My device by Michael Leunig

Sums up my thoughts and feelings about being disconnected from the world of cell phones and computers (at least for a few hours) when I am lucky enough to spend time outdoors or in my garden. The cartoon is called My device and was drawn by Michael Leunig. 

Cluttering up life with apps

If I get one more message telling me that in order to do something, I have to download this or that app, I think I will explode. I wish to inform most companies with this blog post that I just don't care about their new apps, at all. I don't care. I don't want them clogging up my phone and cluttering up my life. I don't want to download apps to my phone for each supermarket I shop at (I'm not loyal to any particular supermarket), I don't need an app to pay for street parking, I'll use an automat, thank you very much. I don't want an app that allows me to use charging stations to charge my electric car, or that allows me to convert HEIC photo files to .jpg file format. Why can't I just transfer photos from my new iPhone to my PC with no problems like I could with my iPhone 6? Why can't I use paper coupons (still possible, but for how much longer?) rather than having to download a supermarket app to use coupons? If you want to use electric scooters here in Oslo (I don't want to at all since I think they're the latest piece of garbage to litter city streets), you have to download an app for each company that provides the scooters. I mean really, you can't make this crap up. At least there is only one app for using Oslo City Bikes, and they are well-controlled, have specific parking areas, and don't litter the city streets and sidewalks the way electric scooters do. The latter make it impossible for handicapped and blind people to navigate the sidewalks.

Apps are the future. I know it, but I don't plan on using many apps. I don't need an app from my electric company telling me how much current we used last month and how much we are using this month compared to last month. I don't care. I pay the electric company and that's all the contact I want with them. I don't need an app for every little thing that daily life consists of, since most of what daily life consists of is unimportant and forgettable. All these apps are just new ways of tracking us, our movements, preferences, purchases, likes, dislikes, etc. and making us focus on unimportant things. I hate the idea that everything I do in life is being controlled and measured, all for marketing purposes. But the reality is that we will be forced to download apps in order to use most things in the future. My husband and I were recently on vacation for a few days in a city in south Norway, and when we parked our car in one of the city parking lots, it was nearly impossible to pay when it was time to leave. We asked some people about how to pay, and they told us to download an app that would make payment possible. Why? If we are visitors to a city, why would we need that city's app? Why would we care? We're not planning on returning there anytime soon. The whole app and phone thing is out of control--a mania, an obsession. Anything to keep us glued to our phones. Instead of making life simpler, all of this pressure to conform is making life more complicated. I suppose the next thing is that we will need to download an app to our phones in order to use the toilets at bus and train stations and airports. I mean, why not? Or an app to activate lights, faucets, soap dispensers, coffee machines, and vending machines in public places. What about apps to start our cars (perhaps they exist already)? Remembering which app should be used when will continually occupy our brains, so that we don't have to reflect on what is really going on. Because if we understood that this is about controlling our every move, we'd be much more circumspect about what we downloaded to our phones, and much more careful about the amount of time we spent on our phones.

The ever-growing world of apps and the QR Droid

The old idiom, ’you learn something new every day’, is true. The older I get, the more there is to learn every day, not less. The world of computers, smart phones, tablets, e-books and a myriad of other new gadgets ensure that this is the case. The advances and updates keep me quite occupied in my free time. The world of ‘apps’ by itself is overwhelming. I’m always rather surprised at how many apps there are out there whenever I use my smart phone to download yet another free app. New ones every day—some of them useful, others not. But I downloaded a rather useful app today, the QR Droid, after having been to the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art here in Oslo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrup_Fearnley_Museum_of_Modern_Art) for the first time since it opened in its new location at Tjuvholmen on the Oslo waterfront. My husband and I went to see an exhibition called Untitled Horrors by the American photographer Cindy Sherman. Fascinating exhibit, well-worth seeing, sometimes bizarre, often unsettling, overall mesmerizing. What I noticed as I was walking past the photos was that many of the photo descriptions included a quick response (QR) code, and that some spectators were using their smart phones to scan the codes that then connected them to an online site that provided information about the photographs. Very smart, as it obviated the need for museum headsets that provide the same thing; at least that is what I assume was the case, since I didn't have the necessary app on my smart phone to try this at the museum. The museum provided free Wifi and a passkey on the entrance tickets. I’ve seen these QR codes many times before, but somehow had not gotten around to wanting to understand their utility until now. Although I have registered that shopping discounts and coupons are available for those who can use this system. Perhaps not completely fair to unenlightened shoppers, but there will be fewer of them as time goes on. The QR Droid app, besides allowing your phone to read a QR code, also lets you create one. I’m not sure yet how that would be personally useful, but I’m sure it won’t take me long to find out. I just checked out some customer reviews of this app, and one of them mentioned using it to create a QR business card. Others mentioned using it for web links and contact details. I see the potential. As I said when I started today’s post, you learn something new every day. That’s what makes life interesting. 

As an addendum to this post, I just tried creating a QR code for my blog, A New Yorker in Oslo, and it worked. Here is the QR code for those of you who would like to try it: