Technologically Indecisive

Technologically Indecisive

Entering the Test Center every morning can be constantly surprising. You never know what is on the other side of the door—whch could be a good thing or a bad thing. You can walk in to find Dushyant huddled over ceramic slabs with a hammer or Francis playing with LED lights for no apparent reason. You look for a while, you tilt your head, you begin to stare and maybe stroke your chin. Eventually your brow furrows and you might fold your arms up high on your chest either as a defensive posture or perhaps out of condescension. You just cannot understand why these fully-grown men exhibit this ridiculous glee over metal and plastic and the very notion bothers you and intrigues you even more. This is when you say it. “Francis/Anand/Dushyant/Jamshed, what are you doing?” OH. NO.

They turn to look at you, some of them smile so sweetly that it hurts to watch while others just launch into magnificent verbal tirades. Volley after volley of verbal cluster bombs hit you, laced with the shrapnel of technical references you’ve never heard before. As soon as one of these little stingers catches you square in the ribs, you blank out momentarily and stare into space. This obviously does not stop any of them from continuing to explain everything. Even after you stop drooling moronically because you tried too hard to figure out the one familiar name uttered around 700 words ago, if you interrupt to ask something like “What’s an OLED?”, they look at you with wide-eyed intensity absolutely bursting with nerd-glory much akin to a shark closing in on his prey. (I’m quite certain that sharks are in fact not nerds at all, so apart from that then.)  The brief explanation of the term leads to more questions which somehow form a loop and go back to the original question. By now all the numbers, terms, and concepts are exploding simultaneously in your head as you stumble away from the comprehensive and definitive explanation from “the heart of technology™". At this point, there is a sense of intellectual entitlement that you believe you have earned over mere mortals because you were present for this ingenious discourse. You feel good and you feel smart, real smart.

You think “That’s it then, let’s go educate the world about technology.” You recall the long and rich conversations you’ve had and now, armed with this formidable force, you begin to talk to normal people. Normal people are not tech warriors like you now are. You begin to explain things and they either completely tune out or ridicule the topic because whatever they have is good enough for them. Good enough! Technology is never good enough! If it was why on Earth would people constantly try to make it better? These margins keep shifting anyway because the devices you cannot do without today are nothing like the things you could do without 5 years ago. So you have to constantly advise people about what they need and what is possible because technology is all about making the once-thought-impossible very possible for even a household dog (some of them have Facebook accounts you know! Twitter will be next).

Naturally, before helping the rest of the world I wanted to start with helping myself. For months now, I have been plotting and planning to buy an external hard drive. It sounds easy in theory but in the world of CHIP that means nothing at all. I spoke to everyone in the office and I debated and debated about which type I wanted. Do I want a 3.5-inch drive or a 2.5-inch drive? Do I want 500 GB or 1 TB? Do I want other connectivity options such as eSATA or FireWire? Do I want a hard drive case or do I want a branded external drive? With all these options, I suffered from analysis paralysis. I saw tests and comparisons and dozens of reviews but it just seemed to get more difficult to pick a drive. For the record, I still don’t have one.

This is one of those strange times where working here at CHIP can be bittersweet because you know so much that things get harder to separate. These guys have such an enthusiastic and infective approach to technology that you can’t help but catch the spirit of the place, even if it means you cannot choose one product over another! Your head is full of vast amounts of data and when you sit in the Test Center the only things you see are boxes, monitors, and hundreds of computer parts and peripherals lying around! This takes a lot of getting used to but there is so much stuff that there is a good chance you haven't seen everything in the Test Center! I haven't and I've been here for a year now! I feel privileged to work here because for all the long explanations I have to endure and for all the confusion they create, I have grown to really love technology for what it is. I'm “at the heart of technology” now, with some real tech warriors!