ELECTRONIC ENTROPY

With apologies to my favorite son-in-law, I must briefly discuss the entropy or devolution of most modern electronic devices, especially those of the "must have to be cool in the post-modern age" variety. It was bad enough when we were swamped with battery powered electrical gadgets: tape recorders, transistor radios, motor driven mechanical toys, flashlights with real incandescent bulbs, and host of other essential stuff. Then along came the microprocessor and suddenly everything from the blender to the toothbrush to musical Christmas cards HAD to have a "mysterious-type chip" in it somewhere to be desirable.

I've long ago been dragged by scorn and shame into the "laptop age", and I can actually blunder around mostly on my own nowadays in the safer and simpler portions of MyPrograms or in Internetland for Dummies, and most of this all by myself. But I am still wary of an electronic world/universe in which I don't quite grasp what things do, let alone how they do it. My bride may leave me if I ever again in her hearing ask "WHY?" when simply seeking to grasp the independent behavior of my P (for Personal) C (for Computer). Now just when was it that we lost control of our personal lives and privacy??

Today after weeks of struggle I dropped the hammer on my most recent electronic whiz-bang: my darling digital camera. Without my permission or approval, it had decided to rarely take an acceptable flash picture. Either it would underexpose and wash out all the color with darkness or it would grossly overexpose and eliminate most color in a snow white blizzard of pure glare or it would flash brightly and then delay a few seconds before actually taking the picture by which time people sometimes moved clear out of the frame or worst of all, maybe once in fifteen or twenty shots it would most randomly produce a fairly good flash assisted picture. It was worse that a broken clock which is right - but predicictably - only twice a day.

This little gem had all the features I had sought during the shopping phase. Pocketability, Hords of controlable features, and most of all a compact but excellent 10X optical lens system on board with a fully controlable stabilization system. And much, much more. But when it went on "electronic strike", neither the manual, the internet, two friendly camera gurus, and two brand-carrying photo stores, nor endless experimentation were able to put the malfunctioning humpty-dumpty back in working order. So back to the local emporium it went. I returned the thing.

I had this camera just over five months, so I immediately - within minutes - attempted to replace it with the same model (secretly hoping for an updated version perhaps) as the defunct one only half a year ago was the last available wonder just available on the cutting edge of the camera market. And immediately - within minutes again - I was informed that not only was that special model now discontinued, it was considered obsolete. Something is not right or fair about that, Folks! Obsolete in only five months? I had barely finished reading and understanding the manual, for crying out loud.

Bottom line?? This blog has no pictures to offer today. And until I can find that particular camera, maybe in a discount magazine, Eh? - You'll have to struggle through future blogs with me in primitive old black and white words. How regressive and antique it is going to seem. Let's call it "Retro Weblogging". OK?

Isn't it amazing how transient our moderm electronic wonders actually are? From amazing devices to junk in the failure of a microscopic pathway deep inside a chip, and the monetary value simultaneously
drops from breathtaking levels to pennies - and we have been told recently what little worth and great bother pennies are today.

I am currently deep into dispossessing myself of four decades of "ham radio gear and other electronic whatchamacallits that were vital to a happy life at some point in my past. Some of it still works, but no one really cares about it anymore. Some of it is defunct or even broken treasures I just couldn't part with without trying to fix it, and some of it was acquired by some sort of perverse reverse black hole in my attic. What most of it has in common is disrepair or obsolescence. In a moment of reverse polarity a nice piece of equipment can turn from a world spanning quality shortwave receiver to a lousy boat anchor. Thus it has always been; thus it seems after dabbling with electronics for forty years. What I am really afraid of now it that this spendy crackerjack laptop will arbitrarily decide (like it's little digital camera cousin) to fry itself. That would truly be ugly.