In an Era of ‘Smart’ Things, Sometimes Dumb Stuff Is Better
I would say that <i>usually</i> the dumb stuff is better. People are sometimes surprised (since I work in IT) that I am against putting too many functionality in stuff.<p>First example: in my experience, there is nothing better than a blackboard for explaining a subject. I have never seen a blackboard that does not work. I also have never had a smooth experience with a smartboard (for starters, it has to boot and the projector has to be on and connected which just takes some minutes), and I have rarely had a good experience with whiteboards (usually the markers just don&#x27;t work well, and there&#x27;s no way to see that beforehand, so you end up trying a lot of them).<p>It also irritates me intensely how often it is assumed that you&#x27;re <i>always</i> connected to the internet. Games nowadays not only have mandatory updates, but also require you to be connected. I used to play games once a week with a friend, and the experience just sucked. Call of Duty almost always had a multiple gigabyte update waiting for us, so that we had to wait half an hour to play (even though we didn&#x27;t play online). It has happened multiple times that the internet didn&#x27;t work, and we just had to find something else to do.<p>Then, smart TV&#x27;s have some of the same problems too. I have had some new experiences since my roommate bought a 4k monstrosity with ambilight (which only purpose seems to be that ensure that no-one can concentrate on something else when the TV is on). I have never had to wait multiple minutes to turn the TV on before. I have never had a TV crash on me before. I have never been confused by a remote control before (the remote control has a button with a triangle symbol to go to all apps, and some other buttons with symbols I have never seen before, and there are two different places with apps - some of them are the same while others can only be found in one place). The TV also boots with the sound very loud, and I have to wait until the TV is fully booted until the sound can be adjusted. Which in practice means that I can&#x27;t watch TV after my roommate goes asleep at 9:30.