*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 6:29pm PDT - promote requested by pumkinandstorm.

Somehow, accurate predictions aren't all that funny...

Yeah, I'm surrounded by colleagues who get all squishy over the latest gizmo. I always tell them "I don't care if you can point your phone at somebody and have it scan their features and somehow call up their birth certificate online and project it as a hologram in mid-air, complete with the 3D embossed county seal. I'd still say big fucking deal, show me something useful".

*future

Adding video to channels (Future) - requested by ant.

i have a dumbphone that i can tweet from faster than most of my friend's smartphones. thats all i need. and it can survive falling out the window of a moving car.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Louis CK, iphone, technology' to 'Louis CK, iphone, technology, cloud' - edited by RhesusMonk

I wouldn't have thought there'd be so many Luddites on the sift.

@ulysses1904, yes, your non-existent example of exaggerated uselessness is indeed useless. Something useful? How about checking prices and product reviews while in the shop? I can browse my local video store and if I see an interesting movie, I pull out my phone, load the IMDB app, take a picture of the BluRay case and learn all about it.

When I was in Italy a few months ago, I had language trouble when ordering food on one occasion - I pulled out my phone, typed my order into Google Translate and handed the phone to the waitress. That day, the human race was closer to having a Babel Fish than we have been in thousands of years of human development - but hey, it's just a gizmo, right? Who cares?

In fact, come to think of it, even your example isn't useless - that birther nonsense wouldn't have lasted long if everyone with a smartphone could have done that while watching Obama's inauguration.

@CheshireSmile, if that's all you need then fine, although I'm guessing your friends have rubbish keyboards on their phones. I don't need much, but I want loads and why not? If I'm waiting for a plane or something, I like to be able to web browse, check Facebook and Twitter, play games, whatever.

My Samsung Galaxy S 2 probably would not survive falling out the window of a moving car, however this has yet to cause me any distress - just out of interest, how often does your phone fall out of a moving car?

@Quboid - I dunno about "Luddites", but to each his own. If people don't find a smartphone/tablet/whatever useful, then they shouldn't buy one. Cost/benefit isn't the same for everyone.

I have a Galaxy S 2 also, but I'm not much of a "cloud" person. I have gmail and some picasa galleries to share photos with my folks, and that is about it. No facebook or anything like that. I mainly use the phone for games, eBook reading (took me forever to be a convert to this, but "night" modes with white text on black background fixed eyestrain issues I originally had with moving away from ink on paper), music, and roadtrip GPS.

None of that is exactly universal must-have functionality. So while I'm personally happy with my purchase, I fully understand the folks that are resistant or hesitant to jump on the new-tech bandwagon.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Louis CK, iphone, technology, cloud' to 'Louis CK, iphone, technology, cloud, tom cruise, all around your face' - edited by calvados

Yes, each to their own. Nothing wrong with not having a smartphone, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss them as useless gizmos, or as being unusably fragile. I've found my smartphones to be useful and sufficiently robust.

I love my smartphone. It's instant access to the internet, which means I can learn about almost anything at any time. It's also instant GPS for finding restaurants on the go; if I get lost I know where a gas station or super market is instantly. Play games on the go, make calls, store and listen to music, and take pictures/movies. (Personal amateur porn making machine in your pocket.) If it's not for you, cool: Don't buy one.

@Quboid if i was waiting for a plane, or something of that nature, i assume i'd have my laptop with me. my argument is not about uselessness, just thinking i have my laptop for everything else. i don't need to check my facebook every second, or anything like that. its the same reason i only use my ipod for music. i don't need the internet in my pocket, just a phone. and twitter. but i don't need internet for that so it's more reliable.

vis-a-vis the falling out of a car: more than once. and also was thrown across a room into a stone wall.

By the sounds of it, you need new friends rather than a new phone

I don't actually know how you use Twitter without internet access. I know you can text but how do you receive tweets and how expensive is this? I can't imagine it's either more reliable or more convenience than Tweakdeck.

I guess my point was missed, FWIW I'm not a luddite who doesn't see any value in handheld technology. I've been through about 6 iPods now and have come to rely on them, for music and for advancing my Spanish and Portuguese through podcasts.

My problem is with the techno-dweebs I know who get excited over any technology advancement. As long as it's newer, faster, shinier, smaller, with better audio/video/storage/bandwidth, etc, than last quarter's model I'm supposed to be impressed when they wave it around and rattle off its specs. Then they use it to look up Brady Bunch trivia or some such garbage.

The smug sense of "I have more computing power in my hand than the Apollo astronauts had" yet they can't construct a fucking correct sentence on their own if their lives depended on it. But I digress. >> ^Quboid:

I wouldn't have thought there'd be so many Luddites on the sift.
@ulysses1904, yes, your non-existent example of exaggerated uselessness is indeed useless. Something useful? How about checking prices and product reviews while in the shop? I can browse my local video store and if I see an interesting movie, I pull out my phone, load the IMDB app, take a picture of the BluRay case and learn all about it.
When I was in Italy a few months ago, I had language trouble when ordering food on one occasion - I pulled out my phone, typed my order into Google Translate and handed the phone to the waitress. That day, the human race was closer to having a Babel Fish than we have been in thousands of years of human development - but hey, it's just a gizmo, right? Who cares?
In fact, come to think of it, even your example isn't useless - that birther nonsense wouldn't have lasted long if everyone with a smartphone could have done that while watching Obama's inauguration.
@CheshireSmile, if that's all you need then fine, although I'm guessing your friends have rubbish keyboards on their phones. I don't need much, but I want loads and why not? If I'm waiting for a plane or something, I like to be able to web browse, check Facebook and Twitter, play games, whatever.
My Samsung Galaxy S 2 probably would not survive falling out the window of a moving car, however this has yet to cause me any distress - just out of interest, how often does your phone fall out of a moving car?

Quboid I think you should check out the story of the first Luddites, you'll be not at all surprised that it's still misused today.