Delays in Baghdad worried me;
Journeys seldom turn out as planned.
I was detained too long in town,
A eunuch clutched by an old crone.
[. . .] It can be argued that the smartphone represents the practical pinnacle of human ingenuity to date.
People's expectations have also changed. No longer do we accept a phone that is just a phone. We want one that is lightweight, has a battery that lasts forever, has unlimited memory, can monitor our health as well as our finances, can connect to the internet rapidly anywhere, act as a GPS system, survive being dropped into the toilet, unlock our car, manage our kitchen from a distance, turn off our lights, monitor our alarms, find itself or another phone when lost, be absolutely secure . . . . Technology seduces us. Rather than being happy with what we have we want more, fashion dictates that we need a new phone even when we don't. Industry wants us to have more. More capable, and often more expensive, models appear every year—all launched with fanfare and pizazz.
But these phones soon also performed other functions—they fed users' data back to the supplier. It was a Faustian deal that many other companies joined in on. These companies did not need to actually make physical things in order to succeed. Amazon, Google, and Facebook had a very different way of making money. And that all depended on the internet.
The accounts taken down [from Instagram by Facebook] included 11 supporting Mr. Trump and four supporting Mr. Sanders. But as a whole, the accounts, which appeared to be part of a network, were working to fuel divisions by posting on opposite sides of controversial issues such as police violence. Some included hashtags like #blacklivesmatter or #policebrutality while others would use #bluelivesmatter or #backtheblue.
“They’re fueling both sides of the argument, because what they want to do is bring the two sides to a clash,” says Ms. Conley of CSIS, who frequently tells audiences: “The American mind is the battle space.”
It makes sense that we weren’t allowed to talk with each other until the last day. Comparison is the thief of all joy.