SMART? HAHAHA

 

SMART? HAHAHA

Most of you know that I tend to stay on topics concerning today or tomorrow. I do not focus on ‘the good old ‘days. But today I am going to make an exception when it comes to so-called ‘smart’ appliances.

We moved to the country 2 years ago this weekend and we love it. The house that our son built for us (thank you very much!) came with all new appliances, most of them the ‘smart’ kind.

Last week the igniter on our oven went out. The factory warranty was for 1 year. The repairs for a $40 part cost us 1/3 the total price of a new oven. Made me remember what we used to ‘ignite’ the oven by ticking a match to a hole in the bottom of the oven. That seemed to work well for us when I was growing up and I can’t recall ever having any repair guys come out to our house when I was a kid.

My point is, just why in tarnation do we need ‘smart’ appliances for things that can be done by ourselves? I recall seeing refrigerators with computer screens and cameras to tell you what grocery items you needed to buy or what product has expired.

I use the time and true method to test for expired dates. First does it smell bad? Second, if it’s a liquid, does it flow out of the container or come out in lumps? Third, does it taste all right?  I’ve found cans of vegetables in the back of the pantry that were several years past their ‘expiration’ date and used them. No one died from any of this.

Just how many appliances do you need keeping up with your grocery list? My oven has an app on it to give you recipes and to keep up with your grocery needs. I find a piece of paper with a pencil on the cabinet does a much better job and I can take that with me to the store.

I resent these things having control over my life and making decisions for me that perhaps I don’t want or need. Like many of you, I grew up with water straight out of the tap. No filter, no plastic bottle, just a glass water bottle that needed to be refilled from time to time. My refrigerator has a filter on it that requires it to be changed after a certain period. If you go past the expiration period, the ice maker and water dispenser shuts down. What if want to drink ‘unfiltered’ water? Maybe I like it. How come you are forcing me to do something I might not want to do? We have another refrigerator out in the store room. The ice maker on it was a dud, I bet we had a repair guy out to fix it 5 or 6 times. It made me think back to when you just put water in trays and stuck them into the freezer and voila, after an hour or so you had ice cubes.

Some folks have those ‘smart’ thermostats that adjust their heating and cooling automatically.  Personally, I don’t trust those either. If it’s hooked to the internet, then it seems to me the government can decide about how cool or warm my house should be. Same thing goes for my car. My insurance company requires me to install a little plug-in device that watches how I drive and rewards me with better rates. I think I’m a good driver and appreciate the rate I get, but I don’t need ‘atta boy’ compliments via texts each time I drive back from the store. I consider a ‘good drive’ to be one in which no person or object was damaged. I certainly don’t appreciate being given a sad face when I hard brake. As much as I love having a GPS in my car for directions, I do not like it when you make a wrong turn or miss an exit. Looks to me like they could scold you a little better when they tell you to turn around or make a U-turn instead of shouting out ‘YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY’. I already know I’m going the wrong way; I don’t need anyone yelling at me, especially some non-humanoid thing of undeterminable sex or description.  

Last part of this rant is the never-ending practice of asking for a ‘survey’ after you make in inquiry of some sort about something. Let me state up front that I doubt that any one actually reads or listens to my responses and that no survey is actually ‘short’. They are lying to you about this. If you report everything as horrible and ‘worst’ service ever. No one ever checks back to see why you said this. In the space marked for comments, several times I pasted the batting averages for various baseball players of years gone by. Not once has anyone ever asked me why or to explain.

I was going to continue on about several other topics, but Alexa is telling me I should quit now and rest for a while. Perhaps, she/he is right, I need to calm down for an hour or so. I told her/him and she said that was fine with her/him.

George Owell, we are here…it’s 1984 in the year 2026.

Subscribe if you like, or don’t…

See you next week…Peary Perry