The Burden of Typing

As technology advances, we assimilate the new and in a very short while we sometimes can't imagine how we ever did without it.   My son and I are listening to the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, or rather I am and my son is popping in from time to time to listen to a mystery.  He loves them, even if they are potentially way over his head in language, colloquialisms, mature situations or other facets of the story that are beyond the ken of a nine-year-old.

I find myself stopping the story to answer questions he has that mostly are along the lines of technology such as what a telegraph is and why it takes so long to get from one place to another.  The stories are good though and I enjoy listening to them with my son and having a chance to explain how things were different back then. 

There have been two technologies recently that I didn't appreciate initially.   I didn't think they would be useful or I thought they would be absolutely annoying.   I was wrong though on both counts.   I am dependent and addicted to the way they make my life easier. 

The first is autopilot in the Tesla cars.   It's not that useful yet, or at least the version I have in my car isn't, but what it does is very useful.   Autopilot keeps you in the lane, follows the road topology and keeps you appropriately distanced from the car in front of you at a designated speed.  It doesn't stop for stop signs or lights, it can't do turns for you and it is in no way close to self-driving.  But it helps.   I've written about this before but when I get in a rental car or another car I realize I have to pay attention 100% of the time.   I'm afraid to look down to see the next step in the navigation directions or to look back and figure out what dropped or where my daughter is reaching out to hand me something.  Autopilot is just enough help—the right amount of help—and I don't want to ever go without it again.  

My other technology addiction is autocorrect.   I love autocorrect.   I know if I'm not lookng at the phone while I'm typing a message there is a good chance I'm making typos, but autocorrect knows what common misspellings are made due to key proximity and it understands context.   Yeah, it messes up, but it gets things right with such high regularity that you don't realize how much autocorrect is helping until you don't have it. 

I've been working in one product recently that has zero autocorrect functionality.   I knew I was a bad speller and not such a great typist but I had no idea how bad I was.   I get the little red squiggle underlines, but I have to take action after action after action.   Can't it just change 'teh' to 'the' for me because I typo that all the time?  

I love autocorrect.   I know I've written about it before but I've gained another level of love for it after having to work without it. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was watching me play an app the other day.   It was a completely fine app for him to see but interestingly enough when an ad came up, it was for a game called Episodes, an interactive story game.   The ad showed two college coed girls who were trying to make a decision about what to do for the evening.   The question posed in the ad was, "Would you kiss her or push her down on the bed?"   I didn't say anything and just closed the ad screen when it was over.   My son looked at me and said, "I would have pushed her down on the bed."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter spent I think at least an hour doing a video call with her cousin, Sydney.   She was carrying around (very carefully) my husband's iPad.   She couldn't see Sydney, but she knew what to do to show Sydney things and stay in frame.   The distance has not dulled these two little ladies' friendship.