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pjmorley · Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 3300

Partly inspired by another thread but I do love gadgets.

But... do we create our own little prisons by inventing reasons to rely on them? I never realised that I couldn't live without the following automated time saving efficiency improvements...

The ability to check my emails from anywhere. Hmmm... that's a superpower I can live without.

Knowing which way is north at any given moment... Despite the fact that I know exactly where I'm going anyway.

Knowing what the weather is many thousands of miles away at any time day or night... couldn't live without this one.

Being able to send myself a reminder in order to remind myself that I need to send a reminder to remind of something that I forgot to remind myself of... Indispensable.

I can now carry around with me, the complete TV listings for the next 2 weeks... Whoa, I now now in advance that the TV will be rubbish for two whole weeks in advance.

I can work out to the minute just how long it will take to walk to my care from the office simply by dropping a pin on a map... Even better, I can be made aware that there is no public transport between me and my car that I can pretty much see outside the office window. That has saved me many wasted hours waiting at bus stop I can tell you.

If I do forget where I parked my car, even though I can see it... No problem. I can store simply its location and be guided towards it by the wonders of GPS. That way I can be sure that my memory is still working correctly, although technically, I don't need a memory anymore, well only enough to remember to send reminders to myself.

I can pause live TV, go and make a cup of tea and resume watching where I left off. This is an absolutely fantastic mechanism that allows a 30 a minute programme to last several hours.

So now I find myself in a world where I spend all of my time saving time, looking for new gadgets and new ways to use them to save even more time so that I can spend more time looking for more gadgets that save even more time. And all the time doing little more.

I've resisted the temptation of a smartphone for many years but just recently gave in to the iPhone 4S. If you are tempted, don't do it. There are just so many things that will distract you from having a life...

Draw something? Seriously. How did people survive before they were instructed to guess a word based on a dodgy line drawing?

What other benefits of technology can you think of?

geoffwnz · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 4:11 pm

Mitch Ratcliffe: A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history-with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.

semmickphoto · Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 4:26 am