Books Over Tech: Who Is the Winner?

 

Books have been the very most intellectual driver for many of us. They provide valuable information on just about anything as well as a great sense of joy. They not only enlarge our vocabulary, but they also trigger our brains, making us intellectually more capable. Furthermore, books let us spend quality time, costing as little as possible.

Back before the 2000s, books had been the sole tool of entertainment after maybe the TV. Since the internet and the video games were not as big as they are today, most of us read books to entertain ourselves. We let ourselves flow with the book, jumping from one adventure to another. We used to build a world in our minds, where the events in the book unfold. It was our imagination that decided how the characters and the places in the book would look.

Nowadays, books have ceased to be one of the most used items in one’s bag. People use mobile phones in the event they need to access some information. They watch video or play games during their journeys on the subways. It feels more convenient to browse through pages on their mobiles than to carry some bulky book around with them.

However, choosing an electronic device over a book makes one inert. Consuming media that do not require much brainpower to process leaves the mind untrained. You might suffer from attention deficit because of typical internet videos. Your physical health might suffer from long durations of screen time.

In sum, it might be a good idea to cut down on the time spent with the technology and switch back to good-old books. While making you wiser, books are equally fun.

Cars Get Complicated: Do We Actually Need It?

 

Cars of today have gotten so much technology-driven that they have converged to become a Swiss Army knife from being a simple machine of transportation. They now possess so many quirks and features, which makes them essentially a technological tool that is able to serve so many needs. The market is flooded with models that do not offer physical buttons but a touch screen to control even the basic functions, like setting the temperature inside the car. While automatic gear shifting has long been standard for the sector, the gear lever itself has started to disappear completely.

Automobiles used to be much simpler than their current make. The automakers of the '90s and 2000s prioritized longevity and reliability over the technological upper hand. Their build quality surpassed that of today's, as we still see many cars made during that era on the roads. Today’s cars, albeit much more technologically superior, brake often and do not last more than a couple of hundred thousand miles.

Another face of this discussion can be driving safety. True, today’s cars exhibit more safety features than ever. Yet, they provide so many entertainment opportunities throughout the ride, posing a safety hazard to the driver in terms of distraction.

I can attest to the fact that all these new technological innovations make the customers satisfied. However, manufacturers should not forget that the majority of customers only demand safe travel over the years with low cost of maintenance. The rest is optional.

Air Crash Investigators: Heroes Behind the Safe Travel

 

Air travel has become so mainstream that we take it for granted. It has been defined as the safest and the fastest option of travel, especially for greater distances. However, it has not always been so safe. There have been crashes with a worrying number of casualties. Crashes and minor mishaps still occur, although not as often as before. This is due to the fact that each crash hints to authorities at fixing what might be wrong with the airplane or the persons that operate it.

Officials who are responsible for investigating the causes behind each crash report their findings as well as cite their recommendations as to what might be corrected in order for us not to witness such tragedies again. They search the crash site gathering leads that could help them come up with theories as to how the crash has happened. The most important clues almost always come from Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder. These devices store the flight data and actual communiations of the pilots that took place right before the crash.

Air crash investigators happen to be coming from a group of people who have worked in the aviation industry and possess knowledge and expertise on aviation-related accidents. Their work consists of collecting evidence from the accident site, photographing the aircraft parts, interviewing the witnesses, and, in some extreme cases, trying to replicate the events leading to the accident. They even conduct experiments to prove their cases.

Air travel is extremely safe thanks to the changes put forward following the recommendations coming from these investigators. That is why we need to glorify what they do and appreciate their work every time our plane lands safely.

Watch Vibes: Automatic or Quartz

 

To some, watches are not just a time-telling device but a living organism that bonds with the owner. This bond can not be achieved if the watch uses some material involving digitized technology. Although it is much more convenient to use a battery-operated watch, these enthusiasts prefer automatic watches, namely the mechanical watches, over the quartz ones, which need batteries to run.

Quartz watches have come into being not so earlier. Rather, it was invented in the 70s. It uses a relatively cheap mineral called quartz. Quartz crystals have an ability to vibrate under some electrical signal. And its vibration is calibrated so that it moves the hour and second hands of a watch precisely. A small-sized battery powers these watches. Such watches are cheap to manufacture since they do not contain complicated parts and pieces. And they offer extreme accuracy.

