How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood…with a computer?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/computer-precision-for-power-tools-novelties.html?ref=technology

A Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently created a sophisticated tech-tool that will thrill those who enjoy crafts and construction.  Indeed, Ilan E. Moyer launched a “computerized addition to power tools that automatically performs precision measuring and cutting.”  Equipped with a camera, motors, and a video screen, the device guides individuals as they overcome the tricky task of shaping wood.

My reaction is scattered.  First, I do applaud those devices that permit everyday men and women to perform specialized and inaccessible tasks.  In a sense, such technologies expand our independence and equip us with the confidence and capacity to develop ourselves and to diversify our capabilities.

How do you feel after you accomplish a notoriously thorny activity?  I feel exceptional.  When I manage to assemble a seven foot kitty playhouse or to untangle an impossibly jumbled necklace, I feel exceptional.

This tool offers us a few more opportunities to feel exceptional.

However, I can never fully rejoice when yet another specialized skill becomes technologized.  Goodbye artisans.  Goodbye experts.  Goodbye Etsy vendors.  Goodbye to all those individuals who make a living carving, sanding, manipulating, and perfecting wooden art, accents, and sculptures.

Goodbye to our differences.  Goodbye to those unique and inimitable talents that distinguish us and that colorfully beautify the mosaic of mankind.

This seems extreme, but isn’t it true?  When everyone can perform a task, we lose our appreciation for it.  I may be making too much of a GPS for woodcutting but I can’t help it.  If When this device reaches the market, the skillsets of men and women will grow in resemblance as those same men and women wither in diversity.

The Directional Distress that is GPS

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/technology/gps-and-human-error-can-lead-drivers-astray-digital-domain.html?ref=technology

This article presents the results of a study conducted to find the true source of GPS failures.  When we miss turns, select incorrect lanes, and beg the darn contraption to recalculate, does the fault reside with the technology or with the self-proclaimed techies who abuse it?  According to research performed by a professor-student team, the blame can be assigned to the flawed human users.  Apparently, human error explains many of the directional difficulties experienced by the subjects of the study.  Whether the surveyed drivers were programming incorrect destinations into the GPS or gazing at the screen for 200 milliseconds too long, they were the primary causes of their geographic distress.

The study also revealed that voice-only instructions are more effective because they eliminate the disruption of a colorful and diverting screen.  However, drivers responded to this revelation with the unrelenting assertion that they “felt anxious without [a screen].”

My thoughts?  When did paper maps lose all credibility?  (You will swiftly find that I am hardly technology’s most earnest enthusiast.)  Anti-technology sentiments aside, however, I find it troubling that, when confronted with research that confirms the distraction of a GPS screen, drivers childishly maintain that they require one.

Why does a screen sooth us?  Does the four inch LCD perched on our dashboards remind us that we are not without resources?  That we are not alone?  Are we that dependent on technology?  Though I admit to using (and even relying upon) a GPS, I would be willing to adopt voice-only instructions, especially if assured that they are safer and more effective.

But this query is an interesting one.  Do we regard screenless technology with the same reverence as those devices that boast a vivid display?  Hardly.

Somehow, “no screen” has come to mean “no fun.”