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    Tuesday, March 23, 2010

    An Argument for Dedication

    How many things do you rely on your phone to do? On top of making calls, sending text messages, gathering emails, we expect our phones to wake us up, remind us of tasks and remember all of our friends' phone numbers, addresses, emails and screen names, even take care of our Facebook and Twitter accounts; that's a lot of responsibility for one device! But this seems to be the trend; with modern technology booming, and consumers eating up every advancement, dedicated devices are thought of as underachievers. Why have a machine that does just one thing, when technology can allow it to do 12 other things as well? Is more better?

    Steve Jobs has said that people wouldn't be willing to pay for a dedicated device and that "general-purpose devices will win the day." Mr. Jobs may be onto something, but with the recent surge of Kindle, Nook and GPS sales, one may start to think "Why do we want a device that only displays e-books, when we can have one that can surf the web, play music, make calls as well?" My answer is simple. No, really, I mean it. Why would I want an e-book reader? Because it's simple. It provides me with the leisure of reading and lets me escape my world, which is already connected via phone, email, text, twitter, facebook, myspace, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.... I don't need twitter to push my @replies while I'm on chapter 7 of Alice in Wonderland...

    I love my iPod and my smart phone, but I still want that dedicated device. It's nice to have a GPS in my car that I can rely on to do its one task. It's great to have a blender that does just that. My blu-ray player works just fine without connecting to the internet. These devices are not inferior, for the most part, these dedicated devices perform their functions better than the multipurpose ones. Multitasking is great, but we don't need it for everything. Imagine a world where your phone had a corkscrew built into the top, or if your computer mouse also stapled documents.... Nifty, but a little ridiculous.

    Much to a similar tune, I think we can get lost in our wine and expect it to do too much. Wine already provides us with such a rich myriad of textures, flavors, memories. But some winemakers want more; they manipulate the fruit, the process and the art and sometimes it comes out confusing and overly-produced, much like a musical artist who relies on effects rather than talent. Like our dedicated devices, I feel that we should care less if these wines were made with steel barrels or grown in space. We should focus more on the grapes; the fruit should really shine and dictate the wine, not its process. (I know this is a pretty far stretch, but just my two cents.) It will be hard for you winos, but try this: next time you drink, forget the tasting notes, the charts, the reviews. Turn off your cellphone, forget the tweets and the wine apps; just enjoy the moment. I'm positive, like reading a good, simple book, that your experience will be just as enjoyable.



    How many of you wouldn't be able to go a day without your iPhone? Maybe you know that a more complex wine-making process results in superior wine? Let me know what you think!

    Love and Cheers,

    -Tatum

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