Automatic watches, on the other hand, pose challenges to the makers, as they have so many parts. They are powered by the motion of your wrists, while some models need manual winding. They will not need battery replacements. However, they will stop ticking after sitting for a period longer than a couple days. When not worn or not wound, automatic watches deplete their power reserve. Lastly, they are not that accurate, typically losing a couple of seconds a day.

Despite the downsides of owning an automatic watch, watch enthusiasts love the way the second hand flies. Unlike the quartz watches, the second hand flows continuously. It is subtle details like these that make automatic watches appeal to some tastes.

Watches Forever

 

Checking the time has become so straightforward lately that it is almost available in everyone’s pockets in the form of mobile phones. Phone screens made the time-telling practice so easy that the demand for wristwatches and desk clocks has gone downward.

Wristwatches have begun to be perceived as nothing more than an ordinary accessory. Some find it a nuisance since it needs periodical battery changes as well as a new strap caused by wear and tear.

However, there are still people who strongly favor wearing watches. To them, telling the time using a mobile phone requires more effort because it takes time for one to flash it out of the pocket. Yet, checking your wrist to tell the time happens almost instantly. They posit that wearing a watch cannot be confined within the idea of fashion. It should be regarded as a respectful way of paying homage to the science of timekeeping.

Watches, in that sense, boast a set of technological advancements, which mesmerize the users deeply. It almost becomes a hobby in which the user admires not only the technology but also the looks. There are tons of different shapes and brands of watches that appeal to owners with different styles. Enthusiasts love wearing different watches that can match with their outfit. That is why they own multiple watches and shuffle them according to their mood on a particular day.

There are wristwatches available to everyone from different income levels. A cheap watch can do the job of timekeeping and still look cool. What is important is how it makes the owner feel.

Scale Modelling

 

I was an admirer of well-designed machines back when I was still a child. I could literally fall in love with a car, an airplane, or a tank just because it looks aesthetic to me. I remember checking every detail of my favorite machine carefully from any media available to me at that time. Later in life, I learned that there was a hobby involving those machines. This hobby lets you build your dream machine, albeit a smaller plastic version of it.

The machine, be it a tank or helicopter, comes in a box as a kit. It is made of plastic parts attached to the main frame through some sprues. You cut individual parts from these sprues and glue them together according to a build map that is included in the box. After completion, the model needs painting to look like the real one.

These plastic models have a scale to show how small your build is compared to the real version. For example, a scale of 1/35 means your build happens to be 35 times smaller in size. The scale of the model can vary so that the size of the model you have differs—the smaller the scale, the larger the model.

The hobby proves mind-opening in many senses. It sharpens your child’s motor skills while instilling a sense of passion and motivation in your kid. They also learn to be patient, as it takes long to finish one build. Lastly, scale modelling can teach a child about the mechanics of machines and encourage them to work in engineering-related fields.

Dinosaurs: A Child’s Obsession

 

In 1993, the first Jurassic Park movie hit the box office with incredible success. The movie had visual effects so sharp that it almost looked real. The dinosaurs depicted were so realistic and true to the originals that it made a whole generation of kids become fans of dinosaurs. It literally sparked a frenzy among kids of the 90s to search and read anything about dinosaurs.

Publishers rushed to release books, magazines, and comics about dinosaurs to profit from such a high demand. Museums opened new collections that include dinosaur fossils. Children were led to activities consisting of digging for dinosaur bones at various sites. Toys and miniatures of different dinosaur species became very popular, selling tens of thousands.

It was fun for kids to enjoy those amenities. However, the real benefit of the dinosaur madness came with the fact that it instilled a sense of scientific curiosity in children. They were curious about how these creatures lived, how they were fed, and sadly, how they all died and went extinct. No wonder most of these kids wanted to be paleontologists back then.

The generation that had been through this frenzy is believed to have engaged in STEM more than the generations that follow. Some of them sought careers in engineering and academics. Others, when grown up to become adults, have been into science as a hobby.

After this “dinosaur frenzy” died down, new generations got addicted to areas that do not always benefit them. Kids of today are so very much bound to video games and mobile phones that they have been made to neglect any interest in science.