I wish they had never thought of…

Gorgeous day! Some free time. Put the top down and take a ride. There is something about riding in a convertible with the wind blowing through your hair (I have a vivid imagination) that gives you a sense of freedom and tends to clear the head.  Soon, hunger takes over and I impatiently get in line at the drive through.  My Shangri-la day takes a turn for the worse when I go face to face with a happy face with a speaker in its mouth.  Less than 100 feet ahead of me is a real live person that even if I don’t understand the spoken sounds, I can use their facial features and lip movement to assist me.  But there I sit shouting at a replica of Chucky the malicious puppet.  This is truly a technology that shouldn’t have been invented. 

Not too long before that, I had a series of troublesome days with my cable modem at home.  On, off, on, off, on, off – I was not getting the service I was paying for.  Now being a technology guy, I know sometimes these things happen and you just need to make the provider aware of the problem so they can address it.  You would think that someone who was providing high speed internet connectivity would have customer service email in their customer service toolkit.  Apparently that isn’t quite as productive as requiring me to call.  Keep in mind my message is to let them know that I’m having signal issues that they may need to address.  After press 1, press 3, press 2, I finally get to “Say yes if you are having a problem with your internet connection”.  So I say yes and we start down a profile and configuration list of questions.  “Is the top light on?”, “Look outside is the line still ok?”, “Can you turn your computer on?”; “Does your mother know a good recipe for fudge?” After 20 minutes I apparently pressed something inconsistent and we had to start over. Bad Invention – or certainly – good invention run amok.

Everyone loves air cleaners and air purifiers’ right?  These little devices sit quietly in the corner just humming away taking out all of the impurities in the air you breathe.  The top brands talk about ionizers and ozone generators – to duplicate the fresh smell after lightning strikes.  Not so fast ducky – it turns out the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases makes several warnings:

1. Small devices cannot remove dust and pollen–and no air purifier can prevent viral or bacterial diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, or tuberculosis.
2. … Ozone can irritate the nose and airways of persons with allergies, especially those with asthma, and can increase the allergy symptoms.
3. … When inhaled, ozone can damage the lungs and cause long term respiratory problems

The good news is that if you line up 735 air filters at the end of the rows, it will filter out asian rust spores.

What about Ag? Certainly all of us are the sensible, pragmatic people that would only create sensible stuff.  Take the modified version of the thale cress plant.  In conditions where there is nitrogen dioxide gas, these plants turn from green to red after three to five weeks of growth.  This is used to identify locations of land mines that typically release this gas.  So broadcast this seed over an area – from the air – and then after a month see where all the land mines are.  One plant could save tens of thousands of lives a year.

It is at this time that I’m proud to announce the Corn Chameleon.  This hybrid, which doesn’t exist, will change color overnight to show what nutrient it is deficient in.  Yellow corn? Not enough phosphate.  Purple Corn? Not enough nitrogen.  Mauve Corn? Ph is too low.  Then there is Corn Chameleon Plus which changes shades of green to give you and index of the predicted yield as of that point in time.

But Ag does not escape; we have a truly silly invention. US Patent number 6787150 issued on 9/7/2004 is for a Seed Coating For Bypassing The Ruminant Digestive Tract.  Without being too explicit in my description, you feed a cow seeds that you want “planted” in the pasture.  These seeds are coated with a material that makes them indigestible to the cow.  The cow then ‘processes and discharges’ the seed in an organic fertile environment.  I wonder if Johnny Appleseed was the inspiration for this.

Apparently I stayed out with the top down too long – it must have baked my brain.  Next month I will try to be less petulant.  Until then, drop me an email and let me know what your favorite “bad technologies” are especially in Ag.