Imagine this: It’s morning and you are starting your daily routine—go to work, bring kids to school, etc. You are quite late. You lift the door handle of the car; able to recognize your fingerprints, the car unlocks. You speak, “To Helen’s school please, then Martin’s school, then to work.” The car doesn’t respond. It’s rush hour and you need to bring the kids to school on time and then rush to work.
Your car’s machine-learning algorithm predicts you are likely to get a fine or worse, despite your intentions to drive consciously when kids are on board and stay under the speed limit. Almost like the “pre-crime” police units of the Tom Cruise sci-fi hit “Minority Report,” the algorithm uses police report data on parents who speed during rush hour when late for school or work. It neglects your law-abiding attitude. Fortunately, the personal digital assistant in your watch, sensing your car has been disabled, is already contacting the schools and your workplace with your estimated times of arrival and an excuse for your tardiness.
It is a rite of passage, starting with a stable
three-wheeled tricycle. Next is a less stable two-wheeled bicycle with two
training wheels, and finally the freedom of a two-wheeler itself. But however
exciting it may seem to children and parents at the time, in retrospect this
progression is really a mundane part of modern life. So much so that few people
realize the long history of the bicycle and the unexpected impact it has had on
Do you remember when you were a child, every evening your parents would say: “Don’t forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed!” Or the slogan of oral hygiene professionals, “Brush your teeth twice a day; see your dentist twice a year!”
Both slogans are still current today, as is the trusty toothbrush needed to execute the admonitions. The fact is, the humble toothbrush is a virtually indispensable feature of our everyday life; however, the toothbrush isn’t really all that humble. The designs and materials used in its various manifestations are the result of decades of careful scientific investigations. And development continues apace. Today if we so fancy, we can even choose computerized versions of the toothbrush that link to the internet to provide aspects of oral hygiene previously never even imagined.
Given its ubiquity, hygiene, and social importance, the toothbrush
unquestionably deserves a place of honor on the list of what I like to call
“extraordinary ordinary things.”
“Say, what time is it?” If you are like most people, you will take a glance at your wristwatch and quickly give the answer.
Today, the wristwatch is almost as much a part of us as our skin; however, just over a century ago, this wasn’t the case. In earlier agricultural populations, few people were concerned about the exact time because they didn’t need to be. Concern about approximate, if not exact time, was essentially in the domain of kings and emperors, servants of such royal personages, and the aristocracy, who represented only a miniscule fraction of the population. It is really only since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century that knowing the exact time has become a significant concern to a significant portion of the population.