On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 03:19:32 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave
wrote:

snip

The most annoying thing is how useless some people are without their smartphones.

But isn't that the same for pretty well any technology or 'thing' one
relies on? Weren't we saying the same thing about 'Filofaxes' and
probably 'parchment' before that? ;-)

My Dad, an ex merchant seaman knew how to navigate around the world
using the tools that were 'standard' in those days, like a sextant,
compass and chronometer [1]. He was very much against the idea of them
taking away the learning and testing of those basic navigation tools
as 'what happens when the ships GPS or radar stops working'?

Well, the issue may be that with ships as large as they are today the
answer is 'keep your fingers crossed' as it might be very difficult
indeed (if not impossible) to mage these things without technology in
any case. Like the Typhoon fighter jet (is it) that is inherently
unstable and only stays in the air because of the technology?

However, I'm still a bit 'old skool' so will often use of other tools
when say making arrangements with them ... like not only making sure
their number is in my phone but jotting their number and address on a
bit of paper and making sure I have a rough idea where they live and
having a paper map in the car at all times (so not wholly reliant on
the GPS).

The really frustrating thing for me is when people have the technology
but don't make use of it (but then go wrong or expect me / others to
pick up the pieces).

Cheers, T i m

[1] I wonder how many people felt even those was too much reliance on
technology and that *everyone* should know how to navigate using the
sun and stars alone. ;-)