The Inexorable Advance of Efficiency

I don't trust technology.

Having said that, I'm a human being, so I like that technology which is so intrinsic to us it practically defines us as a species, such as the lever, fire and the wheel. And the Samsung E900 mobile phone with 5 megapixel camera, it would seem.

Of course, there's quite a difference between liking and trusting. I like my mate Klepto Tony, but I don't trust him. He nicks things, does Klepto Tony, can't help himself. He tells a good anecdote or two, so whilst you'd meet up for a pint and a chat, you wouldn't let him in your house, or even go shopping with him. Actually, if he didn't give me such great birthday presents, I probably wouldn't meet up with him at all. Must spend a fortune.

I like my penis, but I don't trust it not to cloud my judgement and send me off into a reverie of tumescent reflection for no apparent reason. Usually on the bus. I like beer, but I trust that like I'd trust a man named Louis who offered to tarmac my drive on the cheap. A lot of people like cigarettes, although trusting those is like trusting Harold Shipman to make you a cocktail. Actually, kids do start smoking because they trust ciggies to make them look cool, and smoking is an individualistic, rebellious thing to do, which they know because all their friends do it.

So, there's a difference between liking things and trusting things, and this is no more evident than technology.

I like helicopters, but I don't trust them. I don't trust anything that copies a sycamore seed for it's flying abilities. They're supposed to fall, for chuff's sake! I like computer games, but I don't trust them. You think you're having a harmless bit of fun, then suddenly it's 4 o'clock in the morning and you're dehydrated and pleased you've managed to move pixels around a screen to "achieve" a higher enumerative value than last time you did it.

If something is technology, it almost certainly will go wrong at some point, which is why it makes sense not to trust it. A chap in the UK is currently facing charges of driving without due care and attention, because he followed his satnav's instructions even though it sent him down a footpath so his car ended up hanging over a cliff. And he's blaming the satnav. What amazes me is that someone with that level of intelligence had the nouse to pass a driving test in the first place.

In some ways, technology is getting better in all the right ways. I had a CT scan a few years ago to tell me why I was weeing blood and whether I would die from it (kidney stones, still alive, yay!). It was a fantastic (and often graphically revealing) multiple set of slices through my lower abdomen, and would have been impossible just a few short years previously. Bill Gates pointed out to General Motors that, if cars had advanced at the same rate as computers, today we'd be driving $25 cars that do 1000 mpg. Of course, GM replied that they would also crash twice a day for no reason, amongst other putdowns.

And sometimes, efficiency has increased and I'm sort of disappointed about it. The things that spring to mind are, of course, weapons and spatulas.

There is currently research into fully electronic guns that can fire bullets at a rate of one million rounds per minute, throwing what has been termed a 'laser of lead' at the target. Putting aside for a moment how big your magazine would have to be, and what exactly the point of an almost solid stream of lead travelling at supersonic speed is, could we trust an electronic gun not to go wrong? Possibly not. And then you'd look silly in front of your enemies, who are the worst people to look silly in front of.

Anyway, apart from bows and catapults, I don't like projectile weapons, let alone trust them, so let us move on to the second terrible increase in efficiency - spatulas.

Remember when your mum used a spoon for stirring the cake mix? It was a big spoon, admittedly, but it was still a spoon. Well, now, the domestic goddess has moved on. The spoon has limitations because of it's inherently concave (or convex, depending on which side you're looking at it) shape, and the new-fangled rubber-ended spatula is the tool of choice for its improved mixing abilities:

Now, this is all fine and dandy, and being the food aficionado that I am (read overweight), I am all in favour of any advances in technology which lead to a better cake. Cake is good. Cake is our friend. But there is a down side.

After the cake had been clumsily spooned into a baking receptacle, the opportunity arises to "lick the bowl". This is not a euphemism, but is actually an exercise of licking the bowl of its remaining cake mix, complete with sugar, cocoa, chocolate, raw egg and, presumably, salmonella. The relative inefficiency of the spoon at doing its job meant that there was usually a good amount of raw cake left in the bowl, all of which would be classified as tasty treat, and thus consumed with the gay abandon and peerless tongue-action of a pangolin on an anthill.

But now, this tiny oasis of gluttony has been swamped by the sandy advance of the dunes of efficiency, as the spatula makes short work of cleaning the bowl down to the last tiny dregs of cake mix. Behold the devastation:


There's nothing left to lick.

Sad face.