Desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm willing to give up my secret identity as a CIA operative just to get you, Mr. Smarty-Pants Phone to give up your secrets. What makes you so much smarter than me...besides that

I’m willing to give up my secret identity as a CIA operative just to get you, Mr. Smarty-Pants Phone. Give it up! What makes you so much smarter than me…besides that Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortez-A9 CPU and Jelly Bean 4.1.1 operating system?

I’ve learned to accept certain truths in life:

  1. George Clooney will never know the depths of my charms or the lure of my eyes.
  2. While my heart sings in pitch-perfect awesomeness, my vocal chords haven’t gotten the memo.
  3. There’s no such thing as eating just one cashew.
  4. Technology is speeding up at the same rate as my brain is slowing down.

The first three are self-evident, thus no further proof is necessary.

The fourth one requires proof, mostly because I have a story to tell you.

Yesterday started out fine. I had some errands to run and I actually remembered to take my dumb  unintelligent  plain old cell phone with me. I often forget it at home because I’m 55 and, in my mind, phones are a part of houses like furnaces and light fixtures. You leave them behind when you go out.

This phone isn't going anywhere. And usually neither is my cell phone.

This phone isn’t going anywhere. And usually neither is my cell phone.

But that was before…before technology took over the world and my simple life.

I was with Philp and he has been vacillating for months about whether or not to replace his Blackberry (the phone, not the fruit) with a proper “smart phone”–the kind that can tell you if your underwear is dirty or not (the Crap App; it’s free).

This message flashes across your screen and a little tooting noise accompanies it. This is a must have app.

If you have a little “incident,” this message flashes across your screen and a little tooting noise accompanies it. This is a must have app.

So we went on a recon mission for him. Several hundred dollars, a few hours, and one panic attack later, we both ended up with “droids” the size of a large wallet that have:

  1. 9 full-sized books available to inform us how to operate this phone
  2. more computing power than the lap top I’m using to type this post
  3. more features than I’ll ever use
  4. more intelligence than I ever had
  5. star power when people see me wrestle the big honking thing out of my purse

Here’s what I know it can do because the sales guy showed me:

  1. tell me the time
  2. give me a weather report
  3. search the internet
  4. take pictures
  5. make a video
  6. find itself if it gets lost or stolen
  7. find me if I get lost or stolen
  8. play games
  9. play music
  10. watch movies
  11. read books
  12. turn itself into a magnifying glass to read small print if I forgot my glasses and remembered my phone
  13. email
  14. calculate crap
  15. remind me of important dates
  16. go to sleep when I tell it to (I envy that feature)
  17. act like a note pad
  18. draw stuff (if I could draw stuff)
  19. download and upload (what, I’m not sure–we only had several hours…)
  20. tell me what I’m forgetting to tell you

Oh yes, he also showed me that this phone could actually make and receive phone calls and text messages.

By the time he was finished, so was I. My brain went into zombie mode. I admired this phone but I deeply disliked it, too. No phone should be smarter than me.

The guy had me under this dome thing. It's the newest sales technique to keep you from physically wandering off.

The guy had me under this dome thing. It’s the newest sales technique to keep you from physically wandering off.

But something he showed me woke me up and softened to this phone that will always be smarter than I am.

There’s this little microphone icon that appears whenever you have to type anything (search, a text, entering a contact, making a note, writing your book). All you do is press the icon and this phone becomes a Dictaphone. You talk, it types. It’s magic. It recognized my voice right away–no awkward “getting to know me” period.

Gee, my phone isn't that much smaller than this gizmo...

Gee, my phone isn’t that much smaller than this gizmo…

I’m now in love with my intellectual superior.  I call her Lornoid. She’s by my side right now with her wind-chimey ring-tone. Do you want me to check the weather for you? It’s 31 degrees F and cloudy. That’s outside. Lornoid is so smart.  And she emits little bubble sounds when I push her buttons. Lornoid seems so happy to perform her super powers for me.

I was watching a documentary called The Singularity. It’s a concept that comes from some branch of science not meant to be understood by people with brains like mine–physics or quantum mechanics or science fiction. In a nutshell, “A space-time singularity is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system.  And you thought I was kidding. This explanation come from Wikipedia and they are supposed to help us understand shizzle like this.

Speak to me, Orlon! Don't give me the silent treatment. I get enough of that from my wife.

Speak to me, Orlon! Don’t give me the silent treatment. I get enough of that from my wife.

Anyway, this documentary explained it a little a lot differently (otherwise I would have watched another episode of MI5 and called it a night). They explained “Singularity” as a point in time when robots will outsmart humans. How they got from space to robots, I don’t know, but I’m not the genius here. Remember, my phone is smarter than me.

Many of the people in lab coats who were interviewed spoke with great enthusiasm about Robot-Rule being only a few decades away. Several people dressed in regular clothes weren’t as enthusiastic about this possibility or the prediction.

When Professor of Future Studies, Dr. Cherry Cheeks, reviewed the literature on "Singularity," she saw red. "Could robots ever have a fashion sense? These mad scientists are playing with fire."

When Professor of Future Studies, Dr. Cherry Cheeks, reviewed the literature on “Singularity,” she saw red. “Could robots ever have this kind of a fashion sense? These mad scientists are playing with fire.”

Anyway, “Singularity” has happened in my home. Lornoid is way smarter than Lorna. But I doubt if Lornoid has a very good sense of humor, blue eyes, and a Scrappy dog who loves her. But she has, like, 60+ contacts…so she is popular. And that bubble noise is so cute.

Introducing Lornoid.

Introducing Lornoid.