How much time does mankind spend each year trying to make electronic devices work? How many electronic devices are never used, because the owner gives up trying to understand the manual?
Personally I dread each new device, because I know from experience how much they shorten my life, tying my hands to manuals and buttons that do not work properly.
Even my first Mac took about a week to understand. I did not even have any programs for it, but just understanding what it was all about, coming, as I did, from a monochrome DOS PC, I needed five full days, before I could say to myself that I grasped it.
Yesterday I bought a much simpler device, a La Crosse weather station. I hesitated a lot. Life is too short, I said to myself. I will not have the time to configure it, set it up and customize it.
It turns out that it took no time at all. Two batteries in an outdoor transmitter. Check. Two batteries in the display. Done. That's all. After that, I now have a display that shows me accurate time (radio transmitted), temperature indoors and outdoors, air humidity and air pressure.
It is not important if I need that information. I is not important if the station was cheap or expensive. I am anyhow impressed that one still anno domini 2008 can build devices that need no configuration at all.
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