Thoughts on Technology and Society

So I'm 49 staring at the big 50.  I work in technology, and I am always learning the newest tech, and the newest view of project management, and the newest business models.  So the other day I was trying to decide between listening to a podcast of delving into my companies continuous learning tools, and I just didn't want to do either. I thought to myself, we never really get any of these things to work properly before we move on to the next thing.  Always learning and changing.  Can't it just stop for a moment and let me catch up?  Of course it won't.  I'm just being 50 and realizing that work isn't going to be a coast for the last 20 years of my career. But it is also something deeper, and scarier. I am not so sure that the future we are heading to is going to be better than today.  In fact I fundamentally believe that there is a good chance it will be worse.  Automation of both mind work and physical work mean that the 7 billion people currently on the pl

Sometime in May 2017 Removed lock physically from the door (I’m getting good at this part now) and added it to almond. Put lock back on the door and it worked.  Added codes. It worked. Then it stopped working.  I put the GE module next to it again to try to boost the signal.  No help.  Got busy and left it. A few days later it worked for a few cycles of lock and unlock. Another learning point: I can reboot a z-wave hub many times without anyone noticing.  But rebooting the “primary” Almond --- not so much. Two teenagers and a wife who has her own consulting business with clients in many time zones. There is never a time when the wifi can be off for an hour without complaints. I was not sure what was going on.  But now I am. After much trial and error I have discovered that if the Staples Connect is powered on the Almond z-wave dongle has a very limited chance of success.  I believe that in the week where the lock mysteriously worked there were some power outages and the

The project began in in December 2016 when I got a three pack of Almond 3 Touchscreen wireless routers.  The routers replaced two Actiontech routers provided by Verizon (one is Gigabit capable for the wired ports the other is not, and a linksys.  The newest of these devices was probably from 2012. Around this same time The Staples connect that I was using for some home automation became abandonware.  It is still running fine.  The Staple Connect is actually the third staples connect I have owned.  The first was purchased in the spring of 2014 and worked okay, until it stopped working.  Zonoff customer service sent a replacement.  And then in the fall of 2014. I got the Staples Connect Dlink  for nearly free with the purchase of a couple sensors. So the initial setup of the almond was a terrible experience. I needed three screens to be able to access all of the features.  The built in touchscreen, the app on my phone and a PC to access the web interface. The worst part was