On technology.

This is not a rant. Glad that's settled; now I shall turn it into one.

Technology, where would we be without it? What defines technology? Is a lightbulb? The Large Hadron Collider? Quark interactions? A fruit fly that can fly through open windows? Well, at our current stage of development, it would seem as though technology generally means something metallic, goes beep randomly, and have so many functions you need a diploma to get through the instruction manual.

What fits the bill? Handphones (go beep when someone attempts to bug you,) computers (go beep in order to bug you,) printer/scanners that print/scan "beep" onto what you want, along with an unfortunate dead bug, and Blackberries/iPhones (I'd rather eat the berries and apples than listen to their bugging beeps.)

As you can probably guess from the tone, mood, diction, assonance and Cow knows what else from the above paragraph, I dislike such technology. It should have stopped at the telephone, the personal computer, the car, and the postman delivering mail. Perhaps bypassing all the intervening rubbish to reach the LHC.

Seriously, who wants to be irritated by technology? You hear handphones go beep and buzz about like a hornet in your pocket, the radiation/noise emission disrupts sensible thought processes and indeed, their manuals look like Coptic to me. Think about this: how intuitive and efficient is an input interface with all of about 20 buttons? The iPod: going the extra mile by removing the buttons altogether. Exercise of the modern generation is designed to train thumb wrestling professionals.

Not to mention, all the cables, accessories and "little dongly things", as Douglas Adams calls little widgets and doohickeys. Those same things that claim to interface computer to handphone, 2 pin plug to 3, step down power rating from 2.5 Volts DC to 1.5 Volts AC. They help you charge your phone from anywhere, provided you have a "little dongly thing" for every place in anywhere you might go to. How anyone can multiply these variables of applications, accessories, cables, power supply and add-ons into design, functionality, beauty, intelligence and space-travel, and STILL select a handphone wisely floors me.

Ditto for handheld stuffses; even hands-off things like little metal earplugs that allow you to answer phone calls by talking to yourself. These things look like they could slither into your ear and hijack your brain (attention corporate gurus, we do NOT need handphone-powered zombies, thank you.) Earplugs also ensure that you focus on your music/phone calls without hearing distractions, or indeed anything at all. The volume at minimum is so loud it blows earwax clear into my brain.

Computers. These things are deadly. I'm typing on one of these television screens with typewriters in front of it, and if something goes wrong, you could practically blame it on NASA. Blue screens could pop up at any second; my thumbdrive appears to have a Trojan; my USB mouse is screwing the scanner; the wiring behind the monitor looks like a plastic Afro. If the Internet connection dies, I have to wrestle this Afro into giving me the cable for the router. Ditto for the mouse, keyboard, speakers and everything else.

Technology is easy to recognise. If it comes with an instruction booklet, it could be technology. If it looks shiny and is as flat as a peanut or whatever it is now, getting more likely. If the instructions are thicker than the thing itself, you're fairly sure it's technology; if the object in question ever appears to malevolently malfunction, nail on the bloody head, that's technology.