[Discuss] [OT] Smart Phones

[Rich Pieri]

On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 14:32:49 -0500
Shirley Márquez Dúlcey <mark at buttery.org> wrote:

> I think that Rich Pieri has fallen into the trap of car-centric
> thinking.

Hardly. In fact, I have almost never used a car for daily commuting.
I've made a point of not doing so. I walk and use various MBTA services
instead. I typically carry 15-20lbs worth of kit, most of which is
electronics of various sorts including: notebook computer, smartphone
with the "smart" disabled, Kindle DX, mouse for the notebook compy,
iPod, 3DS, and a little case for fiddly bits like USB flash drives and
cords. The specifics have changed over the years but the general
functions have remained relatively constant.


> I have gone places that I wouldn't have gone without the smartphone
> because they would have been too much of a pain to find. I have made
> spur of the moment trips that I wouldn't have made before (especially
> when starting from somewhere other than home) because it would have
> been too difficult to figure out how to get there from here in a
> timely manner without the smartphone. I think that qualifies as life
> changing.

I don't. If you are capable of doing something but choose not to do it
because you think it would be too difficult then that's your choice. A
tool that simplifies the task below some arbitrary threshold of
difficulty is not life-changing. It's choice-changing, it might be
behavior-changing, but it isn't itself life-changing. It may lead you
to life-changing events or circumstances but that's something else.

-- 
Rich P.