OK, I admit it. I have a pretty intense emotional response to a particular kind of technology. The ubiquitous cell phone. I don’t much like telephones to being with, and the idea of having one on your person at all times strikes me as a particular kind of hell. But what’s really appalling is the way that having a cell phone seems to be a license to be rude. Cell phones ring in theatres, people answer them in the middle of conversations with real live people and hanging out with someone who is checking their voicemail constantly gives you the feeling that you don’t rate too highly in their books.

The golden hammer these days isn’t any particular item of technology. It isn’t the Internet, solar power or space travel. It’s technology itself. It’s not that a particular gizmo or gadget will solve any problem, but that there is some new technological solution to any problem. The problems don’t even have to be physical anymore - technology is seen as a panacea to social and political issues as well.

Back in the day (1998) a bunch of concerned people came together to write a sort of manifesto on technology (mainly regarding the Internet). Due to the nature of things, it’s still hanging around on the web, though it looks like no activity has gone on at the site for a couple of years now. The idea, however, is as timely as it ever was.

The Golden Hammer is written by Darusha Wehm. She is a word geek who has been working and fighting with technology since back in the day, and is now combining those two data points into the posts in this blog.

She does a lot of other things, including a little freelance editing and writing on the side. Visit her main website at http://www.darusha.ca, where you can find out about all the other things she does.