always do it, but I started to read the fine print of the game. You can play this solitaire game for free, but in return you are giving them permission to collect information and track you on your website browsing.

Yikes. I went back and forth about it for about a day. But then how many companies are already tracking me and I don’t know anything about it and I don’t even get to enjoy playing solitaire?

Then I decided I’m not that interesting that this information could be useful to anyone. You’ve read my past columns with not so fascinating topics on cats, truck breakdowns, beavers and fruit flies. I research all this stuff and more when I’m writing.

I’m searching for everything from Ohio Revised Code, historical figures, worms in cat vomit, public utility companies, ages of celebrities and 1970s song lyrics to turkey soup in the pressure cooker. In my history there are two searches I don’t remember making on flamingos in May and July 2022, two on how to write the sound of a jackhammer, and one on the capybara — the largest rodent in the world that lives in South America.

My browsing history already has to make me look pretty bizarre, but maybe I could further mess with the results. Nothing that would get the FBI on my trail but think of the possibilities.

I’m doing a search now for harnessing lightning for fun and profit.


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