Silicon Valley can fix anything? — “there’s an app for that”?
“The Perils of Perfection” in today’s New York Times is about techies in Silicon Valley’s who are seeking to develop apps that will debug everything that is thought be undesirable. Flaws and failings will become things of the past.But could it be that not everything needs fixing?
What ever happened to “if it works, don’t fix it”?
A paragraph that obviously caught out eye:
“Even boredom seems to be in its last throes: designers in Japan have found a way to make our train trips perpetually fun-filled. With the help of an iPhone, a projector, a GPS module and Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensor, their contrivance allows riders to add new objects to what they see “outside,” thus enlivening the bleak landscape in their train windows. This could be a big hit in North Korea — and not just on trains.”
Train trips — remember the good ol’ days when we wiled away the hours on trains by counting the telegraph poles passing by?
Let’s hope they don’t come up with products that will interfere with what we Dull Men call Safe Excitement:
• Pre-dried paint? — we’ll no longer be able to watch paint dry?
• Stunted grass? — grass that remains always at a specified height? — we’ll no longer be able to watch grass grow?
• Silent bubble wrap? — we’ll no longer able to hear bubble wrap pop?
• Pre-warped wood — we’ll no longer be able to watch wood warp?
March 3, 2013
