When High Tech is Low Class

The Mad Scientist lives in a society that could easily be deemed 'high tech'. This blog was written on (or, rather, with the help of) a computer (old and cheap) and has been published by another computer (undoubtedly newer and more expensive). The 'latest' of just about anything technical can be had by those with enough money or patience to queue up for it. High tech companies just love those insane 'early adopters' who *must* HAVE those expensive new toys. We (using the royal 'we' here, of course) generally aren't among that group for a host of reasons.

By 'We' is meant the human inhabitants of the household. The cats aren't counted for this purpose. The feline interest in high tech is predictably limited to: the fridge (food), the microwave (food), the computer (lap time as opposed to laptop time) and the television (the nature programmes). They lead simple lives, catered to 24/7 by the paw-challenged among us. No one has yet caught a cat queuing up overnight for anything. They have more sense.

While We are not Luddites, there is a limit to how much 'hitech' We need in our personal life. Some things are necessary, such as advanced medical equipment, which saves lives and reduces costs. A decent communication network, modern aircraft etc are needed and welcomed. We have never been especially thrilled with flying, but the thought of flying in something made of metal, cloth and glue (like many early planes) is even less tempting.

In our daily personal life, there are choices to be made about hitech anything. So, The Mad Scientist doesn't use a superslick hitech phone for two reasons. The first one is that We really *don't* need any more voices in our head. There is enough noise in there already. Adding more precious/annoying ring tones and incessant chattering won't decrease the entropy of the universe. We like a quiet life. The second reason is that the Mad Scientist has a defect in close vision, which requires a lot of magnification for reading. The microscreens on those hitech phones are useless for anyone with low or no vision. The adverts show the user reading a book on the tiny screens. At the level of magnification We require, only one word could be visible at a time. Not a lot of use really.

Because of the switch to digital TV in the US (finally; other countries did that some time ago), the purchase of a new model was deemed necessary. The old set was nearly 20 years old and its idea of 'colour' no longer meshed with ours. The new TV has about 25 ports on the back to plug things in. We are using one of those ports for the antenna. There aren't 24 other things in the house that need to be connected to the telly. While it is hitech indeed, We just don't need all of it. It goes on, tunes to the desired programming, adjusts colour, picture width and volume when asked and switches off. Works fine! Life is good.

Buy that hitech toy if you must. Just be prepared for it go obsolete that same day. The cats won't care in any case >^;^<

AL

Budget recipe of the day: http://notecook.com/salads/cabbage-salad-2/