Technology 10/12

Hey, its Columbus Day. Why do we only partially celebrate this day? We should either do it all out or just quit it all together.

As for the technology, it was an annoying day. First, one of my work trucks decided it needed a new battery. Of course it did this on its schedule, not mine. So at 6:30 a.m. I was cursing the schedule adjustment that had already occured for the week and we had not even made it to 7 am on Monday. Why don't we just go back to horse and cart days? If you start making a list, you soon realize that while the automobile does have its problems, it is far more reliable than any living creature you might attempt to use in place of it. But that is not the issue. The problem is that the automobiles high reliability rate creates dependence and as well as an assumption that it will almost always work. Which then means that we don't usually have a plan B ready for when it doesn't. And we are left with a major disruption. This is not to say that there were not major disruptions in the horse and cart days (like the horse dying) but it might be that one would have been considered a fool to bank all of his farm on one horse. As a new technology emerges and becomes more consistent, we tend to rely solely on it more and more. Will we become so dependent on a technology that we get to a point where we absolutely cannot survive without it? Do we need to worry about maintaining the skills that were required for survival in the past so that they are not forgotten? What are the odds that those skills will become necessary again at some point? Do we focus only on the new skills we need since it is the future we have to survive in and the past is already done?

The only other annoying part of today was trying to get the person from Verizon Online to talk to Verizon Wireless so that my Verizon Landline account could be linked to the other two and I could pay my business account bills for these three in one place. I was not successful today. Tomorrow I will try again with three new inidividuals from each place.