Stephen Fry's technology column in the Guardian is best when someone else writes it for him. This week Douglas Coupland, having been sent for review some European gadgets that are useless in Canada, muses instead on the relationship between time and gadgets. An excerpt:
Time is measured in tech waves, and not only do these tech waves demarcate eras, they also define them.
I remember in the 80s when cellphones first started to pop. I remember how, if you saw someone using a cellphone on a street, you immediately thought they were an asshole: gee, my phone call is so important I have to make it right here and right now! Twenty years later, we're all assholes. We're assholes at the supermarket's meat counter at 5:30pm, phoning home to ask if we need prosciutto; we're assholes driving in traffic; and we're assholes wandering down the streets. And with cellphones and handhelds, we collapse time and space and our perception of distance and intimacy.
Link: Dork Talk: Douglas Coupland.
Recently Jeannette Winterson tested out some "beauty machines":
What no one needs is a thing called the Hydro Test (£24.99, from iliftuk.com).
This mascara-tube size device claims to measure the moisture content of your skin. You press it against whatever bit of the body you long to reveal its watery secret, and the digital display pops up a number that corresponds to a table that tells you just how desiccated you are.
I tried this all over my poor old bod, and the reading was so dismal that I felt compelled to ring my friend who is a GP. She advised immediate hospitalisation and a saline drip. Crestfallen, but determined to further my experiments for the sake of Guardian readers, I tried the thingy on my cat - I can tell you now that it doesn't work through fur. Luckily, this cat had recently had a little shaved patch at the vet, so I tried it on that. Result? Cat obviously ready for taxidermist.
Taking my dried-out self and my wrung-out cat to the pond, I laid a chamois-leather car sponge (skin, right?) on the surface of the water. The Hydro Test revealed that what I have always called the pond is, in fact, a sandpit. At this point I thought of chucking the thingy straight in the bin where it belongs, but it has a disclaimer on the info that says it mustn't be disposed of via "the waste stream". I expect to see lots of these at Bring & Buy sales quite soon.
Link: Dork Talk: Jeannette Winterson - Beauty Machines, and see also Dork Talk: Jeannette Winterson - Camcorders.
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