Memories of the 28th Century

Combination devices always manage to have major deficiencies in at least one aspect of their ranges of alleged utility. Swiss Army Knives have long been exemplars of things that didn’t do anything well but were better than nothing. There are many models of Swiss Army knife, but a typical one has maybe ten implements packed in. A knife blade is fine, but some have a sawblade, and that doesn’t work for something that small. The corkscrew that some have are not very effective; it would be much better to have a real corkscrew. The scissors that some have are a bad joke. Unfortunately, the website for Victorinox was not working well, so I couldn’t even see a full list of the tools on specified models.

It may be nice to have all those things available in your pocket, but it is better to have a small collection of tools somewhere handy and just carry around a decent pocket knife; something that will fill in for many tools in a pinch.

Smartphones are similar in nature. They can do many things poorly, but there are specialized products that do each thing much better. On the other hand, I have been told that there exist tablet computers that are also phones (it’s just a matter of inserting a suitable chip, and I know someone who has such a tablet). The problem with smartphones is that the monitor is too small to be useful. I have nothing against small laptops, but larger laptop computers are preferable, but small ones are easier to carry around.

On some smartphones the only thing that works well is the camera, and we all know from my recent blog (Photography and Memory Problems) that photography should be avoided, because it leads to the deterioration of memory. From what I have seen, the main thing that people use smartphones for is to play games; although I suspect that many of them just look like they are playing games, so that they can avoid noticing what is going on around them.

If one wishes to have portable computing, then a cheap laptop is much more effective than a smartphone, and if one wants a cellphone, then a fair non-smart phone is as effective as a smartphone, and it costs much less.

Similarly, if one wants a decent pocket knife, then good ones are available for under ten dollars, and a clever person like you can figure out how to cut paper without scissors, how to remove a cork without a corkscrew, and so on. These days I carry a cheap knife I got from Walmart for $1.97 plus tax, and I can get by without scissors and a corkscrew.

It is better to have equipment that works well instead of having equipment that costs too much and doesn’t work as well as things that just try to do one thing well. It’s one thing for humans to do several things well, but there is no reason why a portable phone should be expected to do other things well, especially since some of the things they are trying to pack in are quite undesirable, such as near field communications. No, save your money for good wine and get a phone that’s a phone and a computer that’s a computer, and so on. And don't buy wine that can is a good paint remover.

I write like
Cory Doctorow, according to
https://iwl.me/