Pet Peeves
Digital Devices
Topics covered in this document:
Introduction
Do we really need to be absolutely accurate, down to the second? Do
I really need to know how much I weigh, down to the tenth of a pound or
kilogram? How does it improve my quality of life to know the exact
outside temperature?
What is this fixation with precision? We don't live in a precise
world ... so why are we replacing all those perfectly good analog devices
with digital devices?
Okay ... my job is with computers. I love them! They're wonderful. So
what am I complaining about? Well, it's all those digital devices that
don't add that much to my life.
Digital Cameras
Do you think we'll ever have enough pixels in a camera to match the
millions of crystals per square centimeter in regular film? Will a pixel
be able to offer a near-infinite range of brightness? Let's get serious
here.
Sure it's nice to have an instantly viewable picture on the back of a
digital camera ... and we can send digital photos to our friends and
family via email ... or put them on a CD. But what do they do with them
then? Huddle around the computer every time someone wants to relive old
memories?
For permanent photos, people still print them out. But I guess it does
spread the cost over more people. Instead of me paying for reprints, I can
just send the digital copy and make everyone else pay for them. It works
out okay financially ... until people start sending digital photos to me.
I have several CDs on the shelf with family photos on them. I looked at
the photos when I got the CD in the mail. But I'll probably never put the
CD in my computer again to look at them.
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Dare I admit I do own a Nikon digital
camera?
Digital Watches
And what about those digital watches we're so fond of?
Ask someone the time and you won't get an answer like "a quarter to
six." No. You'll get "it's five forty-seven," or some such answer. Does
that mean I've somehow lost a couple of minutes, thinking it
was really "5:45" instead of "5:47?"
How do I even know your watch is accurate? Does it receive a signal
from some time standard to keep it in sync? Of course, with today's
technology, it just might.
And what about it's cousin, the digital clock? How many times have you
lost power in your house and had to go around resetting all the digital
clocks? [While I'm on this subject, why do all digital clocks have to have
completely different ways to set them? Why can't there be a standard set
of buttons on all digital clocks ... in the house and in the car?]
Does it bother you to watch the digital clock on your VCR/DVD click
off the next minute just a few seconds earlier than the digital clock
on your microwave? Even if you sync them once, they're not accurate
enough to stay in sync over long periods of time.
For the ultimate in accurate timekeeping, why not have a satellite
broadcast time sync signals every tenth of a second throughout the world?
And every digital device could be outfitted with a receiver so all I
had to do is turn the power on and within a tenth of a second, my digital
watch or clock would be set.
No buttons or complicated setup procedure. And everyone in the world
would have the exact same time ... well, all except for those pesky time
zones.
Nature is Imprecise
Look at nature. It's not precise.
For starters, the Earth doesn't conveniently go around the Sun in a
precise multiple of a day or of a week or of a month. Wouldn't it be
nice if we went around the sun in exactly 360 days? Then we could have
12 months of 30 days each ... and never have to adjust anything every
leap year. We could have months of exactly three 10-day weeks or six
5-day weeks (though I'd rather have ten 3-day weeks).
In nature, everything gets rounded off ... or approximated ... even
pi.
Just one of my pet peeves. Sorry to trouble you. Even though I love
digital computers, I refuse to buy a digital watch.
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Have a pleasant day!
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