Why Does Technology Hate Me?
March 25, 2011, By Ron Mattocks 0 comments
Although I can appreciate the efforts to make our lives easier by applying technological advances to basic products, they are, at the same time, putting a dent in my masculine self-image. It’s understandable, wanting to improve the picture quality of a television or the clarity of sound in cell phones. These undertakings are logical. It seems, however, that the boys down in R & D are dishing out payback for all those years of muscle-heads ridiculing them as pimple-faced geeks who couldn’t get laid—not even with a credit card. Now this bionic brain trust “has the technology,” so to speak, and they are exacting their own Revenge of the Nerds remake by modifying common, electronic devices, used by average Joe’s such as myself, and turning them into condescending jerks. Allow me to explain.
The other day I read that hotels were installing a high-tech refrigerator that automatically billed guests merely for shifting its contents. This, frankly, is spiteful. Why is it not sufficient for a fridge to just keep snack-size food and beverages chilled for weary travelers in need of refreshment? I mean is it really necessary to program what was previously a good-natured appliance to now cheat people out of their money like some kind of circus carnie who goads their innocent curiosity over what a seven-dollar bottle of water looks like? I’ve never stayed at such an establishment known for this level of sordid trickery; but I don’t need to in order to prove my point, seeing as how I already own plenty of other equally tactless contraptions.
