Around twenty-five years ago when I was a Real Person with a Proper Job, I worked in an electronics factory. I ran the inventory and production control system from goods inwards, through manufacturing, through inspection, to despatch, via JIT and MRP. I did this on a single computer - an 8MHz Intel 286 with a 20Mb hard drive.
Back then the tech was improving at a dizzying rate and, working in the industry, I got to see a lot of cutting edge stuff as it came out. This, combined with reading far too much cyberpunk and related material, got me seriously interested in the philosophical and social implications of new technologies. The possibilities seemed immense.
Last week I got a new Android phone – It has over 100 times the processing power of my old 286 and over 400 times the storage space. Do you know what one of the most popular things people run on this technological marvel is? An app that lets you simulate throwing a ball of paper into a waste-basket.
Wtf went wrong?
