This is Technology Bytes, Episode 20 for July 23rd, 2023.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share my brief insights on an interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
Over the first 19 episodes of this microcast as I recently started it, I was thinking in my head that I wanted to talk about technology, technology that I used, technology that I had learned something about, technology that I liked.
You know, whatever it had to do with technology, I wanted to talk about it.
I wanted to talk about episodes of technology podcasts that I listened to that I think they may have missed the point or maybe they said something that I want to pass on to my handful or smaller of listeners.
But I realized the other day that I’ve never really talked about my definition or what I think falls into the technology arena.
So we use technology every day, and there’s all different kinds.
So in my mind, the definition of technology is wide open.
It’s really things that people have invented and thought of that we had never used up until this time or had not been exposed to potentially and those kind of things.
I mean, just looking around the room in which I’m recording, there are dressers with dresser drawers.
There are chairs with legs and cushions.
There are doors with doorknobs, light switches, electricity, ceiling fans, all kinds of things that we might think of when we think of the word technology and some that we might not.
I mean, our clothes are hanging on hangers.
What did we do before someone said, well, what if we made a piece of metal look like this?
Is that technology?
Well, in my mind, I think it is.
I think there’s a wide range, which is why I think I’ll never run out of topics to talk about.
And the technology that is around us that we use every day is often mundane because we know it, but those who did not have it before it was invented were very excited when it actually happened.
And so I think that we often forget that so many of the things that we think of as common today were actually breakthroughs in somebody’s time.
I mean, we talk about indoor plumbing.
You want to talk about, I don’t know, kitchens.
You want to talk about kitchen utensils, pots and pans.
I mean, it just goes on and on.
And so I think that over time we tend to forget that what we use every day is technology.
Even sitting here in the clothes that I’m wearing, the knitted socks or however they’re made, take some technology.
There’s probably some automation in a sewing type machine or something like that.
Putting together shirts and pants and T-shirts and shorts, all those things take some level of equipment.
And even handmade things use given technology, thread technology, needle technology, whatever it may be.
And so I think that this microcast that I’ve chosen to do can cover a very, very wide range of subjects, and I can still call it technology bites.
Again, as I was thinking of the word technology, often in my world it’s what you might call high technology.
I may not be using the right word, but something that is kind of out there when it came into being.
I mean, just cell service technology has been something that has changed so significantly since it started.
We talk about cell phones and what they look like, how they started, what they look like today.
So there’s hardware technology that I like to talk about.
There’s also hardware tied with software that makes things work, whether it be smart home technology where you have hardware that talks to other hardware, that talks to software that lets you control all of it.
So there are both aspects, software, hardware, that come into being there.
Some is high technology, some might be low technology.
When I was talking about the pool pump the other day, some may think that’s more of a low-tech type of thing, but all of it is things that we use.
All of it changes how we live.
All of it has an impact on the world in which we live, and all of it can be called technology.
One other thing that comes up in the use of technology, whatever that technology looks like, is whether the technology itself is good, almost in a moral sense, or whether it’s bad.
Really, I think technology in and of itself is amoral.
It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is.
It’s people who have continually, and are created to be good or bad, people who decide to use technology to help the world in which they live, people who use technology to put down the world in which they live, who use technology to suppress others, who use technology to spread evil in the world.
Those are people that give technology a bad name, as it were.
I’m a technology nut, so that drives me crazy.
Why can’t they use their powers?
Because people are phenomenal in what they can do, and what they think of, and how they use their technology.
Why can’t they use that to make the world a better place?
Why do they have to use it to puff themselves up, to make themselves look good, to earn themselves money?
I’m not against making money, but why is it that so many, and not the majority, I don’t think, but many choose to use technology to make others feel bad, to make others come underneath them, to not change the world in a sense to make all of people’s lives better, but to focus on themselves.
And that’s the easy part of who we are as people, is we are self-pleasers.
We want to take care of ourselves first.
I don’t know why that is, and it takes a lot of work not to be that person.
And you can use technology to help in those instances as well.
And so, in and of itself, technology is neither good or bad, it’s how it is put to use.
And some technology can be used for the world’s good, and it’s very useful, and it makes huge impact in the world in which we live, and the opposite can be true as well.
And so I think when we think of technology, when we think of how we use technology, we should be thinking about, are we only looking out for us, or are we looking out for others?
And if we can truly say we want the world to be a better place, we want to be remembered as a person who made others around us more happy, more joyful, more fulfilled, more engaged, whatever the case may be, then we have used technology wisely.
If people look at us and say, I don’t want to be around that person, I don’t like what they stand for, I don’t like their message, then we have used technology in a poor manner.
So all that being said, as a fan of technology, as someone who likes to use gadgets to run my life, as it were, I hope I’m using it to make others' lives better.
I hope I’m not just using it to make myself more comfortable, to make myself easier.
I hope I’m taking the skills that I have learned, the technology that I use, how I use it, why I use it, and part of that is this microcast to share with others so that they can use their technology to make their lives and others' lives better.
And so at the end of the day, at the end of the technology rainbow, let’s say, we need to find a pot of gold, a way to make everyone’s lives enriched by the technology that is available to us and not just to look out for ourselves.
And that is the goal that I have with this microcast.
You have been listening to the Technology Bites microcast.
Until next time, continue enjoying your technology.
Microsoft Mechanics www.microsoft.com
