Refuting the Luddite Fallacy

BookContenderI read three long articles this week, authored by journalists from the Associated Press.  Normally, I scoff at FUD, especially as it pertains to technology, and specifically computers.  I’ve spent the lion’s share of my life in communion with bits and bytes.  I’m extremely comfortable with my digital BFF.

But these three articles, under the AP Impact brand, presented a disturbing picture.  If the facts as presented are to be believed, I don’t really need to worry about my job being outsourced.  Instead, it will simply vanish.

AP IMPACT: Recession, tech kill middle-class jobs via the Wichita Eagle

Practically human: Can smart machines do your job? also via the Wichita Eagle

Will smart machines create a world without work? again via the Wichita Eagle

According to these three articles, not even doctors, lawyers and IT  (the latter two of particular interest to my circumstances) will be immune from this trend.

In modern usage, “Luddite” is a term describing those opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.

If only I were a decade older.  Then I probably wouldn’t feel any stress concerning this developing situation.  I would be that much closer to retirement (and/or death).  Can I be nimble enough to survive?

The Luddite fallacy addresses the idea that technological advances can have adverse effects on structural unemployment. Most mainstream economists agree that the benefits technology provides to the economy as a whole (i.e. increased aggregate demand due to falling prices) outweigh the costs of the temporary displacement of particular workers, who can find other work as technology fuels economic growth.

“In Contemporary Thought” Wikipedia Luddite article

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?  Lord knows I have enough stress in my life to keep me up most nights already.  But I can’t help mulling it over.

If we eliminate jobs (is that a Republican’s wet dream?), what’s left to drive our consumer economy?  You can’t sell a house or a car to a robot or a computer.

On the other hand, I don’t want to protect or regulate jobs just to keep people employed.  The flip side (for the Democrats) being that most if not all people would be employed by the government.  How does this different from places like Communist China?

Neither extreme appeals to me.  Always before, technology has improved lives and provided replacement jobs in innovative initiatives.  It seems now that we’ve reached the zenith and the point of diminishing returns looms ahead (unless it’s already here).

I don’t even  have to blame SkyNet for our destruction.  We’ve done it to ourselves.

Nook Color Software Update 1.4.3 (Released Jun/Jul 2012)

I woke up to a green ‘n’ yesterday morning in my Notification alerts on my Nook Color. Even though I use my Nook Color daily, I had no idea another software update was coming down the pipe. The last update arrived in the late Winter/early Spring. First thing I did (on my laptop, not my Nook) was to read the ‘What’s New’ section on the B&N Nook Color Software Updates page:

The NOOK Color Ver1.4.3 update contains new features and enhancements, including:

  • Zoom view in comics and graphic novels
  • 2-Page mode in landscape for viewing PagePerfect™ and PDF documents
  • Other minor system enhancements

Meh.  I don’t read comics and graphic novels, so what do I care about my ability to zoom while reading those formats?

I quickly tested the second feature enhancement, since I had just received my astronomy club newsletter via e-mail a couple of days earlier.  The Reader software loaded the PDF and I flipped the Nook Color to landscape orientation.  The first time I did this, the Reader application appeared to reset itself, taking me back to the Home screen.

So, just to be on the ‘safe’ side, I did a shutdown on the Nook Color and let it sit powered off for a few minutes.  I turned it back on and then returned to reading my astronomy newsletter PDF.  This time, I could see the two page view in landscape orientation, but the Reader application did seem to have problems with the odd page at the end.  In other words, unless there’s an even number of pages to display side-by-side, the Reader application doesn’t display anything for the last page, just a blank black screen.  Once I flipped the Nook Color back to portrait orientation, the final page became visible.

I had hoped that the ‘Other minor system enhancements’ might have improved the wireless functionality of the Nook Color, but alas that does not appear to be the case.  For the most part, I have very few issues with the wifi on my Nook Color, so long as I have access to visible wireless networks, like my own personal ones at home and those provided by libraries or lunch time hotspots near my work.

But whenever I need to access a hidden secured network, I run into extreme difficulties.  My most recent frustrations include a change to the wireless networks provided by my employer.  At the end of May, we completely redid our wireless networks to include a visible internal secured network (for laptops mostly so you can walk into a conference room and not have to plugin a cable), a visible secured guest network (for clients and venders) and a hidden secured network (for iPhones, iPads and other tablets).  For most of June, my Nook Color had no problem connecting to this hidden network.  About a week ago, something changed and now the Nook Color refuses to find or connect to the hidden network.  I’ve created and recreated the connection information a half dozen times with the same results … no connection.  I contacted the network engineer about the hidden network, but he assures me no changes were made to that hidden network recently.

So now, when I get to work, I just turn the wifi off on my Nook Color, so it won’t sit there scanning all day long and wasting the battery.  When I take my lunch break in the break room, I can still read my ebooks, but I can’t check my e-mail or the weather or any other normal activity that requires Internet access on my Nook Color.  I can retreat to the lobby and connect to the free wifi provided by the Kansas City Public Library, but that’s such a hassle.

I have another ten months on my extended warranty on the Nook Color.  By then, I’ll be itching to wipe the internal storage and root it to a true Android tablet, unless I make the jump to a smartphone, like the Samsung Galaxy S III or the Galaxy Tablet.

… And Now For the Rest of the Story

Subtitled: Everything I forgot to mention in the previous post due to time constraints and memory overload.

I did lend a hand, at least temporarily, with reviewing and tweaking the old Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop.  I manually removed over 10,000 files from the temp folder after which my dad showed his brother how to use Window’s built in Disk Cleanup utility.  The laptop has only 512 MB of RAM, but could probably benefit from a memory upgrade to 2 GB if possible.  Both dad and uncle are pricing RAM this week.  The hard drive is anemic at 30 GB (and Office 2007 is fully loaded on it) and is using compression (ugh!).  Without more time and some of my normal utilities, I couldn’t accurately predict if turning off compression would result in a fully utilized hard drive (i.e. no free disk space for Windows to operate ‘normally’).  Granted, the laptop is over seven years old, so I’m not much that gone be done to improve performance without dumping too much money into it.  As with most electronics, it’s sometimes better to cut your losses and jump to new and improved hardware.  I suggested a netbook if 90% of their needs involve internet access (webmail, Googling, weather, news, etc.).

My uncle and I (both avid readers and he’s also an aspiring author) swapped several pounds worth of books.  I’ll do the inventory this evening and start sorting for swapping and trading via BookMooch and my local used book store.  My dad gave us both the evil eye, since I somehow ended up with about twice as many books on the return trip to squeeze into his car, along with the telescope and me.

I spied and watched some local fauna, including a large woodchuck, a small green and gray toad and a pasture of self-shedding sheep and their well trained unsupervised sheepdog.  On the ride down to Winfield, we saw many red tailed hawks in the pre-dawn life puffed up like owls, but later in the morning they were sleek or fast as the glided over the planes in search of breakfast.

And we ruminated squeaky floors and their cures and the consensus became you must pull up your flooring, use screws (not nails) and possible some glue to quiet those squeaks.