superfluous technology

Smarter than you, dude–if you were dumb enough to buy them in the first place.

https://leeduigon.com/2015/01/07/how-smart-are-your-light-bulbs/

Yeah, what a swell idea–give somebody, you don’t know who, you don’t know where, control of the lights inside your house. What could possibly go wrong?

As a general rule of thumb: “Smart” means something that will spy on you. Smart meters, smartphones, smart TV–really, you don’t need these in your life. Why anyone would ever want to collect all that mundane information about ordinary people’s lives–well, let’s just say it can’t possibly be for any good reason.

P.S. — I am sorry the Comments are disabled. At the moment, the $#$@%$ computer will not allow me to enable them. It must be a “smart” computer.

My wife’s car couldn’t pass inspection because the computer in it has lost its memory. I don’t know why a car needs a computer. Its sole function seems to be to make repairs cost much more than they used to.

Gratuitous, superfluous technology. Which brings us to “Alexa,” amazon.com’s cute little home gizmo that responds to voice commands of all kinds. Sometimes.

Lately, though, people have been reporting that their “Alexa” randomly laughs at them: you hear “a disembodied woman’s voice let out a short, mocking laugh” (http://www.wral.com/alexa-is-randomly-laughing-at-users-and-freaking-them-out/17404325/) for no apparent reason. One user reported that Alexa “suddenly began listing names of local funeral homes and cemeteries, also unprompted.” Hmm…

Amazon says it’s just a wee malfunction that they’re working to fix.

Do we really need a computer to tell us what time it is, instead of us just looking at a clock or wristwatch? How much technology do we really need in our lives?

Maybe Alexa has good reason to laugh at us.