technology

It's been a long time since I've written about my identity series.

I actually wrote "technology, architecture" but I'm not sure why, unless I was trying to cheat and keep the list short.

Technology fascinates me.  It scares me a little (those quadrocopters from the GRASP lab, the Terminators from those Terminator movies) at times, but we also have some pretty neat stuff.  I can talk to my car and it plays music or gives me stock quotes.  Unless my daughter's in the car, then it just repeatedly says it can't understand me.

My phone tracks my sleeping, maps my walks and runs, helps me count my calories.  And we're on the cusp of some pretty interesting stuff, from autonomous cars to augmented reality to 3D printing all becoming commonplace technologies.  Social media, email and instant messaging keep us connected. DVRs and the internet make it possible to find nearly any non-CBS show to watch whenever we want.  Friends of mine have published books and made money.  Pandora (or iTunes when running) means never having to listen to terrestrial radio again.  Sure, I get ads for car dealerships in the mid-Wyoming area, but they're of such low production values that even they are entertaining.

It's such a far cry from the olden days when we were growing up.  We were technical laggards, with rotary dial-up phones leased from the phone company in industrial olive green and no VCR until we won one.  I remember my first portable CD player - it took 10 AA batteries.  Even today, we still have CRT non-HD TVs, but that will eventually change when they die and we're forced to upgrade.  By then they'll be super-thin OLEDs you tape to the wall or something.

Right now I aspire more to the technologically cutting edge than I am.  I'd love to be messing around with a pair of Google Glass(es?) but it's not the right move financially.  It seems like more and more, though, it's less about the hardware and more about the software.  Which also makes me a little sad that I'm no longer a proficient programmer.  I'd love to get an Arduino and start making stuff, but who has the time?  Maybe in a few years.

In the meantime, I follow a few blogs, am excited at the types of creativity people come up with and one day hope that I can string a few things together to automate my house more and simplify my life by putting more on autopilot.  In the meantime, Remember the Milk and Evernote will augment my brain so long as I remember my passwords.