The machines have taken over

David Sherman

We’re at war with the machines and we’re losing. In fact, we’ve lost. Started last week when Netflix told us our Samsung 40-something inch widescreen was too old for us to watch Netflix. For info, call Netflix. And I did. I spoke to a gentleman in India who said, “I am sorry, sir, but you will have to buy a new TV. Hold please.”

I held. He came back. He said, “So sorry, sir, to keep you waiting. You will have to buy a new TV. Your TV is too old. So sorry sir. Can I help you with anything else?” Yeah, you can buy me a new TV.

Our Samsung was a good buy eight years ago and works fine. We only watch movies and baseball and hockey and as long as I can see the Canadiens lose in brilliant colour and definition, it’s fine by me. And for Amazon and everything else. Just not for Netflix. Or Samsung.

So, I switched to my iPad to pacify my addiction to reading about the world coming apart, but the NY Times said my iPad mini needed a new operating system, but my iPad is too old to handle a new operating system. I have a 15-something and the Times insists on a 16-something. So, I don’t know if the Times and Apple conspire, but I’ll skip the Times. I’ll miss Maureen Dowd. She’s had a Sunday column for years and each week for a decade or so, has found a lyrical way to chronicle her disgust for Trump.

An iPad mini fits in my hand and is slim and light and easy to use so is three times the price of the larger iPad. It and I get along great but the Times says, “Too bad,” and Apple has it on its endangered species list. It’s hit five years old. In two years, it becomes officially obsolete under Apple’s planned obsolescence design and it will be only slightly more useful than a trivet.

I buy refurbished gadgets – laptop, iPhone, iPad -- usually a third to a quarter cheaper than new. They’re also several years closer to Apple shutting them down.

But, it’s not just about screens or Apple. We decided to renovate our bathroom. A big tub, a large sink, a bidet, room to take a deep breath. The toilet, once installed and plugged in – plugged in? Wtf? We discovered it comes with a remote control.

It has night light to guide your rear end in for a landing. It has a water heater, a seat heater, a multi-directional, multi-powered water spray and an instruction manual.  And, a two-battery appetite. I have to learn again how to go to the bathroom.

We bought a towel rack with a warmer. We stayed at a friend’s who had a heated towel rack and, via Amazon, it was not extravagant. It conjured dreams of hot towels on winter nights. But, it, like the toilet, glows, has multiple settings and needs you to memorize a manual lest your towel or you burst into flames.

A quick scan of our home reveals it’s loaded with simple gadgets that demand attention by glowing when plugged in: stereo, television, sound bar for TV, power bars, wifi router, space heaters, kitchen stove and a humidifier which has a stellar constellation of coloured lights to go with its myriad settings. We need humidity, not the Northern Lights.

Pissed that Netflix has decided our Samsung was no longer worthy of bad movies, a quick Google search reveals “Smart TVs” are data farms, beaming to Samsung and “third parties” everything they can glean -- from what you watch and how long you watch. Some are voice activated and record what you talk about. Some have cameras and track your movement. Are you really watching or is the TV on for the cat?

It seems, according to a Google piece, some TVs upload data from your TV every 10 seconds. There are tales of TVs with cameras sending pictures of you to “third parties.” Yes, the TV is watching you watching it so they can sell you shit you probably neither want or need but be warned, if you get frisky in front of your smart 50-inch voyeur, you might end up on some dark corner of the internet.

Apple’s planned obsolescence is simple greed. They want you to buy in to the “Apple Universe” and keep you there. I have three laptops, use one, the other two decided they were too old and slowly started resisting. Two iPads are on the coffee table because the newer one, which is five years old, refuses to connect to Quebec’s National library. An older iPad will no longer do Chrome or Google but will do the library. The library and I have exchanged 32,000 email on the subject but the iPad is intractable. It doesn’t want the library and now it doesn’t want the Times.

Add to the gizmos the clutter of wires and chargers, remote controls and batteries, bought by the dozens, the machines have taken over the house. No one asked for an electronic symphony just as we didn’t ask for gizmos we come to rely on to say, “Sorry. I’m old. You gotta buy a new me.” Over and over again.

I saw the future in a rental car in Europe. When I went to pass the car in front of me, our car would beep, whistle and fart and pull the wheel to the right to keep me in my lane as I fought with it to aim left. The car was an undercover cop.

The gizmos are all marvellous. Phones and iPads and computers and toilets have their place. They make people happy, maybe they make people neurotic, maybe they make people anti-social but they’re here to stay.

But it would be better if they were like our fridge. It sits in the kitchen and leaves us alone. Except for a beep here and there. The stove and old dishwasher are anti-social but do their job, though the latter’s days are numbered and will probably be replaced by one that talks: “You had pasta two nights in a row? Really”

Saving grace is the carpet. It just lies there without batteries, plug or user’s manual. Dark and silent. We can walk all over the carpet while the bushel of gizmos walks all over us.